Changing My Whole Day So Some Dude Could Climb On My House

OK, so this blog post is so sprawling I might not be able to gather all my thoughts, so this could go several places.  I just hope to remember what happened when. ...

On Wednesday, after I helped Mother with getting insurance information, she told me that she had arranged for an inspector to look at the roof, siding and gutters ... the next day.  She asked me to unlock the side door (but put the recycling bin behind it -- you know, to keep it "shut") so he and the second roofer we spoke to could inspect everything.  Mother knew I was working then, but thought nothing of having some fucking stranger climb on top of and meander behind our property without me or her or Father being there to see him.  And she said all this shit would happen the next afternoon.

This pissed me off to no end.  But there are two dimensions to my pissed-off-ness.  There is, of course, the idea that I, or she, would let anyone look at our house, our home, our sacred castle, without us there.  What I have just realized, however, that I am a bit more upset that, once again, she has sprung one of her hare-brained ideas on me without telling me, without giving me any time to process it, and without having my say as to whether it's a good idea or not -- again.  She once again just went through on her fucking bullshit flights of fancy, and she just goddamn assumed I'd be OK with it.  I don't care that she felt like I didn't have to do anything more than unlock a door.  If someone sees that door open, I have to deal with that fucker breaking into the house, not her.  But she didn't give a flying shit.

Having to catch this hot potato of news, I (once again) wasn't as clever on my feet as I should have been.  I told her that this was a bad idea, having some guy crawl around the home without me there, and once again, fuckin' A, My Fucking Mother retreated back into defensive mode.  "What do you want to do then?" she asked, without realizing for one goddamn second that this was all my parents' idea.  "I am the one who has to come up with ideas!"  Ideas for what?  Who said that the roof and siding and gutters needed repairing??  She acts like something hard and unavoidable has fallen into her lap when she's the one telling me what the fuck's going on ... and telling me poorly, by the way.

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Going to bed (well, after going to this volunteer event and then getting an HJ by ******a -- man, did I need that!), I thought I had no choice but to do what she says.  I swore that I had told Mother that I had Friday off, and that was the perfect time for them to come over.  I didn't think when she dropped this fuckin' bomb on me to remind her in case she forgot -- thank Buddha for ******a; she thought saying that to her would be a way to draw boundaries that obviously aren't there right now -- but I figured it was too late.  But I live in this house, and right now, I am the only person who lives in this house.  It does not sit right with me to unlock a door that is always secured when I leave so some stranger can come look, even if everyone else says it's OK, because it's not OK with me.  It doesn't matter that I live in a good neighborhood; I should not and will not leave my house unlocked.

So I woke up and decided that I would ask/tell my boss I have to take an extended lunch break to go home and oversee whatever it is this inspector wants to look at.  I didn't want to do that to my boss, but My Fucking Mother left me with no goddamn choice.  And even though I'm sure My Fucking Mother told the roofer that the side door was not going to be locked, I texted her in the morning that it would be locked and that I would come home to unlock it.  Once again, I have to make room for My Fucking Mother's whims and demands, but now I had some control in how it was going to happen.

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Or so I thought.  I went home earlier than planned in case the inspector got there early.  And by God, he was there earlier than me.  I went home to see some dude on top of the house with a ladder.  I took umbrage at that, so I parked my car, looked up at him and said, "Who are you?"  He was the inspector, of course, and he was there to look at the roof.  And I think I said some other things that conveyed how upset I was that he was on my house when I wasn't there.

I saw the roofer talking on the phone next to her car parked a ways from in front of my house.  She was talking a mile a minute about our homeowner's policy, but I didn't care about that.  I cared about why in the hell this guy was lording over my house when I told her that I was coming over to oversee everything.  She told me that she just got there and that the inspector was parked.  She said that the inspector thought that he could start his inspection as soon as she (the roofer) got there because he was told that the only person supervising the property would be her.  So, once she got on site, he thought he was good to go, locked side door be damned.  Maybe she should have told him to wait until I got there, but My Fucking Mother apparently got into the middle of this arrangement too and ... ah, fuck it, I don't know what else was said.  There was no need for me to continue to be angry at some guy who didn't seem to deserve it.  He even said that he thought he got the go-ahead as soon as the roofer drove up.  Also, he says that he climbs on roofs all the time without the homeowner or anyone living the house there.  Is that true?  That sounds reckless to me.  Whatever; I opened the side door once I got there, and I saw him, well, inspect and leave.

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So he's supposed to whip up a report that he's going to give to the insurance company since we (well, Mother) made a claim.  The insurance company will give it to us and, if we want to go ahead with repairs, we can send that report to the roofer.  However, the roofer is now pooh-poohing our chances of justifying any repairs or replacement.  She understands our policy better than we do, and it looks like our deductible is too high and that we don't have enough of the components (?) that would induce the insurance company to pay for most of any repairs.  My Fucking Mother asked me later Thursday evening what to do.  Once again, she's throwing on my lap some lame-brained fantasy she cooked up in her own goddamn head.  I don't know.  Maybe as the person who technically owns the home, maybe I should know.  But right now, I'm still too pissed at my narcissist mommy to set my anger aside and make the most out of her scheme.

But back to my original point.  No harm, no foul on leaving work for more than half an hour; there was such light work that, even if I had a normal half-hour break, there wouldn't have been enough work for me to stay eight hours.  Still, all of this would have gone much smoother if the inspector came Friday.  I was home and the person winterizing the sprinkler system would've been there, too.  Kill two birds with one stone, and I wouldn't have had to impose upon my boss to see through some bullshit idea by My Fucking Mother.  God, she sucks.

Shouldn't I Be The One Teaching Her?

So this week the new girl finally is getting trained in The Fourth Department.  Once she's fully up to speed, all four of us are able to handle both The Third and The Fourth Departments.  It had to be done; it's her job to know those skills, after all.  But, and I was talking about this with one of us four, we were happy how things were, with the new girl just doing The Third Department.  That means more work dedicated just for us.  And that means more job security for us.  But alas.

Thing I don't know how to process is who's teaching her.  My former supervisor, the one who taught me everything back there, is long gone.  So who is teaching her?  One of my other co-workers ... who got the position we're at after me.  By tenure, I should be the one teaching the new girl.  But I'm not.  In fact, the question of who would train her -- well, I should be more specific; why am I not the one training her when I've got the most experience -- never came up.  It was her all along.  I've seen the conversations between her and my current boss.  She has picked up the slack and is doing some of the responsibilities my former supervisor and boss did, so naturally my boss thought she'd be the one to break the new girl in ... even though I think I was at this job a year before she was.

So, why am I not training her?  It could be incompetence.  Even though I've been at this longer, I'm not sure I can say I do it better.  Maybe she does.  Also, I don't give off extrovert vibes at work.  When I work, I am usually sitting down and I have earbuds jammed into my ear canals.  I answer questions the best I can, but if I'm seeing me at work, I can't say I am interested in being engaging with my co-workers, let alone training someone new.

Does it hurt to be passed over like this?  Yes, I won't lie.  Mostly because I'm scared over what it means to be passed over.  This critical responsibility of training is an important one, and it should go to the one with the most tenure.  That it's not reflects poorly on me, and if, God forbid, something were to happen with the company, I think not training the new girl would be a demerit against me keeping my job.  On the other hand, I've seen my co-worker helping the new girl out this first week of training.  And honestly, I'm not sure I would have any interest in training her.  I remember all the bad and dumb things I've done and continue to do at my job.  Telling her how to do things right would probably make me feel like an impostor.  And as shitty as yesterday's/Thursday's work was, I was at least left alone, and that's something I treasure at work.  So maybe my co-worker and boss knew what they were doing when they passed me over.  And maybe I should not be the one teaching her.

Thought I was going into work today.  There was a lot of work my bosses were anticipating for the weekend, and so on Friday they asked me to come in today.  But this morning I got a text from one of my bosses saying my services were no longer needed because they in fact finished.

I'm OK with that, but.  For one thing, I got the impression on Friday that there would be work today.  If that wasn't the case and there was a possibility I would not come in, I wish it would've been couched that way, something like, "I assume there will be work, but there won't, so if there isn't, we'll let you know."  Something like that, you know?

The other thing is, even though I put in overtime last week, I could've gotten a little more had I stayed late on Friday.  Even though my main responsibility that day was The Fourth Department, there was enough data entry work that afternoon that my boss told the people who work out there to stay, I think, an extra half-hour.  This may not be the policy, but I believe that means that I could stay an extra half-hour.  I actually could've stayed more than half an hour, come to think of it.  But I left after eight hours.  Why?  Well, all the work in The Fourth Department got done.  And ... I left.  I guess it didn't occur to me that I could've stayed at least an extra 30 minutes to key.  And I didn't have to get home to watch a sport on TV or anything, either.  Dang it, I now regret not staying later on Friday.

Doesn't Take Much For My Fucking Mother To Push My Buttons

I needed to talk to her last/Monday night about bills that came in.  I thought everything was done.  But she called back.  First of all, she called back during the weather forecast I wanted to watch, so that perturbed me.  Second of all, she worried about some stupid detail that she told me to take care of, namely writing checks instead of going online and paying herself.  And finally, she insulted me by explaining something to me that I already know and was also not what I was talking about.  That is probably due to the language barrier, but also because this happens all the time, I naturally get defensive about her condescension.

And I was being a good boy food-wise up till then.  I didn't drink any coffee at work; instead, I had a hot cocoa (given to me by my former supervisor two or three years ago) in the morning and tea in the afternoon.  After shoveling the driveway, I went out to use a gift card at a really nice brewery for chicken wings and two 5-ounce glass of different beers (plus a half-filled 5-ounce glass for free ... er, double free!!)  I thought I controlled my eating yesterday/Monday.  And then My Fucking Mother talks down to me and I'm wolfing down Dot's BBQ pretzel sticks to fill the hole she punched into my gut, and I feel all fat again.  Goddamn her.

She wants me to write and send out the checks in the morning.  I'll do it later tonight instead.  Because she can fuck all the way off.

This Work Is MINE!!!

I will admit that I'm not completely sorry I did what I did at work yesterday.  But did I make a fool of myself?  Definitely.

This story starts back on Friday.  I was supposed to be in The Fourth Department, but my bosses told me that I should do data entry instead.  So once I keyed as long as I was expected to key, I went back to The Fourth Department.  However, I didn't finish the work.  I stayed till 6:30, but I wanted to see college basketball on the TV, and I thought ten hours was more than enough.  In particular, there were forms that came in on Friday that I didn't get to.  I was told during the workday that that stuff could wait till the next day (Saturday).  So I thought I could come in the next day, yesterday, and finish up that work and, hopefully, get started on the work that came in that day for The Fourth Department.  I was anticipating a lot of stuff was coming in, and I didn't want all that stuff to sit till tomorrow, especially if I was assigned to that position tomorrow.  Besides, the department needed help catching up on work, and while I liked having surprise days off, it was eating into the time off I had built up; working yesterday means I get to take some of that paid time off back.

I thought the mid-South was up and running, seeing as we got monster shipments Thursday and Friday.  However, when I woke up yesterday morning, I was told that morning's shipment was late, so we should come in an hour later than scheduled.  (Also, I have a Facebook friend who said that, beyond, like, half a day, her neighborhood in East Nashville has been without power for eight days.  Maybe they don't have everything back up and running like I thought.)  Two of my co-workers, however, appeared to have either not gotten that text or ignored it, because they were at their desks by the time I got in.  Moreover, one of them was doing the work I left over.

This is not an excuse, but how I felt was: Why are you taking my work from me?!  I know that I have done this in the past, and I know that I'm not strong enough not to feel that way in the future.  This red mist of control descended on me, like it has so many times before, and so I asked her, "What are you doing?"

"I am just finding work.  Do you want this back?" she said.

"Yes, please," I answered.  (These might not be the exact words she and I said, and any tone you might take from these two quotes may not be as sinister, or as courteous, as it actually was.)

I regretted my words as soon as I sat down on my desk.  And any doubt as to how she reacted to my "taking back what's mine" temper tantrum probably was dispelled when she said, "Here's the cart," and shoved the cart into which we put the work in my direction with a force I have never, never seen her give.  She is a steady rock.  And frankly, since my supervisor left for a work-from-home position in the summer, she is the one I have relied on whenever I'm fuzzy about what to do next.  In other words, I don't want to get on her bad side.  And I think I did with that move, and it's probably going to cause a rift in our relationship that will never be repaired.

And the upshot of the hissy fit I threw is that it really didn't matter.  I got Friday's work done, but then my boss and my boss' boss told me to go scan documents all day instead.  We got done before eight hours, so I was able to do (or availed myself with) some Fourth Department stuff to make up the rest of the time.  But yesterday was clearly an all-hands-on-deck day, and while I knew that, honestly, I really didn't want to do that.

I shouldn't have reacted how I did.  But it felt like she was taking my work from me.  Moreover, she was ruining my plans.  "I got this under control, don't mess this up for me," -- that's what I was thinking.  And no, like I said, that's not an excuse.  But shit, what's done is done.  I should get off my butt and start updating my resume.  Because I acted like an ass!

Oh, I Went Back To Work On Thursday

My luck finally ran out, sadly.  Thursday morning, as I was checking my phone after my alarm went off, my boss told me a shipment was in and that we had to go in.  And it looked like the courier was well on its way to getting things up and running; Thursday we got three times the number of forms we usually get, which makes me think that got back on track on Thursday.

On Thursday I worked overtime to get all the stuff I think I needed to get done done.  Stayed longer yesterday/Friday because I was pulled from my work in The Fourth Department to do data entry.  That meant some of the stuff I could have done yesterday/Friday got pushed to today/Saturday.  And yes, I am coming in on a Saturday to work -- partly to help the department catch up, partly to take back all the paid time off I gave because I didn't work Monday through Wednesday.  I am suddenly getting close to going under with that.  I think I can actually "go into debt" and borrow up to 40 hours of paid time off in advance, but I would rather save that up for a time I need it, like a couple days in February and March.

Still, like I said, I was kind of sad Thursday morning when I didn't get the message that I could stay home.  I like not working.  It reminds me of the fallow periods inbetween temp jobs, where I was actually happy.  But since such happiness always ends, and because that feeling of everything crashing down is so hard for me, I would rather not enjoy happiness.  I want my vacations permanent, not temporary.

And Another Snow Day!!!

This is more than ridiculous; this is fucking absurd.  Either this is one fucking monstrous snowstorm or Southerners really don't know how to deal with snow and ice, because when I woke up and checked my texts, my boss said there wasn't a shipment again this morning.  Third day in a row.  We've never had two days of no work, let alone three.  So, another snow day!!!

Not to complain too much, but you really can't enjoy a surprise day off if you have to wake up assuming you don't have the day off.  Compounding that annoyance is that today, because I was scheduled to go in and cut packages open, I had to wake up early.  Then, once I saw that someone was going to go in to work and do everything for the rest of us, I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't.  (This despite having only, at most, 90 minutes of shuteye overnight.)

Unlike yesterday, today I had planned on going out: There's a volunteer event my financial planner is putting on very close to my house.  And since he's treating everyone to dinner afterward, hell yeah, I'm going.  And since I am taking the car out today, I might as well go to the Walker today and use that offer to see the museum for free after buying a ticket to the Arrows.  I had planned on going Saturday, but the chances are now very good that I will be working that day, so I switched plans and went just today.

You know, I know I'm not enjoying these surprise days off as much as I should because one day, this will all be over and we will have to go back to work.  Something good will be taken from me, and anticipating that will happen makes me very, very sad.  But that day wasn't today.  And, to be fair, I really thought that it would be yesterday and it wasn't.  So I'm riding on free money.

The one thing I'm lacking right now is sleep.  I have to end this blog post now in order to try and get a nap in before I go to this volunteer event.

Another Snow Day!!!

Alright, now this is getting ridiculous.  I wake up at my normal weekday time expecting to come in.  I check my phone, of course ... and I see that there has been a group text created with my boss and co-workers.  I still didn't quite understand it (or maybe I just didn't believe it), but apparently the shipment was expected to be so meager again this morning that not everyone had to come in today, either.  This text chain started a quarter after 4 this morning, so obviously I was late to the party, but from what I picked up, it was determined that there was such little work that, like yesterday, one person could come in and do my job and another person's.  It looks as though one of my co-workers volunteered to do that, and, after I texted my boss and another co-worker to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing, I asked, and was granted, today off.

Woo-hoo!!!  Hell yeah!!!  But damn, how bad is the storm down there?  Given the work we get is important, I thought they would need Sunday to recover, then be back fully functioning, or at least get up off the mat, by yesterday afternoon so they could at least start getting caught up with giving us a sizable shipment (if not more than a full day's shipment) this morning so we could, you know, work.  Guess not.

So we might get two days' worth of work tomorrow morning, and tomorrow is when I have to cut open packages.  I probably (unless the mid-South needs yet another day to recuperate) will be opening so many packages that I'll get carpal tunnel syndrome.  But that's tomorrow.  I have an interesting (at least to me) dilemma right now: Whether to work out at my gym.  When I got the day off today, I thought it would be a good time to finally get out and exercise.  But then I fell asleep again from around 10 till a bit before 2 -- much needed, by the way -- and now, I don't know.  It's above zero, which is miles warmer than what it was before, but it's still pretty cold.  I just saw on the map that these motherfuckers are still here; they just took a Latina woman this morning.  Finally, if I surprisingly don't have to work, do I want to start up my car?  Do I even leave the house?  You know, I think I should take advantage of this serendipity and stay at home -- completely at home, a one-day lockdown, like the weekend.  There's a bike that Mother used as a clothesline, but started using as a bike to help heal her knee.  I should get on it and just exercise here.  Yeah, I'll do that.  And I'll go out to the gym this weekend.

A Gig Or Democracy (Or Neither)?

I anticipated working a Wild Game this week.  I signed up for it and everything.  But I have yet to hear back from them confirming I would be working for them.  At some point, if I don't hear anything from them (and I swear I looked everywhere -- e-mails, texts, and especially the junk boxes for both just in case their messages went there), I have to figure they're not going to hire me.

I decided that yesterday/Monday afternoon was the deadline.  I checked everywhere one more time, but no one said, "Hey, can you work the Wild Game this week?"  I knew this was a Game for which they could use a runner, so a few months ago I blocked off two days this week at work.  Well, I'm not going to work the Game even if I get a late-night, desperation text right now asking me if I could work it.  Too late, you know?

That means I now can work this week ... however, you may have heard that there is not one but two walkouts planned for this week, one today/Tuesday and one on Friday.  I want to support democracy and protest our fascist regime in my own passive-aggressive way ... by taking those days off.  And I might as well give up the ghost to illustrate the absurd irony of this situation: The two days I had to block off to work the Wild Game are tomorrow/Wednesday and Thursday.  So I am going from taking tomorrow/Wednesday and Thursday off to taking today/Tuesday and Friday off ... well, seeing as last-minute as this change is, taking this/Tuesday afternoon off, which would coincide with a planned nationwide walkout this/Tuesday afternoon.

And, well, wanting to take today/Tuesday and Friday off.  This is very last-minute, but I tried reaching out to my new boss about flipping my days off this week.  I haven't heard back from her yet.  I hope I can still do it, and I hope this change doesn't affect all the plans she and my co-workers may have had when it comes to where they're working.  But, well, if I can't work a hockey Game, I may as well protest our freedoms being taken from us, right?

End Of 2025 Thoughts

My now ex-boss ... yeah, he was a guy.  Not only did he announce he was leaving through e-mail the minimum two weeks before he actually leaving, today, his last day, he didn't stay the whole day.  And he just e-mailed everybody peace before he left for his car five minutes later.  We all made a goodbye and thanks card for him, but my co-worker had to run it out to him as he was about to leave.  I think I said this before: I would rather have him than a micro-manager.  But geez, this is the guy who hired me for my first full-time job.  He helped me turn into a responsible adult.  I would have liked to express my gratitude in a less shallow way.

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My co-worker to whom I leaned up for much of my job left at the end of 2024, so in that sense, 2025 has gone full circle.  It has been a challenge to see my job, and thus me, change, mostly because people above me were leaving.  (I forgot that my supervisor left in the late summer; I still haven't recovered from that.)  We'll get by, only because we have to.  But I have no idea what this change will bring, and I don't like change as a principle.

I think the main thing that happened in my life, though, is Mother's knee surgery.  I am able to live much of my life independently, and for the most part I love living alone.  I haven't been able to do that for the past seven or eight months because of what Mother has to go through.  I always adapt, and I am glad that she got her knee fixed (even though she complains that it is not as good as she wants it to be), but some days it hasn't been fun having them around here ... and yet, I want to cherish the times I have with my folks when they're good, like when Father helped me clear the driveway of snow, or every night I get to eat a great dinner my parents made.

My neighbor's death a few weeks ago still weighs on me.  She is the person in my life I have lost this year, so in that sense, I have been quite lucky.  That's why I want to enjoy my time with my parents when they should be halfway around the world.  One year I will look back on the year with great, intense sadness.  I know it'll happen, and I don't want it to.

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I'm driving down to my friends' place after I get finished with this blog post.  Hope I survive the drive down and back.  It's a tradition I intend on continuing for as long as possible, as a signpost that, despite all the setbacks and wrongs and pain I might have incurred through the year, I made it.

Happy New Year, everyone.  Let's make it a good one.

Her Mistakes Are Actually Ours

Work is kind of wonky the last two weeks of the year, as I believe it is in many other places.  The workload lessens because it's the holidays, but there are less people also because it's the holidays.  I always make the mistake of believing that because of the work, things will be lighter.  Not so.  Because there are so many people who are taking the week off, the remaining few have to take care of the work, as meager as it may be, by themselves.  So, all in all, it's a wash, and so I had a full day.

The Third Department by itself still has its moments even if it's been easier since the winter.  I thought I got pretty much everything done at a reasonable time.  However, while I was digging through a crate of work so I could put a folder where it needed to be, I pulled out a specimen that needed to go into testing.  It was held up because one person in our laboratory specifically needed to do something for it.  I remember touching this first on Friday.  I put a Post-It note saying that the person taking care of this on Saturday needs to speak to her about this.  But as I was leaving work yesterday/Monday, I see that these forms for this specimen weren't taken care of.  Instead, the person who was going to do this on Saturday wrote a note on the same Post-It saying that the person would be in on Monday, presumably indicating that she wasn't there on Saturday.  Well, this person was there yesterday/Monday, but I didn't fucking know that this wasn't taken care of, and by the time I saw these forms, the person I needed to speak to left for the day.  Goddammit.

Sure, I guess I'm responsible because I should have looked through everything before the end of the day.  But I'm gonna say it: I'm really peeved that this person just shoved this specimen, which should have gone into testing well before yesterday/Monday, back into the file where I couldn't see it.  She should know working the same position I am that you are just too damn busy with everything new that's coming in, from both e-mails and the lab.  Why would I need to look through a file for work?  What she should have done (and this is just coming from me) was to flag it -- put it on top of the crate or even my desk.  That way I know that this is a special case (which it is) that I need to pay special attention to.  I remember specifically throwing that test on her desk when I left on Friday.

No, it's not her fault.  But this points to something else that's troubling: I have seen her make mistakes in this job she shouldn't be making.  Another thing I noticed during work yesterday/Monday is that she doesn't keep track of the calls she makes.  One of our jobs is to retrieve information, and we are supposed to document what we have done to retrieve that info (calls and e-mails) so that, if someone else needs to step in and pick up the trail, we can do so easily.  Twice during work I saw there are literal forms that the lab needs to get.  I know through another program we use that my co-worker did make a call.  But we have other software to which we are supposed to document that we have called this place and/or we e-mailed this person.  That way we know what has happened and can avoid doing something twice.  That gets a bit more difficult to do if she doesn't state in this program what she has done.

She is the one who got hired over the summer, so I want to think that she just forgot.  Hell, I make mistakes in The Third Department all the time, still.  But I'm sure she was trained that she needs to document what she's done.  And yet, putting these two issues together, is there a possibility that she wasn't trained to document her trail, and didn't understand that these forms are important enough that she should have laid it on my desk so I could see it first thing in the morning?  If so, that's a failure in training, and that is why it sucked that my former supervisor moved on.  She could've used so much more seasoning, and my supervisor knew all the ins and outs of working that position.  I wonder what, if anything, she didn't teach her before she left, let alone what my colleague has now forgotten because my former supe isn't around to reinforce what she taught her.

And this will get worse now that my boss is leaving.  He, frankly, doesn't know much about this position.  But he was at least in a position of authority to find out, and he did the best he could answering all of our questions, including hers.  With him gone, I'm not sure our new boss (whoever he or she will be) will know how to fix any mistakes she makes.  That person might not even have the time to care.  And so I can see a case where my co-worker will continue to make mistakes because we couldn't or didn't step and tell her what she needs to do.

I/We have till New Year's Eve to tell my/our boss to tell her what she needs to do, and then we are all off on our own.  Don't know if it's going to be enough.  My frustration over seeing something that could have and should have been done already may very well continue unabated.

On my way out the door at work yesterday/Wednesday my co-worker stopped me.  I had logged off of my computer, and thus didn't see my e-mail.  But my co-worker was staying a bit longer and had me look at her e-mail.

My boss sent a letter, just as many of us were leaving.  He's leaving the company at the end of the year.

Look, I don't want to get too mushy, but I'm not taking this well.  So yes, I have complained about him in the past about overtime.  First of all, that's largely subsided in the past year or so, partly because most of the year has been filled with learning to do the work other people had been doing, partly because the workload has actually been tame enough that we've been leaving after eight hours ever since, oh, Halloween or so.  And even so, beyond one time where I started putting out feelers for other jobs (and by the way, I think he's leaving to pursue a passion of his), nothing too serious came about his, for lack of a better word, threats over it.  I didn't like what he said, but he didn't go beyond that to action that affected my workday or pay.

Beyond that, I actually like him as a boss.  He's overall easygoing, he for the most part provided answers whenever I had questions, and yet at the same time he sure isn't a micromanager.  I could go to him if I had issues.  Finally, I respected him as a boss.  He was dedicated to and serious about doing the work, even if he didn't take himself seriously, which is the best combination.  He wasn't a dick, and he didn't play games as a person in authority.

Now that he's gone ... well, it's not to say that I'm sure that I'll get the opposite, but we're heading into the unknown as to who we'll answer to and what he or she will expect from us.  And sure, I didn't know what I would get from him as a boss.  But he was the one who interviewed and hired me for my first (and so far only) actual job; I was going to have to deal with whatever he was going to give me and whoever he decided to be.  And I can say, for a fact, I could do a lot worse than him.  But he is gone, and frankly, on top of my neighbor dying, and the massacres at Brown University and Bondi Beach in Sydney, plus Rob Reiner and his wife being murdered by their son, and this corrupt and stupid piece of shit that cheated to win the presidency a second time getting away with it every day, this is more change I didn't want to have to deal with at the same time.  It's a blindside, and right now, it feels sad.

OK, So We Have A Date My Parents Will Finally Leave ...

... and it's about a month from now.  Oh, well. ...

Thing is, they wanted to leave next week.  I would've loved it.  It just so happens, however, that was the same day of the memorial service for the family friend who died a week ago.  I asked my boss before I left work yesterday/Friday if I could take that afternoon off; even though it was short notice, he said yes.  And so I assumed that my folks would want to pay their respects, too.  Besides, it was going to be short -- an hour to mill around and say hi, and then an hour for the service, and I guess there will be stuff to eat afterward, but that's when we could just go home.  But Mother was looking for flights on that day because they were going to be as cheap as they would be before prices went up for the holidays.

Honestly, this was a dick move by them -- and not surprising.  They don't want to be here, especially in the cold.  And when Mother got the all-clear from the physician who performed knee surgery on her, I knew it was going to be a matter of time before they were going to skedaddle.  And still I thought they were going to listen to the angels of their better nature and go to the service.

Was I going to push this?  No.  Technically, the flight Mother was looking at was going to fly out around noon.  I could take them in the morning, come back, get dressed and go to the service by myself.  That would have been fine.  I think that if my boss let me go for the afternoon, he'd let me go for the whole day.  Also, I think it's important that someone from the family go to the funeral.  Ideally it should be all of us, but if my parents' friendship with her was fake, whatever.  What mattered to me was that I go to the service to pay my respects to the lady who lived just a couple houses down from us and who was always nice to us.

Now, I guess I could have headed this conflict off if I knew before yesterday/Friday that next week was the service, but I kept forgetting to check the date.  Also, it is a bitter irony that the day they were going to leave just so happened to be the same fuckin' date of the service.  If the service were the day before, it would've been perfect.  Alas, I am trying not to be angry.  This is about saying goodbye, after all, and this neighbor's death has me thinking about how my parents are still around, though not forever.

So, my ever-parsimonious Mother decided she would look for the next date with tickets as cheap as the one next week.  And that date is ... the first week in January!  Because of the funeral service, my parents will be here for another 3 1/2 weeks!  Like I said, I'm trying not to hate God for this.  There are some plusses to them staying.  For example, even though Mother has been cleared to get on a plane, her doctor advised her to continue walking because the threat of blood clots is still there.  However, the doc also said that risk decreases over time, so I want to think that the chances of her getting a blood clot will be notably less in January than next week.  Also ... well, I guess it's alright that I can be with my folks for the holidays, even though that wasn't their initial plan.  (When Mother bought the tickets, she said Father wanted to spend the holidays with me.  That's ... well, bullshit.)

OK, I can't think of too many upsides to them being here for the holidays.  I would like to them to be gone.  With my parents out of the state, I could go out to this bar on Christmas Eve, but that would be too weird now.  And I guess there are 3 1/2 more weeks of us starting a fight over something or other.  Whatevs.  They've been here since April, I think, so what's another month at this point?  Besides, and I hate to say it, I'm scared that another member of my family is going to fall ill this month.  If that's the case, and if they're off wintering, they'll just have to fly back home.  They might as well be here and save themselves the trip.

Oh, by the way, it looks as though Father will accompany me to the service but Mother won't.  That ain't her bag or some shit.

Psycho At Work

For the first time, there is a crazy customer I and we have to deal with.  I had to take a call from a phone of someone who does not work Mondays, and this idiot was in orbit.

I checked her deal: We are looking for an account number from her, and it seems as if she and my co-worker have been going back-and-forth over it.  She has provided an account or two, but neither of them work, and yet, she doesn't seem to ... get it.  What makes me think she's kind of nuts is that I told her that I noticed she had been in touch with a couple of other people, and she said that she doesn't want to talk to them anymore because, according to her, she was treated rudely and would not speak to them.

She still could not give an account.  She really couldn't give a straight answer, insisting that "we have her information," even though we have been trying, several times, to get one from her.  That's when she went psychotic -- she asked for the manager, she asked for corporate headquarters, she even tsk-tsked when I asked for her number so "my manager" (who I realized won't be in for the next couple days, whoops!) could call her back.  She hung up on me, the brat.

I've dealt with rudeness before, but she is still trying to get something from us without giving us what we need.  That makes her dangerous because, in all likelihood, she's going to contact us again, and that is when we are going to have real problems.  Normally, I would defer to my manager, but like I said, he isn't going to be around.  My plan is to come in and, first thing, tell my co-worker about the call I took on her phone.  I then will suggest and ask for a plan of action, including if there's anyone we can defer to, someone who has the means to shield themselves, us, and the company from this insane person.

I'm not worried ... yet.  But if anything happens, I already let you all know here.

OK, *Now* I Can't Get Extra Money

I keep saying that I can't get OT from work, but it feels as though my boss really means it this time.  Following up on a meeting we all had, he emailed me Friday afternoon saying that the work is light enough whereby overtime is no longer necessary, should I should leave work for the next day.  I disagree; I think there is enough work that, if I stay only eight hours, there will be so much carryover work that the next day's work will have to be pushed back, and that will create a cascading effect that will mean tests won't get done for a day or more.  The workload ain't that light.  It might not even be light, period.

But I reckon that he saw me go over eight hours last week, capped off with me staying until 6 Thursday night.  He has said that OT is off the table off and on for a few years now, but something about this email makes me think he really, really means it this time.  Fine.  I will acquiesce.  But he did say "try to leave after eight hours," and even though I read that Friday afternoon, it still took me an extra half-hour to do all the things I felt I needed to do before I left on Friday.  I will try and start hewing to eight hours beginning on Monday, which also is the start of a new pay period.  It's a clean slate that I agree to.  Maybe.

I Chose Alcohol Over Getting Fucked

I decided, oh, last week that last/Friday night I was going to my favorite speakeasy in town after work.  It felt like the right thing to do before my sister comes home for an undetermined amount of time.  Plus, I want to maintain my status as a semi-regular, and it had been a couple months since I stopped by.  So yes, this was basically a planned thing.

However, earlier this week, one of my stripper girlfriends, ****e, who I have not seen in a long while, texted that she and another stripper girlfriend, ***i*, is doing a house party also last/Friday night.  Getting freaky with sexy ladies who are down to fuck around is my jam, and that too is something that I should do before my sister comes back to town because, well, doing such shit while she's in town seems kind of yucky.  (If she stays here for several weeks, though, I probably will change my mind and get my freak on.  I am an old man, but I do have carnal pleasures that need to be indulged, and I don't know how long I can hold out if she's going to be here for a long time.)  But ... I wanted to spend my night drinking.

I didn't spend a whole lot of angst deciding between the two.  If I were to do only one thing, it would be the speakeasy.  It's what I had my heart set on.  Also, as big as the checks that come with eating and drinking there might be, it's a lot less than what I would have spent on sexytime with one or two women.  Finally, there was the commute I had to consider: The speakeasy is in south Minneapolis, so it's not close to work, but I think I can get there faster than to north Minneapolis, where the party's at, especially during afternoon rush hour.

With all that said, I was hoping beyond hope that if I got out of work early enough, and if I went to and left the speakeasy early enough, I could get to the party at its tail end, and so I would be able to do both.  Alas, it was not to be.  I stayed about 90 minutes past what I should have at work.  (This should be its own blog post that I will probably expound upon once it becomes more of a problem: My boss is making a renewed effort to cut down on overtime by having a second person come in early a following workday in order to do all the stuff in The Third Department we should be leaving the previous workday, if that makes sense.  I maybe should have followed that yesterday/Friday so I could leave after eight hours and do everything I wanted to do, but 1) there isn't a second person coming in early on Saturdays, 2) there wasn't a second person to help me in The Third Department yesterday/Friday, and 3) I am set in my ways and decided to finish everything by myself anyway.)  Also, I need cash money to go to the stripper party, and I didn't think I had time to run to an ATM to grab some.

And yet ... when I got to the speakeasy, it looked like both ****e and ***i* called me, or at least butt-dialed me.  I texted them that I probably wouldn't make it by the time the party was over.  They said they could stay a little bit after.  But by then I was deep into my second cocktail, and I don't know if it was me being tired over the course of the day or my old age, but I got super sleepy, too tired to even attempt to get to an ATM and then to the party which may or may not have been over.  So I said no, sorry, it won't work.  I was at the speakeasy for almost two hours.  I got to my car, slept for half an hour, woke up because I needed to pee, then went to the arcade close to the speakeasy so I could use its bathroom and eat a pizza.

And now, to be honest, I wonder if I made the right decision.  I haven't seen these two women in a while, and they are both crazy as fuck.  It would have cost me a pretty penny to be jobbed by them, and the last time I got HJs from two women at the same time it wasn't all that great.  But maybe these two would've been better, and maybe they would have cost me less.  Also, I can only say no to them for so long before they stop letting me know about parties they're working.

If they had told me last week they were doing this party, maybe my plans would be different.  Dammit, man, I am paralyzed by indecision and regret.

Did It -- Worked Half A Day!!!

It's been a general rule that Mondays are the most hectic for me at work, but that hasn't been true all the time.  But recently, with the staff shortages and the decisions to cut off work after such a time and, more importantly, saving up all the work from the weekend, lately that adage has become true -- with a vengeance, if that's even possible.

I don't know why, but there was a huge backup last week, the likes of which I don't think we have come out of.  But the company started to put their noses to the grindstone over the weekend and yesterday/Monday, so I was saddled with a shit ton of work.  So much so that I did what I once thought impossible but recently felt was inevitable: I stayed for 12 hours at work.  And the thing is, I'm still behind.  There was so much damn work I had to catch up on over the weekend, plus all the new stuff that the lab was able to catch up on yesterday/Monday, that I just had to leave with most of it untouched.  There were many replies I simply didn't get to.  I did the most important thing, namely looking at every new form that came across my path.  After that?  Heh, I only had time to do so much.

I cannot put it past my boss that he will blow a gasket over me staying half a day.  It feels almost like it's against company policy to work that much.  Then again, he asked me to come in to work Sunday, and he was open-ended about both when I could come in and for how long I could work.  This might be an indication that he knows that there's a shit ton of work to catch up on, so overtime might not just be allowed, might not just be accepted, but in fact required to get back on track.  If that's the case, well, I'm just doing my part.

And the damndest thing of all is I might have to pull another half-day today/Tuesday.  I am going to come to work already behind because of all the e-mails I had to leave from yesterday/Monday.  And I still think there's a bunch of stuff in the lab they need to plow through.  Being behind the 8-ball from the jump, plus getting more work during the day than I usually would?  Man, I could be in for a repeat long day.  But hopefully my boss won't get on my case for that, either.

Thursday afternoon, my supervisor told me she was taking another job within the company.  She leaves at the end of the month.  And I am scared.  She has taught me nearly everything I know.  And while we have clashed from time to time, I am very thankful to her for showing me the ropes of how to work this job.  (And frankly, whenever we have clashed it's because she told me I did something wrong ... and after I got my internal mini-tantrum, I realized I did do something wrong.)

Still, I keep going to her to ask, "What should I do here?  Where do I go to ask for this?" etc.  In a few weeks I won't be able to do that anymore.  And like my co-worker who retired from The Third Department, not only will the workload she once did probably be saddled onto me and the other three who work the same position as I, I will be lost as to what to do when tricky problems crop up.  I need her, and (and I don't care how clingy this sounds), I miss her already.

Closing Time On Overtime

Welp, it happened: The new person, the person recently hired for the same position as I, will finally leave data entry and be trained in ... The Third Department, the department I used to love but now despise, the one that regularly makes me stay late day after day after day.  It's the one I have vaguely said takes up the most time during my workweek, and beginning this week, my supervisor and boss are doing something about it by beginning to show her how to do that position's duties.

I have to admit that I am surprised that she is being trained in this so soon after she came on board.  When I got broken in, I was in data entry for a long time.  Then I got trained in filing, and that also took a long, long time.  I thought that was The Way Things Were.  I also know that we are very short-staffed, so it's all hands on deck to get the day's work done.  That's been how it has been since the New Year, so I didn't think they would have time to progress in this new person's training so quickly.  I thought how things have been were how it was going to be for maybe the next 12 months, maybe in the fall at the earliest.  But no, it's now.

So why the apparent change?  Maybe I am wrong about the workload and in fact they do have the time to train her in now.  Or, and this might the more plausible reason, The Third Department is so backed up every day that, once the absolutely fundamental position of keying has been mastered (at least as much as one can), my higher-ups shunted her to The Third Department with the quickness.

If that is indeed the case ... well, dammit, I'm torn.  I have spoken up from time to time about how inundated I am every day when I work The Third Department.  Every day I'm back there I am doing the work of 1 1/2 people.  Heck, that department should be like it was, when two people were working it.  It doesn't make any damn sense to at least have a second person help out at least part of the day every day.  And maybe this move is an acknowledgement that one person can't do that position alone.

But as I've said before, when I work there, as pissed off and as strung out as I get at the end of the workday, I keep grinding knowing I am getting beaucoup overtime.  And as much stress I am under, and as disruptive staying ten-plus hours have become to maintaining work-life balance, getting proper rest and getting ready for the next day, I keep looking at the fat paychecks I've been banking and I haven't said a peep since my initial inveighing over how overworked I've become in The Third Department.  So, training the new person to help out means there is less work for me back there.  And that means I will not be able to stay late, and stay late as often.  Thus, less money.  And maybe I'll be less stressed, and maybe I'll see that I'm happy that I will get to leave work at a decent hour.  But right now, right as I type this, I am saddened that these fat OT paychecks are coming to an end, probably as soon as this week.

When Do I Have To Do The Long Drive?

So my boss yesterday/Thursday asked if I could come in to work tomorrow/Saturday and, after trying to think if there was anything I absolutely had to do and coming up empty, I said yes.

But there is something I kinda could have done tomorrow/Saturday.  Last week Mother asked me to drive all the way down to my brother's place and give my niece presents she asked my folks to get for her.  I don't enjoy a 45-minute drive, but I was prepared to do it.  Last week my sister-in-law told me they were out of town, so this weekend would've been the "perfect" time to do it ... until I volunteered to come in and work.  I guess I could still do it tomorrow/Saturday; it would just have to be after work and probably after dinner.  Or, I could do it Sunday before the Gold Cup Matches.  But if I had to drive all the way down to my niece's, I prefer it to be the only thing I do that day.  And that plan is ruined unless either 1) I get to do this drive possibly next weekend (I might be busy then, too) or 2) they come up here and get the gifts from us.  The latter would be a huge burden off my chest, but it probably won't happen.