Beth's Contradictory Brain

Happy Happy New Year!!!!

I truly wish you all the joy, peace and success your little hearts can stand in the new year!!

We're home tonight ordering pizza and watching a movie - Nerdstar's still a little under the weather. Then a nice lunch tomorrow. I'm more sentimental about how I spend the first day of the year than the last night of the old year.

It's kinda sad, but I actually had to go back and read what we did last New Year's.

Yeah, that's it

Dave Berry remembers '07 just about the way I do.

Go Read

Nerdstar's got another good post up.

I'm feeling much better. I took a few rounds of Zinc, vitamins, Zicam and Allegra and that seemed to do the trick. Nerdstar didn't get a head start on taking meds because she didn't seem to feel as bad at first, it hit her later. I think she's getting better today. She's got that sexy raspy voice going!

We're having a nice quiet weekend of grocery shopping and a little cleaning and hanging out with the pets. I think Ramen's happy to be home.

We both have to work Monday and don't have any plans for Monday night, but we've got reservations at Les Halles (Anthony Bourdain's place) again for New Years Day. Then Wednesday Nerdstar heads to Houston to finally visit her sister and grandpa for a few days.

I'll write more on the New Year when it gets here.

Home Again

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are recovering nicely from it all!!

We had a good trip - the flights there and back went very smoothly. We had a great time being bossed around by The Kid. We spent almost all day Sunday out at Six Flags Holiday at the Park - other than it being about 40 degrees out, it was a lot of fun. We rode a few rides and ate funnel cake. He loved all his presents. Of course, Nerdstar and I get him the best ones :-)

We had tons of good food. And this year I finally got to really surprise my parents - we bought them a computer. Not that they're quite in the internet age yet, but at least they're closer.

Then we had to take The Kid ice skating again. It's always fun to watch everyone trying to skate.

The only icky part was that I was perfectly healthy when I got on the plane home last night, and when I got off I was all kinds of sick. Not fun. All those recycled germsn - yuck!!

We've heard that Ramen had a lot of fun, we go pick him up later tonight. The cats won't be so happy about that, but oh well.

Again, I hope you and yours had a good time, and that your bank accounts aren't too terribly empty!!

Merry Merry Christmas!!

Tonight we hand Ramen over to his new friends who will be keeping him for Christmas. We're kinda sad because we know he's going to like living at their house for a few days more than he likes living with us and he's going to be sad when he has to come back home with us. See, they have a yard, and more importantly, they have Daisy - a dog he really seems to like. Oh well, at least he'll have a nice Christmas!

We fly to Dallas in the morning. That means Whataburger on the way home from the airport!!

I can't tell you all how much I appreciate all my readers and how much I hope and pray you really have a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year!!!

If I don't get to log in while we're away - see you all on the 27th.

Honestly?

Tell the truth - are you really enjoying this holiday season??

From the 200 or so people I see come through the lab every day, to the people we saw in the mall Saturday, and the people out in the restaurants where we've eaten lately - no one looks happy at all.

And that makes me sad.

I can't say I feel very into Christmas yet. For Nerdstar and I it won't really start until we get to Dallas on Saturday. But I'm really looking forward to it this year. I think we'll have a nice mix of things to do and down time. There will be more good food that we need. And although I'm not surprising my parents with a computer, we're giving them a few hundred bucks to put towards that or a new mattress or maybe a cruise they've been wanting to take.

I hope you're having some fun, and if you're not that you will be soon!!

If

If you're not afraid of you and your house getting struck by lightning for being evil

and

If you're up for a long night of really, really sick, irreverent humor...

You can do a double feature of

Farce of the Penguins and The Aristocrats.

We watched Farce last night, and the dvd extras really made it worth the time, it was all pretty damn funny, in a sick sort of way. We saw The Aristocrats back when it came out in theaters, and have put it on our Netflix list for another cold, dreary night.

Weekend

Well, the work week ended finally. Friday wasn't actually too bad. The manager was out, which is usually a good thing. Then two of the people who bitch and moan all day called in sick - uh huh. And one of the other people who is annoying left at 10:30 in the morning. But, we weren't terribly busy and the crew we had still there was decent. The bitch I got into it with the other day is still a bitch - and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon. The manager asked me about it Thursday, but didn't really say too much other than he relies on me to get stuff done in the afternoons and to be nice to the new people. Whatever.

I've never before worked with a group of people where I didn't become friends with one or two of them. I've also never had less in common with the people I work with than this crew. It's hard to really say what makes me different, because I don't even think it's the gay thing. Maybe it has to do with really different backgrounds. But I'm not sure about that either. I grew up lower middle class. I don't know...

Anyway. Enough about all of that. I know it's boring.

We finally went to a mall today. It wasn't complete hell. We bought Ramen dog an LL Bean bed.

It's really weird knowing our combined income is enough to pretty much spend freely. But there's not much that I want really. I've got a new car. We aren't ready to buy a house here, mostly because we don't want to stay long enough to make it worthwhile. And well, unfortunately there's not a store that sells babies.

I think we'd both rather save up and either take a really great vacation or move.

Completely unrelated - last night we met up with some of Nerdstar's former coworkers for happy hour. Her old manager also get a new job with much better pay! It was interesting spending a little time with these youngsters in the their late 20s making close to $100 Gs a year. "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" kept playing in my head.

Personality Disorder

I think Nerdstar and I have pretty much decided that my biggest problem at work is that I am too emotional and introspective. I'd like to be like a duck and let it all be like water off a duck's back, but I'm not like that.

My boss had a little talk with me today and was actually really nice. A little appreciation goes a long ways. Hopefully after the first of the year those changes I wrote about yesterday can/will happen.

More Work Stuff

Well, I decided to give myself a break from all the drama at work and I called in sick today. It's the first time I've called in since being hired back around the first of May. Then, I'm pretty sure I can get through two more days until the weekend. Then, it's only one more week until I'm off several days for Christmas.

The problems at work aren't new. I've been optimistic things would change around there almost since day one. The Bad Apple is supposed to be leaving us soon - although with my luck she'll change her mind again. Then maybe one of the people who works afternoons with me and isn't usually very helpful will change to the early morning shift. Although that would still leave the bitch I got into it with yesterday on the later shift with me. But at least the two wouldn't be allies.

One thing that pissed me off yesterday is that no one came to my defense. I bust my ass every day - and most days help out everyone who can't be bothered to learn their jobs for themselves. Yet no one told the bitch yesterday she was out of line.

There's a guy who works down in the main lab who's wanting to come back and work the later shift in our lab. If that actually happened it would be a good thing. I'd finally have someone there from 3 to 6 with me who knows their job.

Part of what's so frustrating is that I keep trying to be patient and optimistic, and I feel like I keep getting kicked in the nuts - so to speak.

I do know that every job has it's hassles and assholes. So finding a new job might not solve the problems. But I'll keep my ears open for something new and just try to ask the right questions if I ever get an interview.

UPDATE: I know, this entry was already long enough...

But it's 6:34 and I'm waiting for Nerdstar to make her way home through traffic. While I had hopes of finding enough around the house to do to keep myself busy/entertained today - it kinda ended up being boring. I'll keep that boredom in mind the next two days at work and see which one is worse. I'm not sure the weather helped today, but I'm grateful we're not in the middle of the country without power or heat.

This Close

I am THIS CLOSE to quitting my job. I am so tired of all the bullshit with my coworkers. I keep trying very hard to just go in to work, be really nice to my patients, get things done, and go home. And I am really nice to my patients. But after waiting seven months at this job for things to be better coworker wise, well, I just don't see it happening.

Last week I had the shitty, useless supervisor come behind something I'd corrected and almost screw it all up simply because she wouldn't listen to me that I had taken care of the problem. She was totally out of line, but I'm sure there were no consequences for her. (Our manager was already gone for the day, so I took it straight to his boss.)

Then today, this lady, who's been there not even a month, and I got into it. I tried training her a couple of weeks ago on the computer system, but somehow I managed to totally annoy her, so that ended and who knows when she'll actually get trained. (The other new guy who's been there probably two months has just this week gotten adequately trained.) Whatever. I couldn't care less. But, new lady has had a total attitude toward me ever since. No problem, I can go weeks without talking to someone at work. But today she was a complete bitch, then went right out and told another coworker I was being a bitch and that's when I went off that she should in no way discuss anything of the kind with another coworkers. And the (mostly) good supervisor seemed to take her side on this.

Then her and another employee spent the rest of the afternoon not doing much of anything.

Add in some other drama I can't even write about and it's just all too much bullshit.

The problem with quitting is I have spent too much time unemployed in the past several years, and I know it tends to be depressing. Yes, in a city this size there are other kinds of jobs out there, but I don't really want a different kind of job - and I have nothing to wear to work other than scrubs anyway. There aren't really a lot of other hospitals around, and the LabCorp and Quest locations around here are actually worse to work for than my little lab.

I did apply to a hospital a little south of here. We'll see if I even hear back.

I think I'd like to work in a doctor's office - but those jobs are the kind you only get if you know someone...

Ugh. I do know that once I hit that "I'm Done" place - they won't even get two weeks notice out of me.

Sniff

Get some kleenix, and then watch this short video... it's one of the best short films I've seen.

Heh

I hear this as much from Nerdstar as we do the pets!

Nerdstar wrote another good entry this weekend, go read it.

Poor Dog

We've had a nice, wet snow falling all day. My commute this morning was actually better than normal. Poor Nerdstar took 3 hours to get to work.

We still have Ramen's coat and shoes from last winter so we bundled all three of us up for the walk tonight. Then we did something even worse to him - we took his picture.

More Work Stuff

Work today solidified my feelings of frustration. We had 219 patients today. I registered 62 of them - out of 8 people present today who did registrations. That's bullshit - but normal. And that's not even the main problem.

See, our boss goes with this lovely theory that we're all adults, and instead of assigning specific duties, he lets us mostly do what we want to do as long as patients don't end up waiting very long. Nice idea.

The way that worked out today was that the good supervisor was training one of the good guys on registration, and I was doing registrations, and there were four people waiting on patients to draw - meaning they were sitting around talking about restaurants instead of helping register (all but one of whom knows how to register).

So when the good supervisor asked for someone to step up and help us register - no one did. In fact, a couple of them wandered out of the lab altogether.

(During this the manager is out smoking or something like that.)

Ten minutes later the good supervisor asks for help again - but not so nicely this time.

Then I think one of the four got all pissy and took it to manager who I think had walked back in. That's when I heard the good supervisor go off on that one of the four. Cool.

Now to the point - it looks like the manager is finally to the point (again - although previous attempts at this have totally failed) where he's going to make a schedule saying who registers when and who draws blood when. Which is fine by me - because anytime I end up drawing blood instead of registering will equal working less hard for me.

But here's where they're all so stupid. Because they can't be grown up and get shit done when it needs to be done - they're going to end up doing more of what they don't want to do. Right now the people who hate to do registrations either don't do it at all, or do it two or three hours a day - usually the slow hours when they're content to let me do most of them. Now they'll all hopefully end up with four hours a day of it! Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Add to that the manager is also having to assign specific lunch times for everyone because everyone wants to go at the same time every day. The two people who come in the earliest decided a long time ago they get to take their lunch together, and last (and longest). So today I heard one of them trying to get their way with the manager and for once he wasn't having it.

And I'm just so tired of it all.

My goal the past couple of weeks has really been to focus on being nicer to the patients. My aggravation with my coworkers spills over into aggravation with patients more than it should. And I've been much better on that front.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, there's not really a better hospital or lab within a reasonable distance to work at instead. How sad is that? And I'm not ready to go back to office work or something like that.

More of the story

I really am at a loss sometimes on what to do. Far too often I am totally out of patience. I go from trying hard to be upbeat and calm to pissed off and frustrated like a Porsche goes from 0 to 60. This is both at work and at home.

It seems like no matter how hard I resolve to be like a duck and let things just pass by like water off a duck's back - there seems to be something every day that just pushes me over the edge.

With Nerdstar it's almost (but not exclusively) always about all the damn time she's spending on army bullshit - in spite of telling me she's really trying to resign her commission. She had drill again this weekend. And although she did get home when she said she would this afternoon - she's now spent the past hour and a half and counting on a phone call with her commander. WTF? (Not to mention she's got the dog out for a walk and he's getting totally wet in the rain and fucking up the bath he just had the other day.)

Now, granted it was a hard week for her regarding all the bullshit with her unit - and it's taken a toll on her as well. But that just makes it that much harder for me to understand why she doesn't just stop doing all this bullshit until the resignation comes through.

As for work, well... most days it comes down to me and a couple of other people busting our butts while everyone else slacks off and bitches and moans. That and our manager being a useless pussy who won't tell anyone no or make them do what he's asked them to do makes for lots of fun.

And I just don't know what to do.

Add all this to having to deal with dumb as dirt AT&T cell phone customer service reps who were totally wrong with their diagnosis and therefore tried to sell me a phone I wouldn't have needed - and - having the groomer at the vets office totally mangle Ramen's gorgeous tale when I'd suggested to Nerdstar that the vet might not be the best place to take him for grooming. (I don't think any pet enjoys hanging out at the vets office all day listening to other pets being treated.)

It just seems like a never ending supply of frustrations. And I am completely out of whatever it takes to handle such things. I've burst into tears twice in the past two weeks.

Please

Can anyone tell me where the reset button is on my brain?