Robby and I both got thrown under the bus last week.
02/25/2008
A 100 point penalty for Robbie Gordon due to someone else’s mistake?
I was so distracted in my own world, I didn’t know about it until Saturday. He gets penalized for a mistake by Dodge. The parts got corrected before the Daytona 500 but he got penalties issued, fines and suspensions. He is appealing the ruling.
I had the tape going for the Nascar race Sunday afternoon. I wanted to go to an event with the neighborhood ladies and figured I would tape the first half of the race. With the rain delays’ the red flag delays and the track weeping I managed to see just a bit of race coverage. I haven’t checked to see if the race actually got finished last night.
The meeting on Thursday morning I was so nervous to attend went great, I spoke twice. It was a debrief on the Amber Alert. The room was filled with higher ups, other agencies and other units. I was glad I was able to attend. It felt good to be included for a change.
I had a volunteer for a few days last week to help me out with a task I have been unable to complete, I don’t have the hours of time it will take. She is doing a wonderful job of logging files, cleaning up and getting some of the paperwork sorted out. I also had an injured officer in to cover the telephones for a few hours on Wednesday and Thursday. I had a few tasks that were running late, a meeting at my desk and some other projects. I felt like lots of things were being accomplished.
Thursday afternoon, about 2:15 I got summand downstairs to my civilian mangers office and that’s when the bus incident happened. I am glad I belong to a union; I will be working with them to appeal the bus incident.
I walked most of the way home Thursday night, I was so upset I wanted to go sit by the river and calm myself down. As I crossed the bridge, I looked over and saw the staging for the Obama campaign. I stopped on the bridge and backed up a bit, I thought I saw a co-worker and was going to yell out to him. As I looked closer, I don’t think it was him, but I didn’t have my glasses on. When I looked around the area, I realized I had lots of eyes on me. I guess I gave the security people a bit of a pause. I saw one motor officers tap someone on the arm as he was speaking on the radio, then he waived to me. Oops, I should know better, but I was just wasn’t myself on Thursday evening.
I spent hours on Thursday night documenting the bus incident and the actions that led up to it. I didn’t get much sleep and sent my information about 2:30 am to my union representative. It was a struggle to go into and be at the office on Friday. I figured if I called in sick, it would just make matters worse. Half the office was out and I made a list of people that were in.
I left the office Friday evening and the work day couldn’t end soon enough for me. I headed back downtown to get the bus and realized that the Obama rally was gearing up for his speech that evening. The buses were re-routed, the traffic was a mess and I wondered if I should try to stay awake for this bit of history. I saw a couple of officers wondering down the street: I stopped and asked them what time the rally was going to be kicking off and it was much later then I wanted to stay out. I headed home, made some dinner and as I sat out on the back porch, I could hear parts of the rally from home.
This weekend I worked on my gardens and the yard. I had purchased some rose bushes and somehow planting a few bushes turned into a full weekend of yard work. I straightened out the rock garden, I started to weed the back garden and then on Sunday I racked the back yard. My body is a bit weary but my soul is back in shape.
I keep reminding myself: this is a hiccup in my career. No more than that. In the big picture of life, no one cares but me. The bus event will not end up on my headstone. I will not get a mention in my obituary. It will be a bit uncomfortable for now, but in six hours, or six day or six months it will be all over and forgotten.
