Musings Upon Return From Vacation . . .

Well, I’ve been back since Sunday night. It’s been a busy week at the office since my return. I tried to write in my blog earlier today, but then my computer (or the website, or my Internet connection) froze up on me, so I lost everything. Dadgummit!

Monday and Tuesday were very frustrating days. I left the office on August 13, confident the grant that I had been working on – the one where I spent a whole morning trying to balance the budget – would have made it through the approvals bureaucracy & be on its merry way to Washington. Wrong! I get back, and it still hasn’t left Tulsa. I am informed that after all the hair pulling, the damn budget still wasn’t right. Then one of the senior management persons decided that she wanted to make some last-minute changes. How frustrating … after all the hard work I spent over a several-week period, pushing to get things done so the grant would be done and on its way to Washington by the time I got back – then to find out upon my return that things still weren’t done the way I had hoped they would be.

Tuesday I arrived to discover a letter of intent for another grant (that I had been working on for some time) sitting on my desk – that included revisions that my boss had requested – with a rather bitchy comment to the effect that my work was substandard. I felt like walking out and never returning. Really, why bother if nothing I do is good enough? So I basically cried the whole morning. A colleague told me that this was really “constructive criticism,” and likened it to when a sports coach yells at a player who has potential and who’s trying to “motivate” the player. Well, I’m not an athlete; I don’t get motivated when I’m reamed out (it only makes me give up and figure “why bother?”), and when musicians get reamed out by conductors, they only get pissed off – and sometimes they get back at the conductor through sabotage. Suffice to say, getting yelled it will not get results from me.

Fortunately, the rest of the week has been much calmer. And the Letter of Intent that my boss reamed me out over was praised at a meeting today by a someone from the U.S. Department of Justice who’s working with us on this grant.

Wednesday night there was some wonderful news. Casey Cantwell, who has been Interim Organist/Choirmaster since Tappe’s departure in June, has been offered the position on a permanent basis. The “Interim” has been removed from Casey’s job title. Hooray! This was exactly what I hoped would happen. Shortly after Tappe announced his departure, I approached our Senior Warden and told him that I thought Casey had proven himself more than capable of handling this position during Tappe’s frequent absences. A search committee was formed, they wrote a job description, came up with a list of qualifications, and prepared an ad for publication in national church music journals – then they reported to the Rector that the person meeting all of the qualifications was none other than Casey. The Rector questioned the search committee to ascertain that they were as certain about this as possible, and then concurred with their decision. A recommendation was made to the Vestry, which approved. Fr. McKee made the announcement Wednesday night – and the cheers and applause were positively deafening! Everyone I’ve spoken to couldn’t be happier about Casey’s new status. He’s earned it.

Besides Casey’s unquestioned musical skills, he has the people skills that Tappe so obviously lacked. He’s built excellent working relationships with choristers, parents, clergy, lay staff and parishioners. I’d be shocked if anyone at Trinity didn’t like Casey. I’m hoping he’ll be on the organ bench for many years to come.