Not voted off the island

Again I have only been able to comment on a couple of your blogs. Will try again tomorrow.

OK, bet you knew this was coming: work is hellish. They seem determined to pay me back for all the time I've had off. Don't they realize that being off from work with an injury is not fun? Guess not. I naively thought just because I was kinda happy to be back that things would go well. Not. Not at all. But I've tried to keep up an insanely happy outlook. They probably think I'm overdosed on pain pills (I wish, none of the pain pills have really worked) but I keep smiling. It's had some rewarding moments; like when they look utterly befuddled and confused, but mostly being back to work has been just plain hellish.

Monday was one of the worst days I can ever recall and I really don't want to go into all the nasty details and re-live it all, but let's just say that I was scolded for my emails (BS snooped through all of my stuff, of course) chided and repremanded by my three bosses. Yes, I have three bosses now, not just BZ but two of her cronies are officially my bosses too. And Favorite Co-worker, who is one of my new bosses, isn't speaking to me. She avoids me whenever she can to the point of turning around and darting back to her office when she hears me come hobbling down the hallway to the bathroom or the workroom. It hasn't stopped her from assigning huge chunks of work for me to do in impossibly short amounts of time, and ccing BZ on it all, too so any failure of mine will be noted.

I cannot carry things while hobbling on crutches, yet the little cart that I needed even when able-bodied has disappeared. When I had a large mailing to do, I had to put it into a box and push it all the way from the workroom to my desk using my crutches. It took a long time and I was pretty tired just getting all that stuff over to my desk. Just getting around on that shiny, slippery, polished wood floor is exhausting. The office takes up an entire floor of the building we're in and has a huge amount of floorspace.

Oh, and BZ has taken away my company cell phone. She said it is a budgeting move, but I'm the only one who had it taken away. I was planning to call into work from my car if the parking lot, road and sidewalk were too icy to nagivate in the morning. Now I will have to drive all the way back home, get back up my inside stairs and call from home. That call will be criticized because it will be late by the time I can do that. I'm just hoping it's not slippery in the mornings so that problem doesn't ever come up.

Some of my assignments so far have been to get a count on the books in the publication room. I can't stand for any length of time and certainly can't balance well enough to move boxes around. But BZ took care of that one when I (nicely, politely) pointed that out to her. Then I was assigned to put heavy, bulky files together, which I am still working on. It's tough to do when I don't have good mobility or reach, but sort of possible, I guess, if difficult and tiring.

I had made some fudge to bring to work on Monday, hoping for a good re-start. Normally any sort of sweets, especially chocolately types disappear before noon. Only one piece was taken and that was by a visitor from our main office. I am being boycotted by the rest of the staff. They think I'm a lazy slacker, I guess, despite the obvious struggles I have to get into work, the crutches and the cast up to my knee. That, plus total exhaustion hit me pretty hard on Monday. I was nearly in tears so many times that day but wouldn't give in to it, wouldn't give them the pleasure of knowing how much their cruelty and just plain meanness hurt me, both emotionally and physically. Barely anyone even spoke to me unless it was unavoidable. BZ told me that she and the HR Dept wanted to meet with me on Tuesday.

By Tuesday I had toughened up a bit so went into the scary HR meeting joking and smiling. In reality, I was scared stiff. They could do some pretty mean and awful things to me. Financially I'm on my very last pegs, having received only 2/3 of my salary the entire time I was out on disability, plus the first three days off from work were totally unpaid. I was prepared to hear the worse: which wouldn't be to be laid off, because then they would have to pay unemployment compensation and also pay out all my remaining vacation time. The meeting turned out to be fairly decent despite the scary beginnings of rejecting body language, closing the door and all of that. I don't know if my upbeat attitute helped any but it couldn't have hurt. I did get assigned a whole bunch of brand new duties, despite the fact I have been gone for five weeks and am very behind in my regular duties.

During the day on Tuesday someone put my fudge so close to the hot coffee pot that it melted. It was a hassle to bring it all the way back to the car and then from the car back home, but I did it with pleasure. It was really good fudge and their loss! I brought it home on Tuesday night and today brought my Mom a few pieces and had one for dessert myself.

So I am surviving. But aren't we all in one way or another? I want to THRIVE again and get back some joy and happiness. That's my primary goal right now, after surviving the brutal times at work, of course. Hope your life is going much better!