Going on the road
Exams are marked, grades are turned in, and I’ve had my last meeting before the end of July. The suitcases are out, and are slowly being filled—although most of what’s going into them at the moment is fiber related or chocolate for the family! Somewhere along the line I’d better actually include, oh, you know, things like clothing and toothpaste and basic necessities, but at least you know I have my priorities straight!
Now if I could just figure out what knitting to take on the plane . . . The F&F shawl can’t go. I won’t be able to finish it while I’m gone, and I don’t want to cut the yarn from the cone and hope I can spool off enough to finish it without a join. I’m “only” on row 117; there are 72 plus the edging to go. It’ll simply have to be finished for a trip home in the fall.
To keep anyone from worrying, I’ll be stateside with family until mid-July. DH has opted to remain home this time, and I’m reckoning he’s going to enjoy the quiet for a change! In the meantime, I’ll have limited Internet access, so don’t fret if you don’t see much from me here or elsewhere for the next month, although I’ll try to post a little from the road at intervals. I do have some work that needs doing with course design for the coming two terms, but I won’t feel bad if I don’t accomplish a lot.
On a spinning front, there’s been this:
Fiber: BFL, hand-dyed in “Myrtle” colorway from Spunky Eclectic.
Weight: ca 4 ounces.
Yardage: 335 yards, with an additional 6 in chain ply.
WPI / TPI: 24wpi, 16tpi, true 3-ply
Spun on: Rose
I DO like BFL, and Amy does such good work.
This particular yarn was spun as a gift for a gal who has never used handspun before, so I’m hoping she’ll enjoy this one. It’s a very soft, round yarn with a slight sheen, and would work beautifully for a lace scarf. It was a farewell gift; her last day of work at the office was just a few days ago, and I’m frankly going to miss her. You know how there are some people you can count on for answers, who will tell you when they don’t know the answer but will then make the extra effort to find out, who attack their work and are dependable and diligent, and who have a can-do attitude about everything, even if the answer is “no”? She’s one of those. Unfortunately, people like that are few and far between, and every office usually only has one. More often than not, they’re lost because of burnout, a poor working environment, a need for position stability, or a lack of a challenge. And any one of those things, left unhandled long enough, can be a spirit breaker.
I’ll never forget working in a university office where one woman in the administrative section controlled everything to do with the employees based on her own personal likes and dislikes; management was ego driven. People didn’t complain because they feared the repercussions; she controlled everything from how their evaluations were processed to their pay and incentive raises. When I left, I filed a report with the dean of the department (her supervisor) and the legal section. She no longer had any authority over me, and while the others couldn’t speak up, I could. What could she do to me, after all? Nothing. But that didn’t stop her from taking it out on a few of the folks I left behind.
I should have known better. Really I should. A large amount of power in control of petty and small-minded hands is never going to end well if there’s no one willing to fight for proper execution of that power, toe-to-toe if need be.
But it frustrates me, saddens me, and makes me a bit angry that these types of situations aren’t rare. I chalk a lot of it up to bad or nonexistent supervision training, and not holding people in control positions to professional standards. Many of the folks don’t know any better and think they can translate their babysitting or household management techniques to the office. Many others simply don’t care what happens to a unit, section, or other staff, and regardless of which perspective they’re coming from, they have no one to mentor them properly, and no one to perform as their quality control.
Good employees aren’t born; they’re created. They’re trained, supervised, encouraged, and mentored. And when we fail in those responsibilities, and when we fail to provide them with a safe and professional environment, we have only ourselves to blame when they leave.
/end rant
On a more trivial note, I have a confession to make. I repeatedly tell students to run spell checks on their work, and after they’ve done that, to proof their work because the spell check simply can’t catch every mistake. I simply cannot count how many times I’ve repeated that mantra, and if you teach, you know exactly what I mean. So, not so long ago as I was printing new yarn labels, I happen to glance down at the label and you guessed it: there’s a typo. Not just any typo, mind you, but a real doozie of a misspelling. My name has a lot of double letters, and I’d managed to transpose two: -aas became -ass. (I can hear you snickering from here.) Even more fun, I’ve no real idea when it happened, and it means that somewhere out there are fiber and yarn labels from someone who clearly can’t even spell her own name correctly. But what a misspelling! I mean, I know there are folks who’re convinced that particular spelling is probably a fairly accurate representation of its owner, but . . . seriously? My own name?
