I got pregnant

It is so sad that I haven't posted, blogged, or read blogs in eight months. I miss this part of my day. I got swept away with so many distractions, good distractions, that I couldn't keep up. Even though I am posting now and thinking I will start posting regularly again, there is a voice in my head telling me that I am not being honest with myself about the number of hours in the day and the number of directions I have split myself.
The list of good distractions includes a few good experiments and the race for manuscript preparation so we can stay funded, pregnancy in the middle of March, and somewhere between 2-3 students in the laboratory all summer with lots of needs and questions. I raced through every day and to meet the immediate needs at work and home and I don't remember looking at anything on the internet unless I absolutely needed to. Half the manuscripts are published now, although we still have two more to do in the immediate future. I am due in 6 weeks and, aside from a little diabetes, this has been a pretty easy pregnancy. The students went back to school and are here far less often. This little extra time may give me the opportunity to blog, or this may be the lull before the next storm.
If it matters to anyone reading (and it might have mattered to me if I were reading this), I was struggling with infertility and it was very frustrating. My husband and I tried more than 20 times (like two years) and the disappointments were overwhelming. We made a decision to not pursue invasive, expensive fertility options even though the fertility doc who checked us out recommended some. It happened for us and I am very glad that we did things the way we did. I am not saying we were right and everyone else who handles infertility differently was wrong, but I am comfortable with the path with took even though it was painful at times.
Hubby and Manther (the 3 1/2 year old) are doing well. Hubby is extremely active in AA and runs two meetings and is going to a men's retreat this weekend. His performance at work has apparently been great (at least in my mind) and he is now top salesman and store manager. He has a lot of pressure, but handles it well most of the time. Manther is quite a big girl now, even though she refuses to cooperate and use the potty, and seems very happy in her older preschool room at daycare. She is not happy about having a little sister, but she is a diva/princess and I did not expect gracious acceptance of a new sibling to share stuff with. She will adjust and in 20 years she will probably love her new sister.
I go to my one AA meeting and week and church on Sunday. I am not as active in AA as hubby is, but that is where I am right now and life will change when the kids get older and I will have more free time for meeting and fellowship. I get lots of phone calls in to friends and family members and I feel happy and not isolated.
That's it for now. Today I look forward to finishing my day at work and going home to delouse my child and my house after a note a received regarding an outbreak at daycare. Always something to look forward to...

Prayers for Hubby

The title of this post sounds terrible and, no, my husband does not have a deadly disease. I am feeling so sad because he has the worst boss I have ever seen and I am watching it change him. He is becoming agitated and insomnia is creeping in. His self-esteem is being chipped away despite the fact that I am desperately trying to hug, kiss, and complement at every turn.
My husband works in flooring sales is employed at a small, family-owned company. The owner is an alcoholic ( I don't care if it's inappropriate for me to make this statement, I'm calling a spade a spade today) and has two adult sons who also have chemical dependency issues that have landed them in jail several times. Of course, their lifestyle is costly with the car accidents, lawyer fees, and the price of liquor/drugs and, it seems to be my husband's responsibility to support their habits. Every employee except for my husband and the warehouse manager have quit. I wish Hubby could quit, too, but I am not sure what is worse for your self esteem, permanent unemployment and bankruptcy or lunatic bosses? We look EVERY day for a new job. Occasionally, an opening appears and we jump on it. No calls yet.
Hubby has not missed a day of work in two years. He is scheduled for a 45 hr week with no sick time, paid time off, benefits or commission. His hourly pay is ~ $14 and hour. He does not get reimbursed for the gas or the cell phone that is used constantly in his sales position. He typically works 10 hours more a week than he is scheduled. He got no Christmas bonus this year despite the fact that he was promised one (he is a salesman who laid a floor for free in the new expanded showroom and was told "Thanks buddy, I'll get ya at Christmas). He was informed of an unpaid lay-off over Christmas and then was called back for 4 days during the middle of the lay-off. He was only compensated for 3 of the 4 days. His paycheck for the first full week of work after Christmas was $150 short. There is no real reason given for the cuts in pay. Sometimes the owner indicates sales are down, but my husband and the warehouse manager both see the books and are quite aware that this is a lie. Sometimes the owner just promises to make up the difference later. This never happens.
The one thing the owner does do is make sure you feel like you aren't worthy of the check you are getting and, despite the craziness of it all, I think Hubby is starting to believe it. I know it's a lie. On top of the professionalism and responsibility Hubby has displayed during his employment, he is averaging $30,000 a month in sales. This is the equivalent of the owner's sales and the owner makes sure to take the best sales leads and cuts prices beyond the stated parameters to make his quota. I keep assuring my husband that he is a wonderful husband, father, and employee with a terrible job. My words cannot reverse the effect of the abusive relationship and Hubby's behaviors are starting to scare me.
About two weeks ago, he told me he was wearing sweats to work one Sunday. I tried to insist this was a bad idea and I can't remember if he went through with it or not. On Saturday, he decided to shut and lock the door of the store 15 minutes early. The boss stopped by and confronted him. Hubby didn't really defend himself, but just mentioned he had another job scheduled and was in a hurry (this is the truth, he works on the side installing because his pay is crap). The owner said they would discuss it later. If this discussion would occur in a professional format, Hubby would invite it as an opportunity to vent some frustration. However, the owner likes to humiliate his employees and will wait until several family members and the warehouse manager are present and loudly point out that Hubby was trying to steal hours from him.
I love Hubby and he has grown so much in the past two and half years. I am terrified that this job will eventually enrage him to the point that he beats the hell out of his boss or relapses or both. I am praying, praying, praying every morning. Usually, I am praying out loud in the car. I am asking for your prayers,also. Apparently, God has a little trouble HEARING when I am praying alone (yes, that is my frustration speaking). Please give Hubby a better job option before the abusive relationship destroys him.

The best job of all

Last night was meeting night and I am pleased to say that I was able to feel pretty comfortable at my table again. I am learning names and faces and I don't feel like a stranger in a foreign land. The table was about resentments and many shared about resentments related to their jobs. I heard about condescending bosses and demanding customers and backstabbing coworkers. I was filled with gratitude because I have an awesome job today.

Before recovery, I had a high-stress, big-money pharmaceutical job. I lost it due to crappy using behavior and it was one of my drunken regrets. In the back of my mind, I intended to return to that type of job when I was sober enough to handle the stress. Barely employable in early sobriety, I took whatever job came along, short order cook at Bill Knapp's, meat counter at Meijer (I really liked this job and almost stayed), and cashier at the local Alano Club (terrible, cruel, condescending boss, lots of 13 steppers, not all things recovery are good). After two years of sobriety, my sponsor told me I could move on and put in resumes related to my previous career.

I left a big black mark on my record in the pharmaceutical industry, so I applied at the local academic research institution initially. I was given a chance by a kind MD/professor and worked hard for him. I continued to watch the job openings and, almost a year after he hired me, I got an interview at a pharmaceutical company. I really thought this was where I was supposed to be and I was crushed when I was not offered the job. I worked through it with the help of the program and got comfortable with the job I had. We bought a house and got pregnant and, in my 3rd month, I found out our project had lost funding.

I was really shaken and more than a little bit angry. Why would God refuse me the tasty pharmaceutical job and also take away my humble academic position? I am the primary income and insurance carrier in our little family. I had a baby on the way and had no choice but to interview with my protruding belly. I was hired by the most amazing boss ever. She is a pediatric MD, a surgeon, a researcher, and mother of 4. She is one of the smartest people I have ever met, yet she respects my opinion and decisions and is grateful for the work I do. My first year working for her, I missed time for childbirth, my husband's car accident, back injury, relapse related court dates and parenting classes, and back surgery. On top of all this, Manther was diagnosed with 5 earaches her first year in daycare and I had to drag her out of daycare and to the doc's numerous times. I was ashamed of my trailer trash life and all the work I missed, but I tried to stay on top of things and be focused at work. She never criticized me or questioned all the personal time, but instead told me I was doing a great job and gave me a merit raise.

There is nothing I dread about coming into work and I could never have picked a job that allows me to split my time between mother, wife, and employee. God had to pick this job for me. That pharmaceutical job I wanted? That company shut it's doors this year and I would have been standing in an unemployment line if I had gotten my way 3 years ago. I am so grateful God took care of me and put me where I am today. I only wish I had been more accomodating while he was working things out for me.
TAGS:
alcoholism addiction 12-step aa alcoholics anonymous family

Does not play well with others

This is a post so I can gripe about my job. I try not to post about my job because it is really great in a lot of ways, but sometimes it still gets me down. I am a scientist or, more accurately, research tech. I do experiments for people who have gotten some grant money from the government to do research. I love doing experiments in cell biology, molecular biology, and genetics and that is why I chose this field. There are many failed experiments and the low success rate can be frustrating, but I can work through this with occasional venting.

The more challenging part is the people (isn't this true for every job?). I believe that most scientists have an arrogant and antisocial attitude that stems from, well, being a nerd. All the little resentments that were built early in life as a social outcast turn sideways in adulthood and create a weird, defensive jerk. Is the jerk intelligent? Maybe. Does this intelligence compensate for the jerky behavior? Absolutely not, except maybe in the case of Albert Einstein. Do I belong to this club? You betcha, baby. I have very consciously tried to work on this with my personal inventory, but I still struggle with it.

Okay, what this is really about is cells. I grow cells for experiments, as many of my coworkers do. When the cells get contaminated, the finger pointing starts so we can properly lay blame on the incompetent who was the source of our woe. Although it is never said aloud, scientists believe that almost everything that goes wrong in the laboratory (and in life) is due to someone else's incompetence. I contaminated my own cells last week and, while I was frustrated by the loss of cells, I was also freaked out that I was going to contaminate someone else's cell line and get the incompetent finger pointed at me. So, I quickly announced the problem and spent the following days carefully finding the source (my media bottle) and obsessively cleaning all surfaces I could find. I started my cell lines again and they are fine. My coworker got contamination this morning. While she never stated that she thought I was responsible and she actually stated the opposite, I certainly feel like I am staring right at the tip of the incompetent finger.

I want to scream, "I didn't do it!', but maybe I did. Who really knows? Bacteria are tricky little bastards and it's really hard to get rid of all of them. It only takes one before you have a colony. There is no way to escape my psycho, paranoid head until I attend my meeting tonight. I will go and share this and someone else will relate their paranoid freak story and I will be able to laugh at them and myself and feel normal.

Until then, I am going to find a new incubator to house my cells because someone's incompetence has introduced bacteria into the incubator I am using.
TAGS:
job career

A Highly Skilled Grocery Bagger

I work in a research laboratory and and about 6 of every 18 months one of the clinicians from our department comes and works with me. Right now I have a coworker and it's a nice break from being here by myself. Today I found out that my new coworker is not only a clinician and a surgeon, but also a highly skilled grocery bagger. Apparently, he won a contest when he was in high school for grocery bagging. You must be able to fill evenly weighted grocery bags with great speed and he made it to the finals. However, the day of the finals there was a power outage. He and his manager heard the competition would be rescheduled, so they stayed home. As you may have guessed, the contest was delayed, not rescheduled, so he missed his opportunity to compete. He seems to have recovered well, but I am sure he wonders what could have been.
TAGS:
work career jobs employment

Work Sucks, Slot machines are fun

Welcome back everybody. It was a painful and arduous crawl to get into work this morning, but I made it and I was on time. That is all I have accomplished at this point. I am grateful to have a job, but if I could exist comfortably without a job I would quit really fast.

The New Year's celebrations have come and gone. I celebrated New Year's Eve by traveling to my local grocery store and buying a bag of hot wings and a 2 liter of Pepsi. We proceeded to watch South Park and eat hot wings. There was one minor catastrophe when my daughter rubbed hot wing juice into her eye, but other than that we made it through unscathed.

We celebrated New Year's Day watching our favorite team's bowl game and it was a miserable showing. We offset the misery by playing with the neighbor's slot machines. They're real slot machines, but you can't win real money because he uses tokens. Our 20 month old quickly learned how to jam the coins in and push the buttons and she was absolutely delighted. That is the longest I have ever seen her entertained by one object. The coins would come shooting out and the lights would flash when she won and I have never before seen such pure joy in her eyes. I am a little scared for what the future holds.
TAGS:
work career jobs employment New Years

Letting Down the Team

I apologize to anyone who was anxiously awaiting my post yesterday. I was caught off guard by my husband ripping out the carpet in the living room and I suddenly found myself scrubbing, dusting, and purchasing cheap area rugs to keep it livable. He did a fine job and it has greatly improved the look of our home, although he could have done a crappy job and it still would have greatly improved the look of our home because the 20-year-old stained carpet was NASTY.
I have returned to work today and I have an ookie feeling. I always feel guilty when I take a sick day, like I let down the team. The reality is there is no team. I work more or less independently and no one has to fill in for me or do extra when I'm not here. Also, the sick time has been allotted to me by the powers that be. So, why the ookie feeling? I don't think it's my imagination since I don't have a very active one. I think there are probably some waves of jealously and superiority being sent my way from folks who work alongside me. I used to share these emotions when I was younger and cockier. When coworkers called in, I immediately labeled them as unmotivated hypochondriacs who would never succeed to the levels that I would at work. The greater truth was they had the day off and I was jealous. It is a decade later and I have not really succeeded in the workplaceand I have adjusted my work ethic accordingly. Now when people call in, I say things like, "I'm glad they've taken this time to take care of themselves and I hope everything works out okay. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help." I don't feel that way at all. I am still jealous they had the day off and I didn't, but I am a wee bit more humble, significantly more politically correct, and far more honest with myself than I was in my twenties.
TAGS:
work career jobs employment