Tag: work

Me time

Greetings from West Palm Gardens, FL. As I write this I am poolside enjoying an 80 degree day. This is relevant because I should be on a plane right now. When Mom asked me to drive her to her new Condo in West Palm (she doesn’t fly the dog) my original plan was to drive two days and fly back the next. After all, there is work to be done. But then I thought about it and checked my calendar at work. I’ve been there for a year now so I must be due some time off. Oops, I was looking at the wrong column, I was looking at the “feels like” column. I’ve been there 3 months it just feels like a year. I don’t have paid time coming to me but I’m taking a few days off.

Work has been a lot. Life as a Recovery Case Manager is rewarding, challenging and exhausting. If you do it right, and by that I mean give a shit, then Empathy deprivation is possible and burnout is expected. My supervisors have continuously warned me against doing too much and I did what Bill does and ignored their warnings. At my own peril. I’m exhausted.

Today I am going to take a nap after I publish this. Then I plan to eat something bad for me, go to bed early and fall asleep while binging Netflix in the AC. Tomorrow I am going to connect with a lovely friend from High School and her Cougar friend. I plan to have dinner and drinks and a late evening. Then I plan to sleep late even if I have to do it alone. I have earned it. My Clients are well taken care of. All of their outside needs and distractions are handled and I attend to everything that I can to make sure they attend to the business at hand…recovering from their addiction and the often horrible consequences. I am a good Case Manager because I give everything I have to my Clients. Now I am doing something for me.

That’s why it’s called “me time.”

Newly emerged personality traits

For the almost 6 years that I spent sick and out of work, I missed a lot of things. One thing I missed most was working. For better or worse, my work was closely tied to my identity as well as my self-worth. I was always known as a hard worker, most of the time I was the best at what I did among my peers, and it wasn’t always about money. I actually got off on the feeling of accomplishment. My last great job before I got sick was a great opportunity for me. I got to be a part of the higher-level decisions, I made a good living and I was able to turn my role into one that actually helped people. I wish that the company never closed. I was busy as a one-armed paper hanger but I was comfortable and relaxed about my position and confident of my worth.
What I didn’t know was that in the series of unsuccessful jobs that followed, I would learn something about myself that I hadn’t realized before. I was a neurotic and paranoid knucklehead once taken out of my comfort zone.

I don’t know when it happened. I was always confident, cocky even. Then, suddenly I worried about what other people are doing, about perceived inequities, that I wasn’t getting treated fairly. I was never mean-spirited or petty, I just cared about things that previously had not occupied my mind. I suppose when my entire life was collapsing as I dealt with divorce, foreclosure, and kidney failure it naturally follows that I would be a little insecure, even paranoid. After all, when I go to a football game, I don’t think, I KNOW that they’re talking about me in the huddle.

Now that I’m healthy, relatively unconcerned about money, and too low on the totem pole at work to worry about being knocked off, I worry about the neurotic side that has emerged.
I am a Recovery Case Manager. I work with people trying to recover from addiction. There are no performance metrics other than documentation. The rest consists of managing your own caseload with empathy and efficiency. There is no competition, we all run our own affairs with adherence to general protocol and a lot of individual styles. Management is supportive and largely hands-off. And I am fucking good at it. My clients are well-served and have everything they need handled. So why do I care how many cases the woman who started after I did has? Why do I immediately assume the worst when my manager sends me a simple email telling me that they want to go over something with me? Why do I have to remind myself that by all accounts I am doing really well?
I can handle a lot, and my job gives me a lot of satisfaction. I sure don’t do it for the money. So why do I always wonder if I’m in trouble?

I hate this side of my personality. I love my job and I am really really good at it. I wish I knew where it came from so I can stick a stamp on it and send it the fuck back where it came from.

Entitlement

Nothing screams hypocrisy more than a tiktok video generated by a white woman in a car with leather seats, wearing a designer sweatshirt, with expensive sunglasses adorning her head screaming into a $1000.00 iPhone about “entitled Americans.”

I shouldn’t have to say this, and I probably shouldn’t, but here goes…all Americans are entitled. You can see it everywhere if you look for it. It starts with the sayings we hear all the time.
“I’m going to get what’s mine!”
Excuse me, but what exactly is yours? Is there a locker at the local bus station containing a box labeled yours? Are the contents a bag of cash and guaranteed happiness? No, nothing is yours. You have to earn it. Through hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. Even then there are no guarantees, just opportunities.
“I deserve it.”
The three words I will never, ever say. I deserved to get my ass kicked in High School when I shot my stupid mouth off to the wrong guy. I don’t deserve anything else. Nor does anyone else. If you’re fortunate, life will repay you for what you put into it. If you work, you get a check. If you help someone they may help you back. Any other expectations might as well come from rubbing a bottle. Nobody deserves a damn thing.
“The Constitution guarantees my happiness.” No, it guarantees the pursuit of it, not the actual happiness.

That’s the point here after all, when did we start believing that we are supposed to be happy and something is wrong and worse, that it is somehow due to a failure on someone else’s part?

We’ve been sold the American Dream, which is a bill of goods that basically says that we are exceptional and are not vulnerable to the same perils as every other country. So we feel comfortable in the future so we don’t save money; we don’t think about consequences because we believe everything will work out. We’re entitled to it, or a bailout when it doesn’t happen. And when it doesn’t, we expect it to even itself out. And there is no guarantee. Life is not fair, nor is it always fun, and in a lot of cases it just plain sucks. People have problems, bad ones, and it is often due to no fault of their own. Life can be brutal yet we, as entitled Americans, expect happiness. I am of the opinion that happiness is a subjective notion. It is based on expectations and those expectations must be modified for the times we live in. With all of the stressors of the world today, even those with a relatively problem-free life consider happiness what you can experience in your free time. After work, weekends if you’re lucky enough to have them off is the time that we do what makes us happy. Spending time with our families or friends or indulging in activities or hobbies, you get the point. If we get enough of that to balance out the effect of what sucks in our lives, we can say that to a point, we are happy. But thrilled is questionable, ecstatic unlikely, and euphoric is just not happening.
Because life is hard.


I don’t mean it as an insult. It’s just a fact. Americans are entitled. Even the lowest among us has a life that any of the millions of people trying to get into this country would call happy.

The Horseshoe

I’m a fortunate man. Things seem to fall in my lap sometimes. S0 often in fact, that I began to believe an idiom that I used to scoff at,”Everything happens for a reason.” I was always a shit is random kind of guy. But so many things, series of events, and happenings have occurred for it to be random. Tonight’s tale is the latest.

I clean cars for people in town. It has become an illustrious little enterprise for me and, in three years, has netted some much-needed disposable income and also some great relationships. One such relationship is Ellen, a Nurse who lives in a Condo development in town. I dropped off her car early this summer and she waiting with a check and a cash tip. As I pulled into my driveway I noticed that she had given me two 20’s. I called her and asked if she meant to. She hadn’t, the bills were stuck together. I brought her the money back. She was very impressed with my honesty and told me that in turn, she would spread the word about my services in her development. I thanked her of course, but that wasn’t why I did it.

Last month I got a call from a woman in that development, referred by Ellen. I gladly cleaned her car for her and when I dropped it off she was quite talkative. She had heard through the grapevine the story of Bill’s health journey and she wanted to know if I was ready to go back to work. I told her about my Insurance license and the position I had committed to. She told me that her company was hiring. She is a therapist at a Drug/Alcohol Recovery center. Undeterred by the fact that I told her I was about to be employed, she continued. I was intrigued and told her that if the Ins gig didn’t work out, I would reach out. I drove home excited, working with people in recovery is something I have mentioned many times as a career choice. But I was committed so I put it out of my mind.

Then the Insurance thing didn’t work out. I immediately called her. She gave me a contact to call. I told my mother and she immediately recognized that I had expressed interest in that field before but I had moved on because I didn’t have a Social Work License. As it turns out, the available Case Manager position doesn’t require one. I made the call and it was requested that I fill out an online application. I did it that evening. The next day I got a call and ten minutes later I had an interview for the following day.

The interview went great. I was prepared and dressed to the nines. Interview equals suit to me, my dad would roll over in his grave if I showed up to an interview without it. I made the right call. The interview was great. I wish I had the confidence I have now in what I bring to the table twenty years ago. I explained my reasons for wanting to work with people in recovery. Wanting to help people is paramount of course and that was the central theme. I came across as humble, genuine, caring, and compassionate. It wasn’t an act, I don’t state those qualities, I exemplify them. I knew the role of Case Manager in and out and made sure they knew that. They repeatedly emphasized how hard the job is. I wasn’t phased. They even admitted that they try to talk people out of it to see if they are intimidated. It didn’t work. I like to work hard.
I left excited and I knew that they had seen the real me.
That was Thursday.
I got the call today. I was offered the position.

I did a job. I went the extra mile to the point where someone felt the need to help me. That effort resulted in meeting a person who had access to something that I have always wanted to do. At a time when I most needed it. That is not a coincidence. I have a lucky horseshoe lodged in my ass and I will leave it there.

It is definitely bringing me luck.

The awkward reunion

I did a series recently on the trials and tribulations of a new job that I had started at a local restaurant.

The long and short of it was that it didn’t work out. Among all of the disappointments, one stood high above all. I was mad at myself for walking out. I have never in my life left a job without leaving notice and completing it. But this one time, I had an argument with a co-worker that drove me to leave at the end of my shift.

I had trained a kid with a smug expression and an entitled attitude. It wasn’t an assumption, I knew from the moment I met him that he was going to do a bare minimum, help no one but himself and think he’s entitled to more than he deserved. Sounds like a leap to you I’m sure, but I was right on and he took little to no time to prove me right. But I tried to make it work, I may be cynical but I’m fair and I trained him the best I could. He proved to be a decent worker but I knew his snarky attitude was going to cause a problem. On his second week, it happened.

On a busy Saturday he became overwhelmed. I stepped in to help him and he snapped and started yelling at me. He didn’t want help. I knew for the sake of the business that he needed it. It got ugly. I was furious. Normally people who talk to me like that end up spitting out some teeth but I walked away. But I was so disgusted at the fact that my owner did nothing and my coworkers showed me no support that I decided that there was no way I could work there anymore. I was pissed off, and I was embarrassed. The only positive was that I didn’t say or do something that I would regret to the kid. I’m not a violent person but I can be spiteful when wronged and he really pushed my buttons.
I finished my shift, three and a half hours of barely suppressed rage, and I headed for the door. I gave my friend and boss a chance to say something, anything, and he didn’t so I punched out and never went back.

I took a few days to process it. I felt real bad about leaving with no notice and I would address that later. My anger at the kid was still boiling up inside me. I began to imagine scenarios in which I would see him again. What would I do? It’s a small area, I knew there was a good chance that we would meet again.

Last week I went to my local Wal-Mart to pick up some prescriptions. When I approached the counter I saw a familiar face. Yup, my little friend from the restaurant was now a Pharmacy Tech. He saw me and his face was priceless. I grinned as he ducked into the back room. I was told that my scripts were going to be a few so I sat and waited. I watched as he moved about and knew he was clearly avoiding eye contact with me. I averted my stare and asked myself how I wanted to handle this. Several minutes later, I watched as the woman at the counter asked to leave for her break. I laughed to myself as my little friend reluctantly approached the register to replace her. I nearly laughed openly when I was called. Yup, he was going to be the one to serve me. It was too perfect. By then I knew what I was going to do.

I approached the register, gave him my name and DOB and waited for him to gather my order. As he began to ring me up, with almost ZERO eye contact, I stepped to my left to get around the plastic sneeze shield that separated us and I said “Kid, for all it’s worth I have no hard feelings. The past is the past.” The relief visibly washed off of him. He smiled and replied,
“I was hoping that was the case.”
We talked a bit about the restaurant, I congratulated him on getting a better job and I left. I thought about it on the way out. Sure, I could have wanted an apology. I also could have been rude in so many different ways. But I was pleased with the way I handled it. Anger, bitterness and resentment are heavy and cumbersome. I don’t like carrying it around. I chose to forgive it for me, not for him.

I think I did the right thing.

A much needed reminder

How are you don’t lieInstead of heading straight downstairs to find a seat for dinner I asked my Brother John to save me a seat. I knew many people at the event but I always prefer to sit with close friends at these events and for some reason, one which will reveal itself at the end of this post, I wanted to sit with John. I can’t put my finger on it but for some reason, we really click. He agreed and I went outside to clear my head and put on my “everything is fine” face. I knew that I would be asked how I was doing by many. My health history is well known and it is a blessing and a curse that many inquiries regarding my progress are made. I needed to be ready. You see, it is my opinion that for some the greeting “How are you?” is generic at best. But among my brethren they really mean it. And they know me, I have famously said “fine” to the greeting hundreds of times when I was anything but. A true friend would push and ask for the truth. That night, it was going to be difficult to satisfy those people because despite my robust physical appearance, I was bearing the weight of the world. Someone was going to call me on it.

The walls really were closing in on me. I was beating myself up over leaving my first Insurance Job. Three weeks in I was being pushed too hard and trained too little and despite my Herculean efforts to learn and apply TONS of information from Licenses to Certifications they weren’t happy with my progress and we parted ways. It really isn’t a huge deal career-wise. It wasn’t a good fit and I wasn’t contracted yet. Still, I felt like a failure, as I am prone to do. I was miserable. On top of that, I was disgusted and upset that my recently-broken-up-with ex-girlfriend didn’t have the decency to even text me after I drove over an hour out of my way to give back some belongings. Why would she be so childish and angry with me after she dumped my ass? She broke my heart and n top of reeling from that, now I have to wonder about this? I was consumed and my mind was racing. I shook it off and went inside.

I joined John and a few other good friends for dinner. It really was a tremendous set up. The room was full of well-dressed happy people. The decorations were lovely, the food was amazing and the bar was open. As expected, many inquiries were made about my health. I think I fooled all of them. Then John says to the whole table, hand resting on my shoulder, “Bill has the most amazing attitude. He is the most determined, optimistic and cheerful guy I’ve ever met. He’s been through so much and he keeps dusting himself off. He’s an inspiration to me.” Everyone at the table offered up similar sentiments. I gratefully acknowledged them and thanked them profusely.
Then it hit me.
There was the reason I had felt compelled to sit with John that evening. Because I was destined to hear that. Not for the praise, despite how flattering and humbling it was. No, it was a REMINDER to stop spiraling down the drain of negative thinking and remember that I have survived so much big and important shit in my life that I can’t let a couple of setbacks get me down. Somehow I had lost my mojo but John’s words snapped me right out of it. To Hell with the heartbreak, it’s her loss. To Hell with the job, it wasn’t the right company but I’ve still got the license and I will use it. To Hell with negativity in general, I needed to get back on track.

I know this is hard for some people to believe, but sometimes things really do happen for a reason. I was at an absolute low and by the end of dinner, I was actually in a decent place. I can’t begin to understand how it happened that quickly, but I can’t deny that it happened.

Today, I’m not 100%. I still miss her terribly and I still wish the job had turned out better. But neither of them are getting me down. And for now that is good enough.

A new venture

I’ve been away a while. When I get really involved in something I totally dive into it and I don’t allow time for other things. This includes Blogging. I really got into something and I just now feel that I have time to get back to putting my thoughts to paper (as it were).

The biggest change in my life of late is the confirmation that I am in good health and should be, depending on how diligent and committed I am to maintaining it, for a very long time. While this is to be rejoiced, it presents a new set of challenges. For one, my Disability Benefits are expiring and I have to return to work. I’ve known this for some time but it’s getting closer and closer to the day they cut me off. I look forward to going back to work, I’m not really a big “collecting” kinda guy. I’m excited actually because this time around I may be able to find something I want to do as opposed to a life of tolerating jobs because my family and finances required it. Fuck money, I’m never going to be rich and my overhead is a lot lower now. Satisfaction and the possibility of helping someone is the goal.

So I started interviewing.

Despite hiring a professional Resume service, with the specific request that my skillset acquired through years in the car business was presented in a more universal manner because I believe that the skills are transferable. Many hundreds of dollars and several weeks on job sites later…you guessed it. Car sales were what I was being offered. Double sigh.

Then I got a call from a recruiter who offered me an interview in a business that had always interested me, Insurance. So I interviewed. A good group of people with a lot of good products in a fairly friendly atmosphere. They offered to take me on, as a contractor. Agents are generally not salaried and benefitted employees. Again, at this point in my life, I can do something like that so I asked for the next step. I was told I couldn’t do anything until I got my State Insurance license.

Oh boy, testing. My favorite thing, with the possible exception of shaving my scrotum with a cheese grater. But I decided that an Insurance License would give me a tool for life to earn a living. There are so many possibilities. I was excited. So I signed up for the prep course.

For 3 weeks I lived, ate and breathed Life, Accident and Health Insurance and Annuities. I worked my ass off. All the while the agency checked in with me on my progress. I registered for the test on the following Monday and 2 excruciating hours later I passed with an 84. A 71 was the minimum score allowed. With one click of the mouse I received my license and producer number and I became a licensed Insurance Agent. My life was about to change.

the notice

*this post is a continuation of a story. It will stand alone in many ways but for missing context please go back a few…*

One week after giving my notice there was an incident. The guy I was training was a young kid my son’s age. I disliked him from the start. From the day I was introduced to him, I could just tell that he was a wise little prick. His smug expression spoke volumes. I had him pegged and it took very little time to realize it. When I tried to show him things he was dismissive. When I told him the expectations of what we do when it was quiet, clean something, help stock the beer cooler, organize the walk-ins and storage areas, etc., he wanted nothing to do with it. He was a “specialist”, he only wanted to make pizzas and helped no one but himself. I was so glad I wouldn’t have to work with him for long.
I didn’t know that day that it wouldn’t be long at all.

As dinner hour arrived he was working alone. I jumped in to help him. It was par for the course to have help on that station at busy times, no one person could handle it. But when I went to help he burst out, “dude, what are you doing?!” in a very loud voice. The place just stopped. I gave him my best watch your mouth or I’ll pound you into little asshole Mcnuggets look. He persisted with the attitude so I yelled back, “what’s the problem, kid?” He went off on me telling to get the fuck away from him, to get out of his way, to get lost, etc.,” He was shouting for all to hear.
I was floored. At that point, I had two choices. To walk away or rip his fucking head off. I have a thing about how I’m spoken to and this wasn’t happening on my watch. Because I am physically much larger than him, old enough to be his father, and because it is illegal to beat the shit out of someone, I walked away. I was FURIOUS.

The kitchen manager told someone to switch stations with me but that was it. I would think that after all the help and goodwill I had shown to my coworkers that someone would say something to him, but nobody did. They just let it happen. I don’t know what they were supposed to do but I felt very unsupported. I told the manager on duty that when my shift was over I was all done. In hindsight, I should have waited for Vinny but he wasn’t there yet and she had asked me what happened. When Vinny got there I knew that he knew. He ignored me the entire night.

I did what I promised, I worked a very busy night to the completion of my shift. As the night wore on, my decision didn’t weigh on me nor did I consider recanting it. I replayed the events in my head. My conclusion was that even if the little prick was right, in any way, about objecting to my assistance it was the way he handled it that bothered me. Cementing my decision was the fact that I could never work with him again, even for a short period, and that the lack of support I received made me too embarrassed to ever show up for a shift again.
The end of the evening came and as promised I left the building for the last time. I crossed paths with Vinny several times that evening and he didn’t even bother to ask me once what had actually happened. Not even as a courtesy. Allow me to be clear, I was not expecting or hoping that he would try to talk me out of it. Not my style. His failure to even try to acknowledge that I wasn’t the problem was all that I needed to know.

I left not necessarily proud of myself. But I knew there was no other way for me to handle it.

The Short-timer

*this post is a continuation of a story. It will stand alone in many ways but for missing context please go back a few…*

At the end of May, I officially went to 4 days. It wasn’t a huge issue because the store hours had been reduced due to lack of help and to give the existing employees, who had been working around the clock, a break. At that point full-time hours were not that feasible. Somehow, despite the reduced hours, the aggravation level increased. Vinny was unbearable to us as well as the customers. Criticism by customers was greeted by a “it’s my place my rules if you don’t like it there’s the door” mentality. It was so bad that when I offered to make an order for a customer after hours I was told that it was “tough shit” for the customer. I made it anyway. Now, of all the things that I disliked about the place, I could add that my friendly and customer-oriented style wasn’t even welcome.

On the relationship front, I confided in my girl about the job and about how conflicted I was. Yes, I continued to waffle back and forth about staying. I liked the money but, well you know the rest. I got the sense that she was annoyed by it. So I kept it to myself after that. We were starting to argue. I certainly take responsibility for my part of whatever was happening, but I was starting to see a side of her that concerned me. She consistently claimed to be a non-judgmental God-loving woman of grace, but she fought like a pissed-off wombat and was as forgiving as a Southern Baptist minister. I, on the other hand, refused to fight to win, I always sought resolution and harmony above all. Still, things were ok, the fights weren’t constant. But there were red flags that were, in hindsight, bathed in neon light.

We weren’t seeing each other very often at that point because of the job so I tried to focus on the positive and blocked out the rest.

At the beginning of June I was working a particularly busy night and Vinny was chirping in my ear about something so objectionable and poorly timed that I got into it with him. He replied with a “shut the fuck up”. I knew at that moment it was over. At this point in my life I had enough money (enough is big with me, I don’t need or desire a lot, just enough) and enough self-respect that I simply refused to be talked to like that. I knew what I was as a person and a worker; friendly, hard-working, helpful to all and respectful. Simply put my values were not fucking valued.

The next morning I gave my notice. I sat him down and told Vinny that I would work until the end of July as to not leave him in a bad place. He appreciated that and thanked me for not walking out and leaving him hanging. He had an ace in the hole, he had just hired someone for the kitchen and with my training he should be able to pick up where I left off. As we concluded I realized that working until the end of July was a period longer than I had even been there. How was I going to do that?

As usual. I decided that it will work out either way.,

Committed

*this post is a continuation of a story. It will stand alone in many ways but for missing context please go back a few…*

Committed. At least I should be, anyway. I am nothing if not a man of my word and I dove back into the job. My head was a mess. Between the red flags about the viability of the job being a long-term prospect for me, and the flags were plentiful, and my head being all messed-up over my new relationship my mind was racing all over. This may be a good time to interject that, if you have not read me before you may not know that I have moderate to high general anxiety. My temperament could best be described as, despite outward appearances, “everything is a big deal to me”. I am a classic over-thinker.

The red flags were the pace, the people, the physical and the collateral effects. Added to the mix was the realization that customers can really suck the big one sometimes.

The pace was frantic. When I took the job I was excited to make food, plain and simple. I am very good at that. I had no idea how busy the place would start out and continue to be. It was non-stop all the time.

Enter the personalities. Vinny, who was starting to reveal the rude and ill-tempered side of his personality. The Kitchen manager (who I liked overall) loved to accuse people of everything and clung to her knowledge as if it were the National Treasure and refused help with anything. Then there were the various dolts who simply couldn’t do the job or thought they were more important than they were.

Physically, I was getting stronger. Vinny was true to his promise to give me hydration breaks whenever I needed. But I was still struggling and I don’t do well in the heat as it is. I went home in a lot of pain every night.

Then there were the customers. Despite the fact that we were making a herculean effort to keep up with the demand, the customers were less than understanding. The cranky old people in town were bad customers. Demanding, impatient and insufferable. The people that came from surrounding areas were downright impatient and negative. They bitched openly at the exasperated employees and posted negative reviews which only served to send Vinny into a tizzy that was then transferred to us.

After a month of that, and not seeing my lady I realized that something had to give. I broke down and asked to reduce my hours. Surprisingly, Vinny was ok with it.