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~ the musings of a left wing left hander with two left feet

If By Yes

Tag Archives: coworkers

Pop Quiz Time!

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by IfByYes in I'm Sure This Happens To Everyone..., Life and Love, Polls

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

coworkers, parenting, Polls, work

Owl is sick again – for the last two nights we have gotten ZERO sleep because he has coughed himself awake EVERY 15 MINUTES almost all-frigging night long.

I couldn’t take him to daycare with this cough til I got it checked out by a doctor and made sure it wasn’t the Black Death. But it was bad timing we had a big surgery booked for the morning and the boss’s daughter was moving so she wasn’t supposed to come in until later. Not to mention that it would be nightmarish to leave her trying to assist a major surgery while phones rang, orders arrived, and people came in to buy food and get prescription refills.

PH is in an important phase at work, training his employees to do his job before he is shifted to another office, so he couldn’t miss work.

So I was faced with the options of:

a) Calling in “sick” and leaving everyone in the lurch.

b) Hauling Owl in with me, admitting the surgery patient, and then manning the phones while the surgery went on.

I chose B.

Question 1:

When Mean Vet blew in ten minutes late, what do you think happened:

Question 2:

What do you think I/he should have done?

Ouch.

30 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Damn Dogs, Life and Love

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

coworkers, dog behaviour, dog fights, dogs, veterinary medicine, vets, work

I’ve always told people that dog fights rarely involve serious injury – most of them are just noise and posturing and some wrestling. 

I had to remind myself of that the other day when a dog, who looked like a cross between the Mastiff from The Sandlot and Cthulu, picked up my Beloved Dog and dangled him in the air by his neck.

There’s a shut-down school near where I live, and all the dog owners in the area use the old field by the playground as an informal off-leash park.

I like to take Beloved Dog and little Owl out there after work, it if isn’t dark by the time we get home.

There’s often another dog or two around, but it’s a big field so there usually isn’t a lot of interaction. Some bum-sniffing, posturing, and that’s it.

This massive dog was retrieving a ball the size of a beach ball for its owner, and the dogs mostly ignored each other until a toss of the huge ball took the dog near Beloved Dog.

Now, Beloved Dog has a bit of a small man complex around big male dogs, but he’s usually quite good with girls, and this dog, while humongous, was female. So all he did was walk up to her daintily, tail in the air, and politely stick his nose in her taint.

The dog, who was probably named Cerberus or something, whirled around, grabbed him by the neck, and hoisted him up in the air while he screamed bloody murder. For once, he was involved in a fight that wasn’t his fault.

I was a good thirty feet away and I didn’t react immediately. I was partially surprised because big dogs are usually less aggressive, not more, because when you weigh over 100 pounds, how threatened can you be by… well, anything?

Besides, like I said, most dog fights are a whole lot of nothing and getting excited just makes things worse. But Cerberus didn’t let go, and the owner began to panic and try to pry her jaws open and she wouldn’t let go.

I started to think about the exceptions to my dog-fights-don’t-cause-damage claim, like someone I know whose small puppy was killed at a dog park. From all accounts it sounded more like a mistaken-prey situation than a real dog fight; the killer dog treated the poor puppy like a squirrel or rabbit.

I also know an ex-service dog who tried to RETRIEVE someone’s sheltie, with disastrous results.

My sheltie was still dangling. Still screaming.

I started to run.

Continue reading →

I’ve got the No Can Has Blues

28 Tuesday Jul 2009

Posted by IfByYes in Belly Battles, Me vs The Sad, Perfect Husband

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

babies, bosses, carbs wonderful carbs, coworkers, depression, doctor, life, parents, Perfect Husband, tears, weight problems, whining

I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of these blues. There didn’t seem to be any logical catalyst for them. After all, I have a Perfect Husband, a Dream Job, a Beloved Dog and an Inexplicably Loved Cat. I am about to move into a new house, which I get to redecorate thanks to the Generous Father Grant (Perfect Husband talked him down to half of the original offered amount, so we have pride AND money!) and I live in a city which is overflowing with beautiful views. I can’t wait to have a baby and my husband has promised that we can start trying as soon as I cheer up a bit.

So why do I find making it through the day so very nearly unbearable?

I think I’ve got it figured out.

Allow me to post a small timeline.

Fall 2008 – I am generally happy, and plan to have a baby some time in the next year. I reason that I should be going up a level in my apprenticeship in February, leading to increased pay, benefits (which all full time employees at my work are entitled to, except lowly level one apprentices who apparently don’t count), and general rainbows and sunshine. I picture myself showing up in Nova Scotia for my friend’s wedding with a belly just starting to swell with something other than poutine and garlic bread.

Christmas 2008 – when my boss is annoyed with my coworker, he decides to drastically change the requirements to move upwards in our apprenticeship, now making a promotion even within the next year uncertain, let alone in February. The Big Big Boss disapproves of this step, and countermands the order. My boss chooses to ignore the countermand, and neither I nor my coworker have any chance of moving upwards in our apprenticeship.

January 2009 – Since the Powers That Be cannot agree on whether or not the new requirements are above and beyond the call of ridiculousness, any potential for moving upwards in my apprenticeship is permanently stalled. Despite being told that the new requirements definitely do not apply, neither do the old ones seem to, either. I begin to accept the fact that I may be an apprentice until I am old and grey.

Promotion? NO CAN HAS.

At the end of the month, I turn 27, and my coworker gives birth to her second son. I hold the baby in my arms on my birthday and something in my heart squeezes so hard that I walk around in sorrowful despair for the rest of the day.

April 2009 – I decide that since there’s no point waiting around for a promotion that will never come. I have now passed the point where I could be adorably expecting in time for my visit home, and my stress over the last few months has led me to eat like a heifer. I am the heaviest weight I have ever been. I decide to seriously cut all carbs out of my diet, planning to be thin in time for my friend’s wedding. I reason that since I’m going to gain 20 pounds during pregnancy anyway, I might as well lose it first, so i don’t end up 20 pounds heavier than THIS. My reward for eschewing all carbohydrates? A baby.

May 2009 – 12 pounds lighter, I am pleased with my progress. My work situation still depresses me, but I look forward to buying a house, and having a baby. Perfect Husband and I even pick up a copy of What To Expect from Value Village (hey, it was three dollars) and I read it cover to cover. It moves into the bathroom, from which Perfect Husband emerges periodically saying things like “Oh my gawd, I feel so sorry for you”. I spend a lot of time looking for in-the-womb photos of fetuses in development, and researching things like pre-natal stimulation and watching YouTube videos of nine month old babies who can recognise short words. I study baby sign and teach myself how to fold a cloth diaper (thank you, YouTube).

Then my coworker moves, and feeds me pizza and un-diet coke. Given a new rush of sugar of which it had been deprived for over a month, my addictions return in full rage. I spend the next couple of weeks trying to avoid carbs, but then succumbing and stuffing my face anyway. I begin to gain the weight back. I am frustrated with myself, and my body. I loathe it, and I loathe myself for being unable to resist the desire to eat. I am no closer to having my baby, and I begin to accept the fact that it might be baby… or body. But if I wait for body, I might never have a baby.

Thin body? NO CAN HAS.

June 2009 – My husband and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, and begin to neglect condoms. This is followed very shortly after by The Great House Breakdown. Perfect Husband realizes how much the hopelessness of work and unsuccessful dieting is weighing on me. He is used to my having bouts of depression, usually in winter, but this is worse than usual. Unfortunately, he’s read that damn What To Expect and has seen what effects depression can have on the fetus. He requires me to get fixed up with a doctor before we start trying for a baby.

Baby? NO CAN HAS.

Okay, I think. After all, his reasoning is sound. I know he’s right, because he’s always right, damn his hide, which is all part of his perfection. I’ll get help. I’ll be happy and THEN have a baby. It sounds good. Until I promised my husband to get help, I didn’t fully realize how much my misery had been weighing me down. It was like a birth defect or something – something which hinders me occasionally, but which I’ve always managed to work around and which I’ve stopped really thinking about. But soon I’ll be free – getting help! Maybe taking a pill which might restore my lost energy, lost libido, lost ability to sleep soundly, and which may remove my intense carbohydrate cravings, thus also reducing my weight. I could be thin, and sexy, and pregnant, all at once! Sure, I’d still be underpaid and unappreciated in my job, but what of that?

July 2009 – I go home to Nova Scotia, spend far too little time with my family and friends, whom I realize I have missed terribly. My friends out West are still getting to know me, and faced with the new, gloomy, quiet and hermit-like Carol, they have backed off. When I lose control and cry at work, they don’t know how to help. They argue against me, instead of commiserating. They try and cheer me up by telling me that it’s not so bad, that I’m overreacting, when really what I need is support and validation. My loved ones are too far away to be there when I need them. I live more and more on the internet, because it is my fastest portal to the people who have known me for over a decade. The trip flies by far too quickly. My hopes rise and fall with the Late Period Panic. And then… the infamous doctor re-visiting.

Help for your depression? NO CAN HAS.

Now, I understand that one can’t just plunge into a spoiled funk when things don’t go one’s way. The depression isn’t because of these things, but simply fed by them, like a monster under the bed who eats your singleton socks. I feel powerless. I feel invalidated. I feel denied. And the more I mourn the baby that never was, the further I take myself from finally holding the baby that someday will be. The more I withdraw from the life that seems too much, the further I push my tentative new friends. It seems like the most useless, hopeless cycle.

The Circle of Sad

23 Thursday Jul 2009

Posted by IfByYes in Me vs The Sad

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bosses, coworkers, depression, friends, hypocrisy, work

I feel sad, and lonely, and socially outcast. I just found out yesterday through a client that one of my coworkers has separated from her husband, and I was all like “lol yeah” but really thinking “wtf? really? How did no one mention this to me?” My friends haven’t had lunch with me or invited me out with them in ages… But I can’t find the energy or even the real desire to try and make an effort to seek out the company of others, so can you blame them for forgetting about me when I never reciprocate the invitations?

So clearly I need to hang out with my friends so I can feel liked and accepted, but I don’t have the energy to initiate anything, and then I don’t hang out with them which makes me feel rejected and more depressed, and I have less energy than before… Clearly, this is a case of “ur doin it rong.”

The only person whose company doesn’t exhaust me is my husband. When I’m with him, I’m fine. But when he’s at work or something, I feel so very alone and useless.

…Especially when a chronically late boss, who is not only known for being late, but basically expected to show up up to half an hour late for meetings, criticizes me for showing up five minutes late. I had half an hour to load three wheelchairs and a scooter, tetris-style, into the van and get to the bus station. I didn’t quite make it in time. I tried, didn’t I? Oh, the hypocrisy.

Is this normal?

03 Friday Jul 2009

Posted by IfByYes in Me vs The Sad

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

coworkers, depression, dogs, tears

Because I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be bursting into tears, sitting behind a work building crying into a golden retriever’s fur, just because a coworker was a little rude to me.

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