The greatest what?
Me: “Hey, on your way home, can you pick up this totally non-crazy food item that sounds kind of delicious right now?” Ben: “I don’t listen because my brain can’t comprehend the implications of ‘pregnancy cravings’, so let me substitute this TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING INSTEAD.”
You know, with the puking and the peeing and the discomfort and the weight gain and the swelling and the crying and the mood swings and the weird pooping and the peeing AGAIN and the heartburn and the weird dreams and the fact that GUYS DON’T FUCKING LISTEN, EVER, OMG it’s a wonder this species hasn’t died out completely.
He doesn’t like scalloped potatoes, which is what I woke up wanting, so I’ve already given up on them. Somehow gas station nachos became an acceptable substitute, but NO, I can’t have those. Why? No, really, that’s a question. Because he had to stop at the gas station anyway, so why the hell not just get them?
Next, the version with the chin strap, called the ChinChillow. 
Poor Silver Fire! In my universe, that’s not quite a killing offense, but you can lightly maim him. (I was "lucky"with my last two: hyperemesis plus massive anemia plus a nervous husband meant that, if anything sounded remotely appetizing to me, Tony would run out at any hour to get it. When I had H1N1 flu in September of 09, he actually used the patrol car to go get Arby’s when I finally wanted to eat! Being the honest sort, he also confessed that to his boss. The sheriff totally understood!)
One of my co-workers is just so, so cranky and sour all the time.
I work three days a week in a large-ish section, so two of us work there at a time. It’s a team effort- we have to look after everything. We switch off days doing most tasks and, if we have a community service person there to help, assign some to them.
Basically every day, she gets there late. And I’m talking like an hour late, not like five minutes late. Which means I have to cover for her every morning (as in, I do both her job and mine because they both need to be done- not that I lie for her or anything). Then she comes in, usually with some story about why she was late that almost always includes a reason why she’s just not really up to working properly today. Usually things that I would consider legit if it didn’t happen every day- like the cat got out as she was leaving for work and she’s late because she had to chase it and then injured herself chasing it.
Then, she works incredibly slowly. Which means I end up having to do the vast majority of the work because it needs to get done. I know this just encourages her to keep on being late and working slowly, but… the work needs to get done. It’s not her who suffers if it doesn’t- she honestly doesn’t care (unless she suddenly decides to, which is my next point.) if it gets done or doesn’t. The other day, she was supposed to mop, so I made up her mop water and got everything else ready for when she was done mopping because I wasn’t going to give in and mop for her AGAIN. And she… just didn’t mop. She just skipped the step entirely.
Then, she likes to bitch and bitch and bitch. Everything is wrong. No matter how someone does something, it’s both wrong and a BIG HUGE DEAL. Like I’ve recently been bitched out for:
- Letting a cat out of his cage- he had a dental like three weeks ago and the vet said to let him out when he wants to come out. I figured meowing at the front of the cage and darting out when I opened the door were good indicators that he wanted to come out. She disagreed.
- Failing to put piles of food on the floors and windowsills- something that our boss explicitly told us we were not allowed to do.
- My other co-worker oiled the squeaky pen doors and now they swing open and Miss Ray-of-Sunshine is LIVID.
- Letting a volunteer help to put pens back together because some beds were out of place. Which, obviously, is a problem that cannot be fixed. I mean, my day was also ruined by the fact that she put Lucky’s cat bed on the floor when it belongs on top of the cat tree. I couldn’t possibly think of a solution to that one. And that was how Lucky died.
- Putting a cat in his own pen for the night when he’d decided he was being picked on by his roommates and should be moved, but hadn’t told me this.
- The day she had to “come work for me”. I was actually at work that day, but had been asked to work with the special needs cats because someone up there was on vacation. But apparently, now I owe her.
She’s just always so sour. Even when people come in to help or look at cats. The way I see it, first of all, being friendly and at least pretending to love your job (not that it should be much of a stretch when you get to work with animals…) is just basic professionalism. But more than that, it should be a happy place and time for volunteers and adopters and it makes the shelter look good if people walk away with the impression that the cats are genuinely loved instead of grudgingly maintained. Instead, she sits at the desk and scowls and complains and, if asked, insists that every cat is “ornery” or can’t go without its roommate or.
Anyway, I’m getting pretty sick of it and like… kind of want to complain to management, but it seems so petty and shit-stirring. Like when we work together, it’s just me and her and I have no doubt that she’d be even more unpleasant if she’s mad at me, which she absolutely would be if she got called out because I complained. And I don’t really want to get her fired, so… I don’t know. I’m just sick of it. Luckily, I only have to work with her two days a week- the third, I’m with someone much more pleasant and hardworking and the fourth and fifth, I’m on my own in a different section.
I don’t understand. A cat died because its bed was in the wrong place?
Rant: I drove all the way to work to find that they shut down for the day because some people might get stranded by the flooding. I understand that, though many of us don’t have to go through any flooded areas to get there. I just wish they had included my building on the list of closures on the company’s main phone line. They just said buildings 2 and 7 were closed, and I work in 5, on the other side of town. 2 and 7 are actually down near to the Poudre river.
Oh, well. Nice to have a paid day off.
Aww, I want a Tony at my house!
Round two:
Less than 12 hours after the above ER visit, the bleeding started again, right through the packing. Back to the ER. As they were repacking it, I started bleeding copiously from the other nostril, too. I was released from the hospital this afternoon, having spent the intervening time with nose completely blocked.
I’m missing something about Lucky dying too…
But you do need to bring this to some Higher Up’s attention. It’s affecting your work, it’s affecting your attitude, she’s not presenting a good face for the organization, she doesn’t sound like she brings anything of value to the place. Also, the animals in your/her care don’t need any more stress in their lives. They certainly are sensitive enough to pick up on it, and it isn’t going to help the marginal ones any. The goofball dogs won’t care, but there are plenty of hypersensitive and reactive cats who will feel it.
If she’s a volunteer, that’s going to be tough because often time warm bodies are all that’s required in terms of skills, but if she’s got a paid position it doesn’t sound like the organization is getting its money’s worth. How in the world can she clock in an hour lte repeatedly with no repercussion??
SurrenderDorothy, I agree with saje. If you don’t want to get management involved at this time, you need to put your foot down. Make a list of duties for each of you to complete and stick to your guns. Keep the lists, anything not checked off by her over a week or two - take that to your boss. Including late punches. The animals don’t need to deal with your stress on top of her grump, they’re stressed enough as shelter animals already. She can be replaced with someone grateful to get a job.
And please do come back, I can’t quite parse that part about Lucky, either.
Maybe the greatest refrigerator door.
I don’t want to brag (pfffft! – the HELL I don’t :D), but back in early 1996, kaylasmom decided that she simply MUST have a bowl of mushroom soup. And canned was definitely not on the agenda. I got on the phone and asked the soup of the day at Denny’s, Coco’s, Carrows, Claim Jumper, SouPlantation, Home Town Buffet, and Norm’s. Finally found it at John Dominis in Newport Beach.
One drive to Newport Beach and nine dollars later, she was happily slurping away. 
There are definitely not enough restaurants that consider mushroom soup to be a valid selection.
I was joking about Lucky- my point was that the solution to his bed being in the wrong place was simply to, without fuss, move it to the right place. And the absolute worst thing that could happen by his bed being in the wrong place even for a whole night would be… I don’t know, momentary mild confusion? But instead, it was a big to-do about how this poor girl who was trying to help “threw his pen all over the place” as though she had committed some heinous offense or done something really idiotic. Lucky is fine and suffered no ill effects from his bed being temporarily misplaced.
You’re right, though- I hadn’t thought about how it’s affecting my own attitude, but it is. I love my job and I love my cats, but I do end up letting my annoyance with her get in the way. And I’m not sure how she’s clocking in late all the time like that and not getting in trouble. It’s possible that she is getting in trouble, just in private and not in front of us, which would be appropriate. I also know she’s been around a while and I know, at least with the cat people, they consider that to be valuable in terms of knowing the cats. A lot of the cats have been around for years and she knows more about them than I do in terms of where they came from and such. I’ve only been around a few months, so I know all the cats’ names and personalities, but couldn’t tell you where most of them came from to begin with.
I do know I have my other co-worker on board- he works with her more often than I do. So if I go to the boss and say, “This is a problem” and she goes to him and says, “Is this a problem?” he will say, “Yes, it’s a problem,” and I won’t end up looking like I’m making the whole thing up and trying to get her in trouble.
So let’s see: she refuses to do as management instructs, cannot be on time, deliberately skips chores she doesn’t want to do or manages to dump more work onto others by deliberate dawdling, and is surly to those who come in wishing to give cats homes, including outright lying to discourage adoptions. How is this person of any value to a cat shelter again?
Bronchitis sucks. My ears are clogged, sinuses loaded with enough goo to power up several movie monster effects, energy nearly gone, and there’s laryngitis too.
Really hating the next apartment complex over right now. As if the general noise and ghetto behavior weren’t bad enough, as if their perception of a right to vandalize the wall between properties to make cutting through my complex to reach the shopping center on the other side weren’t bad enough, I’ve now been enduring VERY loud thumping bass coming from there for most of the last two hours (did call police non-emergency to report the problem, while recognizing that they very likely do have higher-priority calls to attend to). Said bass is nearly drowning out my TV.
From a few hundred feet away. Through my walls.
I wanted to jaywalk, but SOMEone (read: husband) didn’t want to take a chance.
You have my sympathy - I like my house and yard QUIET! It’s my sanctuary.
Good man. But did you use an effing police car to go get that soup? It was probably cold if you weren’t running lights and sirens to get it home! (That, or the moment had passed, and the missus no longer wanted mushroom soup, instead it was Zapp’s potato chips and a strawberry milk shake.)
Soorry, I wasn’t clear. I put her into the car and we actually WENT to John Dominis. It’s fortunate that they didn’t enforce a dress code, because there’s no way we would have passed muster. Anyway, I sat there and watched her eat a bowl of soup, while I had a glass of water.
Hey, dudemanbro, I know people are evil and scary and probably steal your picnic baskets all the time and all, but here’s a tip: people who almost get hit by buses to rescue your poorly raised, unsupervised child probably aren’t up to nefarious schemes. But, no, I get it, you don’t know me. How could you possibly be sure that I’m not one of those weirdos that can only get off by pushing little girls into buses and then abducting them. There’s, like, at least a few hundred thousand of those guys in every town, right? Man, the cops really need to crack down on that shit. I swear at least one bus-murder child-abduction happens every hour around here.
Still, if you don’t want to risk bus-mangled-child paedophiles touching your angel, you should probably teach them not to run into heavy traffic when a bus is coming. Because, I mean, man, I don’t really like telling people how to parent, but I think it might… shit, I’m bad at this. Getting hit by a bus might have an impact on her college education in 10 years I guess? Something like that? I don’t know, I don’t have a kid, I haven’t read all the books and shit. I’m just saying that I don’t like having to have a bus slam on its brakes and almost hit me so I could fling your child out of its way – a bus, I might add, she didn’t even see because she stepped out onto the street looking in the direction traffic was going, not where it was coming from.
But, no, it’s cool dude. I probably interrupted your life insurance scam or something. Or maybe you’re practicing for that day when they finally give you that big promotion and you can tell all those plebs that they’re filing those TPS reports incorrectly, just like your boss does to you! Or maybe you’re a sociology researcher trying to raise a child with the situational awareness of a goldfish, and it was publish or perish time and I just made sure you didn’t get tenure. It’s cool, I understand, but I’ma still pull your little girl out of the way of buses, cars, and trains if it happens again, m’kay? I’m sure you understand.