Is this Karma coming to bite me in the...

as$? I got a call from Marie yesterday afternoon saying that her mom had been taken to hospital with congestive heart failure. Yep, you heard it right, congestive heart failure. WTF?! Eeeeh. I can't believe it... they took her into the I.C. unit last night when Marie and her brother went to visit her so that took it up a notch last night. Yesterday turned from an pretty good day into a real stressful, crappy one.

Let me give some background details about work... my boss is someone who is also a friend and we worked together at a different company than we're at now. He called me when he needed someone with my skillset and I both appreciated the call and answered it since I was also looking for a change. Now, we know each other very well and so I know when there are "issues" before he says anything and we've always had a relationship where everything was black and white. No hidden meanings, no covertly made statements. It's an arrangement that I find works *very* well. Okay, so where it turned no-nice yesterday... In January there are 5 Mondays - the first was a stat holiday, the second I called in sick, the next I took as a vacation day, then a personal obligation day to take Marie to a specialist appointment (we get 3 PODs a year) and the last was another vacation day. Okay, nothing wrong with this in so far as they were all approved by my management. Well, my boss come by my desk and mentioned that I hadn't worked a Monday in January. I went over the days and he said, "it's not an issue, I'm just makin' an observation and I thought that if you continue doing this, you're gonna run out of vacation by the end of March. Ha! Ha! Ha!" I asked him if it's an issue or if there was an "optics" issue with somebody saying something (my boss' boss or people who work around). He said no, it was just an observation and there was no issue. At this point, based on our relationship and history, I assumed it wasn't an issue and didn't take any measures to change my actions. Well... this past Monday traffic was crazy with snow covered roads and it was shaping up to be a 3 hour drive into work so I made a decision... turn around and work from home. For a brief second I thought about his comment (since it was another Monday) but dismissed it because he was very clear that the Monday thing was *not* an issue. I sent an e-mail from my blackberry to tell my team where I was, went home and worked the entire day. This was good for me in that I wouldn't have to stay at work until 7:00pm to make up for the slow drive in and I didn't have to face the potential of a slow drive home where I would walk in the door at 8:30pm and not see the kids.

As it turns out, when I told him about Marie's mom and said that I may be in a little late he threw the Monday thing in my face. I was kinda broadsided with that. He said that if he was me, he would have come in not matter how long the drive was since we'd had a conversation about it the week before. I wish I hadn't been in shock that he was saying this because I should have pointed out that I confirmed with him twice that it was *not* an issue and he even tried to make light of the "observation" that he made. I don't get it. Well, I do get it, things have changed and this is how I found out about it. Oh well, no real damage done except that Marie is booked in for her MRI on Monday and I had booked a second POD to take her. So I got on the phone to my parents last night to see if my dad could go out and get Marie and the kids and bring them down the the appointment. I figured that I would work through my breaks and add them to my lunch so I have enough time to go over and take care of the kids while Marie is having her MRI. He (my Dad) said he can be the chauffeur on Monday so it's looking like things are under control on the family front. I've sent an e-mail to my boss asking to cancel the POD so I think everything should be okay on the work front now. It just sucks. All of a sudden, work is absolutely no fun anymore... I hope that feelin' passes soon.

Well, given the situation here at work, I'd better sign off here.

Have a good weekend everyone!

g.