Much Ado

My last post was 4 days before I took a header off my bicycle (no I wasn't wearing a helmet).

I may not have mentioned that I had been riding my bike or walking to work (during inclimate weather - read fucking BLIZZARDS) since I got the job back in November of '07. Mind you that work is only 4.5 km (2.75 miles) from home and took 20 minutes by bike on days without snow drifts.

Snow drifts = evil fucking city doesn't clear the side walks because sane people don't use them when it snows! On those days depending on the depth of said snow drift (with the added pleasure of heaping snow on the sidewalk from plowing the roads) it could take anywhere from 1.5 hours to 3 hours to walk there. And yes I did this 3 times that first year.

I'm sure you're sitting there wondering why I would do such a thing. Well techniclly the city I live in and the city I work in are 2 different cities and the line ends abruptly in the middle of a very steep "V" shaped bridge therefore the bus from my home city to my work city does not run across said line. A cab would cost me $12 one way (here's another pickle for you - the cab company from my home city will drop me off in my work city but will not pick me up there!)

Now I make a petty sum and my shifts run anywhere from 4 hours to 8 hours normally, it would take me 3 hours of work to make the round trip cab fair (you do the math). It really wasn't that bad even during the blizzards, I only cried during the last half hour of the last one.

Any-who back to my accident. I had just left work for the day a Sunday no less on the weekend Dash is away so he's just started his 4 hour trek back from Ottawa at the same time I head home. It was of him I was thinking as I got to the verge of that steep "V" shaped hill, crossing the last residential street for the next 10 minutes. The sidewalk that takes up on the other side has a nice 90 degree curve before the hill actually begins, on a busy thoroughfare.

The front tire goes off the sidewalk into the grass and along the curb, my body continues on a straight if airborne line. I'm not clear on the blow-by-blow but I think the back tire kicked up behind me launching my flight. What I do remember is that I became entangled in the bike at some point before stopping my forward momentum with my face. When I try to reconcile the physics with the aftermath I still don't understand how I ended up with the injury that debilitated me.

I felt my nose go up towards my forehead and my lip go down towards my chin and feeling the sand paper like cement along my right eye. The same sensation traveling through both palms of my hands and the pressure of my weight upon my knees. Eyes closed I begin to take stock in my mind of possible breaks and hurts, but I really can't feel much - adrenaline is a curious thing.

I start thinking about getting up slowly and it felt...

...you won't believe and I doubt I'll do it justice with words but ...

...it felt like my soul got up a full 10 seconds before the rest of me, like I was standing there with my hands on my knees looking at my body and yet unable to see it because I was standing there not laying there. Without actually feeling it my body did what my soul had done 10 seconds before. I remember thinking "I know I hit my head but it wasn't a solid blow and nothing hard enough to kill me so I'm not dead".

Once I'm up I start to notice that 2 vehicles have pulled over and 3 women have spewed out onto the roadside. I believe they were asking after my well-being but it was strangely silent, even the passing cars made no shoosh as they drove on by. I'm to busy taking inventory once more and still feeling nothing as I watch blood drip off my face and onto the sidewalk. I was sort of transfixed by those droplets and the pattern they made as they splattered to earth. And noticing that before I got up my head was even with the curb. Another 5 feet and I'd have been in traffic.

I remember telling the nice blonde lady that it looked worse than it felt while the other 2 women got Kleenex out of their car and one of them handing me a phone. Having left my own at home that day. The one day I forgot it, stupid how shit always seems to happen like that. I don't need my phone often nor use it often but the one time you need it you don't have it.

These women are asking if I need a ride to the hospital and I'm picking up the blasted bike and telling them I think I'll just walk home. That must not have been the case though because I hand the bike to the blonde lady who puts it in her jeep and I got into the passenger side and start to laugh.

Mumbling alll the way home and thanking her for her kindness. The blonde lady telling me her frantic story about having to drive to far until she could turn around because of the recently installed median. Saying she's scared because it'll take to long and I start to wonder how bad this little accident really looked because to tell by her voice and nervousness she thought I was dead or dying while she tried to get back to me.

In this day where most people are happily self-centered and willfully blind it is nice to know that there are still kind people in the world!

So I put the bike away, climb the stairs to the couch and lie down because the shakes have started. My daughter bless her has climbed the rest of the stairs and come back with alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, q-tips and band-aids and is cleaning me up (she's 13). Amazing creature I don't think I had a lot to do with the absolute wonderfulness that is my little Ladybug, but I love her! I lie there for an hour and the pain that wasn't has become mild throbbing, so I decide I'm hungry and get up to make it and something gives in my right knee. It felt like a fracture losing it's tenuous hold.

The pain is agonizing so I try to do that mind over matter thing as I watch (and this is no exaggeration) my knee slowly bloom into a cantaloupe sized ball just off to the left of the knee cap. I'm groaning and crying, my dad calls and is talking to my daughter who begin to joke that I'm being dramatic and causing my own pain while I search in vain for a position that doesn't hurt. At this point I deign it necessary to call Dash and request he hurry along. I don't know how he did it but he made a 3 hour trip into 1.5 hours.

I managed to find the place with no pain once we make it to the ER the Triage nurse asks me on a scale of 1 - 10 how bad the pain is and when I say zero she calls me a liar. This after giving me a lecture on the example I'm setting for my daughter by not wearing a helmet and it's always the second question everyone asks when I tell this story the first being, was a riding a motorcycle or a a bicycle?

I've come to believe the X-ray room was devised as a torture chamber for anyone stupid enough to be doing anything that might break a bone. Nothing broken so they wrap it and prescribe percocet for the pain. I'm happy and scared all at the same time, knee injuries are serious business aside from the fact that the Doc says no work for 2 weeks. This is a big problem in more ways than one - money first and at the time I was the only one with open availability so the boss had no one to cover and I'm blubbering about how I'm going to fix that, while my 2 dearly loved ones keep telling me now is not the time to think of others. Might as well ask me not to breath.

I spent the next 10 day sleeping on a mattress on my living room floor which was central to the bathroom, kitchen and TV. High on percs and bored as hell, daytime TV sucks. There are 4 staircases in my townhouse and I couldn't possibly negotiate those.

I did manage to go back to work after that but there were certain things I couldn't do and some I had to do sitting on the floor. After 4 days I went to see my family doctor who informed me that the Bursa (bag of fluid behind the knee) was filled with blood and he could A.) stick a needle in it and drain the fluid - which if not wrapped tightly and always for the next 30 days refill or B.) leave it alone and let it reabsorb naturally.

What kind of choices are these? I opted for natural and he prescribed more percs. How do people work on these? I put those on my nightstand and took Tylenol 1 with codine to get through the day and the percs so I could sleep. I am a stomach sleeper so imagine not being able to do that.

Now came the new problem - I can't ride my bike because my knee is sort of stuck at a 90 degree angle if I want no pain and a cab will cost $24 round trip everyday for 20 day that's @ $480 almost more than the measly bi-weekly paycheck.

Pictures to frighten and amaze - these were taken after the 10 days

And that would be the beginning of story 2 - Blubell

Summer Shimmy

WOW! Long time no update.

Let's start at the vacation that wasn't...
...or was it?

Week 1 ~ Trek southerly to the States and do the Summer Shimmy Shake. Which amounts to details left to last minute (in some cases the last 90 minutes) on who~picking~up~who
~where~when? Followed by the Rhomba of go here and see so~and~so and go there and do such~and~such. I felt like a pie, everbody wants a piece. This equals 20 hours of sleep across 7 days.

Week 2, 3 & 4 ~ Pretend to be a work~a~holic in the mad dash for college students last~chance~to~get~away olympics. McG had transferred entirely into our store and could now focus his efforts. So Lexar could get trained for Shift Leader. YEAH! Oh and I was named Employee of the Quater. Woot Woot!!!

The 20 something drama production had slowed to almost an uneasy stalemate. No musical outbursts or complex dance numbers thank goodness!

Week 5 ~ Return to the land of Choaticus (read USA). The pick up of Ladybug for me was not as bad but I hear tell those involved did have a bit of a square dance. The running hither and yon had dropped down to every other day and I slept so comfortably we even skipped a venue.

All of August had been spent in the recovery ($$), leave it to kismet to decide things is to quiet. The drama Queen extremist (DQE from here on out) lost it all over Lexar. Just when I had everyone convinced that they needed to deal with things in a mature manner and peacefully co-exist. I have to say based on the stories I was hearing that I felt betrayed, annoyed and fed-up.

To be fair the stories I was hearing were one sided and I have always believed there are 3 sides to every story but the DQE is not the type of person you can try to connect with in an attempt at getting near the truth so I didn't even bother.

Then one morning she had a faux pas much to the dismay of my rapidly fraying nerves and I finally said things I felt as opposed to maintaining my professionalism. From that was born a mild understanding, no personal conversation only courteously requested work-related professionalism.

She let the things I said both constructive and opinionated (although tempered with career politicing professionalism) percolate for a week and then politely asked me for qualifications against my criticisms. She took it with mild unease and great poise. There may even have been a bit of reaching out on her part and an understanding of some things she was not aware of in the break down of the command structure.

While I am without title, rank and salary I am expected to perform at a certain level and do things outside of my station in order to prove my worth for promotion as from day one of my hiring I have made no secret of my aspiration to management. Personally I have always strived for my own betterment and periodically take stock of that in which I am lacking and pull my performance tighter.

At any rate it would seem the last person on the team I thought might follow my lead, may indeed see my opinions and duties as adequate to the tasks I have undertaken.

The last week before school started was fraught with last minute book-offs leading to double-shifts and the desire for a much earned raise...which happily may not be that far in the future. Lexar has finished her training manuals and I have been presented with MINE. Let the Shift Leader training begin!!!

In other news...

* Ladybug has been signed with a modeling agency and shall be having her head shots taken next weekend.

* Dashes' 2 possible promotions have gone the way of the Doh-doo. :(

* We are again trying to buy me a car. Lots of tears and much gnashing of teeth.

It's not as stressful as it might sound but I sure am tired form all the cha-chaing required for the Summer Shimmy...hopefully things mellow for a bit before the Holiday Hustle begins!

Dramatize Me

I tried to quit smoking again made it 2 weeks before I wanted to tear my own head off because I was a raging bitch. My chemistry simply will not allow me to be smoke free, I am a demon possessed and I don't like who I become. You can sit there in your far away judgment and sigh shaking your head all the while thinking this is just an excuse but I think those near and dear to me would disagree with you.

The dynamic at work had sort of taken on a rhythm. Lexar and I unfortunately do not get to see each other much anymore because if truth be told we together are covering the AM position and therefore trade off duties. McG had started to concentrate his efforts on the other store and quickly realized how valuable Lex and I are to him when we both got sick for a week (at the same time).

And of my 8 peers at work it had become apparent that 5 of them have taken to differing to my judgment. So even though I lack the title they have turned little by little to seeing me as a figurehead. McG seemed to notice this one evening when roused from my bed at midnight I sprang into action. He actually thanked me not once but twice. That's a first and about damn skippy time too.

As for mini dramas at work - well let's say it's a full on production now and that run away train can't be stopped and the fall out isn't going to be pretty.

Should I even bother to mention that last week I filed my first official work-related police report? I suppose it's note worthy. Flagrantly hostile customer refusing to leaving premises and verbally abusive to 3 representatives even though we tried to help her. Come to find out she is well known by the cops and not in a friendly way.

Dash still isn't sleeping and even more mired in Promotion Limbo Hell. This causes relationship issues, primarily in the sex department. I have to say though I'm not exactly in the mood these days myself.

I feel sort of lost and the only message that seems to be recurring right now is ~ Somethings once said can never be taken back, no matter how sorry you are, how misunderstood the statement might have been or even how innocently a joke might have been said.

Not Dead Yet

Okie-dokey then. Well first I'll say the psycho thing is attributed to 2 things. I had quit smoking which lead me to nit pick every damn thing so I started smoking again, gonna try to quit again in about 2 days....sigh. And two, my SAD was severe this year due to the weather.

The transition at RCI was difficult and the dust still hasn't settled thus my lack of update. Still have the restructure (possibly non-permanent) manager - McG.

I don't have the faintest idea where to begin to explain all of this. The loss of Sass's organizational skills became quickly apparent so Lexar and I began the tremendously tedious job of trying to baton down the hatches. By Easter with little-to-no idea of what I was doing I blew a gasket all over one impossible to please customer. During that week I had also managed to piss off one co-worker and alienate Orb. It seemed everyday I was making one enormous mistake after another.

It turns out that I had been putting to much pressure on myself to do things that weren't in my job description and sadly this is a 2 month cycle for me.

McG's managerial style and my own control freak personality are clashing even if only in my own mind. He is currently managing 2 stores one without an AM and I understand how easily this could stress him out or cause him to be forgetful, hell I can't even TRY to imagine running just one so I've tried to be understanding.

I've saddled myself with certain responsibilities and am currently trying to learn how to delegate certain tasks and share things. The problem with sharing those things I have taken as my own is that McG has come to rely on my doing these things (even if he won't admit it) so if I hand them off and they aren't done correctly who do you presume he turns the blame on? Right-O, little old frustrated me.

McG has a real need for now results which can be somewhat unorganized and I prefer to take things in a little more of a organized manner and do them right the first time, which granted takes a bit longer but reduces mistakes. It often feels like he is disappointed in everything I do and I assume he lays the blame with me (although I've been told he's just super tense about loss-prevention and it's nothing personal).

It really boils down to I haven't the proper training to do all that I do and am often blind-sided by some incoming phone call of something that needs doing right now when he's not around to consult. So I have to muddle through it and learn the hard way. I've asked for the training but it is slow in the coming especially since half of his time is spent elsewhere and part of me believes he has no faith in my abilities. I guess we'll see at what is supposed to be my 6 month review on the 10th.

Doesn't read half as bad as it feels especially since I glossed over the finer details of mini-dramas among the College Set. I am over-worked, under-paid and under-appreciated I guess that's normal and we all hate it but for the love of goodness I feel like I'm suffocating.

In other frustrations, Dash had been offered not one but two promotions - Security consulting for the firm he currently works for and Property Administrator for the company he works under. He went for an interview for the Consulting gig and they told him he had it in the bag but they had to wait for Accounting to arrange for the position through the Budgeting committee. This position would include quite the salary hike plus a clothing allowance and either a company car or a car allowance. This tickled the hell out of us both.

Dash because it validated his worth being offered 2 positions. He decided not to go with the Property Admin since it would mean to much time behind a desk pushing paper. And I was excited because either way we decided to go with the car issue it would me I would no longer be riding my bike the 4.5 kilometers to work.

Alas here we are a month later with no word on his start date and $2500 worth of repair work needing done on our current vehicle.

Can you spell S-T-R-E-S-S! That's on both of us. I can't get promoted because I'm to new and the trainer has split responsibilities and Dash is waiting.

Hello Limbo, sometimes I think Limbo is so much worse than hell could ever be. I DO NOT wait well!!!

WDF? ! ? !

I do not have the slightest fucking clue what is wrong with me. For the last week I have been down right psycho. I am suspicious, paranoid and moody. There is absolutely NO reason for these feelings. I can't sleep, I can't focus and now I'm sitting here bloody well crying for not a flip of a reason.

...and before you ask NO i have not been tokin' any damn wacky weed!

On the inside I'm screaming with rage. On the outside I am smiling and crying. WDF? ! ? !

Ghosts of my Past

I've decided to transfer over my posts from the old Blog I used to haunt because I'd like to consolidate my web lives and be rid of certain bookmarks. It may take me a while to transfer every bit of 2 years (minus a few stupid posts of no consequence what-so-ever) so please be patient with me and feel free to peruse at your leisure. Enjoy!

Wow, I am really starting to notice while editing how very much I rambled. The transitions of my mind slip so easily that my focus doesn't read coherently half the time I am sitting here wondering what my own bloody point was, knowing if I don't understand it how the hell anyone else ever did is a mystery to us all I'd wager. ROFL. So if you decide to read the archives you've been warned!

Corporate Restructure

About a month ago I may or may not have mentioned that the company I work for would be restructuring come March. This will now become effective on February 13th.

A few directives have come down the pipe line.

Our retail outlet spans across 4 medias in one store, their first order of business was to separate 3 of the more technically diverse areas from the one entertainment specific one (the one I work in). Up to this point some of the employees have been in various stages and levels of training thereby mingling back and forth between the two counters. The change will effectively segregate us and anyone with the training has been told such expenses will not be allowed to waste and are therefore mandated to said Tech Savvy side.

With out making this more confusing let's just say the Manager (Orb), Assistant Manager (AM - Sass) and Head Shift Leader (HSL - Sario) all have this training and have been reassigned. The Manager who I truly have enjoyed working with is moving to an entirely different store altogether to head his own team of Tech Savvies. The AM will become the New Manager of our Tech Savvies and gain our best selling HSL to boot.

The Entertainers will be receiving a new Manager (with his own AM in tow). This change sort of leaves us with 7 college students, 1 housewife and me. As far as I have been able to ascertain only one (Lexar) of those is even remotely interested in advancing with this company and even she has been hedging towards the Call Center.

We are definitely in need of an HSL and it kind of falls to Lexar (who says she doesn't want it and doesn't have the availability to do it) and me who desperately wants to advance (but hasn't been with the Co. long enough to be promoted and lacks the training - which to be fair is hard to come by when you've had 3 bloody managers in 3 months). What's worse is we aren't sure if this manager is staying longer than a month.

Previously Orb and I had been deep in discussions about my career path which we both thought would eventually lead to my becoming a Tech Savvy. I started putting to much pressure on myself and the Co. began to change so Orb and I thought it best I pull back and let the dust settle before moving forward. I think I had decided on some level to not care and just let things flow as they may. Hell maybe I was even in denial because yesterday when I got the schedule for next week it all suddenly became real.

To this point I have been a 20 hr. a week employee (apparently you are a part timer unless you are Management) but of course the college set always calls in and I get offered more hours owing to the fact that I have open availability. Until this change I was 3rd in the line of who gets the extra hours Sario (Avg. hrs. per wk. ~ 35), Lexar(25), and last but certainly not least Me (25).

I know this seems like a stupid thing for me to be telling you but it's pertinent I swear! Next week I am scheduled for 34 HOURS!!! <--This is me jumping up and down with joy because finally I'm getting enough hours to live on...hold on.

Lexar is scheduled for 32. Oh shit, I'm the new Sario!!!

This is quite literally where my brain and all it's gears jammed and I stopped breathing for a full 5 minutes. Those are some huge shoes to fill. I mean the woman is a stellar sells person in either the Entertainers or the Tech Savvy capacity. When I grow up I wanna be just like Sario!

I'm still stunned and slowly piecing together the full repercussions of all this. Whereupon Sass (AM) sees fit to inform me that the new Manager wants to jump right on training me to open (which I have had a minute willy~nilly sort of not really volunteered training session once).

OMGoodness, as I sit here it is occurring to me that they realize Lexar is not a long term investment (she'll be toddling off after graduating to her chosen career next year) but has the training necessary to hold the ship together while I learn it.

Oh crap I haven't even had time to install the mouth filter yet (something Orb deigned necessary for me to achieve anything I wanted). You'd think being an entertainer would be simple and easy and perhaps not a real grown up job but let me tell you it is fast paced, requires lots of memory functionality and the ability to change with the speed of lightening, as well as being diplomatic and business minded.

I just told Dash yesterday I thought it best if we didn't buy a new car until October , you know giving us time to pay off some debt and raise our credit rating and now I just..

think...

perhaps...

I need a car by Thursday.