Life's a bitch, and then you die....

My apologies for the lack of posting as of recent. My will to blog has left me, I have nothing funny or witty to talk about as of late. I promise to return when my outlook on life has improved.

A Most Horrible Day

Today has been one of THE most horrible days in the history of my life. I could certainly use a stiff drink at the moment.

One of my receiving girls has handed in her two weeks notice, members of my area have decided to put together a potluck.

IT IS THE POTLUCK FROM HELL!

From this day forward I will forever cringe at the mention of the word potluck.

When asked what could be done for this woman's going away get together I had stated point blank I wanted the entire event to be small, limited to just my areas, and I wanted it to be something easy, like a pizza luncheon.

Now, how in the hell can you misinterpret this???

Eight days later I now sit, a complete nervous wreck, supposedly 'In Charge' of the potluck (potluck???? What happened to pizza???) with half the hourly staff in the plant pissed off at me because they are only getting a 30 minute lunch.

How did this happen, I ask myself??? I'll tell you how....

Leave it to MY own employee to just decide to do whatever the hell she wants to do, no consideration for what her manager has already decided.

So, there I sit this morning, unbeknownst to me a pizza luncheon has been turned into a PLANT WIDE potluck, and people as asking me why they can't have a 45 minute lunch.

What the hell???

I respond to them, this is a decision between them and their manager. I can only manage the people on my own team, they need to get with their manager.

Unhappy people.

They go above my head hoping the production control manager will overturn my ruling and grant them a 45 minute lunch.

It does not work. He sends them back to me. They've already been there, so, they stage an hourly uprising.

Two hours later I find myself, among the other production managers, assembled in the conference room discussing the events of the infamous "Potluck".

By now, I just want to cancel the whole damn thing.

I've already snapped at my team requesting answers as to how a SMALL pizza luncheon has turned into a plant wide potluck and who gave them the permission to pursue this thing.

Crickets chirping. Dead silence.

Nobody comes forward, so I continue on. I explain to them how things can backfire when they go over their managers head in hopes of procuring something the manager has already said no to.

In this case, the 45 minute lunch.

As it turns out, because of this incident, the 45 minute lunch has been banned. The production control manager has made the edict that we can no longer practice a 45 minute lunch for individual festivities or potlucks. The 45 minute lunch will only be authorized in a plant function.

All I can say is, they did it to themselves. I don't make decisions on whim, I always have a reason for the things I do. Had they stuck with the small pizza luncheon, the 45 minute lunch would still be a possibility.

God have mercy on my soul, I have one more day of hell to endure as the 'Potluck' is scheduled to happen tomorrow.

I hate Valentines Day!

Everyone is getting flowers today but me......

Sometimes life just isn't fair.

A Mushy Mind

At long last, I can breath easy once again, the detested IPC class is behind me, I've passed with flying colors.

While my mind has turned to mush and my back has curved into advanced stages of scoliosis, I can, at the very least, site the solder criteria required for the installation of a castellated surface mount flat pack component for class 3 electronics.

So wrong, so many reasons......

It's amazing, when you think about it, how a person's mind will literally gravitate to all things that are bothering you at any given point in time while you are stuck in that type of situation.

Naturally, as the course progresses, you immediately notice how boring the material is. From that discovery you suddenly realize you are extremely tired. So tired you can't even keep your eyes open. Once this realization has been made you also notice just how much your neck/back/ass hurt from sitting for such an extended period of time. Once this takes place, it's all downhill from there.

When you finally discover that you are no longer able to concentrate on the course material as the instructor stares at you, speaking with you, because the under wire in your bra is digging into your arm and your hair line is itchy, you have officially surrendered your sanity.

Your mind is, from this point forward, mush.

I pray for a speedy recovery from this condition.

Spinal Compression due to Inadequate Seating

Do you think I can collect workman's comp benefits for injuries resulting in a sore ass??

Something must be done about those chairs in the training room! For the third day now I've been in an all day class sitting on quite possibly the worst chairs ever tooled by modern man.

I was barely able to walk out of the training room today, they may need to have a stretcher handy for tomorrow.

Thank God I've only got one more day of class......

Time for a New Look

So, what do you think? Profile worthy??

 

Mute

When the radio had quit playing this morning I really didn't even think twice about it. Assuming the station had gone off the air, I continued to get ready for the day.

When my hair was curled and my make up finished I headed into the bedroom to turn off the stereo and find a necklace or bracelet to finish up my look.

What I found upon entering the room had made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

As I approached the stereo I noticed it was flashing something, the station hadn't actually gone off the air after all. What had freaked me out, however, was that it was flashing the word 'mute'.

Something I have never seen on this stereo before.

I feel I need to explain to you all the fact that this stereo is over 6 years old, and not one of the fancy expensive stereos either. No remote, no frills, just your basic $100 special I picked up when I was a single Mom living alone with my then 5 year old son Zach.

Freaked out, I scanned the front of the receiver for a mute button of any kind.

Nothing.

I tried to turn the volume up, then down, neither worked.

Finally giving in to the paranoid feeling in the back of my mind, I flipped off the stereo and quickly headed downstairs.

I have not turned it on since.

My New Dish

It is impossible to believe that I have lived the past 4 years the way that I have.

As unimaginable as it may sound, for the past 4 years I have suffered with only 3 TV stations to choose from, one of which PBS!

While it gave me a reason to not sit in front of the TV and vegetate my life away, it also held me back from anything cool or hip that other people had watched and wanted to talk about.

That is, until yesterday, when I got myself hooked up with The Dish.

So, there I sat, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new technology, my eye opening window into reality. I sat with baited breath as I watched the Dish TV van drive past my house not once, or twice, not even three times, but I watched it continue to drive back and forth until I finally seen it park at the end of the road, in the field by my house.

When the phone rang I knew it would be the Dish TV people. And it was. Apparently they could not find my house. Imagine how embarrassing it was to have me tell them I was watching them from my kitchen counter as I sat there and spoke to them on the phone.

"You are?" the voice of a young guy on the other end of the phone.

"Yes. I'm that white house you are parked by." Me, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, the one with the long driveway?" the young kid sounds puzzled.

"No, I do not have a long driveway. I am the house that is sitting in the woods directly to the front of your car. Drive about 30ft, look to the right, you can't miss it." I was totally sarcastic at this point.

"Oooooooohhhhhhh, that house. You are the first house," recognition has finally set in.

As much as I wanted to laugh at the young guys who were hooking everything up, I didn't. They couldn't have been much older then 18, but, they were trying very hard to be adult, right down to the way they smoked their cigarettes.

It still amazes me that young adults feel the need to smoke a cigarette or drink a beer in order to be viewed as an adult.

On with the story.

They had finally arrived and were hooking everything up, much to my excitement. I was standing in the kitchen when one of them popped his head up from behind my TV and asked if I was 'saving this'.

In his hand was the moldy remains of one of those tiny little miniature pumpkins.

I thought I was going to die.

It had to have been there since around Halloween time. Thomas had brought it home one day, all decorated in his 3 year old little scribbles.

Needless to say, it has found it's final resting place within the confines of my trash can.

Barring the mini pumpkin incident, the rest of the process went well. The satellite was set up, the box was hooked up to the TV, and I can now watch over a 100 channels of junk whenever I want.

Life is good.