Karla Noyes' Captain's Log Series

At the end of my second full-day at my desk I was given two reprimand letters from my supervisor. That must be some kind of record. The first was for wearing one of my hand-spun, hand-knit, keyhole scarves in the office because I was cold; apparently a patient had strangled someone and now there’s a facility-wide ban on wearing anything around your neck (so much for my collection of beautiful scarves.) The other letter was because I was away from my desk without permission. I was at the benefits office choosing my health insurance plan. While I had permission for a 1 o’clock meeting, I spaced that out and remembered it at 4, but no permission. Sheesh! This was one of those personal growth experiences. My first impulse was to say, ‘Hey, how about a verbal warning first?’ As in ‘this isn’t fair.’ The second impulse was to just let it go, know that she’s strict about the rules, and vow to keep my distance from her. There isn’t going to be any relationship other than me doing my job, pla...

After 14 months, 69 applications and 16 interviews I finally landed a job. I told that to a woman in my orientation class, she said it took her 4 years! In both cases we’re lucky. I work in the Trust office tracking the Medicare, Social Security and Veteran’s benefits of the patients at the Napa State Hospital http://www.dsh.ca.gov/Napa/default.aspx . This place houses people with varying degrees of mental illness and criminality, although the ones who are civilly committed are there because they pose a threat to themselves or others. A good portion are there because they have been found to be incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity. There are 1,250 patients, 40 or 50 are really dangerous, (3%). I’m told that most of them have schizophrenia and an assortment of other maladies, bipolar, depression, etc. Some of them go to great lengths to kill themselves which has caused the staff to remove all of the possible physical opportunities; the State can’t have people ...

When I was 7, in 1960, I remember bemoaning my only career options were secretary, like my mom, nurse, or teacher. Later I learned that other girls had nun as a possibility. Life didn’t seem worth living if that’s what the future held. It was an era of pointy-boob bras, you had to stuff toilet paper in the ends to fill them out because breasts aren’t shaped like that. It was an era of girdles and nylons – that always got runs even though they knew how to make them so they wouldn’t. An era of dirty jokes and cat-calling, which were obviously aggressive and implied some sort of violence, so I wore clothes that hid my gender, generally floppy tops. At my wedding reception my father derisively said, I bet she’s pregnant. I wasn’t. As a kid I didn’t want any part of The Feminine  so played in the mud, climbed trees - falling out and breaking my arms, twice - and ran barefoot in the grass. At Christmas I got a doll, what am I supposed to do with this? At 7 I swore I would never, ever, ...

Recently I got a voicemail from an old boyfriend. I was 18 when we were together. He dumped me for another girl, a bookkeeper. I was completely devastated but he was done with me, which was too bad because he was a really nice guy. He taught me how to maintain my bicycle, in fact he built one for me, it was an iridescent, electric-blue Gitane that had been stripped of its Campagnolo parts. This was the ‘70s, he was working at the best bike shop on the west coast, in Berkeley. French dockworkers had gone on strike and these highly desirable, and expensive, parts were unavailable. I got the frame, which was the perfect size, and he cobbled together everything else: headset, handlebars, bottom bracket, center-pull brakes, wheels and a nice leather saddle. It was a 15-speed, there was nothing I couldn’t climb. Over the time we were together he taught me how to lace the wheels, which I later did on my own, the pinnacle of my skills. This was before sealed bearings and I cleaned, greas...

5/19/18 The world is a better place since two young people got married on a sunny May day in England and, as far as I know, have committed themselves to a lifetime of charitable work; and two billion people around the world got to hear a very long sermon about the importance and Power of Love. The pastor said “God is Love,” how cool is that? I burst out with John Lennon’s “All you need is love.” A bi-racial bride and many people of color among the guests and performers. It’s a new day. (What would mom say?) Franz Schubert's “Ave Maria,” with the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and small orchestra, was the most beautiful piece of music – ever; transformative, from the heavens. Loved the hats! You know the bride’s huge 16-foot veil and train was held on her head only by her tiara? With all that fabric dragging on the ground, that tiara must have been attached to her head with rivets. At one point I thought she would yank it off and toss it aside. Everyone was on their best behavior an...

4/21/18 The Job Thing I’ve been “between jobs” for 2 full months and have applied to 18 local State jobs; I’m not doing nothing. Went on one interview at CalFire for which I was very prepared, charming and engaging. Haven’t heard back from them for 2 weeks, so it’s probably a “no.” I have learned more about how the State hires: a potential State employee, either new or currently employed with the State, fills out an online quiz which asks two question, how many college credit do you have in these areas, and how many years of experience do you have doing (fill in the blank.) I always whump the education but am too honest about the years of experience, I haven’t been including the years of working for myself. Out of those questions you are given a score which puts you in a ranking. The people doing the hiring are strongly encouraged to hire from the top three ranks, and current State Employees before others. I rank 4 or 5. My only hope is that people from the top three ranks do not...

3/6/18 Open House at my house… This past Sunday we had a family of Blue Birds and White Faced Nuthatches investigate the bird house 40’ outside our kitchen window. And as always, buyers come in clumps. I hope they’re not too uncomfortable about a ‘multiple offer’ situation, although in this case I think: ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law.’ No further inspections or moving trucks, yet. Last Days I’ve been officially ‘between jobs’ for 2 ½ weeks. About a month before I left I had requested a meeting with my supervisor asking her to give me a review, as she would any permanent employee, because I wanted her to come to the conclusion about how much I had improved. It didn’t go as planned. She was unprepared, couldn’t find the form online, had to dig in her file cabinet and surfaced with the paper records of our disciplinary conversations. She allowed as how I was doing good work, and was a big help to one of the employees, then she launched into all the past grievances,...