Every day I wake up and it's like Grounds Hog day.
There's the alarm going off at seven, then for about five minutes or so, the inner turmoil of calling out sick at work or trying to come up with some other impending disaster crosses my mind.
When my bank account comes to its senses, I hit the the shower. I wake my daughter up for school and she has to get ready with me in the mornings now because her father is unable to take her anymore. He's going through some kind of mid life crises sans convertible. So now my main priority in the mornings is to beat the clock. Every morning since school has started feels like a science experiment, I'm seeing what works when it comes to eta.
Some mornings I'm early, most mornings I'm not. I get to work usually ten minutes late or so.
Driving is super fun now. My car's a.c is broken so I'm driving in 85 degree heat for an hour at 8am in leather seats. My car horn was doing this incredibly embarrassing thing where it went off for no reason for minutes on end. This was particularly fun at work having customers point out a very noisy Hyundai in the parking lot. Once my Boss even went to my car trying to fix the problem by removing the horn wire from the battery but was unsuccessful.
My boyfriend had to see the disaster for himself one weekend as I don't think he understood the sheer train blaring noise this sedan gave off.
Car alarms would go off in the distance, My boyfriend had the car keys in his hands ready to spring into action. See to stop the honking you had to press down on the steering wheel.
"Is that your car?" he would say to each little mickey mouse car alarm nearby.
I'd simply say wait for it.
Then, there she blows!
There was no way to stop this, finally we had to just remove the horn relay altogether.
So now I have NO HORN.
I have to take a Xanax before driving anywhere because I kid you not, I swear everyone is out to get me, even pedestrians and the other morning a chicken crossing the road.
Drivers is Miami are always in a rush and make up their own traffic laws. I'm queen of the fuck you via horn, but now I'm like Ariel, no more AaaaaaaAAaaaa..
So to recap, I'm hot, and very late every morning on my way to work.
Work.
Work is one of those places where your soul dies a little with each punch in.
Don't get me wrong the days of Dragon are behind us but I still hate the place. There are worse pharmacies I could be in so I shouldn't complain too much.
My new Boss is a man and younger than me (31), he's overly ambitious I would say. Everything feels like a competition, he wants to do so many things with so little hours in the day or rather my shift. Seems like that's the only time things get done. He refers to the pharmacy as a factory because well it is.
See when I'm behind that counter I'm no longer a person, I'm a worker. So if the patient is having a bad day guess who gets to find out first.
I've been called stupid, incompetent, a bitch, a retard, oh and I'm always trying to kill them of course, god forbid their doctor makes a mistake or the crappy insurance they chose is to blame, Nope it's me.
I'm uninspired at work. Once I had plants all over the pharmacy, even a betta bowl. It brought me some kind of joy, a reminder that there's outdoors just yonder from this place.
The new LP lady didn't approve so goodbye greenery.
Now the fluorescent lighting is all just for me. The first thing I do after clocking in is make coffee. It used to be just for us in the factory but now the Home office thinks customers should have some too. So now I'm a barista in addition to legal drug dealer and punching bag.
After serving my boss his java, I head over to the production assembly line. I count colorful pills for hours only stopping to answer the phone or taking the pick up register. Then the fun begins, the phone calls from geriatrics who want to know why the automated system called them. I get this constantly on the phone and in person. I'd say 46% of the most common thing said to me is "I had a message from you guys?"
Really? get the fuck out, you don't say! How about you listen to what the annoying robocall is saying instead of coming in person to ask me and then getting pissed off when there's no medication ready for you. I've had people shove phones in my face with text messages that say what the hell they want.
Hey dumb ass you want a refill, text YES.
Heavy sigh*
You see I can't say things like that once I'm behind the counter. I've been chastised for defending myself. That's not "Customer Service."
How about I do a Public Service and stick my foot up your ass.
After slaving over a counter all day alone with my boss Pidgeotto flapping around in the background, help arrives in the form of Useless or Cranky formally known as clingy. I call her cranky now because she stopped talking to me at work for no reason for like two months. It was awkward as we couldn't be on the same shift for too long. She does this a lot with everyone, so I have no time for that and took her off all my social media. She talks to me now but it can never be like before, I keep it just about the work and mention nothing personal.
If Cranky happens to come in that means Pidgeotto is gonna be annoying, it's a pattern. Maybe she upsets him or I don't know, all I know is I'll be typing a lot and doing little side missions. There will also be plenty of mansplaning and taking of the thunder.
See folks whilst Pidgeotto is easy on the eyes and sometimes cocky, he's also a shit.
Exhibit A:
Patient: I have no insurance how much will vaginal cream cost?
Me: Retail price is $125.00
Patient: Dollars?!
Me: I'll apply a coupon give me a few minutes to work on this, I'll call you.
I proceed to find the best price for them and reduce the cost down to 35$
I head to the register to ring them up and then I hear flapping in the background.
Pidgeotto: Yea you see I found you a coupon so I brought it down to 35$
Patient: OMG thank you so much for all your help! *creams pants*
Pidgeotto: No problem, anytime.
So you see only when Cranky and I work with him does he swoop in and take all the credit. When Useless flails, he runs to his aid.
Exhibit B:
Patient: I don't understand why my Copay is so high?
Me: *Explains inner workings of Insurance
Insert Pidgeotto here-Talks over me and says the exact same thing.
Patient: Oh, thanks for explaining it to me, I understand now.
Me: *Rolls eyes
Ah Pidgeotto, you gotta love to hate him. He's like that weekend dad who screams at you and then goes out and gets you a puppy just so you can be on good terms again.
In Cranky's case he brings her Dunkin Donuts, she'll eat them of course but still mumble under her breath.
In my case it's all about the downpour. See Pidgeotto's higher Pokemon are really giving it to him, seeing as how the Factory just had this huge managerial layoff recently. Lots of layoffs. The Factory is changing and not for the better.
They're even doing illegal things like sending mass emails saying how Full time employees can only make 30 hours a week in their own factory, if they want a 40 hour work week then they have to go find a hemorrhaging factory and put in the hours there. There's 3 Full time techs on the payroll and only 90 hours a week in demand, sometimes less. The demand for hours increases if your Factory sells more. Unfortunately our sweatshop sales have gone down and so have our hours. Part of my job entails actually making the schedule. Well I make the schedule, then Pidgeotto goes in after me and changes everything around. So I have the illusion that I'm doing something when in reality I'm not.
So Pidgeotto is feeling those Pokemon moves, he's also going through what I can see is a whole world of debt. He just knocked up his fiance who laughs like a deranged Hyena at everything Pidgeotto says (I think this is an insecurity thing, but that's just me) He just bought a 500,000 house. Has a 300,000 student loan debt from Pharmacy school and is still paying off his and hers matching Beemers.
He said earlier this week he started dipping into his 401K.
Debt changes people. I pray I don't see the slow conversion from Pidgeotto to full on Charrizard!
Before he and I had what I thought, an open channel of communication. I knew him when he was just an Intern and we hit it off even then, he'd joke to Dragon who trained him once, "When I get to be the Boss of my own pharmacy I'm taking Lulu with me."
To which Dragon would reply. "No, she'd never leave me."
Well she wasn't wrong, I certainly didn't leave.
So he's been a full year as my boss and it's been great until the downpour began.
This year has had it's challenges, sometimes my personal life affects my job only in the sense of my absence. I rock at work otherwise and I can proudly say that. I'm fucking good at my job. I work for 8 hours a day with no food and some days only five hours of sleep, but things get done.
One fine day Pidgeotto had a staff meeting with the more powerful Pokemon and the very next day he ripped me a new asshole.
One of my patients who is incredibly annoying and gets verbally abused by my boss and even Useless, sometimes who says things to her like "Can you stop talking? We're finished here can you just go!"
I have patients that I've known for years, people have died on me. I've been the only survivor worker of that Factory till this very day. I have patients I genuinely pretend to care and be interested in for the sake of "Customer service" and they love me because they ask for me all the time and complain about the rest of the workers.
So to have this stupid, toothless, tangled hair witch who's not one of my lovely regulars, ask me one day as I ring up her prescription "You got pregnant or something, what happened, you used to be skinny?"
A knee jerk reaction occurred.
I have gained weight. I'm fat again. I estimate at least 30-40lbs these past two years have accumulated and it shows. It doesn't go to my ass, boobs or thighs, it goes right to my face, stomach and hips. I know I'm fat, I see it every fucking day as I stare in the mirror. I'm reminded that I'm a failure, I can't control my weight anymore.
I'm out of control rather. I don't need Captain Ugly Obvious pointing it out. I've been sloppy and it shows.
I didn't plan to go off on her like I did. I didn't shout or make a scene but I did scold her. I more or less told her she can't go around just saying stupid shit like that to people, saying whatever just flies out of her mouth. I told her it's like me saying hey what happened to you? Did you fall out of the monkey tree or get hit with an ugly stick?
To which the lady smiled wide because I called her out on her shit. See some of these fuckers use the excuse of being medicated to justify their behavior and that doesn't settle with me. My pet peeve is people who use their past as a crutch or justification as to why they are so screwed up. Please, grow up, shit happens, wipe your ass and flush like the rest of us.
Suddenly Pidgeotto appears behind me and finishes the transaction, I can hear the cackling witch say "I was just playing with her."
After she leaves he scolds me and says I can't talk to people that way, I can't let them get to me.
So after a meeting with his superior Pokemon, he waits until the end of my shift to take me to the stock room and ask me what the hell is wrong with me.
He started to tally all my personal (nothing work related) mistakes, which at the time since he didn't have a meltdown like Dragon, I thought didn't matter.
He even went as far to say "Are you acting like this because you leave your daughter at home everyday to come to work?" This was just recently with the Summer Vacation.
I'm quiet and as hard as I try my eyes are starting to swell. Suddenly he looks like a completely different person to me. "I'm going to have to write you up" he says dryly to me all the while doing that sharp sniffing thing he does when he tries to be serious or says something he means or wants done.
I spend more time with him than my own kid, I know all of his quirks and I could tell he was trying to be firm. Sometimes I picture him rehearsing things he has to say in front of his fiance who's so insecure she cheers him on.
From that day forth I decided to never disclose anything personal to him ever again.
Working with him now is fine but once someone rubs me the wrong way I can never be the same with them. The dynamics have to change. Sometimes being vulnerable is not an option.
You can't let them see you bleed, you have to work with that arrow in your chest, you can bleed out all you want, but don't let them know you're hurting.
Two hours into my shift and all I do all day is watch the clock. I count down how much longer till I can get into my shitty car and do 80 on the freeway all the way home.
Home.
After a long eight hour shift fasting, earache, bum ankle, degrading day, I get to go home to my kid. My kid whose been alone since 3 and no dinner because she likes to eat dinner when I'm there, so she waits, alone. She's such a good kid, you can't even imagine my prayers.
I sit in traffic and pray my car doesn't cut off as I'm driving, or my wheel doesn't explode because they're almost bald. I can't afford a set of new ones, so 4 used ones and a prayer will have to do. I pray my lack of horn can't alert the driver texting next to me. I pray to not be stranded alone on the freeway. I pray to one day see the bigger picture. That one is the most, please someone help me understand how can I still be standing, why am I?
Boy do I love being at home and not doing jack shit.
You want the poor mans millions, try getting off of work, having three days off.
I wish my bank agreed with my enthusiasm but alas it does not. Instead my bank account says
I find a parking space in the overcrowded street and check my mailbox. I head inside and have the cats greet me first. I say hello to my now thirteen year old, she's on the bed headphones in place, oblivious to the world and I envy her. Don't ever grow up kid, life stinks.
She hugs me and immediately asks me about my day. I tell her horror stories from the Factory and she laughs. She gives me extra tight hugs as if she knew parts of me are coming loose.
I sit in silence for awhile on the living room couch. Silence is Golden.
When I was in the first grade, I remember seeing this posted as one of the musts in the classroom. I've seen it many more times throughout my education. I never really understood it's meaning until now.
Quiet.
I don't want to talk or even listen. I just want to not be responsible for anything or anyone for a bit. Sitting in my uniform on my tattered couch is what I look forward to when I get home.
I get home around seven if there's no traffic, then I have five hours where I can do whatever I like. I make my kid dinner, I watch something on Netflix, I check emails.
I count down.
I have a bedtime too, and at midnight, lights out.
The next day is Ground Hogs Day.
I've started to see a therapist again and I'm back on medication.
I want to feel better but the truth of the matter is, my job drains me, drains me to the point I no longer want to socialize or go outside. I rather be at home where no one hates me.
I have no energy or drive to write or do anything. I hate this but I can't seem to make this work any other way.
I think I used to blog/vlog more in the past because I was unemployed. Now that I'm working and things are getting more expensive, my priorities have shifted. I say shifted and not changed because no matter how much this stupid job steps on me that will never take away my writing. It's a predisposition I'm afraid.
I'd like to have time to more of the things that I'm passionate about but that's just not in the cards for me yet.
Some of us are just extras, just background, white noise. Makes me wonder if I'll ever amount to anything?
I wish I were more active, but it's just so hot outside and I'm so broke!
I feel bad for anyone who tries to make plans with me, I want to, but I'm just tired.
Please understand I'm depressed and it has absolutely nothing to do with anyone.
I'm depressed because I'm me and that's just not good enough anymore I'm afraid.
These are things I have to work through obviously and I will, in my own time and at none others pace.
I'm not perfect, I try to stay out of people's lives and not give advice.
You should always look first at your own life before trying to fix another's. That's why I never listen to anyone. Who are you to judge me or try to fix me.
I work hard, I am the sole provider of my household, and I'm not dead yet so don't count me out.
Bruce Wayne didn't become Batman until he was 30. It doesn't matter how slow you go. Just Go.
