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Day #132
Due to the heat wave, I took a walk to the health food store and farmers market at 9 AM. Both turned out to be open by the time I got there. In fact there was a long line in front of one of the vegetable stands, six feet apart, I meandered around it and picked up fresh blackberries from a stand that had only two people other than the operators at it. They have changed the market - so there is social distancing, you can't touch the produce, it's roped off and people serve you. Most people were wearing masks. There's always a couple of people who don't care. But for the most part everyone wore a mask and at that time - it was uncrowded.
It was in the upper 70s, but muggy, so felt more like the upper eighties. Middle aged bodies do not like muggy weather. Or hot weather. Particularly middle aged female bodies going through menopause.
Oh, well, word has it that the heat wave will break again on Wed, when we get thunderstorms, only to rise again towards the end of the week.
On the way back from the farmer's market, I was able to pass some lovely gardens and one of my favorite houses in the area:
To help with the heat, New York City is opening the pools - with limited capacity. Mother told me there was a problem with the National Parks - people were trashing them. There were a lot of folks camping, who had never done it before - and were leaving behind their litter, and also peeing and pooping wherever they wanted. While the parks had gotten an influx of money to help keep them clean - it wasn't nearly enough.
The funky thing about NYC is we have no architectural zoning laws. You can pretty much build whatever you want. The Pakistani and Bengali, for reasons that escape me, love marble and what appears to be steel gates and fences around there buildings, with a scant amount of green space. It's very odd, and a cultural thing that they've brought with them that I can't make sense of - no matter how hard I try. They must think it's decorative? I find it kind of...ostentatious? Oh well, to each their own, I guess. It's nice to have a diversity of building styles, it's what makes NYC interesting.
I called mother after my walk.
Mother: How are you? Are you any better?
Me: Still struggling with the panic attacks. Honestly, I had it under control -
Mother: You thought you were safe and now you've had the rug pulled out from under you again.
Me: Yeah. I'm meditating and trying not to care. Didn't sleep that well. And kind of slept through my Church's Zoom service. (It was a lay person's service - they do those during the summer while the ministerial staff is on vacation. This one was on Immigrant Solidarity. It had some pretty songs.)
Mother: Oh we watched the Basilica's service via live streaming in Rome.It was lovely. So you are hanging in there.
Me: Decided not to care any more about the dumb virus.
Mother: Except you obviously do or you wouldn't be wearing a mask. You are still wearing one, right? Because I'd be upset if you weren't doing that.
Me: Yes, yes. I have an insane amount of self-preservation, apparently. Even though my company and union keep trying to kill me. Seriously they've been trying to kill me since I joined. Safety first, my ass. Even the Safety department agrees with me that they don't value Safety as much as they think they do - it's underfunded.
Mother: And you know I'd be upset if you didn't wear the mask.
Some people don't talk about their anxieties. As I told mother - there's this whole philosophy a lot of folks have that if they only post and think positive thoughts, nothing negative will happen. Not true. Virus doesn't care. Nor does Cancer. Or anything else really. Granted there's some truth to the concept that energy attracts energy. But...go too far in anyone direction...and well, energy also likes balance. I need to vent. I'm like my mother.
Mother: Unlike you and I, who need to talk it to death until people are sick and tired of us talking about it.
Me: I need to get it out of me. If I can talk about it - I can see it. Therapists tend to work best for people who let it fester and don't talk about it at all. I don't have that problem.
Speaking of balance...I finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Legend of Korra doesn't start on Netflix until August 14, which is fine, got other things to watch before then. I'm somewhat annoyed, too many things are starting in August - and I'm kind of dreading August. Actually I'm dreading July 31 - when the guys come to work on my kitchen.
I live in a one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen and foyer/entrance to the apartment is where they will be working. I will be cut off from the kitchen, entrance to the apartment, and supply closet with all the cleaning, medications, toilet paper, and masks during this.
Me: In short, I'll be trapped in my living room, bathroom and bedroom.
Mother: Aren't you already?
Me: Not really - I do leave the apartment occasionally.
Could they wait until August to do this? No. I'm tempted to ask them to reschedule - but to be honest? I just want to get it over with. I've been dreading it since March 17. They are allegedly putting up plastic between us.
And I'm dreading going back to the office, which insane workplace and crazy ass union is insisting on calling "return to work" - guessing "return to the office" wasn't catchy enough? Why? Oh. So many reasons. My anxiety tapered off once we were sent home to tele-work. Now? It's sky-rocketing. I finally got movement in my arms and shoulders again. Dammit. (I don't drive to work nor do I walk or ride a bike, I take public transportation. And there is waiting in stations. And walking on crowded streets. And traveling with people who get on and off airlines. And ...my office is a shared space with cubicles, a shared kitchen, shared printers and copy machines, shared water cooler, narrow hallways, shared cabinets, shared elevators, shared punch-in biometric clocks, shared meeting rooms, shared stairwells, bathrooms with no lids on the toilets.
What makes no sense to me at all - is why they don't just sign an agreement with all the unions that simply states that for those who can work from home or telework - they should continue to do so. This makes the trains less crowded, and promotes social distancing. It's more expensive to bring everyone back.
But alas, Crazy Company is called "Crazy" for a reason. I just wish they'd stop trying to kill me. I like my job. I just dislike the people running the organization.
Anyhow, that's why I'm struggling with panic attacks.
I keep wondering if I don't think about it - if it will magically go away. But since other people are involved, that's unlikely. Oh well - I may lose weight this week - my appetite has been impacted by the rise in anxiety. I really don't feel like eating. What I have been doing is a lot of meditating, taking CBD, and watching television and taking long walks (or as long as is physically possible in the sweltering heat.)
I leave you with flowers that I took pictures of during my walk this morning...
It was in the upper 70s, but muggy, so felt more like the upper eighties. Middle aged bodies do not like muggy weather. Or hot weather. Particularly middle aged female bodies going through menopause.
Oh, well, word has it that the heat wave will break again on Wed, when we get thunderstorms, only to rise again towards the end of the week.
On the way back from the farmer's market, I was able to pass some lovely gardens and one of my favorite houses in the area:
To help with the heat, New York City is opening the pools - with limited capacity. Mother told me there was a problem with the National Parks - people were trashing them. There were a lot of folks camping, who had never done it before - and were leaving behind their litter, and also peeing and pooping wherever they wanted. While the parks had gotten an influx of money to help keep them clean - it wasn't nearly enough.
The funky thing about NYC is we have no architectural zoning laws. You can pretty much build whatever you want. The Pakistani and Bengali, for reasons that escape me, love marble and what appears to be steel gates and fences around there buildings, with a scant amount of green space. It's very odd, and a cultural thing that they've brought with them that I can't make sense of - no matter how hard I try. They must think it's decorative? I find it kind of...ostentatious? Oh well, to each their own, I guess. It's nice to have a diversity of building styles, it's what makes NYC interesting.
I called mother after my walk.
Mother: How are you? Are you any better?
Me: Still struggling with the panic attacks. Honestly, I had it under control -
Mother: You thought you were safe and now you've had the rug pulled out from under you again.
Me: Yeah. I'm meditating and trying not to care. Didn't sleep that well. And kind of slept through my Church's Zoom service. (It was a lay person's service - they do those during the summer while the ministerial staff is on vacation. This one was on Immigrant Solidarity. It had some pretty songs.)
Mother: Oh we watched the Basilica's service via live streaming in Rome.It was lovely. So you are hanging in there.
Me: Decided not to care any more about the dumb virus.
Mother: Except you obviously do or you wouldn't be wearing a mask. You are still wearing one, right? Because I'd be upset if you weren't doing that.
Me: Yes, yes. I have an insane amount of self-preservation, apparently. Even though my company and union keep trying to kill me. Seriously they've been trying to kill me since I joined. Safety first, my ass. Even the Safety department agrees with me that they don't value Safety as much as they think they do - it's underfunded.
Mother: And you know I'd be upset if you didn't wear the mask.
Some people don't talk about their anxieties. As I told mother - there's this whole philosophy a lot of folks have that if they only post and think positive thoughts, nothing negative will happen. Not true. Virus doesn't care. Nor does Cancer. Or anything else really. Granted there's some truth to the concept that energy attracts energy. But...go too far in anyone direction...and well, energy also likes balance. I need to vent. I'm like my mother.
Mother: Unlike you and I, who need to talk it to death until people are sick and tired of us talking about it.
Me: I need to get it out of me. If I can talk about it - I can see it. Therapists tend to work best for people who let it fester and don't talk about it at all. I don't have that problem.
Speaking of balance...I finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Legend of Korra doesn't start on Netflix until August 14, which is fine, got other things to watch before then. I'm somewhat annoyed, too many things are starting in August - and I'm kind of dreading August. Actually I'm dreading July 31 - when the guys come to work on my kitchen.
I live in a one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen and foyer/entrance to the apartment is where they will be working. I will be cut off from the kitchen, entrance to the apartment, and supply closet with all the cleaning, medications, toilet paper, and masks during this.
Me: In short, I'll be trapped in my living room, bathroom and bedroom.
Mother: Aren't you already?
Me: Not really - I do leave the apartment occasionally.
Could they wait until August to do this? No. I'm tempted to ask them to reschedule - but to be honest? I just want to get it over with. I've been dreading it since March 17. They are allegedly putting up plastic between us.
And I'm dreading going back to the office, which insane workplace and crazy ass union is insisting on calling "return to work" - guessing "return to the office" wasn't catchy enough? Why? Oh. So many reasons. My anxiety tapered off once we were sent home to tele-work. Now? It's sky-rocketing. I finally got movement in my arms and shoulders again. Dammit. (I don't drive to work nor do I walk or ride a bike, I take public transportation. And there is waiting in stations. And walking on crowded streets. And traveling with people who get on and off airlines. And ...my office is a shared space with cubicles, a shared kitchen, shared printers and copy machines, shared water cooler, narrow hallways, shared cabinets, shared elevators, shared punch-in biometric clocks, shared meeting rooms, shared stairwells, bathrooms with no lids on the toilets.
What makes no sense to me at all - is why they don't just sign an agreement with all the unions that simply states that for those who can work from home or telework - they should continue to do so. This makes the trains less crowded, and promotes social distancing. It's more expensive to bring everyone back.
But alas, Crazy Company is called "Crazy" for a reason. I just wish they'd stop trying to kill me. I like my job. I just dislike the people running the organization.
Anyhow, that's why I'm struggling with panic attacks.
I keep wondering if I don't think about it - if it will magically go away. But since other people are involved, that's unlikely. Oh well - I may lose weight this week - my appetite has been impacted by the rise in anxiety. I really don't feel like eating. What I have been doing is a lot of meditating, taking CBD, and watching television and taking long walks (or as long as is physically possible in the sweltering heat.)
I leave you with flowers that I took pictures of during my walk this morning...
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Of the many things that have always baffled me about human behavior, one of the top items is this thing of choosing the harder way to do something when an easier way is readily available, and may even work better overall. Sadly, I think it has far more to do with the dominance/submission aspect of behavior, be it conscious or unconscious, than failure to use logic and reason. The people who have power command, you (if you aren't one of them) are expected to follow, period, the end.
I may have asked this before, and apologize if so, but my memory these days seems to be approaching something like your ability to drive a manual transmission vehicle.
Have you considered if it would be possible to work for your organization as an independent contractor? In other words, work for yourself, but contract to them. I'd imagine you'd lose some perks*, but on the other hand you'd become the captain of your own ship, as it were.
You'd also be free then to work for anybody else that could utilize your skill sets, which is the real advantage-- not being tied to any one business client. You already have the single most valuable thing a worker can acquire-- extensive experience in a useful field.
The transition from employee to self-employed can be tricky, and for sure not everyone is suited to it, but if one is...
* Health care could easily be the deal-breaker here. I (luckily) weathered over eight years without health insurance shortly after I began working for myself, because even with the ACA it was simply unaffordable for a man in his mid-50's and at the income level I could generate. But perhaps you might be in a better position?
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Also, if it was possible? I'd lose a lot financially. As a "represented" employee - I have healthcare benefits, pension, railroad retirement. If I leave to become an independent contractor - I lose money from railroad retirement (we get that instead of social security). I have to wait until I'm 59 or 60 to leave without any penalty's for early retirement. And to be hired as an independent contractor - I'd have to join another organization - since we only hire from consulting firms.
So, yes, I've considered it. I considered actually when I was unemployed between 2002-2004. And again in 2006, and in 2007, and in 2016. And in 2018 - when Lando was talking about doing it - he's not by the way, you can't with our organization. If you could - various contract admin's who have left over the years would have.
It's not doable. Also, I don't have the personality for it. Some people, like yourself and my brother/sis-in-law are great at running their own business and working as independent contractors, others like myself - it just does not work for.
For years my brother thought I should go into business for myself, then he did a 180 degree turnaround, due to his own issues in part and also a better understanding of why it would never work for me. To run your own business - you kind of live with it. It's a 180 hour job, you handle your own billing, taxes, benefits, etc.
It's not for me.
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Well, if that's something you know about yourself, then at least you're ahead of many others who are super-confident they can do it-- and then fail miserably. It does indeed take a certain personality, and even then-- like in my case-- I would never have considered it without my prior decades working for very small local businesses, and paying close attention to how things were done, what worked, what doesn't, etc.
And-- I wouldn't want to be responsible for employees. That's the main reason when the owner of the audio store I worked for retired, I didn't apply for the manager position for the new owners. Looking out for self-employed-you is one thing, you screw up and it's only you that's affected. The people who work for you? 'Nother story entirely, and not for me.
Those perks you have do sound very significant, so here's hoping things eventually work out for you. This current craziness will pass, and hopefully whatever craziness replaces it will be a far more benign sort!
Hang in there!
:-)
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The difficulty is that often what seems logical and simple from one perspective isn't from another. I'm learning to accept that. My union encompasses a lot of people with varying needs. It's kind of like my brother's friend who is a public defender but under the automotive workers union.
We want to make it "one size fits all" because that's simplest, but not everyone is the same size or shape.
From my perspective what they are doing makes no sense, but I'm admittedly not aware of a lot of variables - and while they attempted to explain them to me, it got garbled somehow - they are IT, IT is not known for its communication skills. They are used to talking to machines not people, and suffice it to say we don't think the same.
I'm kind of at the acceptance level right now of the four stages of grief or acknowledgement that there's not one thing I can do to change or alter what happens next. All I can do right now is control how I personally react to it. Nothing else.