18 posts tagged “work”

Hey sweetheart!

Hope you're doing okay. I am.

It's been a wonderful few days with lots of sunshine, so guess what I've been doing? What? No, the car is still unwashed but I've gotten actual tan-lines.

I did have to spend a big part of this goregous sunday inside, however, revising the punctuation on my thesis. Man, it took me about 3,5 hour to add/subtract all the commas and stuff!

I haven't done any sport since well, you know. It gets worse all the time, I can feel the tendon all the way up my thigh even when I sit, so there really aren't any comfortable positions. With any luck, I could get the doc to cut it up soon and fix it. Or better yet, postpone it for a while so that we don't have to do any dancing on the wedding! Or, well, I won't. But I guess you wouldn't mind. I remember that last big party we went to, when you told me "Woman, we might take one slow cuddly dance, but that's it. I don't do dancing." and then you not only danced a lot with me, but with my sister, my cousin, my mom... If I recall correctly you even tried to tango with Joni. I guess it only takes that much wine, huh?

I wouldn't wanna go back to work since it's been such a great weekend with wonderful weather, but I guess I don't really have that much choice since I know your standpoint on how much you really wanna be my sugardaddy. But nice things come with a price-tag, even as far as wives go.

I'll probably go back to Turku tomorrow after work since the presentations on tuesday have been set to start at 10 am, and I really haven't done any powerpoint-presentations or read the thesis I'm supposed to be opposing yet.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd let you know I'm fine, I'll be okay and all that. If I do get to graduate when you're gone you'll never hear the end of shit for that, so take it from me now, when things are still uncertain: roses make a good effort. And if you're thinking of celebrating it by bringing me lingerie, let me tell you I'd rather take the cash.

Love you.

I found out today that I was almost sued. Hi, Mom!

I wrote about it in a post I can't find right now, but we had a thief, spaced out on drugs in the pharmacy a while back. He was so out of it and so big that he didn't feel anything no matter how much the guard twisted his arms and stuff. And so when he got a hold of the guards neck with his other hand I went over to help him. The guard that is. He screamed and called us racists and was going to sue us all on assault and battery. This happened to him just because he was a gypsy!

I found out today when I talked to the guard that he had actually had the 'nads to sue us. The district attorney kindly informed him that while it would certainly be interesting to sue "the guard and that tall, dark chick from the pharmacy", it would not be possible. His case was mildly crippled by the fact that he was on a little sumthn' sumthn' and trying to steal and break things at Alko right next to us. Apparently it was also explained to him that being caught, in the midst of all this havoc with not one, but 2 items with which he was believed to intend harming people (a sharpened pair of scissors and a big knife. Hi, Mom!) did not support his case of hate-crime. The popo had a hard time believing that both the guard and that tall, dark chick from the pharmacy went "Gypsies! Let's get 'em!" in the middle of an otherwise normal day of work, and so no-one has actually been sued.

I wonder if he also tried to sue "that guy with the wicker basket who sat on top of me until the police came to get me".

Oh, and one last thing. The district attorney did, however, find it appropriate to prosecute this member of an ethnic minority since most of what he did was kind of criminal in bucketloads of ways, and having other things pending against him from before, he got a ticket for this one but is still going to jail for all the other stuff he's been up to.

That still doens't leave me free from worries. I had that other cortisone shot a few weeks back, and apart from the tendon being upset about getting stung with a needle again for a few days, I really haven't felt it at all. I still have a bit of a bruise from where the surgeon pricked me, but other than that I haven't offered the knee a thought. Stretching and paingel I have. And it's been all good.

Until yesterday.

I got up from the couch (the couch, people!) without any problems. No snap, crackle or pop, but when I stood up it was back. All that goddamn aching. It was like a security wall had just broken down and we were back in square one. Needless to say I didn't sleep much.

Don't really know what to do now, I contacted my doc but couldn't get a hold of him so I'm waiting for him to answer my e-mail. Yes, e-mail. Not allowed to call from work and I'm sure he has nothing better to do than e-mail me back. He did last time and he was really nice.

Anyway. At age 24, I feel like my body is an old battleship that has taken all it can take and is now slowly but securely plunging down in the bermuda triangle. My brain would be the tiny termite, hurrying up the big mast with a mouthful of wood, screaming "Not cool, dude! Not cool!".

I'd just like to take this moment, to share with you all, how incredibly convenient it is to have a Dad that works like an encyclopedia on all things concerning life. Especially in career-related matters. Dad really knows everything about how people can get screwed over and how to avoid it.

He is like career-Moses, standing in the middle of the ocean that is my huge job-related issues and questions, calmly waving his legislation-wand, going "Can't touch this".

Thus, also being the MC Hammer of careers, but Moses sounds a lot better.

"I'd like you to sign a new contract on monday"

"Why? I have a valid one"

"I know, but with that raise coming and such, we want to prolong your time of notice to 2 months. It's really difficult to find people to replace good workers in a shorter time."

"Oh, right. Let me think about it 'til monday"

"I'd rather you'd sign it now, but ok. But monday is as far as I can stretch. Plus, it's a good safety for when you get pregnant."

"...for when I..."

"Hah! Look at her face! Hahaa, dude, you're pale. This is fucking priceless!"

"So you're not trying?"

"...not trying... to..."

So this is why I've been asked to do so much labwork lately. They're all still waiting for the day when I'll say no thanks to working with aether and collodium!

Sami is going away again, this time to do actual work, marketing in Far Far Away. He'll be leaving on wednesday and he'll be gone for 6 weeks.

These long trips spur a lot of emotions that are hard to communicate. Like anger. You get a little pissed because he's leaving for such a long time. He doesn't have the attitude towards it I think he should have and so on.

You also start to worry about stupid things, like what if I get it in my head to iron all the curtains while they're still hanging on the wall and I slip and I fall and the iron hits me in the head and he isn't here to rescue me? I'll be found when the stench reaches the hallway. Urgh.

You get a little sad, because duh, 6 weeks of loneliness.And how do you communicate that you're happy he gets this opportunity but that he totally owes me 6 weeks of vacuuming? How do you ask him how he would like to be told if one of the grandparents we all have dies or something? I might need you in the middle of the night, when it's dark and I wake up from a nightmare. Who am I gonna tell about this stupid guy that came in to work today?

Will he keep warm without me saying so, and will he keep safe? I know there are a few other guys from his work going too since it is a team-thing, but what do they know, right? Remember to eat, okay?

When he says "you'll be fine, I'm coming back eventually" how do you get him to understand that no, actually, I'll be miserable for a week or so, then I'll be okay, and right there about half way through it'll really start to suck and when you come home I'll be irritated because I've grown used to not having anyone around and you are totally in the way of my visual space.

It's hard to come up with how to tell him all these things, and to say I love you, I'm happy for you but your work really sucks.

So, yesterday, I walked up to him and kicked him in the leg.

He totally got it.

You know how women get baby-fever?

Have you ever seen it in men?

We were at this get-together yesterday with Sami's coworkers and their wives/fiancées/girlfriends. One of his colleagues had a baby about half a year back and so they brought him with them, and as soon as they entered the room it was obvious: there were at least 2 men with a severe case of baby-fever.

One of them is my age and so is his wife, and they already have a 3-year old. But as soon as the baby entered he was grinning like Santa on Prozac. He immediately started scooching his chair closer to the baby and so I turned mine to his wife and to give her the "look at your husband go!"-look. She was already giving me the "Oh God I know and we've totally discussed it or rather he's been nagging me about it but we've already got that one and she's at a difficult age right now and I graduat within a year and don't really know if a pregnancy is a good idea right now"-face.

Then there was this other guy. He and his girlfriend are also getting married, a few weeks after us, in fact, and he was all "Who's a trooper! You are! Yes, you are! Yes, you are..." and throwing hopeful glances at his future wife who was all "There appears to be a midget in the corner.".

You know those mornings when you wake up scared to death because the alarm was somehow extra loud?
You reach out to turn it off and it's just that extra inch too far and you fall out of bed, on your injured knee. You shake it off just to notice you've slept funny and your neck hurts like hell, then you yawn and hear a loud *Crack!*  in your jaw and while you rush off to work you drop your very expensive phone on the pavement.

Welcome to a saturday of work.

I was asked, today, if I get paid to fake empathy.

I told her no, I get paid to do my job, and if I suck at it then I fake empathy.

She laughed, and I faked laughing with her instead of at her.

"Hi babe! I thought I'd lost you for a few days here. How've you been?"

"What? Oh, we worked until 1 am so I thought I'd let you sleep. This really sucks. We've been doing long days and Piggy treats us like we just rolled out of our diapers"

"Who's Piggy? I hope you don't call him that to his face"

"Remember that guy in our middle management who has that upwards turned nose?"

"Yeah."

"Piggy. And it's a general nickname he's been called a lot of years now. But he just pisses us all off! Sometimes I'd want to strangle him, and I'm not alone with that thought."

"Oh come on. He might not be all nice but he's also trying to do his job"

"No, seriously honey. We had this recreational thing last night in the dark and I was supposed to be overseeing the whole thing, so I had one of the very few infrared-binoculars we were given and he was standing right in front of me. I could've so easily kicked him square in the nuts and not one of the 40 guys that were there would've ratted me out."

It seems to be a phenomenon, this thing with middle management :)

Work is a complicated thing, no?

I got a call from my boss today, asking about whether or not I lied about being sick last week. She didn't ask me straight out but I got the point. Later on in the call I found out that it wasn't even her idea to call me but Middle Management had pointed out that it was quite suspicious that I was sick on (among other days) a saturday when I was supposed to work. I was highly offended and we spoke about it, my boss believed me and we're cool. She told me she didn't believe I would've lied in the first place but things like this need to be sorted out. I respect that and we had a very good discussion on the matter and what to do if such a thing occurs again. Me and middle management on the other hand...

This whole thing is just incredible, and let me explain to you why. First of all, in matters regarding sick-leave, I answer to Middle Management first since she is my direct boss before my actual boss, the lovely woman who owns the pharmacy and pays me my salary. We have a system where we get one day off during the week when we work a saturday. I am not supposed to have any more saturday-work than anyone else, which would total up to 1-2 saturdays a month. I now have 6 saturadays of work in a row. I also have a lot more 12-20 hours than the others (yes, I counted, I'm that petty) but I haven't complained. It's all work that need to be done anyway. The issue here was that last weeks saturday was to be compensated by me getting last weeks monday off. Which I did. I then fell ill on wednesday and thus was suspected of somehow sneakily getting an extra day off (plus the faked sickdays of course) without having to pony up a saturdays work.

Right here I would like to say: I am truly, deeply sorry that I didn't plan the start of this illnes better. My bad.

But the point was:

With all evenings an 1 1/2 months of shifts on saturday straight it is very likely that when I get sick it would affect the company so that they have to re-arrange other people or cope with a smaller amount of people to cover for me. It shouldn't be a surprise.

I contacted Middle Management and offered to get a doctor's certificate about being sick and got the reply that it wasn't needed. We believe you.

I don't think I should ever even be suspected of faking illness since during the strike I flexed to work when they needed me. I've done extra shifts when other people have been sick. I covered for Middle Management the week before when she was sick. I think it should go without saying and I do actually take pride in thinking that if I sell my time to my employer she/he has the right to get my full effort. I try to deliver.

I occasionally work at home, without getting extra for it.

Having said all this I am, in reality highly offended, and seriously pissed for being ever suspected of faking illness. We were both sick at the same time so by the end of the week we didn't even have food because noone had gone to the grocery store. Neither of us was off cavorting, prancing around in a field full of daisies with a mild temperature.

And finally, even is such a thing was suspected, I believe it would have been the correct thing to do to ask me straight forward, to my face, and not call me on my study-day. I also think this would've been a thing for Middle Management to sort out by herself since it is clearly her job as my first boss to do so. I am all good with the owner, but I suspect this will not be okay with Middle Management even though things now should have been cleared and there really isn't anything worse than a boss who has issues against you. At any level. She was working that saturday too, you see. I also think it is remarkably unfair to ask such a thing later on since I now have no way of getting a doctor's certificate because I was told I didn't have to go see one in order to prove I was sick.

This just really ties my panties in a knot and I can't believe anyone would raise such unfair questions when I have, in fact, taken a real effort to try to do things right.

Next time I'm sick I am going to work despite it since there obviously isn't any way of steering clear from a witchhunt. Maybe I'll even get a bonus for drawing customers back in by coughing on them.

But seriously, soooooo pissed I can't even sleep. Please do comment if you think I am wrong. I have a tendency to sometimes exaggerate my reaction to things but this is really how the matter was presented to me.