why am i at work?

i’m not supposed to be at work this morning, in fact i took the whole of today off some time ago because of the colloquium i am attending later on – but yesterday i was requested to attend a meeting with one of our local members and their supervisor this morning and so decided to come in and work until noon. it is unclear to me whether this is a fact-finding or disciplinary meeting, but i have a vague idea of what it involves (some unacceptable use of the internet charge i believe to be unfair in that the person in question is not doing anything differently than her co-workers).

that makes two new stewarding cases this week – one here and one at another worksite (which involves disability issues and so therefore is mine to handle). that goes on top of the other three current in my file right now – one involving a discipline, one a grievance and one that may evolve into a harassment complaint. each of these cases has its roots in a different area of policy which means i have to read through a lot of materials in preparing each case, to ensure i am not missing any hook on which i can hang a victory – such is effective advocacy. i am feeling emboldened by a recent win, which allows me to look optimistically at all of these cases, but when realistic i know what the odds are of having the result come out in our favour on each. unless management screws up procedurally (rather than just morally), it is hard to win no matter how well-argued the case.

so i am at work, and there is lots of it because things are busy right now and there are lots of projects coming up in the near future. i would like to post something more interesting later today but we will see about that.