Sick Puppy!

I gotta fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!

Or, to be more pedestrian, I have had nonstop colds/flu/cough since November. I just can't get well no matter what I do. It has given my whole life that "walking in sand" feeling. I have taken so much cold medicine and cough syrup that my body just feels totally beat up. Did anybody get the number of the guy who beat me with that cricket bat?

I was sick sorta like this last year; for a long period of time I just couldn't breathe without coughing. But I wasn't a parent then, and I could just take time off work and rest. I can't do that now. Because A is a foster child still, we get a subsidy to assist us with child care cost. This has allowed us to have her in a great daycare that we really like.

One of the rules of the subsidy, however, is that if I have to stay home sick, A has to be home with me. The one thing that is a major no-no is for me to send her to day care and then go home and go back to bed. I can understand why they would make a rule like that, because people would totally abuse it. But I am so damn ill, I just about cried when I had to force myself to work today. Because let's face it, I will get more rest forcing myself to work than trying to relax at home with an almost 3 year old running around.

And with this subsidy, We only get 15 discretionary days per year to cover holidays and sick days. I think we have used nine of them already due to illness and having to take A to all the appointments she needs. It's nuts.

So I need more cowbell. Lord knows NyQuil isn't helping. Whimper

The VA makes Going Postal Obsolete!

I have long suspected this, but a recent survey confirmed it. Veteran's Health Administration employees undergo TWICE AS MUCH verbal abuse and risk of workplace violence than the employees of the Postal Service.

In the six years I have been working for the VA, I have personally experienced or witnessed the following:

1. A male staff member threatening to cut off the ponytail of a female staff member with a giant knife that was brandished in front of more than 20 patients.

2. A patient assault the clinic director with his quad cane.

3. I was backed against an elevator and forcibly told to "get right with Jesus".

4. A patient threatened a physician with a knife in an attempt to get narcotics prescribed to him.

5. The patient in #5 made innapropriate sexual comments about my breasts that same day.

6. I was threatened by a patient who told me he would murder me if I didn't get his doctor to write a precription for morphine for him.

7. A co-worker bragged about his skills as a practioner of black magic that allowed him to get revenge on anyone who crossed him. He also noted how many guns he has, and that people who mess with him always pay.

8. A co-worker beat up his wife in the parking lot by slamming her head against the hood of the car.

9. I have be screamed at, harrassed, gossiped about, and directly threatened by both patients and co-workers.

10. We all deal with hostility from the patients on a daily basis.

None of these patients have been banned from getting care here, although some have been reprimanded.

None of the staff mentioned has ever been fired.

In your face, Post Office.

Why on earth do I stick around? Three words: NURSING SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP

If I don't get accepted to the Nursing program, I am so outta here. Life is just too short.

Stoopid Government Crapola.*RANT ALERT*

OMG. I hate the government. I really mean that. The United States is being slowly crushed under the weight of its own bureaucrazy. "Bureaucrazy" is my new word, I just made it up.

I am putting together a training checklist for work, since we hired two new people and I am the defacto trainer in my department. I'm trying to be organized. My boss keeps coming and adding stuff to my list. "Oh, don't forget to tell them to do this in that way or the reports we send to Washington don't come out right."

Eventually I told her I don't give two figs about the reports, but I'll tell them anyway.

We have this lame scheduling program (if I tell you it is DOS-based, does that begin to explain how archaic it is?). It is so full of eccentric glitches and fussy ways to make mistakes, that several people (with no people skills) must be employed to monitor the reports that come off of it and run around with rulers smacking the wrists of those of us who actually have to help the patients.

Offering good customer service to sick people is hard even when you have good functionality of your equipment. Keeping track of, and teaching pedantic rules to the new hires is just an annoying part of the job. Usually I am on autopilot and I don't have to give conscious thought to the lameness of the rules. But preparing to instruct otherwise sane people in the insane ways of government double-speak and ass-coverage has just set me off today. I just got royally pissed and am having trouble choking it down this time. So I am being taciturn at my desk and blogging for a minute instead of working.

What really gets me if I allow myself to think about it this deeply is that my own taxes pay for me to be this annoyed. So I am going to shake my fist at the sky and shout "THE GOVERNMENT!!!!"

Try it sometime. Usually the government really is what is bothering you. Feh.