escape yourself and gravity

Happy fucking birthday to me.

Wow, the head of HR at my company has reached new lows in classiness. At 9 am ON MY BIRTHDAY he called me to his office and told me they're downgrading my job to part-time. Why? Well, because I've missed so much time this year, and yet the quality of my work hasn't suffered at all. In other words, "You're so efficient, we're demoting you. Congratulations, you're losing your benefits."

And he seriously expects me to work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? Hell fucking no. That's a non-negotiable point. I'll be working three consecutive days if they want me to stay. And that's only IF the Department of Labor tells me that it actually is legal for them to make a full-time benefitted position part-time non-benefitted while the incumbent is on FMLA. I suspect it's a legal gray area, since it might not technically be considered a demotion or punishment, even though in practice, it is.

I'd put the job search on hold while my boss' mother was dying, too. She was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer this summer and only died two weeks ago, and I thought it would be shitty of me to leave while C was dealing with that. Didn't stop C from being in talks with HR and the VP of Finance about all this though, obviously. Bitch.

So now I have to try to figure out what I'm good at and what I really want to do, and I have to do it in a hurry, because I only have benefits through the end of October, and the neurologist still hasn't gotten my migraine meds cocktail right, and I really wanted to ask my primary care physician for a new antidepressant. Though being away from SFS might take some of the pressure off the Zoloft, I guess. :P


I want a job where I can telecommute at least part of the time, wear jeans to work every day, do a lot of research, not talk on the phone much, and travel. With benefits. Anyone know of a job like that? :P

So last week I spent three days with a stomach bug, so I stayed home Wednesday through Friday.  Worked Monday, but I was having serious problems with what I thought was allergies.  Now I'm pretty sure it's influenza.  Yippee.  Well, the Bible does say that pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.  For all the migraine and allergy and sciatica issues I have, I can't remember the last time I had either stomach flu or influenza--probably when I was in grade school.  So I've bragged about that (yeah, I know) and never got flu shots.  But Monday night I went to bed at 8:30 and I spent all day yesterday either in bed or in a recliner, and all day today either in bed or on the loveseat.  I had a fever of 99.9, which for me is high because my normal temperature is 97-something, not 98.6.  The fever finally broke sometime this morning, because I woke up around 11:30 drenched in sweat.  But I'm still so weak I can't sit up for longer than 15 or 20 minutes.  I did eat some chili around 3, and I'm hungry again, which seems like a miracle.  Of course, eating also feels like really hard work.  I'm in bed right now with my netbook on.

I will say, at least the timing has been good.  We got hit by a nasty ice storm this week.  It started Monday night, enough that we all stayed home yesterday, and then we got another wave of ice yesterday from about 5 to midnight.  We have about 4-6 inches of ice out there.  Yuck.  Mom's school has already called off for tomorrow.  Dad tried to drive out to the mailbox this afternoon, and he proceeded to get the truck stuck in the driveway, and then the car stuck in the driveway.  Why he tried the car after the truck got stuck, I have no idea.  It took him a good half hour to get them unstuck and put the car back in the garage.  Mom ended up walking out to the mailbox, and it was empty, so obviously the USPS didn't live up to their unofficial motto of delivering through "rain, snow, sleet, or hail".  LOL

I'm not planning to go to work tomorrow.  I couldn't sit at my computer today longer than 15 minutes or so; no way would I be able to make it through 8 hours of work.  I suspect I'll be home the rest of the week.  Not that I'm weeping bitter tears over that, but it's going to suck for later in the year, since January is a crap time to use up all your sick paid time off.

My cat's asleep on my legs.  I feel bad, but I'm going to have to make him move.  I need to venture down the stairs and see if I can eat something.

I shouldn't probably be this tired on a Monday morning, eh?

Saturday not much happened. Went to the hardware store with Mom & Dad, and they were both feeling bad (Dad is still not recovered from being ill like three weeks ago). We stopped at Blockbuster for some movies, went home, watched Hot Fuzz, and then I got online for a while.

Yesterday woke up with horrible headache. Went back to bed, got up around noon. Mom and I were going to go to the hardware store (again) because Dad's farming cousins hit our mailbox with the combine and utterly destroyed it. We got ready, loaded stuff in the truck, and...I couldn't get the truck started. Despite that we'd been driving it all weekend.

We managed to jump it off my car, but as Mom and I headed to town to get the battery replaced, I noticed a weird, high-pitched whining sound that changed pitch every time the transmission shifted. This was something new, and I needed to get my sunglasses anyway, so we turned around and headed back home (we were abut half a mile away, no biggie). When I stopped, all the instrument panel lights came on, and I said, "Nope, we're not driving this today. This is an electrical problem, not battery."

Dad and I drove the truck around for a bit so he could listen to the noise, though the lights never did that again. We got home, he turned the truck off, and immediately it wouldn't start again. It was holding a charge, though, because the radio would come on and stay on.

At that point thesnapelyone called and we decided to go hiking. Dad went inside and discovered the power supply he'd replaced still wasn't working, so we worked on that for a bit. Thank God, we got the computer working properly again. (Did I neglect to tell the story of the power supply two weeks ago? After all that shit I went through with Dell where he was trying to buy a new computer, he got home from vacation, turned on his computer, and his power supply went up in smoke. LITERALLY. Anyway, it was still under warranty, so we got it replaced for free, aside from the $50 it cost him to ship the bad one back.)

Anyway. Mom and Dad took the truck up to leave it at the dealership while thesnapelyone and I went hiking at Shades. We had fun, though I ended up quite muddy thanks to low water. Yes, low water. I don't usually try to cross the stream at that point because it's usually about 8 inches deep there--but it just looked like it was a bit muddy. I sank in about four inches and ended up with mud splattered up my legs. Sometimes I think I'm more Gryffindor than I want to admit--I just barged ahead without really looking. *snort*

So this morning I had to get up earlier than usual and take Mom up to work so Dad could drive my car. Of course, Mom's car doesn't have dim lights, just bright ones, which I didn't realise. I swear, these people. And yet Dad, since he has a GM Mastercard with $3000 worth of points on it, insists on buying another Chevy. I tell you, I'm done with Chevy. Never again.

Now I'm halfway through a 32-oz Dr. Pepper and I just want to crawl back into bed. *sigh*

But hey! I have another installment of Redemption ready to go to beta, and I have my Pervy Werewolf fic in beta, and I just have Snupin Santa to finish and get to beta in the next week and a half, and then OMG NaNoWriMo starts! *holds head* Maybe I shouldn't look ahead...