My life at work

Seriously, what is wrong with people... what were they thinking when they invite me to a meeting without telling me the agenda or the fact that it's a sales person? Trying to be congenial, all I could think of was the fact that I'm never going to get that hour back ever. I went to lunch 20 minutes late because of it.

The salesman basically came by to talk about another product that's not even in production yet trying to generate interest. I wish I were somewhere else.

Fuck You All

I deleted all of my so-called friends on Facebook that were in my games group. Playing games for me on the computer is such a grand waste of time. I'm now left with about 176 people... a combination of family, friends, old school mates and a few artists and musicians. Shut up - people in the arts feed my soul. Besides, it's better to be active showing your support them than passively on the computer.

I hate Mother's Day...

Over time, I have gained a keen lack of appreciation for certain pseudo holidays that requires one to buy and give gifts or dress up in order to celebrate. Namely Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween and Valentine's Day. Let's take a look at them statistically:

Candy = 3:4
Flowers = 2:4
Perfume/Cologne = 3:4
Eating out = 3:4
Cards = 4:4
Clothing = 2:4

...but even I succumbed to 2:4 this weekend, thanks to Mom.

I woke up at my usual 5:05AM and by 6:30AM, I was traveling on Interstate 5 South to drive to El Cajon for Mother's Day. I took my mom out to breakfast to a place called Country Waffle. It's not as good at Waffle House, but the location and price were right. You can read my Yelp review about it. There is a widget on the left hand side of the screen to take you there.

It's been a month since the last time I visited. After her triple bypass, she seemed to struggle less with the fatigue and be more "in the moment" that she had been before the surgery. I bought her two mangevilla plants to replace the sad grape vine that I took to her bff's home in Lakeside. I planted those and monitored her while she did her laundry by herself for the first time in a month. She says she needs the wheeled walker, but I don't know. It's use is more of a dolly for her... a place to put her purse and coat between my car and the restaurant or a way for her to get her clothes to the laundry room in her apartment complex.

After planting and watering her patio, she gave me a waffle maker and I drove home at about Noon. Since I pass by an outlet mall on the way home, I decided to stop by, but since there was a mob scene at Carlsbad due to Mother's Day sales, I just drove through the parking lot and got back onto the freeway to go home. It was medium-heavy traffic from that point on all the way home.

I did not cook or clean today one bit. I got home, took a nap, got up and made myself a turkey sandwich on garlic rosemary sourdough I picked up from the Farmer's Market in El Segundo last Thursday. Turkey, mayo, mustard, soy cheddar, chopped sweet onion and spinach leaves. That how my sandwich goes.

The Rat Race

Friday, I had an extended break over tea talking to someone about all the goings on at work. It was good, but weird. I went into this job stating I did not want to be in management, but when people elicit my expertise or opinion because direct "management" is so poor and then act upon it, it makes me wonder what's in store for the future. The bad part is with all the hind sight we spoke about regarding a previous company, it won't help the current situation.

The good part, to some degree, was to realize it was not only me who is thinking the same things about the company. When a company sheds departments in lieu of 3rd party outsourcing, they tell you it's a cost cutting measure, but it stinks. It stinks for the workers who loose their jobs. It stinks worse when those jobs don't stay in the USA, but we shall see how that pans out.

At any rate, to quell my nervousness over these issues that leave me with an unstable financial feeling even though I was previously told that I'm supposed to be a part of the Master Servicing Team (a leftover skeleton crew of analysts), I'm looking for another job now before I suddenly find myself out of a job later due to whatever reason this CU ceases to function.

Sweet Talking Woman by ELO: "... insufficient data coming though ...what can I do?"

Nuts

Ever since I took over the credit reporting for the company I work for, my days have been consumed with other peoples problems. I'm not sure if I like it much. I was getting headaches the first couple of days I was working on my own. At least those have subsided.

I ate breakfast and lunch today so by the time dinner rolled around, I was hungry again - too hungry to go home and make dinner for myself, so I went to El Pollo Loco after getting some cash at the ATM.

My son was home by the time I got there and that was unexpected. He skipped class today. I hate when he does that. I've paid for all of his college this semester, so it's my feeling he should GO!

I threw an almond at one of my cats to see what it would do. It stared at kernel for awhile. The cat pushed it around a bit, sniffed, then stared at again. My son and I were eating the same almonds from across the room. I know the cat was getting hungry because she licked her lips, but she didn't eat the nut.

And what is up with this crappy ass gray dingy bull shit weather again? I am so ready for Spring and Summer to be here. It drizzled on my car this morning. A clear sign for me not to take the train.

So Wednesday I'm supposed to go out for drinks with people from work and then Thursday I think I'm having dinner with a friend in Long Beach - I think. The last time we planned it, the plans fell through at the last minute which leads me to believe that it's probably going to happen again. *Sigh*

An Unintended Benefit

This is what happens when you place a bird feeder over a flower bed - sunflowers. This specimen was the biggest one yet.

Driving in hell

The President of the United States is in town after attending two fund raising events. And this morning splashed all over the news is the fact that his motorcade will be driving to LAX during rush hour traffic. Basically, what happens is that the 105 freeway is shut down for only local law enforcement, secret service and a few bulletproof limos. It's a pain in the ass for anyone that's used to taking the 105 in the AM. But you can take Imperial or Rosecrans as an alternate because they both run in the same direction. It's days like these that make me glad I can take the train to work.

And so it goes

Obviously, I took last Thursday the 8th off to take my mom to the hospital for her heart bypass surgery. While in pre-op, the anesthesiologist said to give her a sedative to squelch her anxiety. It worked. She was sleeping by the time she went into surgery at around 8AM.

And now I'm inserting a link for the review I wrote about the Hospital mom went to because I don't want to type all of that out again.

Sharp Grossmont Hospital Review on Yelp.com

I stayed off work for two days and lost out on a good chunk of change and mom didn't even acknowledge the fact. My paycheck last Friday was shorted by one-third because of her and I'll never get it back.

Getting a phone call at 3AM on 4/14 better be goddamn important, but instead it was my mom bitching about the room because the bed was too big for her and she was hurting. Earlier in the day the hospital moved her out of the 5th floor and into the 3rd floor where the transition rehabilitation ward is. I told her to ask for pain medication if she hurt. I stayed on the phone with her until I heard a nurse was giving her two Percocet.

After that episode, hours later a social worker called me leaving a message on my cellphone and I returned the call at lunch. The social worker told me one story and I heard entirely another while I was on the phone with my mom. I explained she sounded as though she was delirious from the pain and this is her first surgery so she doesn't understand that she needs to be a better advocate for herself when it comes to controlling her pain. Mom needs to ask for her pain meds, no one reads minds and they are not going to regularly medicate her as if she were fresh out of surgery like a few days before. I also told the social worker about my mom's propensity to not work as hard as she could during physical activity which would be another reason why she would complain about where is was. The social worker said she would make sure the nurses ask more if she's in pain to see if she can be medicated more frequently.

I've been checking in on mom by phone for the past week. Her anxiety piqued on Friday when she thought she was going to get the O.K. to be released. She asked me to come, but she only had the clearance from one doctor. I told her I would call later after she heard from her other doctor. After I had ordered lunch, I called to check up on her and she was freaking out about something she said she found on her skin between her neck and body and a charge nurse was coming to look at it. She was too medicated to described it to me over the phone. Clearly, she wasn't ready to go home and her second doctor confirmed this to me and said she had to wait another week before going home. I reminded her that her bff's daughter can take her home and that's what we discussed while visited on Friday. She started to complain again.

Jesus, if you ever hear me complain to the level that my mom does about stupid shit, just put me out of my misery. Big bed, big car, no this, no that, you're 4'8" and the world's not going to conform to YOU, miss passive aggressive. You did this to yourself.

She's in there

4am comes quickly when you're not sleeping in your own bed. We were out the door by 430am and sitting at the intake desk by 445am. After all this mornings prep, I talked to the anethesiologist who talked me through the time schedule. If everything goes well, she'll be out of surgery by noon and in icu.

WTF

I'm in El Cajon tonight, the night before my mom has heart bypass surgery. It took me three hours, including a dinner break, to drive from El Segundo to here. I stopped at Panda Express in Oceanside for dinner.

So tomorrow I'm not going to be a happy camper getting up at 4am and getting out the door to go to a hospital. Generally, hospitals are not very happy places unless you are there to have a baby. And I'm not. That's the furthest thing on my mind these days.

Today at work, I went through MERS training and now the CU is officially MERS Ready. I think I registered 8 loans and my manager did one in training. My dept manager came in to talk after the training. She broght up a employee satisfaction survey and the statistical analysis from it and I'm not that surprised people are not happy with their jobs. When you have to be accountable for your actions and a quality product and not just making the members happy, things change. My dept manager knows I meant business when I asked, "How about making me happy and hiring me?" Right now I'm fulltime w/ no benis. And I need benis. With the changes to the board of directors, my hiring has been put on hold. Grrr.

6 hours before showtime and a short roadtrip up the 8.