Some Very Lazy People Out There

To begin with, I'd like to open with a joke that came out of no where on a recent day. I've overtold this one in the Queen's presence to the point that she's tired of it, but each new audience likes it. It so happened one day that Optimus and I were talking about nothing in particular and at the end of this pointless ramble, I said, "Sure, I understand. But what would I do with a monkey and a phone jack?" Optimus replied, without batting an eye, "Start a call center."

If you've ever worked in a call center, you'll laugh about twice as hard as not. Anyway...

I've talked about the Medicare Direct Data Entry system before and my involvement with it, and today I had someone that just exemplifies the level of effort that some people want to put into their work. Everything I did for this person was well within their realm of access, so it wouldn't been too complicated.

You see, they'd been getting an error at random on their claims coming back from this DDE system stating that one of their hospital identifier numbers was not valid. I had explained that this error typically means that the login being used is not authorized to use the number they're trying to send or access. It's pretty simple. So they called up Medicare to see what the deal was, and there are no problems with their numbers. Well, I never said their numbers had a problem. I said their LOGIN had a problem.

So they did it all over again, and again, big surprise, their numbers are fine. Yeah, they are. Never said they weren't. This time, however, I got some examples to look at and compare. Well, since it's a login problem, my first (really, my only) inclination was to find the job that sent (or attempted to send) the claim, and see what login it used. They can see this from their side of ePremis, and they don't need my super-wide access to do it. It's a simple matter of comparison.

Find number on claim; find job from that date and time with that number on it. See login.

Fifteen minutes later, my suspicion was confirmed. One login was giving them fits. I told her which one, and she told me that they don't have a login for that out there. I assured her they do and offered to fix it, but she wanted to run this by her boss and get back to me. Um, ok.

The point of all this was that using some basic comparison skills, I was able to solve a problem with information she had at her disposal. A mountain was made out of a molehill because they didn't listen to a word I said and went under their own assumptions over what they thought I said. I fully anticipate their calling back because they "did what I said and it didn't work."

If you did what I said, it would work. Clearly, it means you weren't listening, but hey, there's a precedent for that.

Time At The Bank

This part of the story last left off in May 2000 with my being sacked from my fireplace tech job, and moving into another summer of renewal. The first job I ended up with was via another friend of the Queen's who hasn't come into the story too much, which is odd because they're really good friends (have been since college). Her husband (who normally doesn't command our respect) was working at an apartment complex, and he let us know they were in need of a person to perform "make ready" duties. A Make-Ready person goes through empty apartments and ensures that they have all their light bulbs, hinges, window locks, etc. before someone moves in.

He was on maintenance there and taught me a variety of things regarding maintenance, which actually impressed me, since we didn't know he was capable of doing anything up to that point. Unfortunately, the work bored me to tears, and as the job also entailed picking up people's trash, the occasional cleaning, and a bunch of other miscellanous duties that geeks just aren't cut out for, I quit at about the same time they were going to fire me...but not before I managed to pick up pink eye from someone else who worked there. Super fun.

The plus during this period, though, was actually a boon for the Queen. She was offered a teaching position and was to start as a first grade teacher come August. She was super excited about it, and I was very happy for her. She had to leave town post-haste to get to a teacher retreat or something at Shangri-La, which is a resort in Oklahoma. I was left with Rock Girl in her absence. We were still more than a year before The Socialite would come onto the scene.

After the Make Ready job, I found my way into a temp agency where I got on at a bank working with a guy who had injured in hand. How did he do this wonder? Well, in the basement of this bank, there is this room where a bunch of equipment lives, and among them are (I believe) some air conditioning units. Now these units suck in a lot of air, and when the door is open, they pull in a lot of air from the hallway, and in the process, try to pull the door closed...hard. He had left that room one day, and the door slammed onto his fingers, bending them backwards (possibly breaking them, I don't remember). They could have either tried to train someone else in his position, or get a helper to do the heavy lifting.

Enter me for the heavy lifting. The job was a total cakewalk. Drive around a couple times a day. Climb some ladders. Carry some boxes. But mostly sit around in his office and do nothing until the next time we had to do something.

While there, I made a mistake, though. You see, they recognized my propensity to work on computers and make them talk. It was easy for me. So when my term as a temp employee was up because they guy with the broken hand was all healed and could handle it on his own again, they offered me a job baby-sitting their servers from 2pm to 10pm. It would have been a great position for me, but at the time, I was narrow enough to only want to work during the day: a 9 to 5 job. I said no. Stupid...stupid...stupid. It would only be a matter of time before I'd be landing a night job, and this would have paid so much better and been so much more fun.

This isn't the only time I did this either. Maybe I mentioned this one before, but I don't remember the time frame in which it happened. You see, when the Queen was a teacher, they also recognized my propensity to make computers do what I wanted, and suggested I apply at Tulsa Public Schools as a computer tech. I was between jobs at the time, and actually applied for the Queen's old library assistant position when the principal suggested that the computer tech would be better.

Well, when I interviewed, and they told me about hardware and networking (which would have been awesome to learn), I said I was better with software and walked away. I really must stop doing stupid things...

A New Addition

I'm sure people wonder how I forget these things, but to follow up with the story about Padme's labor, she continued the drip last Friday to see if she would go ahead and go into labor, have contractions, etc. Well, as in Thursday, nothing happened, and finally, the doctor decided they needed to go ahead and get the baby out of there via C-Section. The Queen called me at work, and at first, they were going to take her in at 3, but then, I got a frantic call back saying she was going in "right now," and that she was coming to get me ASAP.

This whole rigamarole caused some tension between us since she wanted to be there for the birth, and didn't want to miss anything, especially the baby coming out into the nursery, so it was a very, very tense ride. This was a situation I knew it was best to leave alone, so the ride was also very silent as we cruised toward the hospital.

We got there just in time. The baby wasn't out yet, but they were in surgery at that point taking care of it, and to our surprise, Darth (who had always said he would refuse to go back) followed his husband instincts and accompanied Padme into the delivery room for the cutting. We waited.

Not too long passed before Darth showed up with a small bundle and walked into the nursery accompanied by a nurse. He relinquished his child, who is a boy that we'll obviously have to call Luke, to the nurses for the battery of testing that babies undergo when born nowadays. Everything was fine, but we learned why the baby wasn't engaging, and why she wasn't going into labor.

Turns out the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck...twice. This means that the child could not engage without being strangled. If they hadn't pulled him out, there's no telling what could have happened. The optimist says that he might have woked himself free and come out without any problems in time. The realist would say that without the C-Section, the child would not have survived.

Bottom line is that it doesn't matter. He's with us now, and he's healthy and perfect.

The tension between the Queen and I, however, over us conducting a normal day due to the indecision over what would happen lead to my leaving her alone the majority of the time we were there, and my never being given the opportunity to hold the baby. Naturally, the Queen was allowed to, but I was allowed to stay in the waiting room after a time and leave her and her family alone. That really wasn't a good day either. Oh well.

We did go back on Saturday, and at that time, I was allowed a time to hold him. That was nice. I'm not totally cold hearted. Babies are nice to hold.

Could It Be The Pills?

So I think I've mentioned before that I'm more than just a little AD/HD, and it's been a bit of a task keeping the tendency to chase shiny things under control. Recently, I read a thing online about there being a more natural remedy to keeping it under control by ensuring that you have enough magnesium and omega-3 in your diet. Well, my response to trying this was grabbing a multi-vitamin and some fish oil. How's that working? Well...

Initially, I didn't notice much. I seemed to be a little calmer, but now after a week, I think it is doing something, but it took a bit to figure out that it might be the supplements causing this. Since a few days ago, I've felt immeasurably depressed. Perhaps you got that from the bad week post. Now, I'm not the type of person to feel depressed about anything, but I've just felt really, really down lately. Wait, you might be thinking, how can someone who is hyperactive be "down"?

Aha... There's what I hit on too. I've been taking these vitamins and fish oil regularly over the past week, and all of a sudden, I feel depressed. Maybe I'm not actually, but the "downing" effect is working. Maybe I'm not depressed. Maybe I'm somewhere close to normal. Perhaps I've calmed down to the point that it's noticeable.

Now the hard part is focusing because I am not sure that I'm all there at this point because being down all of a sudden from being up all the time is a bit of a culture shock to me, especially since I deduced this possibility just this morning. I've gone over recent events in my life and despite the fact that they are a little over the top, I've gone through much worse, and it's been no big deal. I need to turn my mind from all the ugly annoying things that have been bringing my mood down and focus on everything that keeps me going all the time. Keep on everything that excites me.

I'm not sure where all this will take me, but I currently have mixed feelings over these supplements. Maybe my body is just adjusting to getting these extra nutrients and there's an acclimation period I just need to endure. I'll go with that for awhile, but if my mood fails to improve through my own cognitive abilities, then I may be chemically depressed, and have to toss these pills by the wayside.

Can't have the geek's brain put through the ringer cause of pills. Just not right.