Chapter 7
Julia
Irushed into the coffee shop, irritated that I was late. I hated to be late, it made me nervous. Of course Chris was already seated at a table, coffee and a pastry in front of her. I waved in greeting, then joined the line to place my order.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said to Chris as I made my way to the table. “The bus was running behind schedule.”
“It’s only nine oh eight,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
I set my bag on the floor by the chair, then headed back up to the counter to retrieve my order. Once I had caffeine in hand, I returned to Chris.
She looked good today. She was wearing a fitted white knit top with a scoop neck, with a denim jacket, jeans, and her ubiquitous boots.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her wearing anything else.
I wondered idly if she had multiple pairs of them or if she just wore the same boots until they wore out.
“What?”
I realized I was smiling. “I was remembering you wore black Doc Martens to our high school graduation.”
She’d probably worn them for the college ceremony too, but the event was so large I hadn’t seen her that day. Not that I’d been looking for her.
She smirked, and I noticed that the movement made her nose crinkle adorably.
“Yeah my mom forced me to wear a dress, but I refused to wear the damned ballet flats she picked out. She was horrified that I was wearing my boots with a dress, but Dad intervened and told her to leave me alone. That was the last time she tried to influence my clothing choices.”
“How are your parents?” I asked politely.
I’d spent a lot of time with them over the years, and they’d always been nice to me. It made it even more strange that they’d raised such a loathsome daughter.
“They’re fine. The same. How about yours?”
“They’re good,” I said. “Although my mom’s been on my ass to get married.”
“So I heard.”
“How’d you hear that?” I asked in surprise. “From your mom?”
“No, my friend April was one of your mom’s ambush victims.”
I mentally went through the list of women my mother had thrown my way the last few months, then I remembered.
“Oh yeah, the accountant, right? Frumpy dresser?”
She nodded. “Yeah. She had to fake a girlfriend to get out of it.”
I laughed. The mousy woman I’d met that night clearly had hidden depths.
“Well I’m sorry that happened. Apparently my mom and April’s were in cahoots. Neither of us had any idea what was going on until we wound up at dinner together with my parents.”
“That sounds about right,” Chris said. “I know her Mom wants April to date more.”
“That’s a strange coincidence, that your friend was one of my mother’s victims.”
“The city’s not as big as people think it is,” she reminded me.
“True. Although now that I think of it, I’m surprised my mother hasn’t tried to fix me up with you too.”
Chris scoffed. “I think both of our mothers learned a long time ago that we’re not exactly compatible.”
“Yeah, maybe it was that time we got into the fight at the lake and knocked someone into the water by accident.”
We shared a smile that almost felt comfortable, then I took a long drink of my iced mocha.
“Did you have a chance to read through the materials that Gina sent us?” Chris asked.
“Yeah. I made some notes and have suggestions how we can split up the tasks, but we’re going to have to work together on the program design and logic model I think.”
“I agree. Let’s get started.”
We spent the next hour and a half going over all the details of the application packet.
It wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before, but it was a lot of information that was being requested.
In addition to the narrative, they wanted descriptions of all the agency’s programs, program design, a logic model, a data collection protocol, and details on client engagement.
“I can talk to Rochelle about drafting the data collection protocol and answering the client engagement questions,” Chris said. “I have a meeting at the main office this afternoon anyway.”
Rochelle was our agency’s quality assurance manager. She was smart and thorough with a dry sense of humor that I appreciated almost as much as the fact that she always kept a giant bowl of candy in her office. I stopped by every time I visited the main office to check in – and get some sweets.
“Sounds good.”
My phone alarm beeped, reminding me that it was time for me to leave for my next meeting.
I hadn’t been diagnosed with ADHD until a few years ago, and learning how my brain worked differently than a lot of people’s had been a revelation.
With the help of medication and practical tips I’d learned to manage some of the more annoying aspects of my neurodivergence, but I still struggled with losing track of time, especially when I was focused on something.
I pressed the snooze button – something I always did in case I immediately got distracted and forgot it had gone off – and gathered up my stuff.
“Let’s chat by email, and we can send each other drafts as we finish them,” I suggested.
Chris nodded.
“We’re going to need to sit down and map out the program components before we work on the logic model,” she pointed out. “We’ll leave a block of uninterrupted time for that. And a white board or something.”
“Agreed. Let me see what I can move around in my schedule, and I’ll email you some options later today.”
“The sooner the better. We’re on a short timeline.”
Something in her tone irritated me.
“Yeah, I know. However unlike you, I have over a dozen people reporting to me right now, so my schedule isn’t as flexible as yours is.”
It was a source of contention in the agency that some managers – like Chris – had only one or two staff reporting to them while some of us had a large number of direct reports.
Given that we needed to check in with each of our team weekly as well as being available for questions and support, it meant my schedule was generally packed.
We really could use another manager for the Sunrise program, but the funding just wasn’t there.
Fortunately I thrived on chaos, and I had the type of job where my ADHD was a superpower, otherwise I’d be drowning.
“Who does report to you?” she asked curiously, ignoring my outburst. “The shelter staff?”
“The shelter staff, the cleaning crew, and all the case managers, including the housing retention workers who help people after they’re in housing.”
“Damn, maybe we should figure out a way to work a supervisor into this proposal. Then they can take some of your staff.”
I looked at her in surprise. “Really?”
She shrugged. “I think we could tie the case managers into the employment work since they help with that. It’s worth a shot. The worst case scenario is they say no. But if they were to approve it, you could just supervise the case management supervisor and cut down some of your work.”
“Yeah, I like that idea. Thanks.”
My phone beeped again. “Gotta go. I’ll message you later.”
Chris was still sitting at the table when I hurried away and headed for the bus stop.
For some reason our meeting was on my mind for the rest of the day. After some consideration of my calendar, I messaged my teams that I was going to cancel one of their two check-ins for the upcoming two weeks while I was working on the grant.
After clearing up some time on my calendar that way and moving a couple of non-essential meetings, I scheduled a work at home day the next week to finalize the writing.
I rarely worked at home, but every once in a while when I really needed to focus and be free from interruptions I left one of the team leads in charge and worked remotely.
Then I pinged Chris on Teams, our internal messaging system.
Julia: I’ve got blocks of time to work together program design on this Thursday morning and all day Friday. Does that work for you?
Chris: Yes, Thursday morning works, and Friday afternoon. Do you have a place to meet at the Shelter?
Julia: God no, it’s impossible to do anything here with the constant interruptions from staff and clients. I can come to your building, or we can meet at the main office if we can get a room.
Chris: Let’s go to the main office, our conference room is small and always smells like cleaning supplies.
Julia: Why?
Chris: It’s right next to the space where they do the janitorial training classes.
Julia: Problem. I just checked the room calendar at HQ. It looks like there’s a room available on Thursday but there’s a board meeting on Friday and all the rooms are blocked off.
Chris: Okay well let’s meet on Thursday and figure out where we can work on Friday. There has to be somewhere that’ll work.
Julia: Sounds good. In the meantime I’ll send you anything I get pulled together in the next two days.
Chris: Great, I’ll do the same.