In my hometown there was a soldier that had just got back from Iraq and was a single guy who had moved here to work as a police officer. His parents live far away and are in a nursing home so one of our close friends invited him to their christmas dinner. Think about it for a second... As long as your family is ok with it, what a memory you could make in a service man or womens life! Think of our current vets and the stories they tell about coming home to see ribbon tied on trees and american flags on people's garage doors. Thirty years from now are you going to remember what you had for christmas dinner? I bet you will always remember the time you invited a soldier that is far away from home to share your christmas dinner though, And I bet that soldier will tell the story to their grandchildren someday too. Talk to you family, I think this sort of thing needs to be a family decision but what an increadable thing you could do if you decided to invite them.

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.

I think this is why some GCs prefer to work with the same subs over and over. They've gotten to know and trust each other and they don't pull that kind of thing. Our GC told us this up-front, that he'd get multiple bids whenever the "usual" guy's numbers looked high, and that he'd use who we wanted, but he likes to work with the usual gang. Our house isn't done yet, but I've seen numerous times where the fact that they know how the other guy does things has helped us out or prevented a mistake. I know many homeowners would be suspicious of such arrangements and quick to use the "kickback" word, but these kinds of errors cost someone, either the homeowner or the honest sub who takes pride in his work, fixes someone else's faux pas, and doesn't get paid for that time.

So glad I spotted this on the front page! Your dog is one of the cutest smile-making creatures I've seen in a while. Love many of the suggestions shared so far, especially the clever idea of entrusting your son with a name committee. I'm not overly fond of 'human' names for pets but do like Lola for your showgirl and Cara, short for caramel. All the best to you and your new furbaby.