Tuesday, March 21, 2006

#612 Kitchen Is, uh, Usable, Sorta

I worked most of today on clearing out the kitchen. I won't have enough counter space for making cookies for a while yet, but at least I can move around in there and get the lower cabinets open now. And I cleaned a bit.

I spent several hours removing hard water deposits from the laundry room john. They must have changed CLR, made it weaker or something. It used to work, but I finally had to resort to draining the bowl and filling it with vinegar, and then scrubbing with a stiff brush.

The rolloff is so full I don't think I'll be able to fit the dead dehumdifiers in. They require special handing because of the freon, so I was supposed to put them on top. But I'm afraid now they will stick up past the fill-line. Next load, I guess.

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The friend who is setting up the charitable endowment in my name is driving me crazy. She has decided that she wants the payments from the investment to go to "program", not "administration". I explained to her that if she gives $1000 restricted to programs, and someone else gives $1000 unrestricted, and if the administrative costs are 20%, then they will just use $400 of the unrestricted funds for the admin costs, so restricting the money doesn't accomplish anything. She says she understands, and that she agrees, and then five minutes later she's going on again about how difficult it is to restrict the money.

Then she complains that the charity I chose, Heifer International, has unusually high admin costs. I point out (over and over) that low admin cost can be simply creative bookkeeping, and that you can't compare admin costs without knowing what is included. Heifer does a lot of research to find the most effective locations for the programs, so is that considered "program" or "administration"? She says she understands and agrees, and then five minutes later she's complaining because Heifer's admin costs are so high. I got so angry with her this evening I told her to forget Heifer and send it to Doctors Without Borders. (DWB was my second choice only because they already get a lot of contributions.)

There were a lot of other points that we disagreed on, and I explained, and she agreed, then she went right back to as if she never heard me. She really ticked me off this evening. The kicker is that she keeps saying, in reference to restricting the money, "Well, I want to make sure that the money goes for what you and I both want", and I keep saying, "**I** don't want it restricted! I explained that to you. It's your money, and if you want to restrict it, fine. But it doesn't matter to me!"

You can be in the middle of a sentence, and she will interrupt or talk right over you. The woman doesn't listen. A long time ago, she was my fifth-level manager. Yikes! This evening I was so annoyed that when she interrupted and talked over me, I just got louder and kept right on talking.

I had to fake another call to get off the phone. By then I was shouting, and I was afraid of where it was headed.

I want to tell her to forget it. Leave me out of it. Most of her money will end up going to charity anyway, and I don't see why having my name on it has any meaning worth all this annoyance. But I don't want to hurt her feelings.

1 comment:

Kate said...

I had to Google Heifer International--what a cool organization!

I wanted to work with Doctors Without Borders, but they wouldn't take me for just a few weeks' time. Perhaps once I'm out in the real world.