A typical day at the "office"

My job is night-shift with the white star line, my duties starts in early evening waking up with cold salt water in my cabin, seems to get higher everyday and now it takes spending a few hours bailing it out the port hole with a bucket.

Then, after breakfast, i carry out my skilled job as deck chair re-arranger, they look much better after I’ve finished. Later in the night I get my turn to go up to the crows nest, but it's too misty to see far, especially far out on the horizon where our only life boat is being rowed further and further away with the captain and his brave board member officers club together with a load of gold bullion which they say they need as ballast. They also said they have gone to get help for the collision we had with a large floatation, but they should have been back by now.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to get a job towards the stern which is the dryer end. The waves are lapping over the bow which has started to dip below the waterline.

But we always have great music while we work, the band plays on...

Thanks Rod,  Don & Cbr600

Today is the 1st day in 1.5 weeks I have got up & felt OK, but still did not get 8 hours of joined up sleep. 

Rod,  I have used larium quite a number of times without any side effects.

I needed to take it for 9 weeks to cover 4 weeks in East Africa & had no problems until I started reducing the codeine after the op. Keep in mind I had done this before with the other knee & had received instruction/training again on the reduction process from the hospital 

The doc said my symptoms where classic opiate withdrawal & maybe the larium might be adding to the problem.   But your tip on Malarone is duly noted & is on the list for the next trip.  

Cbr,  the uni-compartmental (half) knee is a cake walk compared to a full knee or (worse) hip.  

OK at 2.5 weeks out it's stiff, its at (f###) ouch level painful to move quickly, but its now almost slowly  locking out straight & past 90 degree bend (target is 120 degree at 6 weeks)

Slowly slowly is not the way,  this needs exercise & push the pain but not over do it.  

I get up at 5.15 am, have brekkies then an hour drive to work for 7 am, spend all day in a plastic injection mouldshop and leave at 3 pm for a one and a half hour journey home. My job is stressful as I am the senior engineer responsible for about 20 people over 3 shifts. There are deadlines to meet, efficiency calculations, new tool trials, new plastic trials, liasing with tool makers, troubleshooting and a regular staff turn over which adds staff training on a regular basis. Just recently I had an accident where molten plastic in the temperature range of 350 degrees celcius exploded over my left hand, it was caused by poor maintenance/ repair. I had two weeks off and a chance to re-evaluate my life. I am now going to college in the evenings studying woodworking (which I have always enjoyed) with the aim of seeking work in a University as part of the maintenance team, it will be less pay but better working conditions. I then want to study music production and may end up doing voluntary work for a small radio station to gain experience( this is a dream at the moment) but first things first to get out of plastics for ever.

Love reading some of the real office stuff - ahhh those were the days  ....... up at 04:00 to catch the 06:00 to Brussels or Prague or wherever .......... leaving Sunday lunchtime for a 1 day meeting in US or Dubai or Bangalore ........... watching the last flight to London push back & you not on it.

But then the good times ......... the 1st Class upgrade(s) especially when the president & his staff were in business .......... the winters in warmer climes making global conference calls from a hot sunny pool or balcony with suitable G&T coolers

One of the best was a conference call with US China & Europe when I was setting up an African dealer meeting (in a private game reserve - as you do  - but approved for a city hotel) in SA.  

The cell signal was not that good in the lodge & I was advised to drive a few miles over to a hill & pick up the strong signal from the public rest camp in Kruger NP.

During the call a group of eli's had been slowly munching there way towards me until I was more or less surrounded.  Some of the youngsters started to play & then to mock charge me (quite normal) accompanied by a eli trumpet duet !!!  

Wa'da'hell was that said el presidenti, it sounded like a car horn said china, my office knew where I was & agreed with me it must have been some on-line interference. As I was the only one using a cell I volunteered to go to mute from that point on.            

No Don - I only recently changed careers and graduated in 2011 (I was, as the politically correct term goes, a "non-traditional student"; translation; middle aged fart who is stupid enough to go back to school) - so I am still at this moment $182K in debt!  But a different position with more reasonable hours, commute, & stress level (and, dare I say it, a chance to occasionally sit and a lunch?!?!?!) with lower pay is OK by me; for me quality of life trumps pay any day. 

The 5-10% of my job that is actually helping people is fine, even enjoyable, except that it is literally only about 5-10%, and doing it invariably puts you behind on your assembly line duties.

Pharmacy is not what I thought it would be; you are only judged by how much product you can pump out; I never dreamed it was be so non-clinical as it is, and that is across the board in retail; CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, K-Mart, etc., and I am willing to bet that Boot's the Chemist is the same schtick as well.

Korporate Amerika at its finest, with MBAs who know nothing about pharmacy trying to run one off a bloody spreadsheet.

Oh well, live & learn...and do the best you can! 

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.

Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?

Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.

Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

GC: A cup ' COLD tea.

EI: Without milk or sugar.

TG: OR tea!

MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.

EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."

EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!

MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

MP: Cardboard box?

TG: Aye.

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind - I have actually applied to a few jobs in the UK (I have EU citizenship through Italy) not so much to do a runner, but because I haven't been anywhere in my life.  (Well, a week in Ukraine once.) But in the USA you can't discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy....seems all the attorneys that graduated were doing just that, so they kiboshed that program!

 

Maybe you can get me the details on getting those bennies form your MPs - let's not forget a stipend to convert my Naim gear to 220V!

 

Oh, and PS - I logged in to my loans to make a payment today, and my aggressive payment schedule actually has me down to $179,167.02 - so there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but I think it is a fast moving freight train!  I have a friend that will graduate pharmacy school this year over $200K - but she has the advantage of being in her mid 20's...not mid 50's.

 

PPS - what's "PLC"?

Still 182K in debt.....Jesus. Suggest you do a runner. Dont tell a soul,pop over to good old Great Britain PLC,go bankrupt,have a year of grief and your debt will be gone. In the meantime you tell our MPs you are going on the good old rock n roll and you want money for somewhere to live + money to live + money for a car +money to have a good time. Then in 2 years you go back home with a clean slate and start a new life.

WHY you may ask,well thousands here do it already so one more wont be a problem.

 

Mista H

Public Limited Company

I was made redundant in June after 19 years of exemplary service. At age 58 that's never good news, particularly in the IT world. It was all quite nasty and obviously a set up. My day is spent ploughing through job recruitment sites and making pointless applications for jobs I know I've no chance of getting because I'm regarded as an old geezer. I'm stressed out of my mind because if I haven't got a job within the next year we'll have to sell our house and won't be able to get a mortgage. It's also very likely my extremely fragile marriage won't survive all this. I'm on maximum dosage of Citalopram so I can at least relax a bit.

It's all completely desperate at the moment and I'm drinking far too much to help me through it all.

However in spite of it all my blood pressure and blood sugar levels are the best they've been for thirty years. Maybe working isn't good for me.

Best of luck Tom and Osprey.

Makes me realise how lucky I am not just to enjoy my job, but even simply to have a job.

I was made redundant in June after 19 years of exemplary service. At age 58 that's never good news, particularly in the IT world. It was all quite nasty and obviously a set up. My day is spent ploughing through job recruitment sites and making pointless applications for jobs I know I've no chance of getting because I'm regarded as an old geezer. I'm stressed out of my mind because if I haven't got a job within the next year we'll have to sell our house and won't be able to get a mortgage. It's also very likely my extremely fragile marriage won't survive all this. I'm on maximum dosage of Citalopram so I can at least relax a bit.

It's all completely desperate at the moment and I'm drinking far too much to help me through it all.

However in spite of it all my blood pressure and blood sugar levels are the best they've been for thirty years. Maybe working isn't good for me.