A waiting game …
My admin colleague has just come back to work after being away on a couple of weeks long service leave, and then a couple of days sick leave as her husband underwent tests. The back-story is that he was diagnosed with brain cancer 9 years ago, is currently on a drug trial, and the other day had to have further tests. Yesterday, the specialist wasn’t able to give them any answers becuase the pathology results hadn’t come back yet. Today, she works and waits for the phone to ring this afternoon. She told the head of department and I this morning that she is probably going to retire at the end of the year so that she can “…smell the roses.” [Trans. ‘spend time with her dying husband’.]
In my yearly review, not that long ago, this scenario was put to me by our supervisor, and my goals for the coming 12 months were devised to potentially enable me to fill the position vacated by my admin colleague. I’m not sure that I want to deal with the finance and personel stuff though, so for now will also play the waiting game of waiting to see what steps my colleague takes once the phone call has been ended this afternoon … Fingers crossed that the news is good.
Update: the phone call came through & my colleague came into my office trying to smile, forcing the corners of her mouth up with her fingers. Her relief was overcoming any ability that she had to smile about the fact that they didn’t find a new, or another, cancer. Bottom line is that he still has cancer, but he just doesn’t have any more of it for now. Phew.
The Perseverant Pincushion 