A REAL po'boy

That New Orleans sandwich thing sounds good, but I have the real recipe for a po'boy. Ready?

Guy at work + no car + forgot to pack his lunch + the bread he has left from yesterday's lunch + sandwich style pickle slices + mustard = po'boy sandwich for lunch.

It is just as tasty as it sounds.

Here There Be Spiders!

Office Quote Of The Day (at least for now):

"We got a tarantula downpour"

I hope you can figure out what she meant, but I encourage all of you to leave your interpretations in the comments section. Best answer will win a prize. Seriously.

If You

Can't PRONOUNCE "kindergarten" your children should not be allowed to ATTEND "kindergarten".

I Love It When

You call me by my last name just so that you can bum something off of me YET AGAIN. Get your own damn floss picks.

Sorry Ramadan-ing Co-Worker

But I like eating ham. And I like eating during daylight hours.

It's Like Manna For My Mind

No, PLEASE keep on blowing into your pen cap, making a high pitched, just this side of dog whistle noise WHILE we listen WITH you to the hold music for Aetna for 15 minutes. I know I speak for everyone in here when I say WE CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!

Why Yes, it HAS Been A While

I started Twittering all my work rage / incredulousness, and that led to me not having anything to post here. But I am refocusing the Drop Three Twitter feed on things that are not personal in nature (unless it involves whoring out the troupe), so I am going to go back to doing my bitching here. But since I am now thinking in 140 character statements, it is going to take some time to adjust to the new / old format. So for now it will be bullet point compilations...

• Case in point. You work for this company. You have worked here longer than I have, but your job is mainly on the road. But you are very familiar w/the company and how things like the phone system here works. You know that everyone has a direct line that you can call. Why the holy hell are you calling the main number and making us transfer you? How fucking lazy are you that you can't PROGRAM someone's number into your phone THAT THE COMPANY PAYS FOR?!?!?
• And to the Mercy MA people - you need to answer the phone when the main line rings once in a while too. At least half the time the calls are for you. Stop being so fucking lazy.

Damn it feels good to cuss online again.

Today's Office Is...

Both owners are away, the manager has been at a training session for a new site all day, and the inmates are beyond running the asylum. Radios up so loud that I have turned my music off because it is not worth trying to compete, extremely loud declarations of all sorts, like "I know THAT'S right!" and "You got JOKES!" (who these statements are directed at is beyond my limited scope of knowledge since I am keeping my face straight ahead in my cubicle and not turning around for ANYTHING). Plenty of walking around, and a number of exclamations of exasperation regarding everyday work tasks that are suddenly so cumbersome that they must be addressed to the world (I know for a fact that Moms Mabley "Ain't doin' no more appeals!" - quoted verbatim - and Doo Wop has decided to regale everyone within the sound of her voice - a voice that can cut through the din so effectively that she could be used as the Emergency Broadcast Signal - all about Jill Scott's weight loss and whatever else is happening in the world of celebrity gossip. Not to mention the Nigerian Nightmare's singing what-the-fuck-ever song she is singing - off key and thick accent equals profit? - and you have the general idea).

I am going to start keeping a bottle of scotch in my desk drawer for days like this.

I Am The Repeated Story About Jack's Pubic Hair

At this point I do not know what the fuck to say about anything here. Not only was the HR person here again (she just left), she brought her (and by extension her brothers, the owners) mother with her. And sure enough, as soon as Jim left the conversation went to the son's / grandson's pubic hair...

On a side note, if I ever even THOUGHT that my grandmother was talking to people about my growing pubic hair, let alone sitting in a PLACE OF BUSINESS laughing and joking about it, I would probably have disowned her. Full stop.

So anyway, for reasons that I cannot fully comprehend (other than that the HR person has the worst concept of "acceptable workplace conversations" EVER, the next thing I know the HR person, her mother, Shanelle, and MARGARET (aka Gaza Strip Club and Moms Mabley respectively, but at this point I am too disgusted by this damn place to give a shit about cute nicknames and if anyone complains I think I have one hell of a counter argument) are all talking about sex toys, their favorites, their hiding places, professing their love for them, and to top it all off, talking about going to the sex shop and trying them on / modeling them for each other (in the case of HR and mom).

Really? THAT is okay? Fine. I am getting out of here with the quickness, and I will accept pretty much any job that allows me to stop working here. But until that sweet day arrives, I am going to live by their rules. If they don't like hearing about my jock itch or ball sweat once the summer hits, that is just too fucking bad. In fact, I am thinking about cultivating a nice case of jock itch JUST so I can talk about it.

Put your tough actin' Tinactin on THIS, bitches.

I'm Here To Help

Here's a simple formula for you to use to see if something is potentially offensive / racist.

Replace group identity being referred to with your own group identity. If you think it is offensive, it is.

For instance:

Let's say one of your co-workers is Hispanic. And let us further speculate that you have asked that co-worker to speak to a patient / client because the patient / client speaks Spanish and you do not. You need to meet with the patient / client. Your Hispanic co-worker is going to be going with you since you both perform the same general task, but this time your specific skill set is needed. He / she will be able to help with the generalities, but you are needed for the specifics just as the co-worker is needed for translation / communication. As the co-worker is on the phone making arrangements for you two to meet up with the client / patient, you start making comments asking where the meeting is taking place because you don't want to get mugged by the co-worker's "people".

Let's stop there for a second. Now we will boil down the comment in question. As has been established, your co-worker is Hispanic. You are African-American. So taking a look at the comment

Where are you telling him to meet us? I don't want to get mugged by your people!

Breaking the sentence down into it's components, "I" is a black person, "your people" are Latinos. So what you are saying is "I don't want to get mugged by the Hispanics". Implying that the Hispanic people are known for and have a reputation of mugging people.

Now if we reverse that, and your Hispanic co-worker says to you "I don't want to get mugged by your people", that would translate to "I don't want to get mugged by black people, because black people are known for and have a reputation for mugging people".

I am not speaking on either generality, nor am I speaking on the veracity of said statements. I am merely commenting on the fact that "black people mug people, so I am afraid to go into their neighborhoods" could be construed as racist. Therefore "Hispanic people mug people, so I am afraid to go into their neighborhoods" could also be construed as racist.

Next time on "I'm Here To Help": When you ask someone to translate for you because you don't speak the language of the person you need to communicate with, it is advantageous to not accuse your translator of telling the person they are speaking to on your behalf to "stop telling them to rob me, I don't know what you saying over there [sic]".

Tune in, won't you?

Yeah, it's been a while

But I have been trying to grow the Twitter feed and the sports blog, so I have my reasons.

Anyway, before you continue reading, be forewarned that this post is all about me bitching about my job and will contain crude language.

Un-FUCKING-believable.

So not only is the health insurance in this POS job of mine ACTUALLY GETTING WORSE (which I didn't think was possible), the HR manager has been sitting here for the last 45 minutes (while I am trying to eat my fucking lunch) talking about her son starting puberty, telling her other sons not to try and take a peek at his growing pubic hair, explaining how she and her husband discussed blow jobs while driving with all the kids (and used the word "blowjob" at least half a dozen times), and then went into an expose all about her first period and how she wore the "big bulky" pads for 30+ straight days (I can only hope that she changed them at some point).

NONE of that is made up or even exaggerated. Not one bit of it.

I have been trying to get something going business wise for a few months now. And in a week and a half I have a big meeting that will hopefully get this thing off of the ground ASAP. But no matter what happens I have to get out of here. This is officially a hostile work environment, but since the HR "manager" is the sister to the owners not one fucking thing will be done about it. So I will be getting out of here, sooner rather than later, and if it were to happen at 2pm today (it is 1:53pm right now) it would not be soon enough.

An Open Letter To Mrs. Holton (sp?) from United Concordia

Mrs. Holton,

I thank you for explaining in painstaking detail what happens when someone faxes something. I always had a sneaking suspicion that some kind of voodoo or necromancy was involved in making a piece of paper's information be able to fly across a phone line and reappear in the same order somewhere else.

I also understand that if I put something in the mail that you do not receive that it is not your fault for not receiving it. But thank you for also making sure to emphasize that information by telling me 7 times during the conversation.

However, I do hope you understand that I am concerned that a claim I have sent multiple times to an address I just verified as the correct one will mysteriously not arrive again, and since you demand that you receive the claim before you can comment on it, I am now in the middle of a difficult situation that I see no way out of short of faxing or emailing you said claims. Telling me that if I fax them to the number that you provided and then telling me that you will try to receive them and then try to forward them to the claims department does not, after examining the history of our relationship both with the claims and this conversation, fill me with confidence of receiving reimbursement for the services provided.

Stop it. Please.

I hate this feeling

As much as I like to point out the absurdity and silliness in my life (sometimes to the point of making someone say "why the hell would you TALK about that?!?"), I try hard to not bring full on heaviness here. But I have something that has been bothering me for a while now, and I need to talk about it SOMEWHERE...

I have mentioned our neighbor Eric in the past (never w/his actual name, though). I remember talking about the Memorial Day parking job fiasco last year (when he called the cops at 3 or 4 in the morning to complain that Patrick was parked too close to his car). Well, last week (while I was at my parent's house for doctor's appointments) he had words w/Faith AND Belle, including accusing us of training Buttercup to hate him (and for all that dog's faults, hating ANYONE is not one of them. I don't think she is smart enough to hate anyone). All that falls under "guy who lives under the bridge and squeegees car windows for spare change" level paranoia to me. But when he came out brandishing a handgun while Belle and Buttercup were outside minding his own business (and in fact he was outside, saw Belle and Buttercup, went inside, then came BACK out with a gun in his hand, still mumbling under his breath), it is no longer just annoying guy doing petty things that I can ignore.

I do need to take a moment to thank the Baltimore City Police Department for responding last week when the craziness got big. A LOT of officers showed up, and from all accounts they were very professional and thorough in handling the situation and ensuring Belle and Faith's safety and making sure they were satisfied with their level of response. Too often police (especially in Baltimore) get grief for all the things that go wrong, even if it is not any fault of their own. All I can say about this is they did everything they could do.

Belle and Faith are going to request a peace order from the city. There is no guarantee that we will get one, but it is well worth the attempt. Other than that, I am at a loss as to what we CAN do. Except pray. And trust in Him. So I will.

Just Wanted To Let You Know

That whoah-ho...Oh-OH

I'm still alive.

I Really Can't Blame Them

I am sitting at my cubiclette at a shade before 6pm on a Tuesday. I needed to run statements, and since I am going to be out on Friday and Monday with the surgery I have no problem with staying late today to bank some hours.

I am alone now. Gramma Moses (I forget what name I've given her in the past, which is a common lament around here) just left. She spent the better part of the last hour and a half trying desperately to get me to respond to her as she made comments about the things going on in her life (a common happening around here, as I have made clear in the past). I didn't bite, even when she got obvious and loud about it. Luckily I had already turned my iTunes up so I was able to pretty much block her out.

I wish I could feel bad about all but ignoring her, but I just can't. I am tired of this place, and I am tired of my coworkers who have an almost constant need for attention. I am not the same person that I was before all the medical drama of the last year and a half. I don't have the desire to pretend that I give a shit when it is people who just take and take and take. I'm done with them.

Am I happy that I have to go back under the knife on Friday? Not in the least. I am sick of being sick. I made some good headway while I was out, but within 9 months of being back here I fell back into a bunch of the bad patterns that got me into this mess in the first place (not all of them, but enough of them to make it noticeable to me that I have regressed in a lot of key areas, which is why I have talked to Wifey about some changes I am going to make after the surgery and a few days of recovery time). But I do not go and complain about it all the time, and I don't hunt for attention from people (aside from the occasional Facebook post, but I am human, and I don't do it ALL THE DAMN TIME).

So I'm sorry Gramma, but I am not going to do that anymore. Go find yourself another patsy.

An Open Letter to Whoever In The Office Keeps Leaving The Dishwashing Sponge On Top Of The Clean Dishes In The Dish Strainer

Stop it. It's gross.

An Open Letter To Karen The Surgery Scheduling Lady

Dear Karen,

I know that you do not have an enviable job. Basically your job's raison d'etre is to let people know that they are going to be made unconscious while a guy in a mask cuts them open and modifies their body in a way that had not been planned by God. That cannot be easy. So I admire your ability to sound pleasant to the point of cheerful / chipper when talking to people on the phone.

But I need to ask you a big favor. When talking to cynical bastards like me, especially when calling to tell them that something isn't going to be covered by their insurance so they are going to have to pay for it up front (granted it's only $40, but dammit that is $40 that has to come out of my booze and bimbos budget!), tone it down a bit. If saying "okay" takes more than 5 seconds and/or travels more than 2 octaves upwards in range from the "Oh" to that "kay", you're going too far. You have a nice lilt to your voice. Use it sparingly. Please.

An Open Letter To Blue Diamond Almonds

I understand that 15 seconds does not allow one to fully explore the subtleties of suggestive advertising, so in that vein if you want to go right for the obvious and show nuts flying in some moderately attractive woman's mouth you go right ahead. It is apparent that she loves when large black men share their nuts for her to put in her mouth, and I applaud you for your unflinching support of interracial relationships (even if the doing it in public, on the jumbotron no less, is a bit too kinky for Middle America. So you might want to keep this commercial strictly on an East Coast / West Coast rotation). But from a heterosexual male standpoint (and I only speak for me, but I am pretty sure that many others would feel the same way), her staring at it crosseyed as it flies in there is a bit off-putting.

Jus' sayin.

Ron

1st Thought On A Thursday

So I pulled into the parking lot here at Purgatory this morning in a bit of a hurry (I was close to being late. For some reason I took a lot longer than usual getting myself all gussied up to go to work this morning). Sure enough, I see a certain minivan parked at a jaunty angle usually reserved for Adam West era Batman villain lairs. I knew then that the Nigerian Nightmare was back. And immediately THIS popped into my head:

Come on weekend...please.

Why no, I *DON'T* have anything else going on in my life

Oh yeah, it's bitch and moan time...

I was supposed to be going to see my podiatrist tomorrow morning. I even packed for my overnight trip that I was going to be taking tonight (since it is the right foot that the doctor has to look at / cut on, driving is a literal AND figurative pain, so my parents have continued their year plus long streak of "driving their son around" and putting a lot of otherwise unneeded miles on the truck). But now I'm not going to spend the night at the 'rents, and I am not going to the doctor tomorrow. Why? Because he needed to reschedule my appointment because of a surgery that is now scheduled for my time slot.

Since I work in billing, I know a few things that a lot of people don't. And for that reason I hold my doctor blameless for this one. He tells the front desk what he needs, they make it happen. THEY are the ones that decide who is going where, and in my case who is getting bumped for someone else. And as sad as it sounds, it is all about the money. Surgeries, even in clinic, are money makers. Follow ups with maintain status quo procedures are not. Ergo, surgeries get fast tracked and general appointments get the red headed stepchild treatment. I would lay money on the fact that my doctor has no idea what is going on, and when I do see him again (currently NEXT Friday, but we'll see if that one stands) he will ask why he didn't see me this week. It reminds me of an old saying, "Paramedics save lives. EMT's save paramedics". That is in no way a shot at paramedics, but it goes to the fact that paramedics will lose track of some of the basics of first responder care because they have a lot more info in their heads to deal with (for instance, they are authorized to dispense medications, something that no EMT or CRT could do back in my EMT days). Basically, it is a "forest / trees" kind of thing. The doctor knows what he needs to do, but the vast majority of them have no idea what is happening behind the desk. That is not in their wheelhouse. And it is a shame, because it causes things like this.

The front desk person called the house this morning to tell Wifey that they had to move me from 8am to 1:30 pm, mmm-kay? This front desk person was actively trying to avoid confrontation / possibly trying to get a cancellation / no show fee from me. Why do I say this? Because they know for a fact that I work, and they know to call my cell phone OR my work number, both of which they have and have used in the past. I made sure that it was in the chart to call those numbers during business hours. The automated "You have an appointment tomorrow" call still goes to the house, but that is it. But the hope is that they will either get to leave a voicemail telling me my appointment has been changed (which I won't get until after they close today since I am at work) or they leave a message w/someone in the house telling me my appointment has been changed. The sneaky thing is that if they leave a message w/a person and then I call tomorrow to tell them I can't do it, I am cancelling w/less than 24 hours notice. A shady office could then charge me a cancelled appointment fee (I am not saying that this particular office is dealing like that, just that it is a possibility and that I know offices where it has happened), which they could not do w/a voicemail message. Luckily for me, Wifey don't play dat (woo 90's references!), and she told them that she would call me and have me call THEM. Which she did, and which I did, and which led me to not having a podiatrist appointment tomorrow.

It all worked out (pretty much), but it is another annoyance in an otherwise already annoying day. I might even have to splurge on lunch and not eat my ham sammich (but I probably will eat the ham sammich. The only reason to get something out is to get away from the Henn Patrol, but I don't know if that is worth the grub I would get. We'll see).

French Fries Are The Devil

Fur pillows ARE hard to actually sleep on...

Geeking Out Over History

For once, I am not going to post a bunch of whining or snark. Just a really cool little website that (as long as you have Quicktime installed) has a lot of neat little historical nuggets of awesome.

http://objectofhistory.org/

Enjoy!

Today's Mood Is...

It's been a rough year in Metropolis...

Sometimes you need some super-scotch. This might just be one of those days.