Resurrection Lilies

I planted several of these last year, and all of them came up this spring, but so far, only one has bloomed.

In other news, that staff meeting and the training BS we have to go through? I got to work this morning, and there was an email from our unit supervisor requiring us to read the FAQ (it’s a wiki, actually) on using our computers. We will have to give a short explanation of what we learned from it at our next unit meeting, this Wednesday. My head nearly explodiated!

1. I read the damned wiki when it was first made available.

2. Because I am one of the few people who finished the ridiculous Web 2.0 assignment (the one in which we were supposed to set up a blog and post photos to Flickr), and because I use them every damned day, I long ago subscribed to the RSS feed for the damned wiki. And I actually look when it’s updated, which is kind of pointless, because it’s almost always a stylistic edit, not anything to do with actual content. But I do look!

This means that I’m not going to read the damned wiki, because I already have. Nor am I going to learn anything from it, because I have actually done what we were told to do a goddamn year ago. Apparently, some folks have not acquainted themselves with the damned wiki, though, so there will be the equivalent of a test.

We are not amused.

Also on the list of things that we are unamused about is the coworker whose daughter is pregnant, and who keeps giving everyone in the department hourly updates on how dilated said daughter’s cervix is. I think I can safely say that’s one of those things that’s near the top of the list of Stuff I Do Not Need to Know. I understand she’s excited about her grandbaby being born, and I understand that’s something that’s perfectly appropriate to share between good friends, but we are coworkers, not good friends, and that sort of thing is therefore definitely TMI.

Beyond that, though, is the larger issue of women’s bodies being treated like public property, especially when those bodies are pregnant. Too many people don’t think twice about offering unasked for advice to pregnant women, or sharing their own birth horror stories with them, or invading their personal space to touch their bellies. It seems that my coworker’s sharing of her daughter’s labor progress falls somewhere in there. It’s kind of private and shouldn’t be for public consumption. If people want a progress report, a simple, “Nothing yet,” should suffice.