I did it

I resigned yesterday. The meeting I had in the morning was as unproductive as I anticipated. As much as I had hoped it would solve some issues, and I tried to be as open minded and positive as possible, it was just evident that I wasn't being heard and I was never going to be heard.

So I typed up a letter and emailed it to my boss just before 4pm yesterday (Monday) afternoon. It's now 11.20am Tuesday and I have not had a response from my boss at all. That doesn't surprise me, though. It's pretty typical behaviour.

I have an interview tomorrow arvo with a small oil company for a role that's completely different from here. The money may be an issue, but I'll worry about that when I have to.

Not great, but good

The x-rays of my fingers are very sexy. I'll post them when I get a chance, if the photos come out ok. My bones are quite attractive. They are also not broken. In a way, it would have been better if they were, because that would explain why they hurt so damn much and I'd have a better idea how to treat it.

The doc (different from Dr Idontknow) was good, but said he couldn't do much, because there's not even a mark on my bones. He did say it's quite possible the pain is caused by arthritis. Not really what I wanted to hear, considering it's my writing hand and I'd really like to continue using it. I was starting to think the pain was all in my head after I saw clear x-rays, but the doc squeezed one finger and almost got an impulsive punch in the nose. Damn hurt like crap!

I paid ten bucks and got some anti-inflammatory drugs to take for a few days and see if the pain settles down. If not, then it's harder drugs and blood tests etc. Not my idea of fun, but better than surgery!

Dawn

The time is 4.32am, it's dark outside, the birds have just woken for the day, and I've been awake since 3am. I got to sleep after 12. I have narcolepsy and technically sleep should be the easiest thing for me, so it's fairly evident there's a problem in Houston.

My blood pressure has historically been pretty low. Lately, it's sitting on the high side of normal. It's been a while since I've had strong enough chest pains to warrant any concern. This week, I've felt like someone has been squeezing my heart like you would a ball of play doh. I can only put it down to anxiety about work increasing my heart rate. Generally, I can take some time and calm myself down and the pain will go. At the moment, I'm having trouble calming down enough.

There is no way I could sufficiently explain the stupidity that goes on where I work and how I'm made to feel on a daily basis, simply trying to get my work done. I have had all I can take. My boss and one of the HR managers want a meeting with me on Monday and I've agreed. The reasoning is complicated. However, rather than having the meeting about what they want to discuss, I'll be resigning (assuming I get over the anxiety of thinking about it long enough to actually do it).

I do not have another job to go to and that is a whole different type of stress in itself. If I were not already on the edge of sanity, I wouldn't even consider putting myself in such a predicament. I cannot afford to be without work and I hope like hell I can find something else within the 30 days I have to give as notice. Staying where I am is no longer an option, no matter what the outcome of the meeting on Monday.

I don't even have the energy to put into words how little energy I have and how simply physically and mentally tired I am. I have tried to make this job work. I have tried to be better than the people I work for. I did not want to resign before I had a new job. It's intense pressure of a different kind. But, enough is enough.

A completely unrelated side note. My niece's situation in Italy is much worse than before. She and I are now in the process of finding a way to get her and her daughters back here....without my mother or my sister being involved, because they add to the problems, not solutions. I need to get resources from who knows where, but I will find a way.

I'm telling myself everything will be ok. It has to be.

(...and apologies for the lack of visiting/commenting on peoples' blogs at the moment...I've just not had time...)

Perhaps you'd like tea instead?

I did my first coffee course last night. There's a reason why the certificate says 'has participated in', rather than 'has successfully completed'. The guy told us not to expect to be able to make great coffee at the end of the night. He didn't tell us how potentially crap at coffee making we could be. I say 'we' under the assumption that other people there felt they sucked at it as much as I did.

I am now qualified to make a reasonable espresso. Want something with milk in it? As long as you don't mind it being full of bubbles and looking rather unattractive, I could give you something almost drinkable. There's a good reason they have practice sessions they suggest you do before taking the second, more advanced course. I will not be inflicting any hot beverages on the unsuspecting, paying public for a while.

Oh, and...

I do my first coffee course at the Coffee Academy on Tuesday.
My fitness course starts in just over two weeks.
I may have an interview early next week for another job. It's less pay, but I'll take it if it's offered.

Gee, thanks!

I went to the local GP today, because, despite my denial at the time, I think I broke two of my fingers on this fateful day. Over time, it's felt uncomfortable at times and there's a nice little bump on the side of my middle finger, next to my first knuckle.

Uncomfort is starting to turn to real hurt in my entire hand. It's literally been waking me up in the night and I've had trouble bending my fingers each morning. Once I've bent and stretched them a few times, it's fine, but the pain is still there.

So I thought I better get a referral for an x-ray, to see exactly what I did to myself. When I originally tried to make a sandwich of my hand, I could still move everything, so I figured I didn't break anything. The fact that my ring and middle fingers were black for weeks (my fearless offsider from my last job wouldn't even look at them) and everyone said they appeared broken wasn't enough to entice me to a doctor. Until today.

I got my referral and asked the doctor what he thought would be the next step once the x-rays came back. He said to just use anti-inflammatory cream. Ok, but that wasn't the question. If I did break my fingers, in particular the middle one that current hurts like a bitch most of the time, is there anything that could be done to fix that and perhaps alleviate the pain in the longer term? An operation? A pin? Physio? Anything?

The answer from the wise old one? "I don't know." That's right. Even after prompting for more information, I got the same response. I don't know. I'm so glad we have free health care, coz I would have been pissed off to pay for that gem of a reply. I hope to have the x-rays done on Monday, but you can be sure I'll be taking them to another doc to see what can be done from there.

I tend to not hurt myself very often, but when I do, I do it well. Rest assured, next time, whatever it is, I'll cut the denial crap and take myself to get checked out. Having my hand hurt so much is not just a literal pain, it's an inconvenient pain, too. Lesson learnt.

Ick!

My house mate was kind enough to smoke his cigarette outside the front door. He rarely smokes, so I was surprised to smell it, but he's got his own major issues at the moment, so I can understand why he needed one. Unfortunately, the smoke drifted up from the front door, into my bedroom.

One cigarette. Everything smells. Including my hair. If we didn't get on so well, I may have had to beat him with a stick.

They did it.

They sacked my offsider....while I was in a meeting. In fact, they called me out of the meeting to tell me, because he "wanted to see you to say goodbye". Great. Also, too late. He wanted to see the day out to help me out closing some jobs off. Nope. Stupid HR chick told him to turn his computer off. They took so long giving me crap, made-up excuses why they got rid of him, that he left before I could talk to him. I told them I thought it was a bad decision. Trying to explain the justifications and how they think things are going to work now would take forever. Let's just say, it's going to be a nightmare and I am now officially in fast forward mode to get out of there.....again.

Afterwards, I discovered they'd stuffed up my pay in September as well, and took too much leave out, but a quick email sorted that out.

In a twist of perfect timing, I got a phone call and an email from a lady who thinks I'm just the best thing that ever walked into an office. She wanted to let me know she'd found a job I might be interested in. Unfortunately, the money is short of what I'm after by too much to consider it, but she's going to ask if they'll consider what I want. We'll see. I don't know what the company is, but I know it's very small, listed on the stock exchange and they're in gas and mining....all ideal to me.

It has been a long, crappy day, but I just got home from having my massage and acupuncture and I'm somewhat more relaxed. The microwave has notified me that dinner is prepared, so I'm going to eat that while I watch Australian Id0! and hope they boot off the guy I don't like.

At the gym today

Me: Can I have a locker key, please?
Receptionist: Sure, do you have your pass?
Me: No, I've lost my temporary one and I'm waiting for the proper one.
Receptionist: So you don't have a pass?
Me: No, like I said, it's missing.
Receptionist (as she moves to the computer): So, do you have your name?

I soooo wanted to say, "No, I've lost that, too", in a serious tone, but I'm hoping to do some work there eventually, so I just said my name, got a locker key and walked away shaking my head.

Rain

I haven't really gone into detail on here about all the crap that's gone down at work in the last few months, but I probably should have, because it would be good to have all the history in one place.

Tomorrow, if things go the way I assume they will, my offsider will be sacked. I did not ask for this. I did not want this. I think it's a bad idea. I am not supposed to know it's happening. My absent boss, who's rarely in the office has decided D must go. Why? The party line is that he's had a lot of time off in the three months he's been there. True, but most of his reasons were valid (and he got hammered by me for the ones that weren't). His grandfather got rushed to hospital twice and his family asked for him to go. Fair enough. He had national netball championships to attend. Yeah, it's a girly sport for a boy to do, but whatever. Neither of those things are ongoing and therefore will not be a future issue. Doesn't matter. Our boss has it in his head that he's gone.

He's even gone so far as (from what I can tell, from third hand information) promising the job to another girl - the one I think he wanted to hire in the first place - who works at a site office, but can't start until sometime in late November. I'm not supposed to even know this, so I don't know the girl's name, I don't know what her qualifications are, I don't know what she's been told.
My team leader asked my boss if he was going to discuss any of this with me. He said no. Apparently, it's perfectly acceptable to sack the person who's responsible for half my workload, and replace them with someone else and not let me know. Oh yeah, and it doesn't matter that it's been pointed out that this would be the 4th person in that role in 8 months. Someone unrelated to my job, but who works in my department took this issue a level above my boss and said the way it's been handled is unprofessional and wrong. It was noted, but he was told the decision would not change.

In addition to that, I have another issue to contend with. One of the Bobs from Office Space. The guy moved down here from interstate, because his wife got a job promotion. He's been working as a project manager for our company for 13 years, or something. They didn't have a project for him to work on here, so I've become the project. I'm not sure exactly what his role is, except to really piss me off and bug me when I'm busy. Our department were told he was here to help all of us. Under some subtle grilling, he told me he is here to work with me.

After I had the do or die meeting with my stupid boss and the HR chick, I thought they got it that the problem we've been experiencing in the last 10 months has been the crazy increase in workload, not me. (Why give me a support person if the workload is acceptable for one person?) It would seem that meeting was pointless and I'm still as incompetent as they thought I was back then. I'm trying to take a step back and see that the guy is here to help us set up better processes (that are bigger and more involved than I could ever achieve by myself - it would take cooperation from a number of senior people in different departments)...but I still feel the motive is just the same. Sort me out.

So...I don't know what to do about tomorrow. I cannot tell D what is going on (because I don't know exactly what they've decided), but I am going to send him a message tonight telling him to be at work early and to dress half decent. If this all goes down and they do tell him to leave, I expect I'll be handing my 30 days notice in by the end of the week. I'm tired of this crap and disrespect. It will put serious pressure on me to find another job in a hurry, but I'll cross that bridge when the need arises.

Meanwhile, my niece called me in tears while I was at work on Friday. Her situation is getting progressively worse and she needs money. For the first time, I was unable to give her anything. That set me off crying as well, so I packed up my stuff and just left the office and came home. One of the guys I work with sent me a text yesterday morning to see how I was, because he'd seen how distressed I had been. I appreciated that gesture a lot. But it doesn't solve the problem and I'm going to have to do a major overhaul of my belongings and 3b@y whatever I can to get her some money. I don't know what else to do.

I went riding yesterday with the girls in my social group. I had a really crappy time. I hadn't ridden the horse they gave me before and I couldn't get the stirrups right. I felt like I was going to fall off each time he cantered and I was just stressed out. I was thinking too hard about work and my niece and was just miserable. I stayed at the back of the group and just walked the horse or kept in a slow trot. One of the guys who takes the rides could see I was stressed and asked what was wrong. I've met the guy once before. Next thing I knew, I was riding along the track just crying. A lot embarrassing. The horse was bugging me. I felt like I couldn't ride at all and had no confidence, so they swapped me onto another horse. I didn't do much better than her. Each time she broke from a trot to a canter, I lost my footing and felt like I was going to fall. Truly, it just sucked. The day was overcast, but not too cold at that stage. The rest of the group were a fair distance ahead when it started raining. I've never ridden in the rain before. It was cold, and the rain on our faces was uncomfortable (for me, the guy who was riding with me and the horses), but I didn't care. In a way, I liked it. The guy said he hoped it washed away my tears. That almost made me cry again.

The day did improve, though. One of the girls rented a B&B for a bunch of us to stay the night, for her birthday. I decided the day before to come home instead, but I stayed to go to dinner with everyone. It was a really nice night. I drove home (90 minutes) following a couple who'd been there just for dinner. I needed the company, even if they were in another vehicle.

I am not looking forward to tomorrow.

The view from the back of the restaurant.

Insert catchy title here

I can't think of anything witty to call this post. I've been doing monthly accounts for the last three days and it's done my head in.

The grand plan, going through continual metamorphosis in my head, is to have some kind of combined cafe/personal training place. How it looks is pretty clear to me. Whether the focus will be on food or fitness, I haven't decided. Either way, now is the start of The Plan.

And so I've embarked on some extra edumacation. My first course is on 23 October, in which I'll learn how to make coffee. Apparently, there's a bit of an art to this, so off I'll go to learn the difference between a no fat, organic pumpkin spice, decaf soy chai latte, (I'm sure there's something like that out there!), and a macchiatto. After that, I get to do the cool course where they let you play with the coffee and make pretty pictures and swirly things in the froth with toothpicks. Then there's food handling, food safety, bar tending and responsible service of alcohol. .....eventually.

But that's not all. The 'Mouche has inspired me to literally get off my arse and do something I've thought about since the damn Army knocked me back (can you tell I'm still bitter about that?), but didn't really have the confidence to do. The 'Mouche, in his wisdom has almost completed a course at the Australian Inst!tut3 of Fitn3ss (I don't want googlers googling that and finding me). He is doing the course at their Spain campus and, although I'm ridiculously jealous of that fact, I think it's very cool.

I've also signed up and, despite the fact that it costs a freakin fortune and I'll be paying it back forever, I will be a Master Fitness Instructor by the end of April. Two nights a week and every Saturday, starting 5 November. In Melbourne. Not Spain. :-(

I have grand plans and a distinct lack of funds, but I'm hoping the will will help me find the way...and the money, and the building, and the clients....

Me

It's been a while since a) I've smiled in a photo and b) I've liked a photo of myself.
So here ya go. Don't get used to the idea of me posting pics of myself. :-p

And I have some news to post tomorrow.

A conversation in suburbia

That was an f’n awesome episode! Did you like it?
Yeah, but I only saw the last bit. I was asleep.
I know! You were f’n asleep at the start. You were asleep before it started and for practically the whole show.
Is that cows on the computer? You’re playing a cow game? I can distinctly hear cows!
It’s a milk delivery game. (teases the cat because I’m making fun)
Don’t scare her. Now she’ll just take it out on her sister.
Really? Cool.

Just a random conversation, like most we have at home, that didn’t really make any sense. This conversation was preceded by us watching SVU while he played an online sushi making game. Yes, we’re exciting folk.

And I'm the blonde one!

I went out to a few bars with a girlfriend last night, for the first time in a long time. Consequently, I was home late and slept in. I ventured downstairs to get some breakfast after I heard my house mate up and about (not to mention the people who've just moved in next door, who had their music up so loud I was almost inclined to bash on their door and tell them off).

I turned towards the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs and was met with a scene that looked a bit like the marshmallow guy in Ghost Busters had died a horrid death all over our kitchen floor. Some kind of shocked noise must have left my wide open mouth, because it caused T to come from the next room and see what the fuss was about.

He could tell from the look on my face, I'm sure, that I was wondering what he'd done. Before I could say anything, he explained that we'd run out of dishwasher detergent, so he used regular dish detergent instead. The "I can't believe you did that!" look on my face, coupled with amused laughter was met with, "Don't laugh. It's logical. There was no dishwasher stuff left, so I used the other stuff".

Yeah, logical. So logical we now have a huge blanket on our kitchen tiles soaking up the evil marshmallow guy so he doesn't seep into the floorboards, causing us to require the whole house to be exorcised.

Goings on

I feel like not a lot is going on in my world, which is rather peculiar, because there's certainly a lot going on in my head. Ok, so it might be that that's just a normal state of affairs.

The building I've been looking at is listed for residential lease at $300 a week. Two bedrooms. The place is huge, but not fantastic. (The place I'm in now is 3 bedrooms, newer, and not a whole lot more per week.) I have searched the net and cannot find the for sale listing. There's nothing I can do about it at this very moment, but I'm going to bug the agent to satiate my curiosities.

Speaking of rent, ours is going up here. So much for moving into this place to save money. It won't be much more, but I hadn't expected it and it's annoying.

Apart from feeling slightly harassed and targetted at work, it hasn't been a bad week, taking into consideration that the last couple of months have really sucked. My absent boss even came through for me unexpectedly. In fact, he bordered on supportive at one stage. I'm taking it as an anomoly.

However, I have to give him kudos for one thing. I'm responsible for everything to do with mobile (cell) phones for my company, across the country. Occasionally, when I distribute a new phone, I'll request that the old one be sent back (for various reasons), or users will send them back of their own accord. As a consequence, I have a box full of working phones that are gathering dust. I also buy more expensive model phones on pre-paid deals to get them significantly cheaper, but keep the pre-paids when I send the phone out - so I have a stack of ready to be activated mobile numbers. My evil mind has thought of ways to use these unregistered numbers to my advantage, but the nice side of me has prevailed - at least in this instance. For now. This is where I admit I've brought one of them home. You just never know when something like that might come in handy...I watch Law & Order.

Aaaanyway, reading my local paper, I came across an article where the local police were asking people to donate old phones so they could be given to elderly residents to use for emergencies. Really, I could have just called the station and asked where to drop them off, but I thought I better get approval. And I thought I'd get knocked back. My boss' response? "Sure, and make sure the phones all have chargers. Give the pre-paids away too." (I have about forty $10 pre-paid cards.) So I like him today.

My offsider and I have worked our respective butts off over the last couple of weeks. (Although, I have to put an aside in here and say he's also been coming in late and having days off unnecessarily - just like my last offsider - so we've had to have some 'chats' about that.) We've somehow managed to get our outstanding job queue down from over 300 requests to less than 30 between us. Bloody amazing and a big surprise to both of us that it happened so quickly. That means the pressure is off somewhat, for the time being. Not a moment too soon, either. It means I can now relax a little more and not feel like I have to be conducting a such a frantic search for another job. Hopefully. I do have a couple of hurdles to leap before I really feel more at ease. The workload is one thing. The environment and management support is another thing entirely.

I'm pleased to report there is no boy news at all. I'm even more pleased to report that it's because I seriously cannot be bothered with any of them. An admittance here that I do email with one intermittently, but we agree that meeting is not a priority. That suits me, because I really don't have time anyway.

I have one more thing to report, but not tonight. I'll keep you in suspense till I have more info. By that time the undertaking that I've signed up for may have sunk in.

Tonight, it's raining heavily. The rain hasn't fallen as hard recently, so the sound on the roof and on my balcony was nice. For someone who was never really fond of the rain as a kid, I'm much more appreciative now of the noise and just the simple fact that it's raining.

I'm surprisingly upbeat.

Oi, Jones!

Why am I suddenly spam? Your blog still dislikes me commenting. :-(