Nuro-seez. I Haz Some.

Maybe I'm being a big giant baby, but I stayed home from work again today. This will be my third "sick" day from work since I started my job in the middle of February. I hadn't noticed before, but now it seems a bit excessive. Especially given that I'm still a temp and don't get sick pay. But what can I say? I feel like crap.

Don't worry it's not the same horrifying, pissing-blood thing that I had before. This time my neck and shoulders hurt. It had kind of been hurting all weekend, and I was doing a really good job of ignoring it and carrying on doing all my weekend chores, laundry, mopping, etc... Then yesterday morning as I turned my head to look behind me as I was backing out of the driveway to go to work, so as not to accidentally crash into the decorative boulders at the end of the driveway or run over the neighbor's dogs or errant toddlers - something bad happened to my neck.

It didn't make a cracking noise or anything but the pain was so excruciating that I screamed and sat there for a minute or two trying to remember how to breathe.

I blame this and all of the other joint and back pain that I typically experience on my fucked up ankle. Yes, those are both of my feet in the picture. I've got one adorable and normal looking foot and one constantly swollen and nasty frankenfoot. My right ankle has been fused and as a result I walk super funky which can cause all kinds of back, hip and knee weirdness.

I went to work anyway and continued on as if it were a just any old normal work day - for a robot. It hurt when I lifted my arms, it hurt when I turned my head in any direction, it hurt when I typed - it just hurt.

I did the most important things I needed to do and then took off early for home where I could arrange my bed pillows just so and swallow a muscle relaxer (or seven) and not move for awhile.

Now... here is the thing and I've written about this before; I feel like a big giant baby girl liar-head baby. Could I have gone to work today? Technically? Yes. Without a doubt. I feel a lot better than I did yesterday, but I do still hurt. I intended to go to work and even showered and put on make-up and everything. But when I started to fasten the hooks on my bra - I knew I was in trouble.

I think the reason that staying home feels wrong is because for the last 5 years or so I didn't really have a job that I could call in sick for. I was on the road. You can't call in sick from the road, so I used to suck it up and work when I was sick or in pain and I did this no matter what. The clients I was working with had been waiting (most typically) several months for me to be there. Most of them had closed their business for the day (or week) in order for me to do my thing. I would have felt terrible to have not shown up and then been sick all day in a hotel room in a strange town.

So I worked no matter what.

When I wasn't traveling I worked from home - and how do you call in sick when you are already home? On one occasion I did actually call my boss and ask her to cancel all of my appointments for the day, but mostly I just worked anyway and then whined about it later.

I think a lot of my failure to enjoy the indulgence of a sick day is due to previous corporate culture that frowned upon sick days to the point where people were boasting about coming to work while ill. In a not dissimilar fashion to what I have just done in the above paragraphs.

Now that I have a more normal type job, where I go to an office every day and I'm not star attraction (it's marvelous - my phone hardly rings at all) I think I just feel a little more free to indulge myself in a sick day or three. Plus the corporate culture is one where it is not only NOT frowned upon to take a sick day - people seem happy that you have stayed away and are not spreading your ick all over the place.

Are you still reading this piece of shit blog post whereby I try to convince myself that I'm justified in staying home from work today? Well I hope I'm happy because my neck has begun to hurt again while I've been typing this.

In conclusion, hey Me, leave me alone and stop judging me! Oh, wait!! Could you hand me the remote before you storm out? Oh, and fluff my pillow - pretty pleeese?

Dodging A Bullet

I posted the other day about how I don't like to answer the phone. Well I'm sure it's no stretch for you to imagine that I don't like to answer the door either. In fact I dodged a huge bullet yesterday by following my standard format of never answering the door. It was 9:30am. I had just woken up. I was wearing only 3 small items of clothing; a very small t-shirt, very large underpants and a wristwatch. My hair was a scary fright wig and I had the previous day's mascara smudged around my eyes. (My husband is a lucky devil to be sure.)

I hadn't yet had my tea.

They knocked which MDH always says is a clear sign that it is someone of experience who is up to no good because that is what they teach you to do when you are learning the art of the door to door pitch. Don't ring the bell. Knock. MDH, a lifelong sales and marketing man, refers to this principle as Cold Calling 101.

I knew they could hear me ferreting about and then suddenly stop in my tracks the second I heard the knock because when I think that I am alone I pound around the house with all the delicacy of a water buffalo. I also happened to be very near the front door when they knocked. It was a close call because we have a stained glass front door and I was standing almost directly in front of it where I could have easily been seen.

It was a showdown.

I knew that they knew that I was home.

They knocked again and I stayed put. Frozen in mid step until I looked up at my ratty haired half naked reflection in the mirror over the sideboard and realized I was being a chump.

This is my house and I will sport about in it wearing whatever I please and y'all can stand out there until the rapture comes. I'm not answering the door.

They knocked a third time. What great balls you have, whoever you are! It was at this point that I became seriously indignant and decided to just continue doing what I was doing pre-knock and stomped past the front door to the bathroom where I had originally been headed.

I steeled myself knowing that there was now the possibility that they had seen me or at the very least heard or seen my movement in front of the door. I decided that if they had big enough balls to knock a fourth time I would give them exactly what they deserved. I mentally prepared to open the door in my underpants and start telling them all about atheism and godlessness and how rewarding it can be to have an open mind and think or say whatever I damn well please with no fear of repercussions from an angry blasphemed god, à la the video I had seen on Some Guy's blog (in a post called Devangelism from Sept. 2007).

In my crazy head I was really getting into it. I started to adjust my clothes so that my shirt got shorter, my undies got larger and my boobs were even more out of control, so I'd look even crazier than I knew I already did.

There was no fourth knock, but thankfully I came to my senses before it came down to that anyway.

I somehow realized in the haze of my un-caffeinated state that I didn't know who the fuck was out there. It could be my sweet neighbor, Patty with a flat tire or her even sweeter teen-age daughter locked out of the house or something. It could be the gas meter reader dude whom I've been avoiding all summer. It could be well, anyone.

I put on a bra and some jeans, swiped a cotton ball doused with make-up remover under my eyes and reluctantly, sheepishly opened the door.

There was nobody there, but this little booklet was rolled up in the screen door handle:

Chuck A What?

Michigan is just simply a terrible place to be unemployed. The job market here is skimpy, especially for someone with my very obscure specialty. I've given up all hope of finding anything remotely similar to the work that I am supremely qualified for here.

In order to adapt to my environment I've expanded my horizons and have been applying to all kinds of jobs. Mainly things of an Analyst persuasion, things that don't involve any travel, and also some Office Manager, Admin Assistant stuff just so I feel like I've applied for something. I even created a special resume that highlights my old Office Manager job experience from before I had my degree.

The thing about finding jobs these days is that it mostly seems to take place online. The search, the application, the cover letter, the emailed auto-response. When I apply for something online I immediately check my email to make sure that I get that auto response. Otherwise I have no way of knowing whether or not, well anything. You send out all this personal information about yourself into the ether and then get nothing back but an impersonal blurb, a very reassuring impersonal blurb, if you are lucky and the places you apply have any manners what-so-ever.

The following is an auto response email that sets my ass to chapping each time I get it, which is each time I apply for administrative assistant jobs with a certain employment agency I've created an account with:

"We found your resume online and would be interested in speaking with you further regarding your qualifications and experience."

I read this first sentence of the message and even though it's from the employment agency about a job that I probably don't want, I say to myself, "Yeah!! Finally, somebody noticed me!"

Then I read the next sentence and I want to chuck a turd through their window.

"If you are within the (local) area you will be considered for opportunities as they arise, however at the current time the job market is not bearing your skill set."

This message by the way is usually received 2 or 3 days after I applied to the posting and have already gotten the auto-response telling me they have received my application successfully.

So which is it assholes? Do you want to speak with me or are you telling me to take a hike? I can take rejection. Really, I can. But don't get my hopes all up about your shitty* job and then make me disappointed a few words later that I'm not suitable for it.

I sent them an email back about it (seriously, I did and this is real):

Hello Employment Agency,
I'm a bit confused by this email. I get it every time I apply for a job on your website. It says two very different things. First that you would be interested in speaking with me further, and then that there's nothing for me. The first sentence gets my hopes up then in the next breath I'm all bummed out. So which is it? Are you interested in speaking with me or not?
Thanks for reading this!

The Lady

and this was their response:

Dear Lady,
The response you received was not an auto-response. It came from one of our staffing managers, who after reviewing your resume had determined that your current skill set was not what we were looking for at that time. Although, it may have been interesting to us, it just wasn't what we were looking for at that particular time.
I do hope this helps explain things.
Thanks,
Employment Agency

Initially this exchange made me feel pretty smug, but over time has only fueled the paranoia described in the post below.

*I was a receptionist, office manger, secretary, admin assistant for many, many years, so am in no way saying those types of jobs are shitty. They certainly are not. I'm merely saying that having to apply for all over again, a job you previously performed full time while studying your ass off nights and weekends for 6 years to get out of doing, is shitty.