Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Things Fall Down


If you were on the outbound platform at South Station on Monday around 5:10 PM, you would have heard a woman screaming hoarsely like she was being murdered. As you rushed toward the sound, you saw an older woman prone on the lower stairs yelling and a younger woman above in a green coat clinging to the hand rail.

I was that younger woman in the green coat. Here is what happened. I was walking down to the platform ready to go home. I had had a really good day so I was thinking to myself, "La, la, la. going home..." I noticed the lady in front of me was going down the stairs with a black cane. She was moving pretty strongly and I admired that. Then all of a sudden I was really close to her and the world went sideways.

Yup, I fell down a couple stairs at South Station and I took out a lady with a cane. Bystanders were really nice. I had clung onto the railing so hard I had wound up lying facing up the stairs. The cane lady's screams were really freaky so I asked one of my first responders, "Oh God, is she okay?" The response was, "She's there." As I collected myself, I saw dozens of people were looking at me and the human wrecking ball devastation I had left. Very embarrassed, and in pain, I carefully made my way down the rest of the stairs. I was able to apologize to cane lady who said she was fine, just shaken. Since I have such a uniquely green coat, everyone on the platform knew who I was. A couple asked me if I was okay. I had shooting pain in my right ankle and stabbing pain if I moved it a certain way.

Now, it's two days afterward and my ankle is a bit tender but is usable. The whole RICE thing saved the night and helped me recover. I do have a ton of bruises and very sore back from where I landed on the stairs. I am so relieved the cane lady is fine! Plus, it is kinda funny when you think about it...

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Shizz to Update

Cats
Both Stella and Rasputin have recovered from their respective illnesses. They are actually playing together now! By playing, I mean chasing each other around the apartment until Stella gets pissy. It is so cute - both of them greet me at the door when I come home from work. At first it was just two cat heads peering down the stairs at me. But now Stella feels more confident, she usually is the first one down the stairs. It is amazing how affectionate she is! Ras is affectionate in a cuddly way. Stella is all about purring and rubbing on your legs. Yup, things are going great in the 2 cat household!

Work
Work has become insanely busy since the department manager reassigned clients for all of us this month. So, the past couple weeks have been trying to figure out what's new and what has stayed the same. Luckily, I didn't get too many difficult clients (there is the one with set in stone deadlines and tons of questions). I actually like how busy I am! I really feel like have become one of the department - to the point where I log in from home to get work done and the time at home just feels like a pause between time at work. Every morning I feel, "Wasn't I just here? Did I pass out or did I go home?" Also, my tendency to talk to myself has been dialed up to a million. I have lists for the lists I have.

On the flip side of the good ramping up of my workload is that I was assigned to assist someone who A) doesn't want to train anyone and B) doesn't know how to train anyone. He sends me pop quiz emails which are basically an email string with the question, "Do you know how I solved this problem?" When he first started doing this, I didn't realize he was a total asshole. So I wracked my brain, read, and re-read the emails thinking, "I should know this." Then I would write back what I thought was the solution. He'd reply, "No" or "Wrong" He also wrote, "you [me] get simple things wrong." Ummm... TRAIN ME ASSHOLE!! It has been an absolute nightmare. I dread seeing emails from him in my inbox. After days of trying to complete an audit assignment for him where I wasted a lot of time running the right reports for the wrong client or running too granular reports for the right client, I basically had steam coming out of my ears. Then to top it off, he sent me yet another pop quiz email (twice because I didn't answer fast enough). Oh yeah, I had a meeting with my manager to explain the situation. The manager was awesome and totally agreed with me that Asshole has communication problems and needs to train me. My manager's face got almost purple with anger/disgust when I told him about the getting simple things wrong comment. So the plan is to give it one more week to see if it works out. If it doesn't, Mr. Asshole won't be "training" me - just sending me lists of reports to run. Less contact with him is a win for me.

Life
My knee is feeling a ton better now after some touch and go weeks with random shooting pain and horrible grinding noises. Since I can't afford to go to physical therapy, my budget version is investing in good sneakers with excellent arch supports and padding. So far, so good. Since I owed taxes this year, I am pretty broke. An aside/complaint: how could I have been unemployed for 7 months with only temp jobs for income and owe money? Since Passover is next week, and my four year conversion anniversary is Friday, I'm planning on checking out this temple. Also, I am up for two full-time perm jobs at separate companies downtown. Mr. Asshole lit a fire under my job search. Other than that, life has been ho hum.