All Alone

It's my last night of solitude. Hubby's been gone for a week, doing his yearly duty in Nebraska. I miss him terribly, but I have to admit to the guilty pleasure of somewhat enjoying a week alone to watch Star Trek as much as I want with my faithful laptop at my side (or on my lap, as the case may be). At the same time, I miss him terribly, and can't wait to see him tomorrow afternoon. So for now, I enjoy my coffee and Irish Cream, watching a final episode of Star Trek with Sis' newest ms in front of me. It's been a week of geeky pleasures. But I'm ready for DH to come home.

Suggestions, Please

There are 2 little boys climbing the fake trees about 15 feet in front of my desk. The fond parent is standing beside them, flipping through magazines and chatting with a friend.
1.) How long should I let this go on before I say something?
2.) Will I be able to phrase "get your crazy kids out of our fake trees" in a polite way and do it without laughing?

Sick, Or Just Pretending?

Cold Begone! I'm tired of you hanging around and making my otherwise lovely days miserable. I'm tired of sniffling and coughing. You have worn out your welcome, so leave me in peace! When I worked in restaurants, one thing that constantly amazed me was the way that managers reacted to sick employees. Unless a worker was sick enough to need hospitalization, the best they could hope for was a manager with no sympathy. More often than not, you'd get accused of faking illness to get out of work. And if you didn't come in, none of the management would ever believe you were really sick - they had always known that you were a lazy good-for-nothing, even if you did save their butts on more occasions than you can count by answering their 10:00 AM summons on your off days - and then working double shifts. I saw this up close in my last job, where I went from being a waitress to being the Administrative Assistant (capital letters more than deserved, as I worked for 7 managers - usually all men). Whenever a server would call in, whatever managers were present would have five minutes of conversation about the fact that the employee was obviously faking. They would inevitably try to convince the employee to come to work anyway. If that failed, then the server would be told to get a doctor's note before coming back to work. Even when the servers provided the note, they often still weren't believed. Even if the doctor told them that they had strep and needed to stay away from every living soul for at least 3 days, the managers would be suspicious. Only if said employee were actually admitted to a hospital and had an IV tube inserted would they be believed. The end result? In the 5 1/2 years I was at that restaurant, I called in sick for a total of 3 days - and two of them were because of some horrible pukey-sickness that made my doctor tell me not to go near anyone. 99% of the time when I felt ill, I went to work sick and let them see how miserable I was. About 33% of the time I would be sent home. I vividly remember waiting tables with a cough so bad that I had to leave a table of four on three separate occasions - while I was trying to take their order. They did not appreciate the fact that I was working while sick. And I'd be willing to bet that most people would rather their server not be sneezing and coughing more often than not during their shift. And heaven forbid you should make a joke, smile, or in any way display anything other than complete misery while you're "supposed" to be sick. The second you do, a manager will jump out at you and declare "OH! You must be feeling better! Told you that you didn't need to go home." And that attitude is considered putting the customer first. Well, this weekend I got the cold from Hell. Luckily, the worst of it has been amazingly short-lived. Or it might be the fact that I took such a large quantity of Day-Quil (or Day-Quil knock-offs) over a four day period that I am actually still medicated, 24 hours after taking my last dose. Monday afternoon, though, I was not feeling quite this well. I work 1-10 PM on Mondays, so I got to sleep in (which is always good). But the hour-long drive to work made me realize that the drive home - at 10 PM - would seem a lot longer than usual. And then I got to work, and was reminded that sometimes supervisors don't want their employees to come in sick. My supervisor happens to be on vacation this week. But by 6 PM - my dinner break time - I had been asked by more than one person why I felt the need to come to work while I was sick. "Don't you know we get sick leave for a reason?" And then, two other supervisors said the magic words. They told me that if I'm sick, I shouldn't come to work, because A.) I won't get better any faster and B.) No one else wants to get it. I should stay home and rest. And they sent me home. I think I was actually a little shocked. I felt like a wimp. "Wait!" I wanted to yell. “I can handle a 4 table station on a Friday night when I've lost my voice and can't breathe without coughing up mucous! And you won't let me sit behind a desk for 4 hours because I have a cold??!! I'm not a wimp!" And then I realized: I'm now in the real world. Not the artificially-ego-centric world of restaurants. I can go home and still get paid. And if I don't feel good tomorrow, I can call these people and tell them I'm not coming to work because I’m still sick ---- and they'll believe me. It was a weird feeling. Still is. But I like it.

These pictures should give you a brief idea of what I've been doing with my weekend. Hubby's out of town for the week, so I planned on staying up late all weekend and watching my musicals on DVD and Star Trek-athons on G4TV (what is the deal with that interactive stuff? Do they know how annoying it is?). Well, I stayed up late all right. And I was even watching my shows. And hacking and blowing and sneezing and coughing. Ugh.

Update!

I just got an exciting email, and because I know that all 4.3 of you that read this blog care, I thought I'd share the news. Remember when I told on our Copier/Printer Machines-of-Torture? Well, they've really done it now. They have overstepped their boundaries, and pushed even The Guy too far. As of October, they will be replaced. All 5 of them. We're not going to tell them, because then we'd have nothing to threaten them with. Even The Guy would lose his effectiveness, and they'd probably declare an all-out war with the reference staff. And when humans and machines battle, the machines always win. So for the next few months, we'll just continue to wage the battle, breathlessly waiting for the day when our machines will be replaced. Replaced with new Copier/Printer Machines-of-Torture.

Memorial Day

Over at ScrappleFace (which is one of the funniest blogs I read on a regular basis), Scott Ott has one of the most hauntingly beautiful tributes I've read.  Take a moment to  go read it, and say thank you in your own way.
And have a great holiday!

Florida Vacations

We're here in Florida! We left Thursday afternoon - I got home from work a little early, and we were able to get on the road a few minutes after 4. I convinced the hubby that we didn't really want to spend the money on a hotel room - and so we drove straight through. StepSon is the only teenager I've ever met who doesn't take advantage of those hours to sleep, but since he has good taste in music we sang through all three of Billy Joel's greatest hits albums and then threw in some Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and Simon & Garfunkel. Told ya he had good taste in music. We got to Florida at about 1 AM, much too early for me and sis to go to sleep. So we cracked open a bottle of wine while Hubby headed to his favorite place in the entire world: My sister's hot tub. He'll spend 75% of the next three days in there, but he'll be happy. And when he's happy, I'm happy. Especially when Sis is making Pink Lemonade Margaritas - which is my new favorite summer drink. There's Pina Colada's waiting for us, but we can't get away from these Margaritas long enough to find them. And of course we had to make a stop at the wine store today. Got Hubby a special birthday surprise there, too. So it's been an all around great day. Tonight, we head to the beach to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. And then back home, to the pool, the hot tub, cheesecake and wine. Life is good....

Advertising

We see product placement in movies and TV shows all the time. But have you ever considered having it in books?

From BoingBoing:

BMW has commissioned four short stories that feature their cars andproduced audiobooks of them, which are available as free, non-DRMedMP3s on their site (you do have to give them an unverified emailaddress to get access, though). Presently, they're featuring stories byDon Winslow, James Flint, Simon Kernick and Karin Slaughter.

Excuse ME!

Schools crack down on inappropriate blogs

So now, school boards are going to start policing what students do in their spare time. Because school boards don't have enough to do already. I mean, you would think that banning Harry Potter and Judy Blume would occupy the vast majority of their time. And you would think that parents would be the people responsible for what their children do in their spare time. And you might possibly think that it would be the police department's job to investigate anything that might be illegal activity. But you'd be wrong. Or at least, that's what a school board in Chicago thinks:

Illegal or inappropriate blogging or social behavior over the Internet is now a violation of District 128's student code of conduct at both Libertyville and Vernon Hills High Schools and can lead to denial of extracurricular student privileges.

Ok,if the kids were doing this in school, then I could see the school getting somewhat involved. But this code of conduct means that what students do from home is now the school's business. What about letters they write to their friends? What about if they sneak into an "R" rated movie? What if they have a sexy phone conversation, the NSA gets a tape of it and turns it over to the school? What if they write a journal on their computer then let other students read it, but don't publish it online? Why is this any of the school's business?

Library Humor