cherry kingdom

If we as adults have lost heart, if we are too old, too tired or too bitter to rise up,
then let the children run into the streets.


Let it be the children's voices we hear in our heads and feel in our hearts.


Look into the face of innocence and pray that you remember. Pray that they will have the courage and the passion to save us from ourselves.

The value of $125.00 yesterday for me was 2 1/2 hours of my already too full work day. For my staff member it meant a home. The roof she would be able to keep over her head because her rent would be paid. As she sat across my desk, the tears in her eyes gave way to her frustration, and then to the unfairness. The desperation and begging of her eyes for me to help her stung my heart. I had already approached soulless about her situation. I was met with the large black round of her eyes. I wonder if the DMV had wrote "Eye Color: Black" on the electronic form they fill out when you subscribe for your drivers license. My staff member had fallen in the kitchen at work the week before last. She had limped around for three days before I insisted she go to the workman's comp doctor on Friday. It was as I had suspected, she had torn the largest muscle we have in our leg. According to the employee handbook, these things are supposed to be covered one hundred percent, but then there is the issue of the small print. When I brought this matter to soulless, she told me that we should be happy for what we have, she sat emotionless and fidgeting to make her next social call, her usual comment to me, "I really don't have time...." My staff member had called our HR department, I say that loosely because remember it's only one person and her two administrative people. They had told my staff member to call the claims adjuster if she had any questions. The claims adjuster could barely speak English and was rude and had yelled at my staff member... Then there was the matter of her sick time. Last year they had reduced our sick time down to five days. My staff member is a single mother, it is January, this incident had already taken 1 and 1/2 of those days. I asked soulless how it could be that this work related injury could eat up my staff members sick time, time that she will inevitably need later the next time her baby boy wakes up with a fever. Soulless shrugged and gave me the we should be grateful speech.... Soulless whom had given me the "you know damn well we accommodate everyone ..." speech less than a week ago when my other delusional and disturbed staff member filed a complaint with HR because of her schedule. A schedule that Soulless had given the directive for, and the messenger was killed... I am outraged, I don't need another fight, but I can not let this go, I repeat over and over, "how can this be legal?" I guess soulless meant "you know damn well we accommodate who I feel like accommodating..." My injured staff member does not make enough money already to cover her rent, she takes in boarders. To take her sick time and dock her paycheck $125.00 is not something I can allow to happen, at least not without a fight...I'm sure soulless thought I was nothing but dribble, she has spent $125.00 on a single bottle of wine, it would not be within a heart missing to understand the exponential affect of losing $125.00 from her paycheck, I doubt she would even notice. There is a huge difference between making a six figure annual salary and making $30,000.00 a year, esp. in Oz and especially when your a single mother. Yesterday, when my staff member came to me again, she said, "I know your very busy, but I don't know what I'm going to do..." I said, "I do, go get all your paperwork and come in and shut my door..." I was not stopping until...
Small victories...after 2 1/2 hours on the speaker phone, and oh so funny that the insurance claim adjuster could not have been nicer to me...every time she started to divert and spin the conversation I would tell her to stop. I didn't need a story, I needed a one word answer to my questions. We gathered the information we needed from her and then called our companies payroll department. My staff member was elated. They would be cutting her an additional check for the $125.00. They had made a mistake in the way that they had been working their calculations. I high five my staff member and said, "don't you know, this will not only have an effect on you, but every person this may have happened to going forward." We had started this small battle with me teaching her what the word "exponential" means. We ended with her rightfully being paid what was owed and her being able to pay her rent this week, and the knowledge that our payroll department had corrected a mistake they had made over and over in the past with a knowing that someone else should never have to go through this frustration again. As I said, small victories, but large enough to keep the flame of the righteous burning, the value of $125.00.
Have a blessed day... XO Keke