Ruth

Life has been nuts this last year really. Ok, life has been nuts since 2020 happened, but it never really calmed back down did it? Neither on the national or international level, or on a personal level.

I’m too lazy to go back and see what I mentioned on the blog, but I know I’ve not done much personal stuff the last couple years.

March 2022 I had an “achilles debridement” done on my right achilles tendon. Basically they went in, detached the achilles, removed the damaged portions and a layer of scar tissue all the way around, and reattached it with a titanium anchor. At that point recover is basically identical to the recovery of people who’ve torn their achilles. It’s not quick, at all, and while I personally heal quickly and easily, my recovery was complicated by the fact that I work at Home Depot. However by Sept or Oct I was mostly not limping by the end of the day. I will note, that despite the long recovery, the surgery was worth it. The pain levels in that foot have dropped to almost nothing.

So of course I had to have more surgery, this time to have my gall-bladder removed in Oct. The lab report stated “many stones present, the largest measuring 3cm in diameter”, no wonder it hurt.

The first week of January I had a “nasal turbinate reduction” done. Basically it’s a nose job for the inside of the nose. The turbinates are structures on the inside of the nose. I assume they affect something, but at that point I didn’t care. My whole life I’ve had a constantly mildly stuffy nose and been a borderline mouth breather. Even the mildest cold would make my nose so stuffy I had to breath through my mouth. Doctors shrugged and said “well you’re allergic to everything, take an allergy pill and a decongestant”. Sinus infections twice a year on the dot, but since they always cleared up with a course of antibiotics no one ever looked closer. Ended up into the ENT’s office for an unrelated problem, and after a CT of my sinuses the PA asks me “so, do you have trouble breathing through your nose? Cause, we can fix that….”. I’m here to tell you that breathing through my nose is freaking awesome. I had no idea.

Speaking of allergies….back in Feb of 2020 I had an allergy test done due to my various food issues (I remember mentioning that). It was the first time I had the blood test version of the allergy test done, and I was quite frustrated that the only thing it came back positive for allergies to was dust mites. It made no sense. I’d had multiple allergy tests done as a child-college student age, and they all came back as allergic to damn near everything on the test, plus I was still reacting to everything! But that was just as the world went to hell, so I never followed up on it. This last year in particular my skin reactions to things were getting noticeably worse and worse, and I finally asked for a referral to a different allergy specialist. A week of hell without any of my antihistamines, and I reacted to every single thing on the skin prick test. Including the two neutrals. The allergy specialist looks at the welts and informs me that that’s not allergies, technically, thats a hyperactive histamine response. Basically anything that irritates my skin is causing an overactive histamine response resulting in welts and hives. The good news is that so far that overactive response isn’t affecting my breathing. We’re going to discuss (at the followup) treatments for dust mite allergies to see if we can get a handle on what reactions I am having there. For now we’ve doubled my daily allergy pill and that does seem to be helping the skin reactions.

On March 12, 2023 we sent my elderly old lady cat Trouble over the Rainbow Bridge.

In the middle of all of this, Black Friday Weekend in Nov, the guy who’s the “head receiver”, the opening full time associate in the receiving dept at work, tells management to fuck off (about 9 months short of his 20th anniversary) and quits with no notice. Guess who’s the only non-management person (not already working in receiving on a regular basis) in the store with a clue as to how to run the receiving dept? For that matter, even when you take management into account I’m one of only two people with a clue as to how to run receiving and handle more than the basics, so yah.

They have not yet filled his position. They haven’t even LISTED THE JOB. The excuse (because yes, I asked, very pointedly) is that it’s not that simple to hire someone for that job. Which is true. It’s not a position you can drop some random person into and assume they’re figure it out. You need someone who works well by themselves, who’s capable of figuring weird things out on their own, who can handle multiple things getting dropped on them with no warning. Someone comfortable driving forklifts, and handling technology. And at the same time if that someone fucks up they could screw over the whole store, so you can’t just let them “learn it as they go” either. So, this is all true, I can’t argue, but it’s hard to get someone TRAINED if they’re NOT EVEN HIRED FOR THE JOB. And it’s hard for someone to get HIRED if you DON’T EVEN LIST THE JOB. My personal suspicion is that management is hoping that they can get away with the one less person in the dept because that’ll look nice on the numbers. Since he quit the only two receiving associates are a part time fellow for whom this is his retirement-trying not to be bored-job, and a young kid full time evenings who’s only been doing this for about a year. Neither really knows how to handle much more than the basics either.

So part time me has been working my home dept of Garden/Seasonal, and alternating days/weeks with receiving. If they schedule me for an additional 2 hrs per week for to many weeks in a row I’ll be technically full time. At the same time this is happening my home dept is ALSO short handed, and we’re now headed into crazy season (aka upstate NY spring). Oh yah, crazy season affects receiving too, not just garden….I gave them an ultimatum this week. They need to pick one dept and schedule me there. This constant a week here and a week there is driving me batty. I can’t keep up with what’s going on in garden because I’m spending so much time in receiving. At the same time, because I’m not officially a receiving associate I don’t have access to the receiving email, and I don’t get various messages and procedure changes info, and I’m spending just enough time back there that everyone assumes I AM getting that info. When I was vacation coverage everyone mostly remembered I probably didn’t know because I wasn’t back there that often. My frustration levels are spiking through the roof and my tolerance is dropping. Pick one. I’m at the point of not caring, just pick one.

This past Monday at work, covering receiving of course, I managed to tip a (thankfully unloaded, though if it had been loaded it wouldn’t have tipped) freight cart over on my foot and ended up with a hairline fracture of my right big toe. Plus way more bruises than I initially thought. Plus I apparently strained the hell out of various things in the push to try to get out from under the cart before it hit, cause wow I’m sore as hell.

My chainmaille business is slowly taking off. Having to work most Saturdays at Home Depot puts a crimp in my ability to hit craft shows (this would be a bonus to working in receiving all the time, Saturdays off always), but I managed to score a spot at a HUGE event in the middle of May, so we’ll see how this goes.

So thats my life right now. I have a ton of links and memes to post if I can get a moment to breathe.