Busy Tuesday

Typically, Tuesday is a day off for me, but today was an exception- it was the day of our all-staff meeting. It was a good day, seeing my assembled coworkers, many of whom are seasonal, so I hadn’t seen them in months. We had presentations by our educational team on some new projects, and our buildings and grounds staffs gave an overview of a major site renovation/restoration project on one of our sites. I was in awe at the assembled talent on display today- I have some incredible coworkers. Our president gave a speech in which he got a bit political, he opined that our mission is to foster the humanities, and to counter the forces which divide us. Apparently, this ruffled some feathers, and he was mildly criticized during the lunch break, to the extent that he apologized for ‘stepping over the line into politics’. I approached him after the meeting and told him that he hadn’t stepped into politics, but politics stepped over the line, that false controversies were stirred up by bad actors.

After the all-staff meeting, my immediate boss and I met with a young man who had applied to replenish my gutted department. He seemed like a nice guy, a Yonkers resident like myself. I made sure to ask him if he were comfortable working outside at night, in the dark, and told him that two guys were unable to finish a shift because they were scared of the dark. This guy is a Yonkers guy, so I think he will be okay. It’s now a matter of HR checking his references and conducting a background check. In the meantime, HR finally promoted one of my subordinates to a full time position. For the record, he can run people the wrong way because he’s utterly candid, but I think every organization needs someone who tells you exactly what he thinks- while arguing for making him full-time, I told my boss, “The only times I wanted to punch him in the nose were times when he was right.” Looks like his candid approach rubbed off on me. With his promotion, much of our staffing crisis goes away, but we could use two more part-timers.

It was a long day, but a productive one. The busy season starts tomorrow, and I feel better about the coming weeks than I did yesterday.