Stuck in London

The fragility of the air traffic network has been shown dramatically recently, as all flights in Northern Europe have been grounded for the last few days, due to volanic dust from Iceland in the atmosphere. I was due to fly with Ryanair back out to Limoges today. I know, I know, the environment... But the price was £26, as opposed to £206 on the train. Including the booking fee, which is an absurd £5 per person per leg. (Not person leg, journey leg, in case you were wondering.)

So I'm trying to do my work from here. It's not the same. For one thing, I don't have access to OMNIS, our trusty database, upon which I rely heavily. But mostly I just don't have access to the people I am working with, so I feel disconnected. I can't pop my head out of the office door and ask Tracy how something works. I can't chat with someone in the lunch queue and get an idea how they're doing. Obviously, I can't go to meetings, or check in in the daily gathering.

Luckily I have somewhere familiar to be, with an Internet connection, and access to work email. But I miss the land of great bliss intensely.

Week off

After 10 days in my new role, I am back in England for a week with Ruby, my daughter. I miss the land of bliss. Why? It certainly wasn't the easiest time of my life, getting to know my new job, with people seeming to expect me to know the answer to certain things almost immediately (actually this is helpful, as it helps me understand what people want from me as Personnel Manager) and the lack of staff to do certain things, not to mention the forthcoming vacuum when Alexa, the Head of Office, leaves at the beginning of May.

I suppose what I love about the job, and have always loved about being at DCL, is that I'm working towards something bigger than my personal happiness or security. I feel part of a grand vision of societal enlightenment. I often demonstrate this for people by talking about doing gardening work: in 2002-3 I lived most of the time at DCL, and found myself gravitating to working outside. To their credit, the existing management team allowed me to do this, and I had a great time, mowing, pruning, weeding and other "menial" tasks.

After leaving DCL I continued to work as a gardener in London, but for private homeowners. They each had their own vision of what they wanted in their garden, and we would try to achieve that. But I never really felt part of their vision, and at times felt really like a slave! Although I was doing basically the same tasks, my heart was not in it, and consequently it tired me out completely, mostly I think because I was fighting it.

Although I have not really done any office work in London since I was eighteen, I cannot imagine that I would be enjoying the repetitive little tasks, the phone calls, the photocopying, the stapling! as I have done the last days. But in Dechen Choling I can somehow say that I was. Why? Partly, I think, because I feel I am doing something worthwhile. I think it also has to do with not feeling self-conscious about applying the teachings we receive on mindfulness and compassion in working with others. Of course, this office is a shared space, and shared with others who are also working with their minds.

Staples of life

DCL snapshot - the housemartins are beginning to arrive, and spend their days swooping over the meadows and lake. Participants are also arriving, for the Chi Gung Level 1 and 2 this weekend. And the frisbee has emerged from hibernation, due to the encouragement of the Personnel Manager (good for morale ;)

As I said before, working in an office is a little scary for me. This might sound strange to the many millions of people for whom office life is an everyday situation. But I left my last office job when I was eighteen, and I really thought that it was my LAST office job. As it turns out, I am quite enjoying certain aspects (after one week, so we'll see whether that lasts.)

Stapling, for example, is quite satisfying. To properly staple, of course, one needs to have collated the correct papers into a neat bundle. Then there is the satisfying Click and then you have made a single entity out of a multiple. Neat.

This is just one of the many links in the various chains of tasks which together make up office work. There are beginnings and ends to the component tasks, minor punctuations in the stream of work. At some point, a person is recruited, after numerous chains of tasks have taken place. They then have their own entry in a file, containing various stapled bundles of paper contained in a transparent plastic wallet.

Being of a certain type of mind, as I learn the systems that are in place, I continously think of how to optimise them. Especially the computer systems. I don't think it is giving away too much to say that we don't seem to have a broad IT strategy in place. Perhaps we do, but I just haven't heard about it yet. As a matter of fact, having started this blog, I found out that we already had a blog, which I didn't know about. I am considering whether it is worth switching over to that one, which might integrate better with our website.

So, for example, I look at the various documents which I work on, which often contain the same names and some of the same information, and I wonder why they are not somehow linked to the database, which, theoretically, stores all that information and is constantly updated. That kind of thing.

Of course, the more complex you make the systems, the more there is that can go wrong. Finding a balance between simple and labour-saving is a challenge. This is the kind of thing I wake up thinking about. Sad really.

Losing and gaining trees

About a month ago we lost one of the most distinctive trees on the land, the Scots pine on the far side of the lake. It looked like a giant bonsai, with several large dead branches. The rot had extended down to the base and during a storm it broke. These are photos I took on my camera a few days afterwards.

I also planted four new trees, the money for which had been raised by participants in the 2008 Sutrayana Seminary. For our 230 euros we managed to get a small Cedar of Lebanon, a paper bark birch, a Sweet Gum (Liquidambar) and a weeping beech.

As many of the magnificent trees on the land are probably nearing the end of their life, I have been trying to get new trees planted on a regular basis. And the French volunteer group put together by Franc planted hundreds of baby trees, and then re-planted them when we realised the land on which they had been planted was under contract with a farmer. The cows he brings would make mincemeat of them.

Arrival

I arrived at Dechen Choling at half past ten last night to be the new Head of Personnel. Though I have been here many times before, it has never been to take on a paid 'core' staff position. I worked here during 2002-3, but as a volunteer, on various manual projects, mostly outside. The office was a bit off-limits for me, both because I was usually dirty, and because of the slightly neurotic panic which seemed to permeate it. I am glad to say that recent visits would indicate that certain demons seem to have been pacified, and 'Le Bureau' is a much more tranquil place.

Especially at the moment, at the tail end of a Dathun, a month long retreat of sitting meditation. A gentle but effective rain softens the atmosphere of broken-hearted warriorship permeating the Land of Great Bliss. It feels like a precious opportunity to be here and share that atmosphere. On arriving, I immediately ran into my old flatmate, Annalie, who is doing the Dathun. She has clearly been through a lot in her month with the company of her own mind.

I awoke at about 5, hearing the sounds of the building and my early-rising neighbour Gerd. I dressed as presentably as possible, and went to find Rona, whom I am replacing. Unfortunately we only overlap in presence here for a few minutes before she has to leave, so we did a ten minute handover, which is certainly worthwhile. My office is elegant and clutter-free, and systems are in place and working, thanks to her. But, boy, are there some details, and the devil is in the details. Not my strong point, in fact I tend to panic when presented with a lot of details. But I'm now responsible for coordinating the ever-changing staff situation, and most urgently, the large influx (hopefully) of volunteers for summer. With everybody arriving and leaving at different times, having different accommodation and other needs, and a range of different programmes happening, this is a LOT of details. Yikes.