Texting Alpha Geek last night:
Me: I don’t have anything planned for dinner
Me: WHAT SHALL I EAT
He: Quit drinking at work
Texting Alpha Geek last night:
Me: I don’t have anything planned for dinner
Me: WHAT SHALL I EAT
He: Quit drinking at work
So I missed a whole week of work, and the next week I only worked half days at first.
But before I returned to work, I got calls from both Sparky and Freda alerting me to the drama. Seems while I was out, the lady in charge at SecondCo—let’s call her Manager Lady, or ML—mentioned to the Boss that I’ve been looking for another job. And then went on to mention that I’d also said a bunch of stuff about how he was running the first company and spending money and God knows what else, because I never actually said any of it.
Okay, so now I know I shouldn’t trust ML with anything confidential, or really anything.
Freda told me the Boss had mentioned it to her with some concern, especially about my (alleged) badmouthing him to ML. Her response was “I know Bertha wouldn’t say something like that.”
Once I got back to work, I didn’t mention this to either the Boss or ML—it was all secondhand information, so I figured if they wanted to discuss it with me I’d let them bring it up. Neither of them did. One thing I’ve noticed about my Boss, he’s not a huge fan of drama.
But he did give me a raise. o_O
Now I’m seeing signs that the Boss might be less than happy with ML, undoubtedly for reasons unrelated to me. He’s asked me what she’s getting paid, and what the other staff are paid. He’s been discussing ways to have me spend one day a week there instead of two. And today when she came by to see him, he wasn’t available, so she came over to vent to me about how she never seemed able to talk to him. I think her gossipy little tidbit may have been the proverbial straw for some ongoing issues between them.
Oh, and on the subject of the potential job, for which I had asked people to be potential references and sparked all the drama: I think the interview went well. They asked me to come to lunch with the people who would be my co-workers. This happened last Thursday, so I was still in a fair amount of pain and uncomfortable sitting upright for long, so I don’t know if I was very good company. But I did my best to be sociable and get to know them, and let them get to know me. I haven’t heard anything else either way, but maybe they’re not planning to decide until January, so who knows.
Hello, strangers! I’ve been out of commission for a bit. Let me catch you up…
Sometime during the first week of December, my back started to hurt. Nothing too serious, I had my regular chiro appointment in a couple of weeks. I figured he’d straighten things out then.
Sunday night, as I was taking some laundry downstairs, I had a sudden stabbing pain in my back, just above the left hip. I dropped the laundry basket and collapsed on the stairs, and there I stayed for the better part of an hour. Any attempt to move was excrutiating. Alpha Geek prowled around worriedly above me, unable to help.
Eventually I was able to drag myself back up the stairs, but after a while it became clear the situation wasn’t improving. I rounded up Alpha Geek and The Artist and they basically carried me out to the car and carted me off to the ER. We sat around for a while waiting, Alpha Geek working on a Calculus assignment and me trying to find the least-painful position to sit in a wheelchair, until they could take me in for X-rays.
They made some noises about some signs of degenerative disc disease, and finally gave me what I came for—the good painkillers. The nurse/intern/whatever came in and said I’d been prescribed 5/23. I looked at him blankly. “What does that mean?”
“It’s 5 (something) and 23 (something else), also known as Percocet.”
Oh, sure, that I’ve heard of. “Okay,” I agreed.
The Percocet took the worst of the edge off, and we made our way home. The next day Alpha Geek called my chiropractor to get me a more immediate appointment.
His diagnosis: I’ve sprained a ligament. Going down the stairs, holding the laundry basket, I was extended well past my center of gravity—as I stepped down I had my weight driving down on one side, and the stair driving my trailing leg up, and it twisted my already-sore ligament in bad ways.
So I spent the second week of December in bed, because I couldn’t sit up. At all. For the first few days I didn’t even care; I would take a Percocet, then sleep for six hours. After that I got pretty tired of it. I’ve been to the chiro several times, and he’s just about got me straightened out again; I still get a twinge if I move my leg at just the wrong angle, but I can go to work and walk and fun stuff like that.
So that’s where I was the second week of the month. This week I’ve been trying to catch up on all the work I missed last week. And while I appreciate that everyone at work was concerned about me and is interested in my well-being, I’m already tired of people asking me how my back is doing.
So that catches you up on where I’ve been. Tomorrow I’ll get you caught up on TEH DRAMA that I missed at work while I was out.