unsent email

Dear Real Boss,

Why didn’t I do much work today? Because I feel like crap. Why did I come to work today?

1) I have no sick time left because I’m not allowed to make up my doctor’s appointments outside of the 8-4:30 timeframe. Unlike every single other employee in this department. How was your unscheduled telecommute day on Friday, by the way? I see you sent about 5 emails.

2) My Foster Boss told me that you said you have to be here, if I’m not here, and I wouldn’t want you to miss your unscheduled, not on the calendar vacation day just because I’ve had an almost intolerable rash for two weeks and didn’t get any sleep last night. Not that you or he knows that, or anything else about my life.

That is all,

Amanda

Now, I have

Now, I have a freakin’ itchy red rash on my neck and down my chest on the mastectomy scar. Argh!

Adding insult to injury… I don’t even want to talk about it!!!

Tee Vee on teh interweb

I have done almost nothing for days but watch tv on the internet. My husband is out of town and I have the sniffles. I don’t really feel like doing anything else, and I’ve discovered  hulu.com.

I watched all the “House” they have. That’s Hugh Laurie? Weird. I had no idea what that show was. Now I wish I could see the earlier ones for free on the internet.

I’ve seen all the Office episodes they have right now.  I watched hours of clips from earlier seasons too. I’ve seen all the recent 30 Rocks.

Eventually I settled down to 13 season’s worth of South Park. I skipped over Mister Hankie, I can’t abide Mister Hankie. Back in the day, I forced myself to watch even the grossest fried rat episodes of Beavis and Butthead, but Mister Hankie just pisses me off. Anyway I’m up to the second season and all my internal dialogue is now in Cartman’s voice.

In other news… I’m pretty much over cancer treatment side effects. I no longer have  “a wound” or “a burn”. I have… a very odd part of my body that is going to take some getting used to. I’m now the weirdest looking person I know. Also I have  an occasional phantom boob. This usually happens when I come upon a mirror without thinking, and my eye seems to fill in “boob” and then it’s a shock to see no boob, just a smiley face scar, on that side.

Also I have phantom hair. I’ll swing my head and expect to feel the weight of it. This seems to be happening more now that I have *some* hair.

Also… I am “waking up” from just barely getting through life. I’m waking up to see that this place is a disaster. I’m not a good housekeeper when I’m well. Things like the kitchen sink and tub are sort of broken, and the yard is a maze of pits and weeds.

Sigh. I need a nap.

work chat

We have a “work chat.” Everyone uses it differently. Many people use it differently on different days. Much effort appears to go into defeating any “timeclock” usage by some people.

For example, Bubba will go idle, drive home, and become active again, without logging off. Other days, he will log off the chat and hang around the building, making sure people see him. (Yes, I stalk his car. I don’t think they know that. I know Swell Guy’s car, too.)

Some people log in on Monday and stay “active” all week 24 hours a day. Some of Swell Guy’s staff still haven’t learned how to turn it on, at all. (They are called “computer operators”. They put paper in printers. They get to drive little golf carts around.)

Last year, when Swell Guy and I were fighting, before I got The Cancer, I had my status set to “doing something else, please leave a message.” Swell Guy chatted at me and asked if I was there, and said “you been afk all day”. I asked him about how he wanted me to use the chat, and gave a couple suggestions, involving what other people do. He got huffy and said something about my turning things into confrontations and threatened to “do something” about it. I said “never mind, I won’t ask for any more guidance, see you next time you need to ‘manage’ me.” So my stupid icon is always active when I’m at my desk and idle, when I’m not. Cause I’m special.

I also get on the work chat from home, which is how I know Swell Guy, the one who suddenly made me sign papers about my hours last year, starts work between 6:50 and 7:30.  Everyone thinks he comes in “really early” and they are not about to check up on how early, by coming in themselves. I think a few of his staff are in cahoots, and also don’t come in as early as they let on.   He goes home anytime between 1:30 and 3pm; this I can watch with my own eyes. And? He’s got 4.5 weeks marked “out of the office” in a row, soon.

Meanwhile, back at Bubba, my “real boss”… I have not been to his office in over 5 years. He gets regular deliveries for me, but he refuses to change the ship-to name, for some reason no one understands. He emails about them, and then usually brings them down, leans into my office, dumps them on my desk, mumbles something, and walks out. I usually just stare at him and there’s not much time for much else.

The last few years he has mostly quit trying to trick me into coming to his office. About every 8th delivery, which is about every 4 months, he will write “come by and pick them up or I’ll drop them off.” He did this again on Monday. I thought “one definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, and expecting a different result.”

So, of course, I did nothing, just waited for him to deliver the stuff. He did not. Instead, 30 minutes later, he logged off the work chat. I saw him in the hall a few hours later but I was going on break and just continued out of the building.

The next day he stayed off the work chat all day, I think. I ignored the whole thing.

On Wednesday, he went idle around 11:30. At 1:30 pm his car was gone. He was still on the chat, just idle.

On Thursday, he emailed me about an additional delivery. He added it on to the previous email. About 5 minutes later, he showed up, dumped and left. I looked. It was only the new thing.

What could I do? Five minutes later, I emailed him “thanks for the new thing. I didn’t get the other stuff. I couldn’t find you in the office yesterday afternoon, please feel free to put it in my mailbox.” The mail goes to a list, which includes his boss and Swell Guy. I’m sure they don’t read it but I hope Bubba thinks they do.

Still haven’t seen the stuff. He was in the office all day Friday, but not on the chat, so if anyone asks, I’ll say I assumed he was working from home, again. Not that anyone ever asks. I make up these excuses for nothing. It’s insane.