Sorry For Rambling

I was having breakfast with a friend this morning and talking about how miserable I am at my job, and about the future, and what I might want to do or not want to do and how hopeless everything feels to me right now. At one point she said, "I know you and I know you'll pull yourself out of this." That made me angry. Anytime someone says, "I know you" it just irritates me. There isn't anybody who really does know me. The people in my life know pieces of me, but not everything. And some know certain things that others don't. But nobody really "knows" me entirely and definitely not enough to assert how well they know me. Hopefully I will be able to pull myself out of this, but at no point does it give me confidence to hear that somebody knows I can do it because I know they don't really know me.

Bubbles

Oh the randomness...

• I'm beyond tired of winter. Can it just be over already? Please?
• I just finished watching season 1 of Mad Men. I don't feel any sort of obsession over this show the way I feel with Dexter or SVU but it definitely holds my interest. The only thing that irks me about Mad Men is all the smoking. I just cringe at the thought of being in a smoke filled room. I'm glad nobody has invented smell-o-vision yet!
• I'm in the process of making a to-do list for my upcoming vacation. "Update resume" is at the top of the list. I don't know how much longer I can last in my job.
• It disturbs me when people enter my bubble. For example, I was in line at the checkout at Target and the woman behind put her hand on my shoulder and picked up one of my items and started talking to me about how cute it was. I smiled and nodded and didn't hear everything she said because I kept thinking "uhm, this stranger has stepped into my bubble and she's touching me!" Grrrrrrrr.

The Moolah

Things on my mind today...

• I need curtains for my living room. Room-darkening curtains. Lately I've felt a strong desire to sleep on my couch but there's just no way for me sleep in such a bright room during the day. Maybe I could get one of those face mask thingies. But then I'd probably be bothered by the fact that there's something on my face. So, yeah, curtains.
• Speaking of curtains, after five months of living in my apartment I've finally hung a shower curtain. I've only had the liner up until this point. I haven't done anything as far as decorating really. I think I'm scared that I'll spend money, time and energy turning my apartment into more of a home and then something will go horribly wrong and I'll have to move again.
• It's time for people to start filing taxes and time for me to remember how much I hate parents. Seriously, how is it okay that some people get back more than they put in? How is a parent more deserving of their pay than someone without a child? A coworker was telling me about how she claimed exempt all year (meaning she did not pay taxes) and yet she's getting about $3400 back for her tax refund. WTF?
• I'm considering purchasing a book! Yay, books! It's called "One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Quest to Preserve Quiet". I read a Newsweek article about the author of this book, Gordon Hempton, and for some reason I feel somewhat energized at the thought of reading this book. So energized, in fact, that I'm also tempted to write to my elected officials about the topic of noise pollution.
• I can't wait for my vacation to start on February 10th. I'm so excited to not have to be at work for nine days! I hate my job so much. I absolutely hate it. And after nine days I'm probably going to have a mental breakdown at the thought of going back.

To Infinity and Beyond!

I haven't done so well with making a list of goals, however, I did get down some general ideas for the way I'd like things to shake out this year. It's better than nothing!

In 2010 I would like to:

1. Avoid work drama. Before I changed to third shift I had heard about the different personalities and how difficult it is to keep things low key. People used to tell me to just steer clear of the drama and I'd be fine. I would respond to them with a shrug and some blurb about how I don't get involved in other people's drama. But sure enough before I knew it I found myself in the middle of it all. This year I'm staying out of it. Even if that means alienating myself from my so-called "team".
2. Get back to writing here. The past few months I've only updated here and there. Maybe I got tired of writing about the same old crap over and over. Or maybe I got lazy. Not sure. But I used to write here all the time (sometimes several times a day) and I'd like to make it a pretty regular thing again.
3. Figure out how to blaze my own trail. It's become clear to me that I'm not going find happiness along someone else's path. I need to figure out what's really best for me and what makes me happy. I especially need to get the work stuff figured out. I can't continue in a job that makes me so miserable without having an idea of how to get out of it. But I don't think there's a cookie cutter career out there where I would be happy. I have to figure out how to create my own.
4. Engage my brain. As time goes on I feel like I lose more and more brain power. And I wasn't all that smart to begin with so I can't afford to continue to let my brain atrophy. Maybe I need to read more. Maybe I need to solve puzzles. Maybe I need to write. I don't know. But I do know that I'm not smarter than a fifth grader... or a fourth grader for that matter.

There you have it. Things I'd like to do in 2010. I thought about adding the "lose weight" and "be more social" mainstays but I always want to lose weight and the only times I've been able to accomplish losing any weight is when I'm too sick to eat over an extended period of time. And with "be more social" I'm not sure that I actually want to be more social or if other people want me to be more social so I'm leaving that one out too.

I hope everyone has a great 2010!

A Year I Will Never Get Back

Well, well, well... here we are at the end of another year. 2009 has not been a good year. And unfortunately I don't see a lot of hope for 2010 either. I feel like I should at least try to be optimistic, but why lie to myself. Things suck right now. I think working third shift has pretty much killed me. As much as I felt like I didn't have a life before, well being on third shift has made me realize that I did have something of a life and now I don't. At least I used to have the opportunity every so often to spend time with the people I care about, but now, not so much. When I'm awake and available everyone else is working, when I'm sleeping everyone else is awake and available, and when I'm working everyone else is asleep. This year has been a total waste and unless something insane happens (like a big lottery win) 2010 will likely be a waste as well. I'm currently putting together a list of goals for 2010. Last year I said I wasn't going to do the whole "new year's resolution" thing but I need to feel like I've gotten something down that I can possibly try to work toward. Maybe if I have some decent goals next year won't have to be a complete loss. I guess we'll see.

Yawn

I'm probably the biggest wuss I know. I hate confrontation so much that I will keep myself in situations that make me miserable to avoid it. My current situation is that I have a list about two pages long of issues I need to discuss with my supervisor but because all those things would cause so much drama and discomfort I continue to just keep it all inside and my head continues to feel like it might explode.

I thought that even if I can't go to her face to face and say some of these things (as if that would happen... one of my complaints is that she rarely ever actually shows up to work), maybe I could just write a long email and send it off and let her process some of the issues before she talks to me. But now I've pretty much decided to chicken out on that too. For every single one of my issues I've managed to come up with multiple responses that she might have and none of them are pretty.

I'm trying to figure out a way that I can just deal with my job (without my head exploding) until I can figure out how to get out of it but there is no scenario that even comes close to working for both me and the company I work for. And now that I'm in a little bit better apartment and paying a bit more in rent and I have a car loan I'm pretty much stuck at this job for sure. For a while I was thinking that I could be willing to take a pay cut if a better job came along, but that's not going to happen now.

I don't know what to do. I'm tired of feeling so stuck. I wish I could just make some decisions and follow through on them.

Why Hello There Blogger

Wow - I haven't posted anything since July? That's crazy!

Anyhoo...

I'm all moved into my new apartment. It's freakin awesome to be out of that nasty, smokey, cat pee stankin cave that I've been in for the last few months! I looooooooove not having people stomping around above me. And as an added bonus, I've met three neighbors who live in the building and they all seem very friendly. One neighbor even helped my friend and I get my couch into my apartment when we got stuck in between the 2nd and 3rd floors! That's pretty awesome.

It's been an unusually cool summer. The leaves are already changing and falling off the trees. Usually it's mid-October and I'm wondering why the leaves haven't started changing yet! I'm hoping that since we had a cool summer, we'll have a warm winter. One can dream, right?

The job sucks. Note to self: BUY LOTTERY TICKETS! Hehehe. I just don't understand how they can keep giving us more and more work and expect higher productivity and not bother to give us a pay increase at all. I found out that they increased the amount of money they pay people to start so I'm basically making the same money as someone who would start today but I'm trained to do like three or four times the amount of things they do. That fucking sucks! I know I'm not a superstar at this job... hell, I know I suck at this job, but I do a lot and I know a lot and I don't think it's right that after three years I'm not making any more money than someone who's just walking in the door today. I realize that when I started, starting wage was a lot lower and I've gotten raises since then, but it still doesn't seem right that I make the same money as a new hire. And then throw on top of that the fact that I feel like I work for a completely different company than I started working for, and the fact that nobody in the company listens when I tell them that I'm overwhelmed, and the fact that 96% of everybody else is just going along with whatever the company wants without putting up any fight or resistance and it makes me feel like I must be fucking crazy for thinking we deserve more money if we're going to do more work. But I'm sorry, I can't just drink their fucking Kool-Aid and do what they tell me to do no matter how stressful it gets and no matter if they're going to compensate me appropriately. So I feel like a lazy, whiny trouble maker even though in my heart I know I just want what's fair. No fun at all.

Artapalooza is tomorrow. That should be fun. I'm crossing my fingers for sunshine (or at least for no rain). I'm taking a friend's kid with me so that will be interesting. Hopefully she'll behave and not get all pouty or anything. Unlike when her mother says to straighten up or we're leaving, I actually mean it when I say that and the kid knows it so hopefully she'll be okay. There should be plenty of activities to keep her busy. I'm hoping for a good day.

BALLS!!!

A few weeks ago I wrote about how they keep piling things up on us at work and if it were to continue I'd have to be prepared to leave my job... Well, I had something specific in mind that I knew they would do, but I was sort of hoping they would come to their senses. I was assuming they had senses to come to. They don't. And they're doing exactly the thing that was going to make me walk away. Unfortunately I can't leave now. My health insurance is too good and I need it too much right now. I've been uninsured and sick before and the state's program is crap because if anything happens and I need medical care, I have to go a hospital an hour and a half away which is not even close to being practical.

Last night at work a few of us were talking about how we would love to get the hell out of there but they really do have us by the balls! They pay us too much and give us pretty good benefits and they know there aren't other jobs in the area that will give us as much and they know that because we need our pay and benefits that we're stuck doing whatever the hell they want us to do. I need my health insurance. And as much as I want to lash out at my supervisor and make an overly dramatic exit from my soul sucking corporate nightmare of a job, I can't. I'm stuck.

I'm going to have to start painting again. I really need an outlet for all of the anger and frustration that I can't put into words.

Rawr Pt. 2

I saw the GI specialist about the pain I've been having. I have to have a scope so they can go in and take a look at my organs. Supposedly I'll be asleep for this and I'm really, really hoping so because I highly doubt having a tube down my throat is going to be a fun time at all. If it ends up being what they're thinking it is then it could be pretty simple to treat so I'm hoping for that and not something more serious.

Fingers crossed.

Rawr

Five years ago this month I was extremely sick and after seeing several doctors they finally determined that my gall bladder needed to be removed and so it was. And I've never had any pain in that area since... until about a week ago I had a sharp pain in the same area that my gall bladder used to be and ever since the initial sharp pain I've been having minor pain in the same area off and on. I went to the doc and she did some blood tests and an ultrasound on my liver and everything looked okay. But I'm still having pain so she's sending me to a GI Specialist.

Up until I got the results of my blood tests and ultrasound I had been having quite a bit of anxiety about what could possibly be causing the pain. I made the huge mistake of looking up the most serious diseases that I thought I could possibly have. Never do that! Ever! It's always a bad idea to do that kind of thing. However, with everything I looked up I'm not exactly having other symptoms besides pain, so I could hardly diagnose myself with any of the catastrophic illnesses I looked up. But I'm sure there are tons of things it could be that I have never heard of. That's a cause of anxiety but I'm trying desperately not to think about it.

Having to see the GI Specialist is also a cause for anxiety. I've heard about the horrors of some of the tests they do. The thought of the tests alone gives me anxiety. I don't really know what they heck they're going to do with me. I'm not having intestinal problems. I'm not having heart burn. I'm not having poo troubles (tmi, I know and I apologize). Just a bit of pain in my liver area.

I'm hoping it's nothing serious. But whatever it is, I just want to know what it is and how to get rid of it and I want this over with quickly so I can just stop freaking out about it.