HEADING FOR WINTER... December (Part 77f)

I was never really close with my mother. My brother got most of her attention. Although she’d pretty much accepted Elle and dearly loved our kids there was always an ”edge“ when we were together. When Elle opened the envelope she let out a squeal. Elle loved to dance (I hated to dance!) and loved movies with dancing in them. She’d been to Radio City Music Hall and seen the Rockettes and secretly wanted to be able to emulate them. My mother, showing her soft side and knowing that we’d forgone Christmas presents to each other, had arranged a weekend in the city for us that included a Rockettes show. Even though I was still partially asleep I was able to appreciate the gift from my mother. Of course, Elle was beside herself. Now wide awake she started planning for the trip which wasn’t to take place until February during the President’s day holiday. I went back to sleep.

Wednesday, at work, was quite strange. Everybody showed up but Andre was still not the cheerful fellow that we’d all come to know and like. Jo and I had put in our hours for the work we’d done on Sunday and almost immediately we received a call from Leo’s (the Deputy Controller) secretary telling us that it was not going to be approved. Leo, for a change, was in before noon and upon seeing our time sheets immediately disapproved them. True, we hadn’t gotten prior approval but it was Christmas and, supposedly, people were in a charitable mood. Not Leo!. In writing this and thinking back on what Leo looked like, he could’ve been a model for the Grinch. Tall, thin, long necked and with strange looking eyes he sure fit the role. Neither Jo nor I had come in for the money. It was the right thing to do to make sure that the payroll was completed on time. For both of us it just served to make us HATE (not dislike) the man more.

The reason for Andre’s less than cheerful mood became apparent when Rena came in the office to work with Jay on the Purchasing office program. They stayed about as far apart as they could. It turns out that they had ”split“. When I became aware of it I had to wonder if Rena was going to turn her attention back to me. I hoped not. With all that was going on within the office I had completely forgotten about getting Elle’s clothes back from Jo. We were on our way out when she handed me a paper bag and I really had to ask what it was. When she told me I got really excited. I couldn’t wait to get to my car to see exactly which panties Elle had loaned her. I was really pleased with what I found. They were a pair of the Gotham Gold stripe that I’d bought her quite a while back. As I drove home I hoped that she might start to wear them. They really were ”fancy panties“.

I had the checks for the Police payroll to the Treasurer’s office way ahead of time which allowed me to start to prepare for the year end reports. The following week was another short week what with New Year’s day falling on Tuesday. The same thing was done as with the Police payroll requiring all changes to be in on Friday. The big difference was that I was going to have to come in over the weekend because doing the full County payroll took over twice as long to run as the Police payroll. In fact, because it was year end Jay had pretty much determined that we would all (except Linda who NEVER worked overtime) have to spend either Saturday or Sunday in the office to make up for the lost day. He filled out the request sheet for the overtime and hand carried it down to the Controller’s office. Doing it that way he (we) felt there would be no problem. To optimize the computer and the peripheral equipment we all filled out sheets spelling out just how much time we needed for each piece of equipment. For once we seemed to be doing it with a clear plan and purpose.

It was Friday when Jay was called to the Controller’s office. Leo had not approved all of the time requested. As mad as Jay was when he returned I was surprised that he hadn’t taken a swing at Leo. (He swore he didn’t.) Basically he was told to cut the request in half. Jo, who ran the appropriations accounting immediately pulled up the budget for the department and found there was a nice surplus available to pay overtime. I, upon hearing that, remembered that the County payroll for this next period would be charged to the 2003 budget so it didn’t really matter. It took a lot for Jay to ”take a stand“ but this was enough for him.

Never one for a lot of words he went into his office (which he seldom, if ever, used.) and shut the door. Because it had half glass partitions we could all see him on the phone. He liked to ”talk with his hands“ and we could see him waving his free arm and pacing as far as the the phone cord would allow him. It was hard for us to get much real work done while watching him. I think it was around lunch time when he finally came out and disappeared down the hall. We were all ”holding our breaths“. When he returned all he said was we were back on his original schedule and nothing more.

The County payroll took precedence which meant I was ”on“ for Saturday. Lucy was going to be there to do keypunching and Jo would (legitimately) verify it. Once done she would leave and then join Jay and Andre on Sunday with Lucy staying to assist me. I’d really enjoyed working with Jo the previous weekend and was somewhat disappointed that she’d only be there for part of the day but I really didn’t have any say in the matter.

To be continued...