Just call me Gumby

Well, yesterday was certainly interesting. I do like flexibility and unpredictability. The trouble is that last one can interfere with the rest of one's life. I was making chicken soup, watching the time and listening for the phone or the cell. I'd talked to both bosses but that was no guarantee that things wouldn't get all switched up. At 1:20 there was a call on the cell phone. It was direct boss calling to ask if I could come to a 1:30 visitation at the Center. As the other boss had said earlier, my regular visitation at 2:00 had been given to somebody else. Yikes!

I was (sort of, just in case) planning for the scheduled 2:00 at the client's house. While just a half-hour difference might not sound so bad or such a scramble, it was because I'd planned the soup to be done at 1:30, then pack up and leave. I said I was right in the middle of soup-making and wouldn't be able to leave home until 1:30, so would be late to the visitation. The boss said she'd switch the 2:00 person to the 1:30. I asked if I was still scheduled for the 2:00 then? She said she'd get back to me.

Ten minutes later I was done with the soup and sort of packed up. I really didn't want to waste the gas (and time) to go flying over there if someone else had been assigned to my 2:00 visitation. Finally I called the boss back and left a message. She called me back wondering why I'd called (?) because she just saw my number and hadn't listened to the message. I asked if the 2:00 was on or off for me. Apparently in the commotion she'd forgotten that it had been still up in the air and that she'd said she would call me back. It was on. So I rushed over the High Bridge to the neighboring state and to the client's house.

Whew! Now wasn't that interesting? I'm still waiting for a schedule for this week, have no idea what the scheduled times are, let alone the certain changes. Boss said she needed my E-mail, so sent it so her last night. This morning I'm on the computer checking for the schedule and got a "test" E-mail from her. Sent it back and am still waiting to see if or when I'm working today!

During the commotion of yesterday the land-line phone rang while I was on the cell talking to the boss. It was the Real Estate Agent with a showing for today! So I've been cleaning and sprucing up too. Away with the discount Halloween goblets and candles I'd bought for a quarter apiece and a set for a quarter. Also put away all the jars that were sitting on the kitchen counter. I'm going to clean and fill them with homemade "Cafe Vienna" "Mocha" "Spiced Tea" "Chai Tea" for (inexpensive) Christmas gifts.

Flexible Schedule

The utility guys came to fix the furnace last Tuesday. I waited most the day for them but it was worth it! They told me they had been making bets in the truck about what sort of furnace I had, and one had guessed correctly and also had guessed correctly what the problem was. These type of furnaces are known for that problem, apparently. So charged me for a hour of time and $4 for supplies for a total of $84--the cheapest furnace repair I'd paid yet. And also the only effective one. I'm very much enjoying the heat in here now!

I should be at a visitation right now, but it was canceled. This is the third one in a row that has been canceled. I got ready, took out the garbage and moved the garbage bin to the alley before leaving, because I thought I wouldn't be returning until after dark tonight. I had 7-and-a-half hours scheduled for two visitations and only a short half-hour to drive between them. I sped over the interstate "High" bridge and to the Center where the key to the visit rooms was missing (again). The building key was there so I could get into the building and knocked on the visit room doors, thinking someone had used the key and had not put it back. Well, that last part was true!

Called the boss about the missing key and she told me that the visitation had been canceled! I had gotten ready, raced over and stood out in the cold waiting--for nothing. Well, almost nothing, as she said I can get the 1-hour "cancellation" pay and a half hour for doing the paperwork. Friday morning the exact same thing happened, for a different family's visitation, and Friday afternoon the boss called me (BEFORE) I drove over the bridge, this time, to let me know that the afternoon visit had been cancelled too.

Although I'll get 1.5 hours of pay for each, it isn't what I'd planned for or what had been scheduled. So far I still have the 4-hour visitation in a family's home later this afternoon. But even that appears to be iffy because another boss told me just this morning that another worker had been assigned that visit, "to give me a day off"! Some day off when I had to go running over there! But my direct boss told me the visit is still on. We'll see what happens when I get there.

OK, I really do like this new job, but like any job it does have certain things about it that could be improved. When hired they told us that we would need to be flexible--and they really weren't kidding about that! They are also hiring more workers even though most of us are clamoring for more hours. What's up with that? Will the person who shadowed one of my visits be TAKING OVER that visit? Possibly so as I haven't seen her (new person) name on the schedule yet and she will be wanting hours too. I really don't want to donate any of my visitations to her, even though she seems to be a nice person!

Last week my hours did increase so Worker's Comp will (hopefully) be more pleased with this job. The job placement person is coming to meet for the usual two hours next week. I've already filled out the required job-hunting logs for her and the "Returns" matrix of companies who have gotten back to me, with rejection letters or E-mails.

I also finally finished the last folder of scanning for the friends who had this computer fixed. It was a barter deal and I had to fulfill my end of it after they paid for the repair. It was a good deal that worked out well. I couldn't have done my new job very well without computer access. The documents are E-mailed to the main office and there is a deadline about how fast they need to be submitted. Since a lot of my work is during the weekend, that would have been a problem to find a computer to get it done had not this one at home been fixed. I'm grateful. Everything is still turning out well, just not very predictable!

Still got it going on

Remember my October 7th post about the cold I had? Well, probably you don't remember as it's not all that noteworthy except to me. But here's the thing - I STILL HAVE IT. In fact my throat was so sore I could barely swallow and the coughing thing is annoying. Many times I've coughed so hard that I have vomited. Or perhaps that was from the tea with honey and lemon juice. Oh how I hate that tea now! Used to like it. But it does seem to ease the sore throat a bit. The four days/nights without heat in the house didn't help to get rid of this cold, or whatever it is, I'm sure.

Still, I've gone to work spreading my germs. I had a brand new visitation to observe last night. With a new visitation the Supervised Visitation Observer must go over the paperwork and the rules. I could barely talk, voice was gone and the effort made me cough and cough. I ended up just pointing out things as I couldn't read them out loud. How attractive and professional! Isn't that sad? But I need the money. And also have no health care.
Added later: I've been thinking (just a smidgen) about the 400 hours of sick time I lost at the old job...no paid sick at the new job. There are no benefits at all.

Today I went to the pharmacy and got a generic drug, well two versions: a daytime and a night-time. The dosage is 2 tablets for every four hours but I've never tolerated cold medicine well, so broke a tablet in half and took just the half. I was glad I did, since there was driving to be done and even the half-tablet made me pretty spacey. (Too bad I didn't have a new visitation to go over the rules with--now THAT might have been fun!) It has helped though, there's been fewer spasms of coughing since then.

As to the historic election of yesterday? All I can say is that chant that was heard around the White House, "Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, gooooodbye."
Added later: Even if it had gone the other way, the election would have been historic. I thought up another appropriate song: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

ps. There are a couple of my favorite blogs that I'm no longer able to get on to read or make comments! If that's you, can you please re-invite me? (if you want to, that is!)

The baby who loved books

Here's a little job-related story that is true. Well, elements have been changed because job information is confidential.

Imagine a baby girl taken from her parents. She only sees one of them a couple of times each week. The other parent is not permitted to approach anywhere near her. When the one parent who is allowed to see her has that precious time, that parent spends the entire time discussing their own ailments and problems. One comment was, "Watching a baby is so boring. You just gotta give them a toy to make them happy."

Safety is an issue during the visitation. The visiting parent has had many oops moments of nearly dropping, losing, and otherwise jeopardizing the baby's safety. Of course a crawling baby CAN zip away from its caretakers very quickly. Yesterday we had the visitation at a public Storytime event. The baby has attended Storytime before, with a different Observer in attendance. Before the Storytime began, she crawled over to a shelf of books, stood up and smiled. She took one of the books -- AND OPENED IT CAREFULLY to look at the pages. We're talking about a young child, not even a year old. This same child had, during a previous visitation, pulled out a book from the diaperbag and thrust it into the attending parent's face. The baby was ignored, the book returned to the diaperbag and a bottle stuffed in the baby's face instead.

During the Storytime the baby was very animated. Several times she crawled over to the person reading the story aloud and stood up, hanging on to her. She crawled to the table were the books were displayed and tried to take one of them. Parent scooped her up and brought her back, giving her a toy to play with. After a while of this, baby grew fretful and restless, crawling over to other children in the circle and trying to take their toys. Her parent seemed very tired and "out of it" not participating in the fun songs and games we played. Soon the time was up and Foster parents came to take the baby away. I mentioned to them how much the baby seemed to love books. They replied that they read to her and the other children and had a houseful of children's books. I was glad to hear that.

That was just one simple story of the many, many situations I deal with in my new job.

Those Damned Dollies

Just finished a visitation and now need to write the summary and do a billing document. First, I thought I'd blog a bit.

Have you seen the movie "A Scanner Darkly"? Weird animated movie that takes place "seven years from now" and is about an addictive substance called "D" by the same guy as "Blade Runner." If you haven't seen it, be sure to check it out. I got it from the library.

I want one of these!

Damned Dollies

Hard to pick a favorite, maybe Maude. What a great Christmas gift! But it's too early to be thinking of that, we haven't even had Halloween yet.

What are you dressing up as for Halloween?

"HIgh," "Bong" and "Goosed"

After a shaky start, the rest of the visitations this week have gone well. Well, the ones that actually happened, that is. There were many time mess-ups, no-shows and cancellations but the visits that occurred were good ones. That's encouraging.

Also I had a job interview this morning. It sounded like such a great job, they cross-train and encourage people to move up in the organization. Except for a couple of things: the office is up two flights of stairs! I arrived very early, climbed up the stairs (with the cane, of course) then had plenty of time to look around in the building's hallways for an elevator. There was none.

Previously I would have not thought much about it, just a "good, now I'll get some more exercise" sort of reaction. But now I'm wondering how they can not have an elevator up to an office that, obviously, workers and clients would be going in to work or to do business. Isn't there some sort of law about accessibility in a public building? Maybe it's not really considered a public building since it's an office building with suites.

And besides the stair-climbing problem, but related to it: the job requires courier work--running in and out of the office to pick up things! What a fun job that would have been, but
A.) I'm NOT going to get a call-back even though the interview went well, and
B.) I don't think I can do that job, sadly. Gee, I really wish I could walk normally again.

I had three visitations scheduled for this afternoon and evening. Every single one of them had the time or something else messed up with them. (No, I do not set the times--the social worker does all the scheduling! They just tell me when and where to show up) But the ONE visitation that actually happened was a great one, really heartwarming. I do like this job quite a lot, and they were not joking when they said they need someone who is very flexible!

Driving over the interstate bridge to those visitations was rather sad today. There was a large, dead goose on the bridge. I wonder what the car that hit a GOOSE looks like?! They are a really big bird and could have done some damage. That interstate bridge is locally called, the "High Bridge" even though it has another, official name. The other interstate is called the "Bong Bridge" named for Major Richard Bong, a pilot of WWII fame. 'Way back when I was a college student the out-of-state students would have a good laugh at the names of our local bridges, "The HIGH bridge and the BONG bridge? What sort of party place IS this?" Actually we are kinda a boring, backwater sort of place, but peaceful.

OK, the conversation question this time is: Do you have any weirdly named (or commonly called) local roads, bridges, etc.?

Not a Super Nanny

It's been a week already. That certainly went fast. Well, most of it. Thanks for the great cold-cure advice! When I asked that question, it was more of a "tell me about yourself" type of question but I quickly realized that there was some really good advice in the comments. I still have a sore throat and cough but am feeling so much better!

Last week when really ill I drank lots of green tea, opened a can of chicken noodle soup. I normally would make the soup from scratch but was just not up for all of that messing around. There are things like frozen food and canned goods still around for when the kids come to visit. The canned soup came in handy.

As I'd feared, Worker's Comp is not too pleased about the job situation. They're planning to do a job shadow to find out what, exactly I'm required to do. That's good of them to want to protect me but the visitations are confidential and I can't just take a "civilian" in with me! Maybe I could walk the WC agent through and just show and explain what I do without having a real family there?

And there ARE some issues about the visitations that are not ideal: there is a lot more walking and standing than they had told me. I'd asked many questions about it during the interview and the employment intake and was led to believe that the job was mostly sitting (and I could put my foot up) but it's not. Kids are lively and I have to follow them around. Families and foster parents are dealing with carloads of children and don't arrive on time (lots of standing around and waiting for everybody to get there).

I can't tell you very much about the situations, but they all are interesting and every family is unique. The children would break your heart. They are such beautiful children! My non-politically correct Mom would call most of them "half-breed" children, ethnically mixed. But those little angel-looking kids often behave like demons! Have you seen the TV show Super Nanny? Jo would have her hands full with ANY of these families.

In fact I had to speak to my boss last night about a family that has visitation in their home. The youngest child involved is so out-of-control that he actually attacked me (habitually attacked any and all of the family members)during the last visitation. It was in the family's home and everyone is required to remove their shoes so I was sitting in the living room with only a stockinged foot and my cane to get up--actually quite vulnerable to an attack like that. The child did back off but I realized that even a young child can really hurt somebody-the older siblings always bear marks and wounds from the youngest. Yikes! I really hated to bow out from that visitation as the boss has enough problems trying to schedule them all, but missing a few weeks may make me unfamiliar enough once again so that child actually listens to me again like during the first visitation, instead of ignoring what I say and attacking me, the fate of the rest of the family.

Yeah, I have to say that my friends and WC were kind of right about this new job. It's less than ideal, physically I can barely do the walking and standing required. But it's very interesting and at least a bit of money coming in.

So a natural follow-up question to all of this, as I love a dialogue, not a monologue: How has your job been lately?

Running

Wow, my head is spinning and it's great to be working again! I love my job, so interesting. It entails a lot of running around and last-minute step-ins. I worked pretty much all Friday until after 7:00 PM, and the same on Saturday and Sunday working until after 7 PM. The weekly visit with my Mom got moved to Monday, before a staff meeting late in the afternoon.

It's been hectic. Worker's Comp may not like the schedule since the driving and the waiting parts aren't paid. Any job has some time like that. My former job had a half-hour commute each way and a half-hour unpaid lunch for a total of an hour-and-a-half per day that wasn't "covered" or paid for. I hope WC will see it that way. The new job has a bit more of that sort of time just because the nature of it: waiting for the visiting parent(s) to show up, foster parents, driving to different sites. I had a 4-hour visitation in a family's home on Sunday. I got to watch them eat dinner, among other things (didn't get any dinner, of course). Spent Saturday afternoon on a playground and even got a bit of color on my face again. It was a beautiful day. Nice to get paid for stuff like that!

Unlike the previous schedule, the three shadowings required were completed by Friday already and I was out doing the visitations on my own. I think I've done maybe eight of them already and am scheduled for one this afternoon. SLA and I are going grocery shopping since I'm out of all the food I usually eat. Breakfast has been only apples when normally I have an apple, a banana and assorted other fruit chopped up and tossed with plain yogurt. I still have some reports and billings to write for work so I'd better get to it.

What's on your plate (fruit?!) this week?

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho

YES! The three required job shadowings are finally scheduled! One for Friday morning, one for Friday evening and one for Saturday late afternoon. Then there's a 4:00 PM meeting on Monday for me to presumably sign up for shifts on my own. Exciting! A bit scary too. I'll have to watch really closely and see how things are handled, how to act, what to do and say. I like the idea of learning by shadowing, and we'll see just how well it works out.

I just finished a meeting with the Worker's Comp job person. She gave me five new job leads that I must follow up in 48 hours. Tomorrow is that appointment with the bone doctor and another WC person will accompany me to that one.

Watched a horrendous show on public TV last night. I think it was called "Critical Care" or something like that. The show followed several people with medical issues (cancer was one of the issues) through the medical maze when they had no health care insurance coverage. Scary and so so sad. I think all but one of the people died--basically for lack of timely health care. The financial and emotional hardship on those who were ill--with no or little recourse to good medical care--and on their families was so heartbreaking. I've heard some say that total health care would be too expensive but some financial figures were bandied about that NOT covering people turns out to cost taxpayers and health care enrollees even more.

On a lighter note, a couple of days ago I borrowed the 5th season of Buffy from the public library and am eagerly anticipating watching those episodes! Probably late at night.

OK, the question of the day for you is: What are you eagerly anticipating?!

Intake Took

I'm still waiting to hear back when my training will occur. As part of it I get to shadow three different people. That will be fun! One of the Worker's Comp people called me today for a long chat. The other one is on vacation so I haven't heard from her yet this week, which is unusual. The university HR person called me twice this morning--each time to reschedule the interview. Right now it's tomorrow afternoon and I need to make sure my suit stills fits me and that I have nylons without runs in them.

Yesterday the employment intake took ("intake took" ha ha, I'm easily amused, which is lucky in the scheme of things!) two hours instead of the stated, half-hour. It was for a good reason though, as the big boss wanted to talk with me. That was a good conversation and I got a pretty good idea of some of the details and expectations of the position. I very nearly was LATE for the counseling appointment, though! Then SLA and I went out for dinner. She paid, since she's newly employed after not working for over a year. I had been picking up the tab for the both of us, but we weren't going out very often and went to the cheapest places (excepting for fast food--that's even cheaper but we don't need to be eating that). SLA had about four pit stops along the way but also threw in money for gas. Gas prices have stayed relatively low, compared to how high they've been. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I'd like to travel to see the kids again soon, once I find out my job schedule. Last night I had a dream about Grandson walking around!

So, how's Tuesday treating you so far?