What Goes Around... Always Finds Me

Apparently, this is the time of year that my body just decides, "Hey! You know what you need? A cold! I'll get on that for you!"

This year's late winter cold was a gift from Hubby (as my mom said, he such a good sharer!). I tried to take care of him and myself while he was sick, but with school and work both being a bit nuts, I failed to protect myself from getting this bug. 

On Thursday morning I had a sore throat and was starting to cough. That night Hubby made me grilled cheese and tomato soup, something my dad always did for me as a kid when I didn't feel well. By Friday I had a mild fever, my nose wouldn't stop running, and my throat still hurt. Hubby got me some more Nyquil and some orange juice, all the good stuff that would (hopefully) make me feel better. I took Thursday and Friday evenings off from homework, thinking that pushing myself would only make it worse. I guess I'll never know for sure, but it didn't seem to work that way at all.

Saturday was definitely the worst. By mid-afternoon I had already gone through almost 2 boxes of tissues and was so hot that I wanted to turn on the a/c (but settled for Hubby bringing me an ice pack to cool my neck/back). No matter how I felt, I still had to get homework done and study for an exam on Sunday, so I did my best to push forward. It was stressful to say the least, and that night I got to a max temp of 101.3 (not terrible, thank goodness, but enough). I tried to sleep, but it took me over an hour to finally crash (even with Nyquil). Even then, I was waking myself up with coughing fits every few hours, and during one of the fits, I ended up changing my pajamas because I had sweat through them. Lovely.

I felt better when I woke up Sunday, but I still felt pretty crappy. Somehow I managed to get a 97% on my exam, even feeling like shit, and that kicked off my spring break week. It was a lazy afternoon (complete with 3-hour nap), which was beautiful. I've been slowly feeling better since then (even though my voice hasn't gotten the memo), but have still been waking up with coughing fits. When I was little, waking up coughing meant that Mom would take me into the living room, give me a hard candy to suck on and put me in her lap while she sang to me. These days it means trying not to wake Hubby up (which, really, I shouldn't be too concerned about; he sleeps through anything), and trying to get the coughing spell over with as quickly as possible to maximize sleep time before the alarm goes off and work becomes a reality. When a fit woke me up at about 6 this morning, I almost didn't bother getting out of bed. I hoped maybe it would resolve itself, but it didn't. And now I'm paying for it, groggily sliding through the day, hoping that I can make enough sense out of things to get by until I can sleep again.

Here's hoping that you and yours are all feeling better than we have the past two weeks... Well, except Maxine. She's doing just fine. :)

Time Flies...

Let's go on a bit of a stroll down memory lane.

Yours truly is twenty and (in theory) on a "break" from college.  In order to return to college, the parental units insist that I get a job and earn X amount of money to put toward my college funds. 

So on this very day in 2005, I had my first day of work as a temp-to-hire employee.  It was primarily a data entry position, which worked for me.  I was scheduled for 20 hours a week, working 5-9 PM on weeknights.  I didn't have to get up early and could spend the days doing what I wanted, so it seemed like a sweet deal. 

I walked into the lobby of the building and realized that I had no idea what I was supposed to do.  So, I walked straight up to the front desk and, with as much of a smile as I could, I said, "Hi, I'm new and I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go."  In return, I got a blank, uninterested look.  Panic was about to take over when someone from behind me answered.  Apparently, we had a meeting to attend, and I followed the masses into the adjoining room.  Huddling in a chair at the back of the room, I clutched my purse and waited.  

That first night is still a bit of a blur.  During the meeting, we got Valentine's candy (a day late, but who cares), and I remember thinking that was pretty cool.  I later found out that the woman who would be training me for my job wasn't available for a few days, so I learned to do some easy stuff to fill the time.  I stopped by my boss's office to ask if I was allowed to take a break (no one had explained that part to me), and I headed out the front door to have a smoke alone.  I got to leave about 20 minutes early that first night, and when I got home, I remember my mom being so excited that I'd had my first night of work.  I, on the other hand, was just tired and hungry.  Excitement would have to wait.

Fast-forward to today.  Seven years later, I'm still working for the same company in the same general area.  It sounds less eventful than it was, trust me.

In July of 2005, I became a permanent part-time employee.  In August, my parents told me I hadn't earned enough money (well, I hadn't given them enough of my money, anyway) to return to school.  So in September of 2005, I started working 27-29 hours a week.  By December, I was working 40 hours a week at part-time pay ("seasonal" full-time, they called it) and had decided that work was better for me at the time than school.  

I continued working 40 hours a week (at hourly, part-time pay with no benefits).  I kept being told that I'd have to drop back to under 30 hours at some point, but the threat was never made good.  In April 2007, I was finally offered a full-time position doing the same thing I was doing, but with Day Administration instead of Night Processing.  That meant working from 8-4:30 instead of 12:30-9, but it also meant benefits and job security, and since the position was pretty much created for me, I took it without question.

In March 2008, I moved about 100 miles away from our corporate office (I had been living 3 miles away) and instead of letting me go, I was given the opportunity to work from home.  There were varying stipulations through the years.  For awhile I had to come to the office once every two weeks.  Then it was once a month.  At some point I was only going about 4 times a year, and then it finally dwindled to once a year (for our big company meeting).  

It's been seven years since I walked into the lobby without a clue, dressed in black slacks and a nice shirt, blindly following instructions and hoping I was doing things adequately.  In that time, I've gotten awards, promotions, and raises.  I've gone from a complete outsider to part of a family, to part of a new family, to just a name in a sea of employees.  From dress clothes to pajamas, and smoke breaks to laundry breaks.  A lot has changed.

And yet, somehow, I still feel like I did that first night, alone and unsure of myself, wondering what I'm doing here and where it'll lead.  Trying to figure out how I got to this point and when the rest of my life is going to start.  

Seven years.  Time does fly...        

What's My Motivation?

Well, my lovely readers, my semester ended last Friday night and I ended up with A's in both classes.  Huzzah!!  I do love knowing that all my effort pays off sometimes.  It keeps me motivated to keep working toward my degree, and I can't wait for the day I can say that I'm a college graduate.

Work, however, is an entirely different story.  I feel no motivation whatsoever to get anything accomplished.  My salary is a joke.  My job is mundane at best and a nightmare at worst.  The only positive things I can say about my job are that a) I have one and b) I get to work from home in my pjs.  For the longest time, I thought the perks of working from home kinda evened things out, but these days, I'm less and less sure that's true.  

So how do I get motivated to do work that I'm completely uninspired to do?  I've tried tricking myself into it ("C'mon, Erika!  It's totally worth the paycheck you get!").  I've tried working hard in hopes that it'll pay off (it doesn't).  I've tried slacking, but then I just get bored and restless.  

The obvious answer would be to find a new job, but it's not that easy for me.  And please, spare me the "You're the only thing standing in your way," speech.  I'm already aware.  

Le sigh.

Tragic Tales of U-Verse

Well, readers, there are 2 primary reasons that I haven't been posting lately:

1) I am sick.  I've had a nasty cold for about two weeks now.  It's slowly (and I mean slow like molasses in January) getting better, but I still have a few coughing fits a day and am keeping the Kleenex handy.

2) Our internet was on the fritz for the better part of the past 2 weeks as well.  We never knew if/when we'd be connected or for how long.  It was terrible.  Even more terrible if you'll recall that I work from home.  99.9% of my job is done online, so no internet = no worky worky.  

The cold was so bad at one point that I couldn't taste anything for 2 days.  Of course, this had to coincide with my brother-in-law's wedding, so I couldn't taste a damn thing while we were there.  Actually, let me take that back.  For some reason, I could taste Mountain Dew.  Or maybe I just know the taste so well that I imagined it.  Either way, that was a pleasant surprise.

The internet was so bad that I have had to take 1 hour unpaid time off, 2.5 hours paid time off, had to work from 9:30 until 11 one night, and we decided to ditch AT&T all together.  Seriously, it was a clusterfuck.

I think it all started on May 24th.  While working, my internet was suddenly going goofy on me.  One second I'd be connected, the next -POOF!-  No internet.  Since we had U-Verse, that meant our cable was out, too.  Beautiful. 

On Wednesday evening (the 25th), it seemed our internet was done for.  We called AT&T and they sent someone out on Thursday afternoon (the 26th).  The first guy got to the house and, of course, the internet was working.  He determined that this was an outside problem and he was an "inside guy," so he went to take a quick look around outside and then pawned things off on an "outside guy."  He evidently determined this magically, as he never once went downstairs to check the modem/router, didn't even look at my computer or TV, and was here for a total of 15 minutes.  I should've called bullshit when he told me it was, "probably the wind" that was interfering.  I mean, we live in a freakin' wind tunnel.  It's ALWAYS windy on our street, and for 6 months we haven't had any issues...  Ok, mister.  It's the wind.

Heard next to nothing about the outside guy from that afternoon, but since the internet seemed to be mostly working, we let it go.  AT&T called on Friday to ask if things were working and, again, things were - at the moment.  We left that Friday evening for the wedding and weren't back until Sunday afternoon, at which point we realized that our internet and cable weren't working.  Period.  We called AT&T, and they actually sent a guy over that Monday morning (even with it being Memorial Day).

Once again, when the new inside guy got there, everything was up and running.  However, this guy actually took the time to look around and see what was what.  He didn't like the wiring we had, and re-did some of it for us.  He ran a ton of tests, went downstairs to check things out, and was really nice about everything.  He, like the first guy, said it was likely an outside issue, but actually gave a better reason than "the wind" for the culprit.  He said it was likely water getting into the line somewhere between the house and the end of the street.  He put in a ticket for the outside guy while he was standing in our kitchen still, and away he went.  

Hubby left to hang with some friends, and I found myself suddenly without internet again.  Joy.  Hubs called to tell me that the outside guy was on his way to check things out, so I just played with my puzzle and other non-internet things for the rest of the day.  

On 5/31, that Tuesday, I couldn't get online until almost 10 AM.  So much for internet getting fixed, eh?  Hubby called Time Warner to get an appointment to get their internet services, but couldn't get an appointment until Friday.  Oh well.  I got booted off AT&T around 2:45 and couldn't get on again until 9:30 that night.  I worked until 11 and called it a night.  Thankfully, my boss was super understanding about the whole thing.  Phew.  We called AT&T again that night (prior to getting back online, so maybe around 8:30 or so).  We went through the normal stuff (re-setting the modem, etc) and eventually, somehow, got things back up and running, but the lady said they'd send someone over the next day.

No one from AT&T ever showed up on Wednesday.  I managed to get working right away in the morning, but got booted around 10:30.  Back online at 1:30 and worked until 7.  Ugh.  Thursday I somehow got to work through the day without issue.  We thought maybe it had been fixed, but agreed it was too little too late.

We were wrong anyway.  Connection crapped out on me again on Friday.  I told my boss I'd make up the lost time on Saturday, after TW had come and connected us.  That would've been great, except no one from TW ever showed up on Friday...  What.  The.  Fuck.  Hubby called to inquire, and it turns out they had us down for an appointment for Wednesday, 6/8.  UGH.  We got it changed to Monday the 6th, but still.  I wasn't able to make up the time for work, and we had virtually no internet or TV for the whole weekend.  

Now that we're all set up with TW, I am a happy little clam, kids.  Having internet that doesn't crap out every few hours is a beautiful thing!  I do miss the DVR set-up with u-verse, but the fact is that they had almost 2 weeks of notice that we were having issues and never actually fixed anything.  It was clearly a localized problem, but had they been competent enough to do something about it the FIRST time they sent someone out, maybe they would've kept us as customers.  Oh well.  Their loss.  A-holes.

Annnnnnnd that's enough ranting for now.  Riki out.

5 Reasons The Day After St. Patrick's Day Should Be A National Holiday

1) People won't need to call in hungover (er, "sick").  Many people use St. Patty's Day to drink themselves into a stupor.  This is fact.  Thus, I have to assume that a number of people call in sick the day after.  That means that the rest of us have to work extra hard to make up for their absences, and that just blows.

2) It's a wasted day.  Those that DO come in hungover are clearly not going to be on their A game, but don't want to use a sick day or paid time off when they can just slack off on the company's dime.  Again, those of us who didn't render ourselves useless may have to work harder (boooo-urns) or will just sit around talking about the adventures the others had the day before.

3) It's just time for a break.  Many of us haven't had a holiday off since New Year's Day.  It's about damn time, so why not the day after St. Patty's?  Otherwise we have to wait until Memorial Day, which feels like for-ev-er.  We're getting restless, which means productivity could be dropping.  Why risk it?

4) I have two words: Spring Fever.  The weather is finally getting nice enough to enjoy!  Let us have a day to actually enjoy it instead of staring longingly out the window wishing we were enjoying it.

5) Not everyone is Irish, but most everyone can agree that a day off is a good thing.  We can call it People Appreciation Day or Random Day Off Day.  I don't care.  I doubt anyone will care.  Just do it.  

Snow Day? I Wish...

Again, one of the non-perks of working from home is that you don't get snow days.  In fact, it's hard to even take a sick day (it's not like you're going to get anyone at the office sick, you know?) unless you really feel like crap.  

Thus far, my non-snow day has sucked.  

• Woke up and looked outside to see the world covered in snow.  No big surprise.  However, my fear of how I was going to let the dog out escalated when I could open either of our screen doors more than an inch.
• Woke the hubby up so he could advise me on the best method for doing so.  He tried to help me put some boots on, but that didn't work.  They were supposed to go over my shoes, but kept getting stuck.
• Hubby managed to open the door about a foot.  I held on to the pupper's leash and let her wander a few steps.  When she realized she wasn't going any further, she got the hint and took a piss.  However, she was then COVERED in snow (since the drifts are twice as tall as her... at MINIMUM), which was not so fun to deal with.
• That's when hubby managed to fall down the basement stairs.  This is the 3rd time it's happened since we moved into this house.  Those stairs are scary steep, we have NO railings, and the floor was starting to get wet from the snow that was falling in from having the door open.  Not cool.
• Hubby checked his email.  Of course, HE has a snow day.  Ugh.  We were supposed to both be working and miserable!  Instead, I am now working while he sleeps.  -le sigh-

To help, I did make some popcorn (and used REAL butter on it for the first time in ages... soooo good).  But really, that only helps so much.  Reading on Facebook about everyone's snow days and not being at work just makes me wish we had a sympathy snow day or something.  But, alas, that's what I get for "being able to work in my pajamas all the time!"  (The next person to say that will likely come to regret that decision.)

Here's to a long day that just keeps dragging on...