Spite You

How fucking mean is the person who stole my pen??!!

Very very mean.

It was a good pen, a great pen! Someone took it out of spite, I know it.

Do you ever wonder who doesn't like you at work but is nice to your face?
I do.
And I know they took my fucking pen. And it pisses me off.

Rubber Ducky, You're The One

J1and J2 are home from a month at their dad's in Oregon, the longest I've ever let them go, HOORAY!
J1 seems to have developed the habit of waking up early. Every morning for the past four, she wakes up and comes and hangs out with me. Keep in mind that it's usually 5:30 or 6:00am. This morning I ask her, "Why in the heck are you up so early?"

She replied, "Uh, Mom, you're really loud when you get up."

Wha? I get up and go to the kitchen and warm up a bottle for J3. The microwave opens/closes, beeps three times and then opens/shuts again. Husband can sleep through it. J2 sleeps though it and her room is the closest to the kitchen. How is it that the preteen with the bedroom furthest away and door shut can hear it?
No matter, I will take advantage of the situation. J1 sat in my room and played with J3while I... (get ready....are you ready??)......

....took.....

A SHOWER. In the morning! I brushed my teeth! I shaved my legs! Both of them! I am getting so excited!
If she keeps getting up early, I might be able to take one EVERY MORNING without a baby in the bathroom with me.
Holy crap. It's almost too much to contemplate.

Smokers Suck

The lady across from me, B, doesn't wash her hands anymore when she's done smoking. All day long I had to smell her stale smoke. It gave me a headache and made me sneeze.

Her mother died recently and B was out on leave all last week to go scatter ashes and whatnot. I feel like it would be rude to again ask her to wash her godamn hands. The woman is mourning and all. Maybe a small subtle can of air neutralizer might do the trick?

Phone Call Numero Uno

A client called me today crying. She could not get affordable Welfare Healthcare, due to an abundance of income. (Which, by the way, the government says is anything over $600 dollars a month for one person.)
She sniffled to me that she couldn't afford to go to the doctor!! She didn't make that much money!! She needed the other kind of Welfare Healthcare, the kind that only pregnant women get!! Or the kind that people with children get!!

Her reason for needing to do away with her $250.00 monthly share-of-cost?

She needed to see a fertility doctor because she couldn't get pregnant. She couldn't get pregnant because of the expensive Welfcare.

I wanted to explain that babies cost a zillion trillion dollars more than that each month, but I held my tongue. But I gave a good long sigh when I hung up the phone.

Answer The Phone

I sit in a "unit", which is a medium-sized room with desks and chairs, computers and a printer, and eight other Welfare Workers. Our areas are personalized; pictures, plants and whatnot littering the desks. Each desk has a phone and the unit has a Community Line, which is a phone line that is mandatory that somebody answer it. The phones ring quite a bit. I'd say that the ringing phones are a big part of the overall Unit-ness. So much, in fact, that I titled this post as such.

Each Unit has a Supervisor. Some Supervisors are great, some are shit. Thank goodness I've never had a shit Supervisor. It can make the job way more stressful. Anyhow,

N~ my Supervisor. She's fair and knows her stuff. She likes her job, enjoys helping people, is an overall good person with one fault. She refuses to take initiative with the members of her Unit when there's a problem. She tends to not be very assertive if there's a skirmish amongst the others. I love that word, skirmish.

SM~ fellow Unit Member. He's a funny guy, older man, married. He loves to answer the Community Line. The is because answering the CL allows him not do anything else. Like, working. And he smells.

L~ is an okay worker. She has a chip on her shoulder about something. But I'm not interested enough to get to know her any better. She was a bitch one day about the ones that are "supposed" to answer the CL, and pissed me off. Whatever. She fades into the background. Nothing great is on her desk.

Y~ is misunderstood. She doesn't seem to have any friends, and everyone in the building is superficially nice to her. Her marriage is a sham, her best friend is her dog. She makes snide comments. For some reason, I really like her. I think she's funny, and I think she feels sad. There's something about her that people just don't like, but it doesn't seem to bother me. She knows her stuff, works hard, but her people skills leave something to be desired.

T~ is whiny. She whines about her life in a trying to be nonchalant attitude way, and I can see through it. She's nice and always willing to help when somebody needs it, but she's a complainer and a gossip. If someone is willing to gossip to me about others, I wonder what she says behind my back.

A~ is a larger woman, sweet and knows her resources. She's not afraid to get to the bottom of any bullshit a client is telling us. I have no problems with her. Scratch that- she keeps her radio a little louder than I like. Mine is on the same station, but softer. Why don't I turn mine off, you ask? Because I shouldn't have too, dammit. Moving on.

K~ is a quiet man, does okay work and keeps to himself. Frequently he says amusing things and we all have a good laugh.

U~ is a helper, a do-gooder. She has the weight of the world on her shoulders and she likes it, it fuels her.

B~ is a newbie. She's a smoker. She sits right across from me and when she comes in from her break she always smells like smoke. It bothers me. It bothers me so much that I asked her to start washing her hands when she comes in from her breaks. She apologized and agreed, but sometimes she forgets and it bugs the shit out of me. I really really hate the smell of smoke. I write suggestions to the Suggestion Box that read, "The law says smokers must stay 20 feet away from doorways. Let's reinforce this, shall we?" and other snide remarks. I sign my name.

Then there's me, Brokemom. I have a rubberband ball on my desk. I have pictures of my husband and children on my bulletin board. I am organized. I answer my damn phone.

The Stupidest Thing I Heard Today

Scenario: I am speaking with the AT&T Customer Service Representative. Let me just add (before I continue) that these people are robots. They say the same things over and over and fucking over. I get frustated and annoyed and I want to cry and hang up the phone.

Me: Can you explain this part of my bill blah blah etc?

Robot: "The section amounts here are different than other people's amounts because different amounts are there."


WTF? No kidding.

The Lie

I've been lied to. Such a simple, small thing...but with such huge ramifications.



They always look so happy, mooing and chewing cud and joking on about this and that. Green grass, sunny skies, all is well in good ol' cee ae ell aye eff oh are en aye ae. It's real! It's the real deal!

Such falsehoods!

I tried cheese from Wisconsin and it was BETTER. Creamier, tastier, it was the best cheese I've ever eaten in my whole life. No joke.

I feel betrayed.

Not Even Close To Yum

I ate eel. It was not yummy in the slightest. It looked funny, too.


I am so not adventurous.

Yum?

I ate moose meat. It probably would have tasted like beef, except for the fact that I knew it was moose. I only ate a little bit. I didn't really care for it...again, because it's moose. Not that there's anything wrong with moose, mind you. I almost wish I hadn't been told what it was before I ate it, so I could have eaten moose with an open, clear perspective.