Tuesday, January 25, 2011

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.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

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.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

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

Thursday, January 13, 2011

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.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

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).

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

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.


Enjoy!

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

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.