Wednesday, October 22, 2008

They Say It Comes in Threes...

Not the best day so far:

1. Woke up to Parceiro peeing on our quilt and licking himself, a sure sign of what is unfortunately his 3rd UTI in about 2 months. The vet recommended a special food for cats with urinary problems, but - of course - the only sell it in South Africa. Rico and I aren't able to go across the border right now (my passport is caught up in immigration for residency renewal, and Rico is working on a consulting assignment), but we've asked Hugh Marlboro to buy some of the prescription food for us when he goes to South Africa next week. Regardless, I'm putting the boys back on a homemade diet (we'd snuck in some crappy kibble in the last 6 months or so because it's easier and cheaper, and now I feel guilty).

2. Got to work and received an "FYI forward" from a colleague of a scathing email this man at headquarters wrote to the CEO and CFO blasting the report I just submitted. Reading it made me see red. I was asked by the Moz office to "clean up a mess" with this one program's reporting, received little support or feedback from certain key people (i.e. the author of the angry email) in the process, was told by my boss to go ahead and do the report in the best way possible given the information I had, distributed it to a group of people for feedback prior to submission, got approval for submission to the donor, and now this man comes out of left field and tears my work to pieces! I stand by my methodology, and while I believe this guy has some valid points about weaknesses in internal communication, his approach really pissed me off.

3. On the heels of the whole report thing, I got a call from our cook, Américo. "Epa, senhora," he started out quietly. I knew his tone of voice meant bad news. "Tudo bem, Américo?" It wasn't. He explained that the glass pyrex in which I'd had him bake a massive quiche for lunch had shattered while in the oven. I told him not to worry, to clean up the oven, be careful not to cut himself, and throw the whole mess in the trash.

Relatively speaking, not the end of the world...but still, ufff! I'm ready for this day to be over.

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