work - Cursing Cats and Other Curiosities

Back to the Grind

Posted on January 3, 2022 | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment

I returned to work today. Well, work from home. Even then I couldn’t actually get back on the VPN until about 2:00, so not much of a work day. And yet I’m stressed.

I mentioned my boss quit. My new temporary boss is his boss. He called me to see if I was online. I wasn’t because my account was shut down while I was on leave. We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss what I’m working on. He also wants weekly status reports. UGH. This feels like a new job. Sure, I started in November. But when I started in November, this was all just temporary because I was gonna be out in December. So I didn’t really have to do anything. Now I have to work. Actual work, not just onboarding and training and paperwork.

I’m terrified I won’t cut it. I have no idea what I’ll be doing or what is expected of me. I’m freaking out.

So yeah. It might also be because my surgical drains hurt and belly button hurts and I started my period today. But still — freaking out.

I’m going to bed early.

WFH – Week One

Posted on November 11, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment

I started my new job this week! First week down! Woot! I’ll be working mostly from home for now. Almost completely. Then eventually I’ll merge into a sort of hybrid of the two.

Now, I know working from home is an old hat to most people by now. However, as an essential worker, my ass has still been in a cubicle all year. So this is new for me. I wanted to give my thoughts on this whole thing. Well, initial thoughts. It’s only been one week.

MONDAY: Monday I went into the office for new hire orientation and to get badges and equipment and all that jazz. I found out I’d be working from home. This caused much anxiety. WHERE from home? Mr C works in the office! Where the fuck am I supposed to work? The dining room? My mind was racing. I also had a shit ton of training to do and no headphones so I left around three to nail this shit down. I decided to take one of the guest rooms and make it my office. I rotated the bed against the wall to make room. Mr C took my desk because his sucks, so I took an old card table and set it up in front of the window. Two computer monitors and a keyboard from my old computer set up and mostly there. I stole a reject office chair (Mr C has a sweet gaming chair for his setup). Then I headed to Office Depot for some monitor cable adapters and a mouse and boom! We have a work station. A few Harry Potter books for monitor raises and I have a comfortable two regular monitors plus my laptop set up.

TUESDAY: I rolled out of bed at 7:30 and logged in before giving the cat his meds and grabbing a drink. Fuck me, did I just get to work at 7:30 am? You’re damn right I did. This no commute thing has promise! Dude, I’m not even dressed! This is awesome. The cats curled up on the bed behind me. I like it. I like it too much. But I did end up grabbing a shirt because zoom meetings. Yay.

WEDNESDAY: I get called in for my upgrade badge. That was fast. I park it in my cube for a bit of training (so much training) and wait. When they bring me my badge, the girl next to me who started over a week ago asks about hers. Nope! Ha, I’m a high roller VIP, baby. Then once that was all done I ran three errands and picked up lunch for Mr C and I before getting back to work in my new office set up. So much training. I grabbed a foot stool from my bedroom nook and holy shit — this is what office work is missing. Foot stools. Why don’t we have foot stools? Between foot stool and the cat — I could get used to this WFH life.

THURSDAY: Fake Friday! Also after, literally, over twenty hours of training videos, I gotta get more comfy headphones. Shit. But I didn’t even get dressed today. Still got “in” before 8 AM. Got all my training finished up. Requested lots of role-specific stuff. Took an hour long nap for a lunch break. Talked to HR about December medical leave. Now I’m freaking out. I have to get paperwork and doctors notes and shit. But this is plastic surgery — can I do that? Guess we’ll find out tomorrow. I’m so freaking out now. Apparently you can’t just take unpaid leave like I could at my last job. SHOULD I HAVE STAYED AT THE LAST JOB? Fuck, I’m freaking out now. Gotta get this sorted tomorrow. Also need a white board command stripped to the closet too. Yep. Need space to hang stuff.

SUMMARY: I like it. For now. I don’t feel the satisfaction of finishing a good days work. I’m working more than ever because I can’t just jerk around because i’m “at” work technically. I have to show productivity. However, I don’t get to leave it behind. I feel like I should have done more. Like I should go back and do more. You don’t have that when work is across town.

Also, I need more chit chat in my day. I wanna talk to my coworkers. I wanna go out to lunch. This WFH thing may rock for a little while, but I can’t just never leave my house. How will I make friends? How will I get to know my team? I think ideally, I’d go in twice a week and work from home for the rest.

Those are my first impressions.

Busy Busy Busy

Posted on October 24, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment

The end of this month is stacked! I hate having plans.

This past week was very stressful. I’ve been trying to get everything settled for the new job — and it is! I formally turned in my two-weeks notice on Friday. Mr C was supposed to travel so I took him to get a rental car on my way to work. They didn’t HAVE ANY and his reservation wasn’t for another two hours so he had to call me back to get him. Turns out his boss just waiting until the negative minute to tell him he no longer needed to go. Thanks, boss! My in-laws visited. It was moms first birthday after her death. And I had legal depositions.

Next week, Mr C really will be on travel — it’s a family vacation I opted out of. He leaves today. I’ve got two doctors appointments. One of those being with the plastic surgeon. And our 9 year anniversary is Wednesday. Then it’s Halloween weekend.

Mom’s birthday was pretty upsetting for most of the week. However, my sister-in-law and my brother met me halfway between our cities for lunch. We ate at an adorable cafe. And it was so funny that we all ended up getting hamburger steak. Funny because whenever Mr C was gone, shed cook me my favorite meals that Mr C doesn’t care for. Of course one of those was hamburger steak! So it was really great getting to see my brother and marking the day in remembrance of her. I was really worried about letting it just skirt by and having to entertain my in-laws. But lunch let us celebrate her and tie a bow on it so I could close out that part of the day and embrace the in-laws.

My legal deposition was Thursday. I had in office prep with the Lawyer on Monday, and again over the phone on Wednesday. It was extremely stressful. The defense is going to try to paint me as a person with mental illness faking a condition and trying to cash out. Not that the jury knows that even if I win the maximum we can sue for, I’ll only see, maybe 15k. For a cracked skull, losing a job, taking a huge set back in my career, missing months of work, and being stuck with fucking migraines I have two different medications for. Lord knows I need more medication. And lets not forget the family drama of missing the holidays for 2019 and 2020. After almost 3 hours, I felt like it went probably badly but they lawyer said I did great. Honestly, there were so many questions, I don’t even remember them.

So now the lawyer says it depends on my neurologist’s deposition this coming week. Will he paint me as someone with mental illness, or as someone with a real condition?

Cheers to my last two weeks on the job! New job start date is November 8th 🙂

A Good Decision

Posted on October 14, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment

I want to remember that I’m making a good decision. There will come times when I think I’ve made a bad one, but it’s a good one. I need to remember that after over a year on the job, DeBitch still rolls her eyes when I talk and talks about me behind my back. I need to remember how out of touch my boss is. I need to remember how toxic my lead was. And how even though my new lead is my fabulous friend – that our friendship probably can’t survive her being my lead too. I need to remember that my team thinks I’m lazy (I am, true) and would rather have someone else. I need to remember the gigantic pay cut I took with this job and how much of a financial loss it was staying underpaid for an entire year. I need to remember that the friend I stayed for already moved on. I need to remember companies aint loyal.

I need to remember that accepting this job is an excellent move.

Yep. Yesterday, I formally accepted a new position. I’ll be back up to my old salary and being Mr C’s sugar momma again. He’s very excited. I’ll be happier. I’ll have better boundaries with my new friend. I’ll have a new start. I’ll be on a program that actually pertains to my interests. And I’ll be rid of these toxic bitches I’ve put up with for way too long. No start date yet. Gotta get all the paperwork situated just right before that. But hoping for November 8th. Hoping to put in my two weeks ASAP. In fact, I’m about to go pee in a cup because that’s the very last thing I need to do.

Just “Average”

Posted on October 11, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment

Man, what a rollercoaster! Mondays, am I right? Like a shovel to the face.

My workday started out average. I’m actually finishing up one chunk of work and moving on to another. So, yay. Always good to close something out. Then I had a follow up job interview at 1:00. As in, a follow up to Friday’s interview. So great news, I’m getting offered the job! A verbal offer was made and a written one should be on the way. Nice. Nice. Day’s looking up! I told them I’d be out for December on medical leave so we settled on January as a possible start date. No official offer yet and no official acceptance yet. So riding high on that was nice.

Then a few hours later, I see that my boss called me to his office when I was doing the interview. Okay, whatever. So after a little juggling to find him when he’s actually in his office, I go see him. He wants to talk about team dynamics. So we talk about team dynamics. DeBitch hates my guts. He comments that I don’t speak much in meetings. Yeah well, DeBitch is gonna either shoot me down or talk about me behind my back so I’ve learned to just shut the fuck up. I really don’t like my job and it’s just a paycheck. I’ve been riding on waiting for the next contract since the job started.

He asks about the fact that our team had been seen as the most cohesive – which is bullshit, it NEVER was. So he asks if I came into it this way. Hell yes it was already broken before I got here. DeBitch hated E too and that’s one reason she wanted to bail – and she did bail. And T is apparently for Toxic. Everyone talks about everyone behind their backs. DeBitch hates a third of the team and all of the team hates T. T also happens to be the LEAD. There’s never any positive feedback or pats on the back. It just sucks. Sorry you’re so out of touch as management that you didn’t realize that. You’re part of the problem. Congrats!

Anyway, so then he wants to talk to me about what the team thinks of me. Apparently, I’m on my phone too much. That one is pretty weird. I do pop out to my phone during lunch because everyones crunching and I can’t take that noise, so I duck out to text Mr C and dink around. But it’s lunch, I should be able to do that. I also duck out a lot for medical-related calls or my lawyer. I work in a closed lab, so we have to leave the lab to use our phones. And unlike some other cubicle assholes, I don’t like to talk on the phone in the cube farm and disturb 20 people around me with my business. In fact, I never use my cube phone. Unlike DeBitch and Dwarf – both of which I know WAY TOO MUCH about thanks to their phone calls. WAY TOO MUCH.

So I don’t participate enough and I talk on my phone too much. Apparently, I’m also just an “average” worker. He wants to know if I’m ok with just being average. Fuck yeah I am. Listen, everyone doesn’t get to be above average – yall don’t know how fucking math works. Work is just a paycheck – it’s not my life. I’m not gonna bust my chops for a job I hate, where I’m hated, which pays 20k less than my last job. Average is excellent. He even asks if I see my job as “just a paycheck.” Isn’t that most jobs? Even all jobs for some of us? You think I’d be here if it weren’t for the paycheck? Fuck no I wouldn’t. I mostly kept calm and polite and quiet. Then I went to wash my lunch bowl out and ponder how pissed
I was about this conversation. So I went back and told him I’m not gonna speak up in a meeting when DeBitch is just gonna talk about me later. It aint that deep for me. And if the team doesn’t think I’m good enough, then feel free to put me on a new one. I like most of my team, but I won’t be upset if I’m traded. Trade my ass.

And I’d love to talk to K2 about this. But K2 is also my new lead and honestly, I can’t tell if anything we talk about inside or outside of work is as a friend or as a lead now. She knows I hate my job and am actively looking for a new one. But boss man says multiple team members had these opinions of me. So is she one of them? Should I tell her I got a new job coming? It really sucks because I adore her, but when she asks how I’m feeling is it because she cares or because I’m not working fast enough?

It sounds like I’m being extra because she’s my friend, right? Well, earlier in the year when I was falling apart over moms death she came to me to help me get along on my work. I thought she was just a sweetheart, but no – she was directed to by douchebag T who couldn’t talk to me himself.

I’m codependent, yall. I always think people only like me as long as they can get something out of me. And she did kind of desperately need a hand earlier and of course I offered because I adore her and would totally be best buddies. And we’re gym buddies, I guess, and we work together, so who’s to say it’s a real friendship at all and not just of convenience and colocation?

I need the new job now just so I can figure out my fucking friendships. Jesus, I’m so confused right now.

I live in “Office Space.” My boss literally asked me if I’m “okay with being average.” If you want me to wear more flair, Stan, raise the minimum flair!

Some Things 9/23

Posted on September 23, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment

1) It’s hard having friends at work. Are they asking why you’ve been a funk the past few days because they care or because you’re not getting enough shit done? I honestly don’t know and that bothers me.

2) This could be fixed by getting another job. This would also fix the suffering working with DeBitch has brought into my life. It’s hard working with someone who hates your guts. Real hard. So I applied for a new job today. They reached out to me so, I just replied. I’m also gonna submit my transition team paperwork that was emailed to me today as well (to transfer to a new contract with my current company). Maybe both of these coming to my email at the same time is a sign – move on.

3) Talked to my lawyer today – terrible news. We’re not going to get much money at all out of this lawsuit. We will come out making just a little over the 7k they offered to settle with me. But you know what? It’s gonna cost those fuckers like 200k for me to get it so SUCK IT BITCHES. Good thing Mr C and I weren’t counting on making money back.

I had secretly hoped it would cover my plastic surgery plus a sweet tattoo, but alas – it will not even cover one of the surgeries. *sigh* (I just want you to know, I literally sighed heavily as I typed the word “sigh”)

4) Some good news? Well, I kicked ass at Crossfit on Tuesday. I JUMP ROPED. Oh it sound so small and simple but is it? I’m 37, I can’t even remember ever jump roping and I certainly couldn’t do it 2 months ago. But I can now, bitches! I also did my knee tucks hanging from the pull up bar rather than laying on the floor. Awww yeah. Gains bitches!

Looking down.

Posted on April 12, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment

So this morning at work I was consulting the Senior Scientist. Yes, that’s his real title, I’m jealous. My goal is to become a SME (Subject Matter Expert) which is basically what he is, but I’ve never heard them called “Senior Scientists” before this job. It sounds so fancy. Now I want to be one even more.

SMEs are basically the unfirable people the company can’t live without. They can curse out the customer and not get a slap on the wrist. They’re just too valuable because they know everything about that thing and no one else does. I know of a one-degree-of-separation-from-me SME that was on a customer call and started ranting and cursing. The customer being fucking NASA. Management’s response? Let’s not tell him when we have customer calls anymore. I worked with a SME, Rich, and he was like 75 and already maxed out his payscale but he was too invaluable to the company to lose. I personally witnessed him in a meeting tell the presenter “there’s no fucking way that’s gonna work and LAUGH.” He was right, of course. And no one said a thing. Because it was Rich and Rich is like the guru go-to for that piece of software that no one else can figure out. He could do something in 2 hours that would take someone else a month to figure out. Rich knows more than you ever will. And he can retire any minute he pleases so you don’t say shit to Rich. SME life is where it’s at. I just wanna be so valuable to a company for knowing everything about this one niche piece of legacy software that I can curse at whomever I please without repercussion. It’s my only career goal besides retirement.

It sounds like you have to be a genius to be a SME. You don’t. You just work on a piece of software long enough and you end up knowing everything about how it works by nature. You just become the person everyone comes to to ask questions. You know where this new code needs to go because you worked on that piece two years ago and you were at the initial design meetings where it was discussed. The other engineers would need to work all that out, but you just remember it. You have become the SME simply by staying in one place for so long.

Anyway, SME discussion aside, I was talking to our “Senior Scientist”/SME this morning. This is one of my two favorite people at my job. You know, the job I despise with everything I have? Yeah, well there are a few people I like there that aren’t DeBitch. I’d love to be outside-of-work-friends with two of these people. And Mr Senior Scientist here is one of them. So he’s discussing the shit I asked him about and he’s like “do you understand what I’m taking about” — yes, I do. And then he’s like “you seem so down.” Well, yeah. I’m at work. I’m down at work. Also it’s a Monday.

However, I also had a panic attack this morning. I didn’t mention that. I might later if he mentions my spirits again. I’m still heavily grieving my mother and you don’t realize you’re still so upset until a little thing just hits you. I didn’t even realize I’d been hit. Today when I got up and got ready, I went for my cat on my way downstairs – as always. He’s either downstairs on the couch (can be verified easily as it’s visible as you pass the stairs) or in moms room. He was in moms room curled up on the bed next to the tray with her glasses and ashes and some photos. She’d have liked him curled up on her bed. “Look at him!”

I sat down beside him to love on him. I’ve been careful to not rush past him in the mornings like I usually would. I hate my job and my precious only has a short time left with me. So I want to give him as much love as possible. I can spare a few minutes. So I sat beside him and started stroking his fur while looking at the photos of mom. I thought of the conversation I had with my brother’s wife last night. Two of my siblings are in complete despair. I didn’t realize it was so bad for my brother. He’s been having so much anxiety that he hasn’t spent the night in his own bed since she died. He’s been sleeping on the couch. Hearing that crushed me. I adore my brother. He was my father figure growing up.

So for a brief moment I remembered their despair and wondered if I’m cold. Should I be in more grief than I am? The moment didn’t last long – a passing thought in my mind. I didn’t marinate on the thought at all – it fluttered through. I picked up the cat and carried him downstairs to shove a pill down his throat. He still resists those fucking pills with everything he has in him. Give me a break, fuzzy fuzzy! I’m doing this FOR YOU.

And then my chest tightened. A panic attack. The burning knot behind my sternum. The absolute feeling of existential dread. The elevated heart rate. What the fuck? I started beating on my chest to try and relax the muscles. Trying to talk myself down in my head. Relax relax relax. Focus on your breathing. Focus on the cold granite of the counter top you’re now leaning on to try to ease the pain. The smoothness of the stone. The quarter bevel edge you chose – good choice, you. Full round is tacky. Look at the plants in the window. Ground yourself. Don’t lose it. Don’t give in. Beat on your chest some more because damn I’m having a heart attack now. At least it’s before work and not after. If I’m going down, take me down before my ass has to go to work. Relax relax relax. It’s ok. You got this. Damn that hurts. It’s okay. It’s okay. Pound on your chest. Deep rub the muscles. You’re good. Work is gonna be good cause you didn’t slack off Friday.

Stand up and get going. The world doesn’t stop for you. The world doesn’t give a shit about your feelings. You have a meeting in 30 minutes.

So I grabbed my stuff. Feed my good boy his stinky food. He gets it twice a day after discovering he lost an entire pound between vet visits for his kidney workups. Grab my keys and lock the door behind me as Mr C is still sleeping. Beat on my chest as I walk to the car. And now Chucks telling me I look “down.” I am down, Chuck. I’m real down.

Work Conversation

Posted on February 24, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment

Possible future conversation:

“<Mrs C>, did you merge code with nothing in the comment but ‘yay’?”

“Probably.”

“That’s not a meaningful commit message.”

“It is to me.”

Speaking of work conversations, I miss them. When I come into work, I walk into a small open lab with three other people. I say “hey.” I’m always met with silence. Good morning to you too, fuckers.

I miss work lunches and light-hearted afternoon conversations. I miss liking the people I work with enough to invite them over to play board games. My three true friends are all people I met at various jobs. When you’re an adult, that’s usually where you meet new people.

Half of my team has already moved from the shared work space to the cubicles. It happens to be the most talkative people on the team, and my two favorite team members. Meanwhile, I’m still in the lab with DeBitch. So I think it will improve when the last of us finally get moved into the cubicles. Which is always “soon.” It’s been “soon” since October. At least I won’t be face to face with DeBitch all day. Then theoretically I start my NEW contract on October. With a whole new workplace and a whole new team and a whole new job working on shit I actually know about. COME ON, OCTOBER!

I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Then the check engine light came on.

Posted on January 20, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment

I has been a week. Let me tell ya. Monday I was so anxious and overwhelmed that I skipped work. I had watched 90 Day Fiance which was me and moms show. We both call each other to remind each other it is coming on and then talk about how crazy everyone is. And Natalie be CRAZY. Mom will never see how crazy she is and we cant talk about it. Who’s watching our show with me now? Just me and the cat, I guess. And he doesn’t care how crazy Natalie is, which she really is.

I’ve been hyper focused on the cat as a bit of a break from the far heavier death of mom. So of course I’m upset that even with all the changes, he’s still only got a life expectancy of 1 – 2 years. I assume that includes a lot of decline towards the end as well. So it’s difficult. I just gave him his fluids via stabby needle an hour or so ago. He’s resting in his bed next to me. With a big lump of fluid on his side. Poor guy.

Also, I’m anxious about starting vestibular physical therapy. With not having to drive much thanks to Covid, I had kinda of convinced myself I was all better. This is fine. Ya know? And acknowledging that I still get really sick driving is a hard pill to swallow. I certainly don’t want to go back to last January when I had to do my physical therapy exercises twice a day and got nausea and vertigo every time. It was miserable. So I don’t wanna. That’s basically what it boils down to. I don’t wanna.

Work’s been… bad, I guess? Honestly, I haven’t been working. I’ve been just getting though my days. I’m sorry, I’m just trying to not break down, yall. Like I said, Monday I didn’t even make it in to work. So my not-very-important task has been halted half done. But this is the last week of the sprint so my favorite coworker was assigned to help me with it. Of course DeBitch made a snarky asshole remark. DeBitch was one of the main reasons I didn’t go in Monday. I just didn’t want to deal with that shit. And of course I feel terrible.

It’s a team carry. I’m the teammate down and my team is carrying me over the finish line. It’s embarrassing and …well… embarrassing. I’m ashamed of myself. But then I also need the carry. So I’m grateful but also want to crawl up in a hole and die. Mostly the latter.

So I’ve got a lot going on that’s stressing me out. A lot. And then the check engine light in my car comes on yesterday on the way to work. God dammit, are you serious? So I have a scanner to read the codes — it’s some faulty circuit in the temperature sensor. But still, kick me when I’m down, will ya?

I just want to crawl up in a hole and die. Or to retire and crawl up on the couch and never leave the house again. That’s fine too.

Case of the Mondays

Posted on January 4, 2021 | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment

Ah Monday. Monday after a holiday break. It’s truly painful. Reminding myself to sit and make nine hours pass is just excruciating.

“You sit here, in this place that you hate, doing crap that you don’t like for nine hours. Don’t move until 4:30pm. Starting the clock… Now.”

No one on my team asked how my holiday went. I mean it was an absolute shit show and I had no intention of hiding that, but someone had to ask first. I don’t work with the kinda team that notices hair dye or asks how your weekend was. I work with a person who hates my guts and another who’s a squirrely micromanager. But DeBitch hates everyones guts so apparently that makes it okay. Yes, I’ve complained about her multiple times. Multiple people have.

Anyway, finally after lunch, a guy from another lab comes over to snipe some candy from the goody bowl. He asks the whole room how their break went and I took the opportunity to unload. DeBitch didn’t even both to offer a glance or condolences because she hates me. Who cares?

And the news just states the numbers. Over 350,000 dead in the US from Covid-19. Three hundred and fifty thousand people. Moms in that number. Just one in a massive sea of other faceless number ones. It’s almost insulting. I want to take insult. You mean 350,000 deaths PLUS MY MOM. She wasn’t a fucking number. But to most that’s all it boils down to. A massive pile of lives lost: people they loved, deeds they did, plans they had — they’re just a statistic to us. They don’t even care to keep track of the hundreds, tens or singles. In fact, we’re not even tracking thousands anymore. Just a single partial digit in an unfathomable number. A god damned fraction of a single digit. In a growing number that doesn’t even register much to anyone anymore.

I called my brothers wife on the way to work today. It was nice that she was expecting my call. She had asked me what time I usually go to work when we talked the other day. She asked me what time I’d be off too. I’ve talked to my brother and sister-in-law more this week than in the last two years, I’d wager.

My sisters don’t answer their phones or respond to text messages reliably. I wonder if we are destined to drift apart without our mother to hold the team together. Or is it just me drifting? My sisters currently live together and they’re chained to my brother for the sake of his children, our sweet nephews. I’d always complain about no one responding to my messages and mom always got mad and said “none of these people talk!” It’s true. But we all talked to mom. And mom kept us all up to date on the others. Now they don’t answer my texts.