I thought being unemployed meant no work?

My legs are aching, my back creaking, my neck cracking and my arms breaking ... why this cacophony of unpleasant sounds?

Because this week, my first full week of no job have been very labor intensive. I have cut hedges, picked up branches, moved furniture and various household piles, organized the pantry and under counters, went on the runs to Costco ($261 = 20 heavy trips to the freezer, refrigerator, and trips upstairs and down) Home Depot ($600 = even heavier trips, with more lifting and more HEAVY things!) and probably the reason the arms hurt, have been doing my best to help bathe, change and amuse little baby cuteness, my nephew. :)

I am WHIPPED!

I can't wait until I get another job so I can rest up.

For now, it's Advil time and then bed.

Goodnight all!

Unencumbered + Unfettered = Unemployed

Today is my first full day of unemployment after my former employer (really it was her son) decided that my services were no longer necessary.

I would like to write a vituperative, poisonous assessment of the genetic flaws that were present during the creative process that sharted out my boss and her family, but I think that would not be very nice of me.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I make you think I was NICE? Hell NO, I'm not nice! Hang on to your seats, boys and girls! Things are about to get bumpy!

As a matter of fact, the only reason I did NOT tell my boss and her arrogant, UVA demon spawn son that they could take this miserable job and shove it up their respectively unyielding anal orifices is because I decided one more paycheck was worth the living misery I endured, day after day, breathing the same air, sharing space in their unnatural presence.

Why are they unnatural?
Glad you asked.

First of all, I think they are in love with each other. Mother and son by nature, but if you didn't know it, you would swear they were dating or even married ... (can you say Oedipus, boys and girls? No? How about Angelina Jolie, I'm sure all of you know about her strange appetites...)

Secondly, they are micro-managing, time-wasting, ineffective elitists who believe they are the smartest individuals to ever walk in these green pastures. My boss believes this eldest son of hers is invincible (she wouldn't let me leave the office on election day last year because she didn't want to run the risk that I would vote Republican, thereby ensuring that her beloved son would have to serve his time in the National Guard, time that he signed up for to get his free ride through school.) She treats her other two children like non-entities.

Her middle child graduated from a very good college in the spring. She said "The whole family is going to his graduation because it's a very big deal that he managed to graduate. He's not very smart and does not excel in school." I found out later that this dunce of a son had graduated cum laude, with honors. Some idiot, huh? When I was given my notice, I was told to train this son in my job (did I mention that the boss had hired her "dunce" son to work with her? No? Oh, well that's kind of important, because that's one of the reasons I was let go) when she said to train him she said "he's not that smart, but if you instruct him carefully, he should be able to do the tasks..." What kind of mother is this?

As you may have guessed, I didn't really like my job, so I should be glad to have escaped, right? Right! But that doesn't mean I'm not angry. However, I am well aware that I am FREED of the tyranny enforced by the WORST micro-managing duo it's ever been my displeasure to meet.

I think the next Batman movie should feature an evil micro-managing villain ... it will immediately set the entire audience against the villain and put them firmly in Batman's corner because EVERYONE hates a micromanager!

Micromanagers that they were, mother and son, neither of these two was ever willing to admit to it. Nope, they call themselves "refiners." Refine THIS, assholes! Heh-heh-heh!

Don't you wish you could be as evil, nasty and wicked as those who exhibit that kind of unacceptable behavior towards you?

In my favorite dream of dreams, I win the lottery, and not just the lottery, but the one that gives me a $238 million dollar payout. That's a great dream! The other I have, and have been having quite a bit the last two weeks, is the dream of confronting the evil boss and saying EVERYTHING I've held inside, all of the comments I swallowed in the interest of "getting along" ... the dream where there is no more NICE Sharondarella!

However, that's not pretty. So far, it's just a dream. Although, now I've blogged about it, that makes it a step closer to reality ... perhaps I should take the next step and email this to them? Nah. It's much more fun this way! Now I can talk about them behind their backs like they've been doing to me for the past year and 3 months.

Actually, I take that back. After today, there will be no more space wasted in my blog on these people, people who are lacking in the most common & best of human traits ... kindness, honesty and integrity. Who would ever want to spend time with people like this? Not I, which is why I will write about them no more.

Fin.

The Perils of Over-achievement

As usual, I got up earlier than normal so I could be on time for the Friday morning team meeting. All seemed fairly routine during said meeting. At the conclusion of this regular meeting, routine varied when my boss said "I'd like to speak to you privately ..."

Uh-oh.

I'm sure you, like me, would immediately run through a littany of things you may have been guilty of, and are about to be confronted with, however, nothing came to mind, so I figured it was perhaps something about a special assignment.

It was special alright.

Evidently, I am so good at my job that I no longer have one.

According to my boss, I have exceeded her every expectation and she no longer has any for me. The well is dry. The mountain has been conquered. Basically, my job has been eradicated.

I admit feeling shock, although, I guess I shouldn't have ... the handwriting has been on the wall for months, ever since my position was changed because they didn't have enough work for me as a "software & marketing" specialist, resulting in a job change (but not a pay cut, which was very nice.)

I laughed at my boss in disbelief and then reached quickly for my Coke so I could get something in my mouth to plug the flood of disastrous comments that were trying to stream out of me.

Does one say all of the things that have been held in for months?
No, one doesn't.

Does one say all of the vituperative comments that come to mind, floating out any and all residual malingering of malice in a satisfying tsunami of savagery?
No, one doesn't.

One asks: "so what is my timeline?" expecting to hear that one's services are immediately severed. However, shock of all shocks, one is offered part-time employment.

Ah, much now becomes clear. The crux of the matter. It is not that I am super-efficient, it is that I am super-EXPENSIVE. Part time labor would elimate my costly salary, as well as my benefits.

Sorry, but this chickie doesn't do part-time.

I immediately ran through a series of options in my head.

1. VACATION! I could just leave and go to the beach for a few weeks, returning refreshed and reaffirmed.

2. World of Coke - you know how they say you can never go home? Well, you can never go back to a job you left either, so the world of coke is not an option.

3. World travel! Funny how my options are immediately turning to leisure, isn't it? Possibly because I am starved for a vacation and need some recovery time. I'm not used to going so long without R&R.

Long story short, the options appear to be work through the end of the month, wrap everything up and then move on to bigger, better and more positive places. Change is good, but it's better when you decide to change, rather than someone else making that decision for you; however, when you don't have a choice, make the best of it and move on happily.

I'll let you know if I'm able to maintain this cheery outlook, or if depression swamps me. ;p

Tootsie Pop Philosophy

So how many accidents is too many?
Is this the same sort of question my friends and I used to ask when we were trying to figure out just exactly how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? If so, my life is destined to be a short one, that I can tell you, because the stress is going to do me in!

I’ve had an amazing run of bad luck … 3 car accidents in 3 months ... and can only assume that I was being tested, because the car accidents, while horrible, were just the beginning of the bad luck cycle. Considering I didn’t jump in front of a bus, or off of a tall building, I have to assume that I’ve passed the test.

If there is a damn toosie roll in the center of this brittle candy shell, then I'd better get to it soon! My family is really tired of hearing me whine. I've stopped talking to friends because I don't want to make them hate me for whining, too ... family HAS to love you no matter how much bitching you do.

The bright spot? I've got an awesome family. :D

Even brighter? My little nephew is the cutest baby EVER. I am totally besotted. ;D I'd post some pictures up here, but I don't want to make everyone else (those with mediocre and ugly babies) feel bad, so I'll keep them to myself (email me if you want to see!) Heee-heee!

My blog hiatus is almost at an end. My apologies for the loooooooooooooooooong absence, however, this is a summer that I want to have stricken from the memory banks. Don't you wish you could do that? Like they do in Court?

"I would like this past week stricken from the record!"
"Sustained!"

For now, I will say a hopefully brief adieu with the promise of more blogs soon. I do have an excuse, pathetic though it is ... I've been living in HELL (aka, no computer hookup! EEEK! Bet you didn't know such primitive, barbaric places still exist!) and have gotten a temporary reprieve, so am going to have to try to catch up on my lax blogging.

More soon!