IBC? 
And now it is Friday! Only 16 1/2 hours until the weekend! Yay!
All of us are hoping a tornado blows up tomorrow and whisks us into heaven the moment we are announced to be MAs. 
Up, caffeinated, back from doing the weekly shopping… so the worst of the day is now over
Waiting for the delivery of the groceries… and for delivery on the new recliner we bought about three weeks ago, which is scheduled to arrive just… about… now. Then it’s WEEKEND!!!
Jahdra, Rosie, congrats on your successes. **SwampBear **-- you’re next after Jahdra… I can just see a job looking you in the eyes and saying “you are mine! Bwahhhhaha!!!”
**FCM **-- my reaction to your Baskin’ Robbins joke…? I scream! 
:sigh: we definitely need an auto-bolder for user names…
Woohoo! It’s Friday at last, and I’m so glad.
The eejits from yesterday are, unfortunately, a colleague and my line manager so not much point grumbling to the manager when she’s part of the problem. I went and grumbled to a couple of people elsewhere instead and felt better for it.
It’s not as if it was a big deal as far as I was concerned, it was the way other people behaved. I have to do the graduation list for three Schools because they need to have their graduating students registered with professional bodies before they are allowed to work (doctors, dentists and lawyers). My line manager volunteered me for the job (without mentioning it to me first) and told me how important it was. That word “important”? It’s, well, y’know, important.
So yesterday I was doing the dentistry list - it’s not difficult but it’s a bit of a faff because the results have to be entered on our marks system then we run a report to pull off the names and addresses of graduating students, which then has to be put into a letter to the General Dental Council but it must be done in a specific format.
I was doing that yesterday morning, knowing I had to get it finished so that it could be checked today because I have to take it to the Vice-Principal’s office for him to sign on Monday, and it needs to be signed by one other person. Bear in mind there are only six people in the university who are allowed to sign it.
While I was doing that, a colleague asked me to make some corrections to four reports that I’d pulled off databases for her, she needed those done by today. Fair enough, I said I would do them but I had to finish the dentistry stuff first. She decided to go whining to line manager and complain that I wouldn’t do her work.
Then line manager summons me to her office for a closed-door meeting which is virtually a telling-off because I didn’t do Elisa’s corrections first before I did other stuff. Effectively telling me I am not prioritising my work properly and I need to do Elisa’s corrections then I need to sort out a meeting for line manager with a bunch of the Deans and PVCs, then I can get on with this job that everyone else is telling me I have to drop everything for.
The truly galling thing is that when I looked at the report corrections, it became quite obvious that in the time it had taken Elisa to write them on the sheets and then go whining to Margaret, she could have done the feckin’ things herself.
It wasn’t even as if I’d told Elisa I wouldn’t do the work, I just needed to get something else done first because it was so important - even the Taught Student Records Manager had been in to tell me how important the lists are, and the team leader had come in to make sure I was ok with the job, but obviously Elisa thinks her trifling corrections (which did only take about 5 mins) are far more important than everything else.
It makes me want to spit, so it does.
But it’s Friday, I’m going home early and going to a party tonight, and I got my car out of the garage for less money than I’d expected (and 'im indoors offered to pay half of it too). Today isn’t looking so bad at all.
That’s an attitude I’ll never, ever, understand. Recently I had the duty of pulling some data from a series of PDF files into an Excel list someone had given to me preformatted. Several columns were always the same (factory code, country…) so I would hide them while copy-pasting, then unhide and send it onward.
One time I forgot to unhide and got the report back, cc’d to five other people, saying “this is unusable, it has hidden columns. Fix it and return it to me and let this not happen again. These reports are extremely important and must be completely accurate.” It wasn’t even that he’d thought the columns were missing and the fix took a single right-click… ‘So tell me, dear, were you born like that or was it a brain infection?’
Quick post before work. What is a weekend?
Something that Noone Special has on Fridays and Saturdays, canine servant.
And something that many of the rest of us have on Saturday and Sunday. And something that you and LiLi and others who work retail, medical, and other non-office jobs have on other, apparently random, days.
Work is promising to be downright awful today. Everyone think good thoughts, please…
GT
Yes, but that’s only because I’m Special!
(OK, OK, you’re special too, Nava :))
**BooFae **-- that sucks, having an idjit who can’t prioritize for a boss. And then have said IWCP chew **you **out or not prioritizing… :rolleyes: Gah. Try to put it all out of mind over the weekend and get back into work with a smile on Monday.
ETA – thinking good thoughts for you, GT!
Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienated here. In a couple of hours I have back to back interviews. The first with Juvenile Justice about ridin’ herd over a bunch of bad younguns and the second possible work at Miller Brewery. Although, if the first job were to happen, Miller would still be involved. Anywho, appropriate/inappropriate appendage crossin’ would be much appreciated. Not “appreciated” though.
Special One I’m hopin’ that a job I can stand doin’ is the one that grabs me and says “you are mine.” Hee. I like that.
BooFae durin’ times like those, sometimes it helps to just close your eyes and chant: “It all pays the same! It all pays the same!” Then go let the air out of their tires. Or tyres, since they’re English tires/tyres.
MBG I know what you mean. Those 12 ounce bottles of Coca-Cola are just the best ain’t they!
ETA: Glad the first day on the job went well Jah!
-swampbear (I seem to like quote marks a lot this mornin’)
Mr. SCL has just left for work! Well, he has gone to turn in a bunch of paperwork, and will attend orientation this afternoon. He’ll start back on Unit 10 tomorrow. Sometimes it really helps to know someone; one of his former supervisors cut through a bunch of red tape. She basically went to HR and said “I want him. Make it so”.
Under the heading of “Things that make you go huh?”: all applications and resumes have to be submitted electronically. The hospital website has a listing of local libraries with computers for public use. If you are reading the website, that would assume you are using a computer. ???
Then Mr. SCL was told he needed to print out everything and bring it with him today. 30 pages. There just aren’t enough :rolleyes: .
A buddy took me to lunch yesterday and I had a Monte Cristo. I wish I had never discovered those sinfully delicious things!
Off to bead…
The line manager doesn’t drive so no chance of letting her tyres down, the annoying colleague does drive to work but parks her car in a different spot every day so I’d have to hunt it down first.
Never mind, it really does all pay the same…
Vertical, ventilating, and consuming caffeine. Only I don’t think Og can make enough of that sweet chemical to satisfy my need right now. Gather 'round, kiddies, and listen to the tale of my just completed shift on the ambulance.
When I did my first duty on Mother’s Day, there were 0 calls during the 12 hours I was there. On Memorial Day Sunday, there was one. Last night, we had 4 in 7 hours, and not all had a happy ending.
I got to the station a handful of minutes after 5, and I found one of my class mates already waiting. He gave me the news that one of the day-shift paid EMTs lost a teenaged son yesterday morning in a bad traffic accident, and his brother was in the hospital with some bad injuries. The car they were in sid in gravel through a stop sign, and T-boned a truck. The dead son was ejected and then run over. 
To make matters worse, it happened in the county, so my station had to answer, and the Mom was on duty. It was a bad scene all around.
Good way to start a shift. About a half hour went by, and we got our first page for a lady with a severely cut hand and was taking blood thinners. Even better was that she was one of my country neighbors; her house is about 2 miles from mine, and I know most of her extended family already. The rub is that the regular crew I signed on with for the night wasn’t there yet. They were expected about 6. So I called, and they beat feet.
A bit of a tangent that is relevant to the story. Right now, I’m doing what is called precepting, which for an EMT is analogous to a MD’s internship. I’m already a regular member of the rescue squad, so I have to pull duty just like everyone else, but the duty time also counts as precept time. My classmate was there for precept time; he’s not on the squad yet.
Eddie and Sue, the regular crew get there, and Sue’s granddaughter got there a minute ahead of them. She’s also precepting for the class, and is a junior member of the squad. For all you red-blooded ladies men, Vanessa is hawt. She’s also 17.
Anyway, we roll with 2 regulars and 3 students to the call at my neighbor’s house. The patient was sitting in a chair with a gauze pad firmly clenched, and the cut hand laying on top of her head. Classic first aid for a cut like that. The bleeding was stopped, so I wrapped her hand to hold down the pad, and off we go.
About 2 miles from that scene on the way to Suffolk, another page went out. A COPD (lung disease) patient was having trouble breathing. Her address was on the way, so with a big crew already, we stopped to pick her up. I was assigned to care for patient #1 while the rest went to #2 
. Again we rolled, and #2 needed a lot more care. Oxygen and Albuterol. She soon settled down, and was breathing easier. When we called Obici to report that we were inbound with 2 patients, they wanted to know why…
They were taken in, I was shown how to scrounge and restock the unit, and much paperwork was done. We stopped to eat on the way back, and got back to the station. We were there not yet 10 minutes, and in the middle of updating our precept logs, when we got a page for an unresponsive woman. That may sound at first and even second reading as no big deal, but in the EMT world, ‘unresponsive’ is a major code word for big trouble.
It was big trouble. Yet another classmate, who has been with the squad for a while as a rescue tech (his job is to extract the victim for cars and the like), beat us to the scene and started CPR. It also was in vain, because she was already cold. Legally, when we start CPR, we can’t stop until we are directed to by the doctor or we get to the hospital. Eddie called the ER for direction, and the chickenshit doctor would not let us call it a day. We loaded her up, and off we went to Betsytown, a 45 minute ride, taking along the 2 guys who showed up at the scene.
It was hell. Six people in the back of the ambulance, doing CPR and all of the other stuff for a Code Blue patient, on an obvious corpse. We all knew she was dead, but we kept going like there was a glimmer of hope that she’d make it. Chest compressions and bagging for that long of a time will wear you out. I’ve felt more rested after a long bike ride.
The son from the car wreck was in the Betsytown Hospital, so we hung around after turning over the DOA to visit. By the time we left, it was 10:30. It had to be over for the night, right? Wrong. As we got out of Betsytown, we were paged once again, for a complaint of severe foot pain.
:mad: We’re losing sleep time for a case of gout, or so we thought. We dropped off Mark, Vanessa, Bubba, and Kevin at the DOA’s house, and now the crew was just me and the 2 regulars.
We get to the foot pain call, and walk in to see an old guy sitting in his chair with the big toenail ripped off. :eek: :eek: :eek: He was walking into his bedroom, stubbed his toe, grabbed the TV for support, knocking it over onto his foot, and then fell and hit his head on the dresser. We cleaned everything up, I bandaged his foot, and he refused transport (thank you Og!).
We finally got back to the station, finished that round of paperwork, and turned in. It was 1 AM when I got to bed, and I get up at 5. I tell you what, that de-nailed toe bugs me more than doing CPR the on the dead lady.
This will be a very strange weekend. My fire chief is getting married tomorrow at the station, and I go from there to the funeral home to see Amy. The last time I did something like that, I went from one grandfather’s funeral to the 50th wedding anniversary for the other grandparents. And, to add insult to injury, I won’t be able to imbibe at the wedding as originally planned. Like I’ve said, when a Baptist is buying the beer, you’ve got a party.
Graduation? I thought it was taking the SATs. No wonder I messed up both of them.
FCMDon’t let these heathens get to you. It was a wonderful story. Too bad you couldn’t do anything to save those birds - cats can be really fast when they’re hungry.
gt If I used your method to handle people who I wanted to strangle, I’d spent the rest of my life counting.
Good thoughts for gt.
Jahdra, glad it went well.
Still throwing up. A lot. I lost my dinner, prenatals, and anti-nausea meds yesterday just before bedtime. It require major courage just to swallow the damn prenatals- I hate throwing them back up.
Urgh.
Have some good thoughts, gt - I’m having a much better day today so the positive MMP vibes must be working!
Hi everybody, and Happy Friday!
It’s my Friday off, and I plan on taking it pretty easy today. I have to run a few errands later. One of which is take our huge king size comforter to the laundromat. I don’t do that nearly as often as I should.
I took Ernie’s collar off at bedtime last night, and I actually slept (almost) all the way through the night. I woke up once to pee, but not because of the dog! Yay! So I feel pretty good today. We still all got up when Mr Rebo’s alarm went off at five…
Bobbio - that was a hell of a shift you went through. So sad about the dead lady you had to do CPR on - jeez! There ought to be a better system or something… And the toenail story made my eyes get big. ICKY!
Later, gang… I’m gonna go watch some Jericho episodes.
gt, good vibes heading your way.
boofae, glad you are having a better day today.
bobbio, it certainly sounds like it takes a great deal of fortitude (intestinal and otherwise) to do what you’re doing. Kudos!!
bear, XXXXappendagesXXXX
Yay for Friday! It’s been a long week. My cow-orker is on vacation and will be out all next week as well. I been busy.
Off to do some busy stuff.
Tupug
Morning, all. Alice had to drag me out of bed this morning to go pick her up from dropping her car off to have the brakes worked on. And I was in the middle of a lovely dream, so it was really, really hard to get up. I can’t remember the dream now, but I remember how much I was enjoying it. Oh well, I’ve got a ton of work today anyway. (Or, for you British types, a tonne.)
Sounds like you had quite a night, Bobbio! :eek:
Good luck on the interviews, Swampy. Good thoughts headed your way. And I don’t even want any “appreciating” for them. 
I’m glad the new job is starting well, Jahdra. Don’t you love that accounting jargon? I work on a lot of transcripts for the SEC involving accounting for big corporations, so I’ve learned more about it than I ever wanted to know. But they do have their own language, that’s for sure!
That robins joke is awful, FCM. I shall immediately inflict it upon various friends and relatives.
A former coworker sent me a link to a lovely website yesterday, the Neighborhood Fiber Company, a handpainted yarn business started by the daughter of another former coworker. It looks like she’s having fun with her life! And from various other links from her website, I stumbled across another amazing yarn dyer, Heritage Yarns. I even ordered some yarn from her and had a lovely chat with her via email. It’s fun the way you meet people online, isn’t it?
And now back to work. And to laugh at all the furor over a “WARNING! HEAT ADVISORY!” day around here. It feels like early morning on a nice cool, not too humid Louisiana day to Alice and me, although you’d never know that by the way everyone is screaming about it. The heat index might approach 100°! (That’s about 38° for you Celsius types.) Oh noes! Silly people, they don’t know from hot and humid. I remember in Japan when it was 115°F/45°C, with about 99% humidity. Now that is hot. Not this wussy weather.
Hello all - must run, got a graduation ceremony to attend. Thank you all for your encouragment and nagging and congratulations and support and amusing comments - they made this year a hell of a lot easier to get through. Muah! :: throws kisses ::