The Insanity Continues

I've been extremely lazy about sitting down and writing this post (I started it on 10/26). And because I put it off so long I have some ranting to do along with the squee I was originally going to post about. So I'll start with the rants and end with the squee. Everything is under a cut so you can pick and choose what you want to read.

Fucking anxiety

I keep being told that we are fully staffed which is fine except they didn't keep hiring people. Tuesday (10/25) morning there was a new girl (she actually started Monday (10/24) but since I don't work Mondays...). My anxiety had me convinced that I was going to be fired. Until KN said she was going to have her sit with me for a bit and I was able to ask about who she is and whatnot. She's been hired to help with our year-end audit so no one is being fired at this time. Crisis avoided. For now.

Since I started writing this she has since been moved to the other office to help bill freight payables. And Friday (11/4) she told me that she considers me to be fourth in line in terms of authority over the team (behind L, J, and KN, respectfully). She told me that she will definitely tell L that I should be given a chance to become a lead. It made me feel good. Oh, and she wants to continue to Skype me during business hours.

Fucking coworkers

There is one guy on my team at work, KP, (he's one of two men in the whole department). His desk is across from mine and nearly every day he comes in stinking to high heaven like he bathed in either Brute (an aftershave from the 70's) or Axe. Most days I can avoid having a reaction (I'm extremely sensitive to the scent) by turning my fan on and facing it toward his desk. I mentioned this problem to J back when he started but was told that there is nothing they can do about it.

He also will randomly start humming. Off-key. The problem with this is that his voice is very deep and I have to turn my music up way too loud in order to avoid it disturbing my concentration.

He'll also just up and disappear several times a day and quite often takes A with him. He'll spend about twenty minutes (or less) at his desk and spend the rest of the hour being elsewhere.

I have no idea how he hasn't been fired yet because on top of all this, he doesn't get in a hurry for anything. He strolls everywhere he goes; it takes him twenty minutes to get in the building in the mornings where it'll take him ten minutes to get his computer set up before he disappears for twenty minutes or more. AND he is the slowest keyer on the team. He barely keys ten reports per hour.

Last Thursday (10/20) we had a team meeting and A mentioned that she doesn't like it when 'someone' (yours truly) marks emails she has marked as read (as in she has keyed the reports that are attached to it) as unread because then she doesn't know if she actually keyed it or not.

Um... See we use Outlook for our email and we have set up categories to keep track of which emails have been done and by whom. And she does mark the emails saying she has keyed them. Seems to me she doesn't need to run a shift report to see if she keyed it or not. Just look to see if she has tagged it with her personal 'flag'.

BTW, the reason I mark them as unread is so that I can keep track of which ones I've done. And the reason this is an issue for her is because this one operator has three sites and he sends all three reports in one email. A does one site, I do one site and KP does the third.

Also, KP and A will sometimes come in at the same time as me (6:30am) but never leave after eight hours. In fact, on my nine hour days they will still be there when I leave at 3:30. So either they're clocking out for over an hour for lunch, which is possible, or they're being allowed OT (which is totally unfair to me and S). Guess it pays to be besties with management.

J had me at her desk Wednesday (11/9) to discuss my schedule for the rest of the year and I found out that the reason it seems like A is working OT is because she only works four hours on Sundays. I know she works from home and if it was me I'd go ahead and work a full eight. But that's just me. Considering how much time A spends away from her desk (she either disappears with KN or KP or just by herself) I shouldn't expect her to have my work ethic.

But this still doesn't explain why she doesn't leave at 3:30 on the days she comes in at 6:30.

Fucking brat

My daughter has gotten herself in trouble with money. Again.

She was fired from the call center and had a job at IHoP for one week before quitting. She started a new job Monday (10/24) but has already called me bitching about her coworkers.

Plus, she got into an accident last week but it might not be her fault because the other person didn't have insurance. And Friday (10/28) she got a speeding ticket. Which needs to be paid by 11/14. She doesn't want to tell her grandfather because she's afraid he'll cut off her insurance and she can't afford to pay it and then pay for defensive driving. I also don't have it to give to her (I'll explain why later). When I told her I don't have it, she hung up on me.

I cannot feel guilty about this because I refuse to let her bleed me dry like my brother has done to our parents. I've worked too hard for what little I have to keep giving it to her. Especially given how she treats me most of the time.

Halloween!

At the end of September (9/29) L had the (not so) brilliant idea that we should all write a costume idea on a piece of paper and we'll all draw one out and that's what we have to be for our Halloween party. She said we'd do the drawing the following Monday (10/3) until I mentioned that Halloween is on a day I don't work so she said we'd do the drawing on that Tuesday (10/4) which was my day off that week (not that I told her that).

The Wednesday after that (10/12), J sent me a text asking if I had an idea for the drawing (they didn't do it on 10/4) I told her I didn't. She texted back that she had remembered I wasn't going to be in until the next day so the drawing was pushed until 10/20. Only problem with this is I'd already decided to be the TARDIS. But I was forced to draw a costume idea (Pink Lady from Grease). I had a hair appointment that evening where I dyed my hair for my real costume.



So now I'll be a Pink Lady with blue hair and nails. *shrug*

Every month my department has a pot luck. October's theme was, of course, Halloween. I made mini mummy loaves (crescent rolls stuffed with mozzarella and pepperoni. They didn't turn out very well, some of them were burnt. I made twenty-two and brought home fifteen.



My department also 'played' an office game called "You've been boo'ed". The rules are that once you've been boo'ed you have to boo two other people. Most of my co-workers got boo'ed quickly. I knew that either I would be 'forgotten' or I'd be the last one boo'ed. So imagine my surprise when I got to work on Wednesday (10/26) to find this on my desk:



And of course I was one of the last to be boo'ed. We ended up with six people who need to boo and five people who need to be boo'ed. Not sure how we ended up with an odd number left to be boo'ed since we have twenty-two people in the department but that's how it was.

We were allowed to wear costumes Friday (10/28) and/or Monday (10/31) if we wanted. And of course I wanted because I had bought a TARDIS dress. I wore it Friday because J wanted to see me in it.



Squee!

Back in 2014 I saw a post popkin16 made over on Tumblr about something called Squee Weekend. She linked to the livejournal comm. It was too late for me to attend that year so I planned to attend the following year (2015).

At the time I was underemployed but was hoping to get a better paying job that would allow me to go. Well, I got that job but was still unable to attend. I was very disappointed but knew that I would eventually be able to attend.

This year I was able to attend and I was ecstatic. I requested six days off despite not being sure if I would be allowed to take them or not. It was approved! I hadn't had a week's vacation in years and had never taken one by myself.

I purchased my plane tickets (first class, baby!) for 10/5-10/12. My flight out on 10/5 was at 5:05am so I changed my day off from Monday (10/3) to Tuesday (10/4) so that I could rest before having to fly out so early.

As the day drew closer melagan reminded me that I needed to make arrangements for my hotel room. After paying nearly $600 for my plane tickets and giving my daughter $400 for bills, I didn't have any money left for a hotel room. When I asked if someone would share with me I mentioned that I need a bed, not a pull out couch because of my back (spent most of August barely able to move because I had thrown my back out).

melagan said that there was a 'Squee fund' available to pay for people who need financial assistance. Only issue is the fund had just enough money for five of the seven nights we were there. So she paid for the other two nights and told me I could pay her in a month (with my 11/5 check). Because of having to pay her $260 and $200 for my credit card bill (I applied for one to try and rebuild my credit faster) I have absolutely no money left.

I decided to stay up as late as I could Monday and sleep as late as I could on Tuesday. I did take a nap on Tuesday but only so I didn't fall asleep while waiting until time to get ready to go to the airport.

I had to take an Uber (this is twice now that no one in my family has been willing to take me to the airport). The driver got me there at 2:45am. I got checked in then had to sit and wait for the security gate to open. At a few minutes to 3, a man approached a TSA agent that was standing at the checkpoint where I was sitting. I got up and queued up behind him only to find out that gate wasn't going to open until 3:30 or later. We were told that the other gate was a two-minute walk away.

They lied!

It was at the other fucking end of the terminal from where we were. This means I had to walk the length of the terminal. Twice. Because the checkpoint I was at originally was right in front of the gate I needed!

I had dressed nice and wore make-up and did my hair real nice but because of all the sweating I looked horrible by the time my plane boarded.

When I went to buckle my seat belt I discovered that I needed an extender! I was so embarrassed but the flight attendant didn't even blink when I asked for one.

As soon as the plane pulled away from the gate I started to feel nauseous because I forgot the Dramamine. When the flight attendant came around for drink orders I asked for ginger ale hoping to settle my stomach. Since I was in first class I got breakfast. I reserved the omelette. I was hoping that food would help too.

When I got my food, I took a bite but the omelette was seasoned with a spice that I did not like, plus when it hit my stomach my nausea got worse. But I didn't want to arrive in SC needing to eat so I tried a bite of everything (potatoes, sausage, and fruit) but everything felt like it was going to come back up. I even tried a bite of the crescent roll that was offered. But nothing was helping so I gave my tray back.

I spent much of the flight looking out the window because I couldn't sleep nor could I read due to being air sick.

I was able to watch the sun rise but couldn't get a decent picture with my phone. I did, however, get this incredibly awesome picture of some clouds around a peak of some mountains. Now, I do not know which mountain range it is but it's still really cool.



When we landed (I had a layover), I went straight to a little shop for some water and Dramamine. I thought I'd get some souvenirs but they all said North Carolina! I was freaking out; thinking I had purchased tickets to the wrong state (I had not been aware that my layover was in NC).

A fellow passenger on the first flight had told me that the gate for my next flight was just a short walk away but they lied! It was at the end of the terminal. I had an hour (and some minutes) layover and it took me almost the entire time to get there. I was once again sweating and breathing hard by the time I got there.

The airport we were at was so small (and under construction to make it bigger) that we boarded the plane from the tarmac, something I've never done before. The stairs to get on the plane were super steep and I was having difficulty getting up the last couple of steps. The flight attendant was just standing there, smiling and asking how I was doing. I almost said "I'd be better if you'd assist me up these last few steps!" but all I said was that I hate small planes.

Shortly after boarding I noticed the woman across from me had a copy of Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Hammer of Thor. I asked her about it and we spent the entire flight talking about the books we've read and other things like that. I've never met anyone close to my age (she mentioned she's thirty-ish) who also reads young adult books so it was nice to be able to talk fandom (as well as great practice for when I got to SC) with someone other than my daughter or people on line.

mezzo_cammin met me at the airport. We had to wait for wyndewalker to also arrive before we headed to the hotel where sgamadison was waiting (she booked her room for the wrong dates).

By noon there were seven of us (fully half of those scheduled to attend). We all headed off to lunch and when we got back to the hotel our rooms were ready. Most of the rooms were on the first and third floors and on one side of the hotel while mine was on the second and on the other side. :(

I was so tired that first day that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to sleep. I also didn't want to miss anything with my new friends. But I eventually had to go to my room where I sat down to watch some TV (because of not really wanting to sleep) and discovered that they had internet TV. So I started watching Longmire and did end up falling asleep. I woke up sometime after 9 and decided it was time for bed.

I did not set an alarm (I was on vacation!) but I woke up at 8:17 and knew that breakfast was only served until 9 so if I wanted to eat I needed to shower and change and get down stairs.

By Friday all fourteen of us had arrived and we were having a blast! I was usually in bed by midnight each night and up by 7 or 8 each morning.

I met some of my favorite fic authors and was fangirling so fucking hard!

wyndewalker gave me these pens and I use one of them every day at work:



spikespet gave me these inspirational cards that I've hung on my cube wall:



A few people had to leave Sunday night, some left Monday, one left Tuesday and the rest of us left Wednesday (I was the first of the ones on Wednesday).

My flight back was direct and was on a plane identical to the one I was on from Charlotte to Greenville. I remembered to take some Dramamine before I left the hotel so the nausea wasn't as bad. I was able to read several chapters of my book and even took a nap (I am so sorry to my fellow passengers for the snoring!)

When I arrived home I had to take an Uber back home.

Before I left I had put in a maintenance request to have my tub fixed (it had cracks in it that leaked and soaked the carpet in front of the sink). But when I entered my apartment I discovered it had not been done. I was livid!

When I got home from work the next day my neighbor (a creepy old man who refuses to wear a shirt most of the time and flirts with everything with a vagina) told me they replaced my tub while I was at work. Most of the time I can't tell if he's joking or not so I usually don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth and this was one of those times.

But when I entered my apartment I discovered he was actually telling the truth. I got a brand new tub! With a stopper. Although I haven't tested to see if I can now take baths or not.

I'm trying to convince jetpack_angel to attend with me next year. But even if she doesn't, I'm planning on driving. It's roughly fourteen hours but I figure I'll take my time and stop at any roadside attractions I want and when I'm feeling tired I'll nap in my car at a rest stop (of course 'my car' will be a rental so I can have cruise control).

I'm so excited to go see 'my tribe' again next year I can't hardly wait!