radio station woes (not related to Christmas music)

So, are you really listening to a specific radio station simply because they clearly give the song title and artist for every song as all radio stations should?
Well, I'm also doing it because they don't play songs I actively hate, and they have a playlist that doesn't repeat every 2.5 hours.

A ringing endorsement if I ever heard one.
Also, they don't have 3 DJs in a row who make me crazy.

3, wow.  So that's, what most of the day?
Midday, early evening, and late evening.  People who make me crazy from 9 AM - midnight.
Yikes.
Also, I get reception for them wherever I go.

And that other station where you don't strongly dislike the DJs doesn't?
It has an effective range of 20 miles if there's no wind.  On the other side of the metro area from where I live.  Alas.

Ah.  What happened to that early evening DJ you liked? 
I have no idea.  He just disappeared one day and was replaced by another tasteless, vapid, milquetoast, nice, brainlessly middle class American value endorsing Dad who just kind of makes me want to vomit.

Whoa.  Harsh.
I know.  I feel bad that he irks me so much.  After the last DJ, he feels like a 100% false construct.

You weren't a huge fan of the last DJ at first. 
You're right.  I eventually figured out why: he challenged me.  He made me uncomfortable.  He made me think.  Jesus was real to him, a real Savior who saved him from a shattered life of substance abuse, addiction, and self-destruction.  He was so grateful to that God, so willing to talk about the struggle, so full of compassion and encouragement for people who most of us just want to ignore.  He was amazing.

I can see how Mr. Nice Guy would be a bit bland after that.
Yeah.  Boy Scouts, sports teams, the boat on the lake and the cabin, consumerism, blind assumptions that everyone is the same socio-economic class as you and goes to the same suburban church.  It feels so shallow and superficial.  I'm sure this new guy is sincere, but I can't stand listening to what I perceive as his smarminess for another second.

Why are you so worked up about this?
I don't know.  Maybe it's partly because I'm assuming they fired the other guy for being too edgy and real.  That always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  I'm also mad at myself for thinking that.  The guy had a lot of medical problems; chances are he had to retire.

You just wish they'd told you or something.
But they don't owe it to me or anything.  I'm just being a jerk.  That makes me feel guilty.  So I punish myself with 80s hair bands, 90s British rock, and current pop country music.  A strange sort of self-destruction.

Your specialty.
Sigh.

Eating the animal cracker

Last week I was a tad self-destructive.  Not enough water, a lot of rage, not enough time to write, too much frustration and helplessness, avoiding going to bed because I know I won't sleep:  All these things add up to some increasingly poor decisions when combined with increasing pain and decreasing sleep.  How could they not?

I don't want to spiral down like I do sometimes.  I don't want to get stupid at work and say dumb things because my filters crumble at a certain point of sleeplessness.  What I don't want to do, I do.  Alas.

On my birthday, I got a letter from OWCP informing me that they received the letter I sent at the end of July about my address change, and they're sending my file to some coding person or something for review even though the last time I called, the claims examiner clearly indicated that she was the one who accepted or rejected new codes.  All I had to do was call and talk to my claims examiner's supervisor to get any kind of response after the messages and talking to other people didn't work.  I'm so tired of this. 

Their letter crossed mine on the way.  Mine was longer, more specific, and a great deal more emotionally involved. 

What do they care if it takes
over three months to acknowledge
and process an address change? 
What do they care if my doctors
have been trying to add codes
and get bills paid since February,
so I can get treated and maybe
decrease the pain a little?  It's not
their bodies that feel the pain
or their hearts that get smashed around
by inconsistency, misinformation, threats,
and delays.  They don't lay awake at night
or have to try not to cry at work when pain
spikes hit.  They don't have to pay off
my school loans for the next thirty years,
the ones I took on to educate myself enough
to get a good  job even as a cripple,
something their website claims
is their responsibility but that they refuse
to do in practice.  What do they care?

I don't want to be bitter.  But at times like these, I can't seem to help it. 
Another year older,
another year of pain,
no better at coping
but somehow still sane. 
Maybe that's all we can dream of.  Anything else is just icing on the animal cracker.

The Laws of Christmas Music on the Radio

• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.
• Thou shalt not play the same artist within the same half hour.
• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.
• Thou shalt not play the same song by the same artist more than once a day.
• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.
• Thou shalt not repeat the same song in the same day if thou canst help it.
• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.

Any you'd like to add?

Who paints a bathroom these colors?

They re-painted the exercise room and attached bathrooms again.  I am personally thrilled.  I'm not sure whose idea it was to paint the walls brown and yellow, but I found that combination particularly amusing in the bathrooms because I am somewhat sophomoric on occasion.  Brown and a sort of heavy cream color is better for my dignity.  It also matches the carpet, which, as one other exerciser pointed out, looks like a refugee from some young boy's bedroom of dreams. 

I am somewhat miffed that I was kept out of the exercise room for weeks so they could replace the perfectly good carpet and paint.  Three times.  Only twelve of us use the room, and, trust me, none of us exercise because of the decor.  Does anyone seriously choose whether or not to exercise based on the interior design of an exercise room?  Seriously?

Thirsty for Logic

The VP of X at my RetailEstablishment's corporate office has decided that a reason sales are down this year is because the store employees have a drinking problem.  Yes, because we are drinking water and juice and coffee and such, people aren't buying our goods.  Obviously.  Therefore, no employees are allowed to have liquid with them on the sales floor. 

I'm sure he made this decision sitting in his office sipping coffee.


Customers are allowed to keep drinks with them even though they do spill all over books, furniture, and each other frequently.  Just saying.


The war on employee hydration at my RetailEstablishment started a while ago when they decided that giving the employees stale, expired coffee beans from the cafe was costing them money because they could charge us for coffee instead.  You read that correctly.  Then we were told that we had to keep our drinks out of sight because it was unprofessional to drink.  Now we're told we can't drink except on our lunch breaks. 

Keep in mind that our job is to talk to people.  For hours at a time.  Every day.

"It's like every day, there's something more to make it harder to want to come to work," a coworker said today.  Yeah, it's a tough retail climate, but why on earth would you take it out on the folks on the front line?

Hey, Mr. VP, do you know the meaning of the word "ludicrous"?  Please look it up.

I have asthma and allergies.  I'm also still sick right now, as are half the people in my city.  (Let's not even bring up how singers need to keep themselves well-hydrated.)  I can't go 4 hours without a drink of water (or 6, since sometimes we have that many hours before we have a break, and we can't really request our guaranteed 10 minute breaks because we don't have the staff, and even if we do, the management acts like we're a huge pain in the neck for asking and thinks of us as troublemakers). 

Let's be honest: I can't really go 2hours or even 1 hour without a drink without worsening my health and making it harder for me to do my job.  We're so short-staffed sometimes that even if I were having an asthma attack out on the sales floor, I couldn't go up and get a drink or my inhaler if I needed to.  If I went to get it anyway, I would likely be fired.

Now, I could understand this new policy if sales people were drinking vodka or cocktails out on the sales floor or spilling coffee all over themselves or the customers or the books, but this is not the case at my store, so I can't help but wonder what these corporate people are thinking.  Are drugs involved?  Beverages of questionable contents?  Mushrooms?

Today I had to call my doctor's office to ask him for a note saying that I need to have water with me.  The mind boggles.  I wonder what he'll think as he's writing it.  (X years of medical schools to write prescription for water?  You have got to be kidding me.)

I thought of a reason why they might be doing this.  You've heard of the need to be hungry for sales, right?  Well, maybe they want us to be thirsty for sales!  So thirsty that our throats get dry and we cough and hack and choke when we're trying to talk to people . . . 


Can you think of any "good" reasons (serious or funny) why anyone would create such a policy?  Do share.

Another reason I am a bit iffy about government involvement in health care

I have allergies.  Lots of allergies.  I am basically allergic to the environment and much of the animal kingdom. (I am, for example, very allergic to koalas.) 

I was increasingly miserable until Claritin D came along.  Then I was less miserable, though I was more tired (but NOT drowsy because Claritin does not make you drowsy).  I had fewer disastrous sinus infection-bronchitis-pneumonia episodes, and that was nice.

Then meth came along. 

I didn't even know what it was because I live under a rock, but all of a sudden, it was a huge hassle for me to get my Claritin D.  I had to sign stuff and go to the pharmacy twice a month, and I couldn't actually get the correct number of pills for a month (28-31) because the government in its infinite, apparently allergy-free wisdom decided that a known and documented allergy sufferer like me can only get 2.4 grams per month "over-the-counter." That is about 20 pills, which, if you didn't notice, is 10 too few on average.

I can get a prescription, but it has to be renewed every six months instead of every year, and it takes about 20 minutes for this complicated prescription to be filled at my pharmacy.

I still don't really know what meth is, except that it is a Very Bad Drug, but if you use is, I kind of dislike you, and if you make it, I hate you and wish you had to take on the allergies of all the people you've made miserable because of your illegal, destructive, stupid activities.  And the people who invented meth?  I hate you most in this situation; may double my allergies afflict you.

Anyway, back to the government.  They will, of course, claim that their 2.4 gram limit has lowered meth use or something, but that's probably not true.  People made stupid destructive drugs before and will continue to innovate new ways to hurt people for "recreation" in the future.  In this case, I feel like the government's illegal restriction just stupidly made people like me suffer needlessly.

Your government at work in health care: all politics and theories of government aside, it makes me a bit nervous for some reason . . .


Have you come across any ridiculous government regulation of health care related examples in your own journey?  Do share.