Well, DH (the problem solver) decided that I wasn't going to stand up for myself & called the CEO. He met with me & the Pres. They were not surprised. They told me that I was certainly not the first person to have problems with this woman. I told them that I had planned to talk to her first before going over her head to them. They were very nice & told me that they respected that & wouldn't get involved at this time. They said that if talking with her didn't work & the problem continued to come to them. They also told me that even if they got involved, she wouldn't change fundamentally. She wasn't included, but she knew something was going on because she was very nice to me for a couple of days. They she basically lost it in front of another employee who had come to ask me a question. She was so bad that he just stood there with an astonished look on his face. She needed some paperwork & couldn't find it & was convinced that I had it & just hadn't put it away properly. I told her that I did not have the papers in question & had not seen them. Since this was something a little out of the ordinary & a first time occurence, I would remember it. I'm pretty sure that she took care of this particular issue & the papers were likely on her desk somewhere. It wouldn't be the first time this had happened. She became very angry when I told her I didn't know where it was. They realize that this woman has friction with a lot of people. I've seen her act badly to the plant manager & one of the other VP's, but of course neither of them works for her, so they just ignore it. I had a long meeting with my boss yesterday. I told her that her treating me the way she had been bothered me & was a problem. I gave her several examples. I also told her that I needed to start working more regular hours. I told her that I certainly didn't mind working overtime when needed, but that I could not continue working until 7:30 or later every night and thru lunch. I also explained to her that I believed I was spending more time than she realized answering questions for other staff that relate to customers & trying to facilitate things from our dept. that might be holding up an order. This is not something I'm just doing extra, it's part of my job. I just don't think she realizes how much time it takes. She told me that she realized that she often came across in a bad way. She said she didn't mean to be a witch, but she knows it often sounds that way. She mentioned that this was an issue with the previous person in my job. She also said that she's come a long way from the way she used to be (now that is SCARY!). She also said that until fairly recently, she had never managed people. I feel better now that I've taken the step of talking with her so she realizes there are issues. I don't think it'll actually change things over the long term. I did work very late Tues. night, but she did at least ask if I minded. I took a long lunch on Wed. & left on time. She told me yesterday during our meeting that she wanted to meet with the entire dept. now that we had someone new. She later popped in & said that she had asked the others to meet at lunchtime & that we would order lunch in. This was not a previously scheduled meeting. I told her that DH was going out of town for a couple of days & that I had already planned to have lunch with him because of that. She said that she would have to go ahead & meet with the rest of the dept. I told her that was fine. Normally, even if I'd had lunch plans with DH, I wouldn't have minded changing them for an impromptu meeting. But with him going out of town, I didn't feel that I should cancel them yesterday. They ended up not meeting because one of the ladies didn't get asked before & she also had plans.

Dear MamaP, I am so glad to hear your boy is getting better. I've noticed in my life's journey that when people are caught red-handed in a serious issue, some will lie and point fingers to avoid taking any responsibility for their actions. It shows weak character and it looks like that's what you are dealing with at this school - cowards. They are running scared. If you can afford an attorney, I would at least go for 1 counseling session to see what you can and cannot do legally. Write down everything you can remember with dates and names. Shame on these people! You local media might be interested in your story as well but see an attorney first. God bless you and your family.

Oh wait......another idea. Could you sink 2 posts in concrete at entrance to this area then attach 1 or 2 lengths of chain to make a barrier? Then put pots of mandavilla or another type of climber under it and let them climb on the chains - mandavilla are beautiful bloomers and this really couldn't be called a fence, could be considered a trellis. Would be easy to construct, 2 landscape timbers for posts, 2 bags concrete, 2 lengths of chain. Or.....if you know someone who has cut down a tree, get some of the larger logs, make a barrier and put pots in front or behind them. The idea is to make it more trouble than it is worth for them to park there. Or could cut landscape timbers and bury them 12" apart so that 2' or so stick out of the ground. If the fool runs over them, he will hurt his tires but you aren't setting a trap like nails would. This would be perfectly innocent and not considered a fence. This would not involve anything but a couple of landscape timbers, a saw and some muscle to dig and place them. I had neighbors that built a huge shop next to one of my horse pastures. Had lights on all the time, when we sat on our deck, that's all we could see plus they worked on their race cars. I finally just built an 8' fence, which survived 2 hurricanes and is still in place and did the trick! For a while, nearly drove me crazy, so I sure sympathize with you about no good neighbors!

Glad to see you thinking on things laundry again Mama. We need you, and miss you. I thought I would ask you first before I called P&G to ask the question, since you know better than the customer representative will. I bought my first small bottle of Tide F&G liquid a few days ago and have been tinkering with it. I like it. I give it a rating of very good for my water conditions. I think I'm getting close at proper dosing at Line 2, Yesterday a client of mine gave me a bag of Tide F&G pods (!) because she knows I am a laundry nerd. I used 3 pods and I reached laundry nirvana with that. I was amazed at how fresh and nice looking everything came out. The pods dosed at 3 is perfect for my machine. The only 'miss' was an olive oil stain on a shirt, but I didn't pre-treat. Liquids, and it seems these pods don't remove food oils without pre-treating for me. I didn't look oil spots before it went in the wash since I'm out of the habit of pre-treating with my powders. I just wanted to see if I could reach laundry nirvana with the liquid Tide F&G like I have with the pods. I'm hoping to get 'perfect' with the liquid so I don't have to go through so many pods if possible. I did check the Tide website and it lists both the liquid and pods as having two enzymes as best I can tell.