Calf + Ankle =

Cankles.

I now have cankles.

Cankle: "An obese or otherwise swollen ankle that blends into the calf without clear demarcation"

Mine aren't obese (thank goodness) but they definitely swell up now, which is new. I'm not even in the 3rd trimester yet. Awesome.

I was talking to my mom about it the other night and she said she had cankles from around 4.5 - 6 months and then it magically went away. I'm praying it's genetic.

I went out yesterday to Winners with the intention of buying some sensible flats to combat the swelling feet... and came home with these instead, and they're totally worth it:


Sensible? No. Cheap? Definitely not. But HOT? Heck Yes!

I wore them with pride today, in all my 5 month pregnant glory.

After work today, I went to Payless and picked out some boring sensible shoes, which I will wear begrudgingly with a snarl on my face.













(I bought the round-toe ones in eggshell white)

No filter

So we went to my SIL's birthday yesterday, and her in-laws were there. Her MIL is old school Italian, and apparently has no problem saying really inappropriate things. She told my BIL that she's 100% positive I'm having a girl because I'm carrying my weight behind - like, in my back and ass.

That's just great. Because I'm pretty sure my ass is the same size it always was - I don't look pregnant from the back.

So she just called me fat. That's great.

I went to the party feeling really cute - I finally have a clearly pregnant belly with the little semi-circular line underneath it - the sure differentiator between too many Happy Meals and housing a little human in there. I started out in the best mood, and then, after her comments (and about 15 minutes of her pointing at me from across the back yard and making bets with the other parents based on my apparently-expanding ass) I was in such a funk. Totally ruined my day.

Honestly - where's your filter? In what world is it okay to tell *any* woman - let alone a pregnant one who is trying to get used to her new body shape - that she's getting fat anywhere?? Not okay lady, not okay.

A list...

Of things that bother me

1. That one of our managers writes her smiley face emoticons backwards (-;
2. People who shuffle their feet
3. Toilet paper rolls on 'backward'. The free edge should fall down the front, not the back.
4. That my husband seems incapable of putting his damn hair gel and comb back in the drawer when he's done with them
5. When doctor's office waiting rooms only have 2 year old copies of Sports Illustrated to flip through on your ridiculously long wait. Come on - you make enough money to spring for a couple of magazine subscriptions.
6. That one of my colleagues talks to her email as she's reading it. She has no internal monologue. "How am I supposed to answer that?? Well, I'm not writing back to you right now."
7. The long and cumbersome process that is submitting my expenses at work
8. Packing for weekends in London
9. Putting laundry away

That's all that's on my mind right now. Back to work for another hour, and then I'm going home. Long weekend!

On Hold.

I made it through day 12 (woo hoo for having a normal LP!) and tested again this morning - BFN. And now I'm spotting. Boooooo.
I'm pretty damn dissappointed. Not just because I'm not pregnant this cycle, but also because it means we have to wait until April now to start trying again. I was really REALLY hoping we'd be pregnant this cycle so we wouldn't have to wait 3 months, but here we are. April, for eff sake.

The positives (because I'm desperately trying to be positive):

• I can drink. And I will.
• I can screw the decaf for a couple of months and be fully caffeinated again
• I can give my thermometer a break. I know that I should use this break as a chance to get to know my body better, but I really just want to stop setting my alarm for 6 a.m. on weekends again. Maybe I'll still chart through the week, but take weekends off. That might be a good compromise.
• I can stop compulsively checking my CM every time I have to pee.
• I can stop dreading going to the bathroom for fear that I might find that I got my period.
• I can continue using the salacylic acid facewash that I love
• I can try to focus on something else for a change. Everything besides baby-making has been put on hold since we decided to TTC, so maybe it's time to take back my life.
• My husband can stop stressing over whether or not to be house shopping for a few months, at least.
• I can drink. Did I mention that already? Cuz ya, it'll be nice to have some wine.
• We can go back to having normal sex again when we feel like it, not because my thermometer says we probably should.
• I can stop obsessing over my chart at every waking moment of the day.
• I can stop obsessing over theBump. Maybe this will cure my addiction.
• I can stop dreaming about testing every night.

But seriously, shit. Why the hell did I have to get my period??? Eff.

Apparently, my ovaries are still on vacation.

What the hell is this:

Day effing 25, and no sign of ovulation?!

Given, I went on vacation, which can throw things off a bit, but seriously! My CM was pointing to day 19, which would have been groovy (I O'd on day 18 last month) but then nothing happened. I was just annoyed, but now I'm pissed. Why have my ovaries forsaken me??

To make matters worse, we're taking 2 months off to avoid yet another November/December baby in the family (really, there's so much family drama every year, it's for the best) so it looks like this is it. Either I ovulate now and it's our last chance, or I don't, and that's it until April. APRIL. That's efftacular.

Seriously ovaries, I get it. Vacation is great. We all love vacation, and I don't begrudge you that. But I let you slack while I was on the pill for 12 bloody years, so I think you should be rested up by now! Now wake up and spit out an egg so my husband and I can get to work fertilizing it, or let me get my damn period so we can take a freaking day off the baby-making!

Rant over. Off to work where I can't stress about my ridiculous temperatures. Daphne out.

I'm sorry, the WHAT-Vag??

I had an ultrasound scheduled for today - abdominal to check on some family history kidney stuff, and pelvic, because my doc. thought she might have felt a cyst during my annual exam.
She did not tell me the pelvic was INTERNAL.

So my temperature shot up this morning. I wake DH up to get a quickie in before I get ready for my 8 a.m. appointment.

I endure 1 full hour of abdominal ultrasound, and then an ultrasound tech comes in to basically train the doctor on pelvic exams. She says to the doctor, "okay, now we'll do the trans-vag..." I'm sorry, the WHAT?? This is when I realize it's an internal exam. I was mortified. I had just had sex 2.5 hours before!

So ya, the two of them poke around in there FOR ANOTHER HOUR, pointing out that I'm ovulating right now (glad I was right - that's the good news) and pointing to some "free fluids" floating around in there, likely related to ovulation (ya... I can guess what that is, and it's indirectly related to ovulation...).

So I'm pissed. First, that they're using me as a training manual for this doctor to poke around in. Second, that this appointment took over 2 hours and I had to head to work covered in ultrasound goo. And most importantly, third, that I had to have this damn ultrasound today of all days, with un-fertility-friendly lube. So now I'm convinced that the poking and prodding (ouch!) and Effing with my PH has wrecked this cycle.

And after all that, I know NOTHING. The technician and doctor were talking to each other the whole time - not to me. So I just heard snippets of things, but they were speaking quietly and I couldn't see the monitor. I think I do have a cyst on my left ovary (because I heard blah blah cystic blah...), but I don't know for sure. And she said a bunch of other scary words (.... endo.... blah blah blah....) but I couldn't hear if she was talking about me in particular, or just people in general.

Pissed. And I feel bruised from the insides out. And I think this month is a write off. Awesome.

Not a good day.

On seasons and birthdays and refusing to get older

I haven't blogged in ages, for no one reason in particular. Nothing important, really - just a combination of being busy at work (which is where I normally blog from), getting a new router at home and not being able to RDP to my home computer from work until it's configured correctly (I'm not dumb enough to blog on my work computer - I always connect to home first), and just being busy. I can't believe it's September. This weekend has been cool - and all of a sudden it feels like fall. I'm not ready for fall.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the autumn as a season. In fact, I quite like it: the crisp air, pretty colours, relaxing weekends (that aren't pre-booked with summer barbeques), pulling cozy sweaters out of hiding and (yes, I'm a girl) shopping for new boots. But there's something ominous about autumn, despite its perks. I know that, no matter how much I wish on a star, winter (that bitch) follows right behind. Autumn is always too short - just when I'm getting into the 'wear a light jacket' swing of things, I wake up one morning to find that Nirvana had it right: Mother Nature is, in fact, a whore. I hate winter. Have I mentioned that before? Hate. I have a December birthday, which has really ALWAYS sucked.


When I was a kid, my friends had these great birthday parties - Becky had pool parties in July. We went apple picking and horseback riding with Bev in October. Even my brother's April birthdays were fun, because sometimes (just sometimes) he'd let me come with him and his friends down to the creek to play by the definitely polluted waters looking for slimy things. But not me. No, I got to go skating (I hate being cold). Or to the movies (to this day, not my favourite thing in the world - I'd rather be outside, actually *talking* to my friends, not sitting in the dark looking forward). Then I just started having indoor parties - sleepovers with the girls. Fun, yes - but not as fun as horseback riding, that's for damn sure. Through University, my birthdays generally sucked, because they were right in the middle of academic hell - my English major friends were frantically writing essays. My friends in other programs were stressing about December exams. Asstastic. We always managed to go out, but there was always an air of "I should be doing something else right now - or I'm going to fail Modern British Lit."


Now that I'm older, birthdays are even less exciting. I live in Toronto, and most of my family & friends are still in London. So that means that I either get to brave the snow-filled 401 to go see them, or, as I tried last year, have my family up here to our place. That was a fiasco. My mom made a big stink about 'I have to drive all by myself..." sob sob drama drama. My sister-in-law made a huge stink for months that we wouldn't be in London for her daughter's birthday party (the date for my party was 5 days after her birthday - and only 1 day before mine. Sorry. Whatever. We were in town the weekend before for the other daughter's party and would be again for every other effing weekend of our lives, so shove it) It was so much un-fun start to finish. My mom and I got in a fight so huge that I told her that fine, I don't want to celebrate, fuck it. Don't come. Whatever. Sorry to put you out because I want to have family up to our place to entertain in our new condo because we finally have room to do so, but if it puts you out that much to drive to Toronto (though we drive there every other weekend), fine. She apologized begrudgingly, but it was a sour party, nonetheless.


So this year, I'm thrilled that I won't be in the country for my birthday. If I'm not here, it doesn't happen. We'll be in India for over 2 weeks, missing not only my birthday, but the two nieces and one nephew on my husband's side as well. Done and done. One trip to India wipes out 6 family celebrations/obligations (3 kids' birthdays + my birthday with my mom, my dad, and my in-laws). Wicked. We'll buy the kids extra-super birthday gifts to make up for missing theirs, but I've decided to just skip mine this year altogether. It's my party and I can skip it if I want to.

Maybe if I just close my eyes and hope, winter won't happen either...?
I'd love to have spring, summer fall.... and then spring again. And hey, since I'm wishing for the unthinkable, can I just stop getting older if I stop having birthday parties? If only...

Why?

Why?? Why would anyone do this? Should there be instructions for this type of thing?

1. Use last bit of toilet paper

2. Take new roll from holder thingy

3. Remove empty roll and replace with new roll.

Not that difficult, if you ask me.

Daphne's about to lose it.

I am so tired of US politics. I live in Canada, and am damn proud that I'm not American, and these horrendous elections are just one example of why I think the US is self-important and over the top.

Suffice it to say that I feel that pretty much everything surrounding the US presidential election is as flashy and over the top. I'm not going to write much more about it, because really, I'm Canadian. It's their country (thank god, not mine), they can rah-rah as much as they want.

I'm just really tired of hearing it all the time. I've blogged before about how obsessed my husband has been about this election that is not ours, and it seems that, despite my best hopes, he's getting MORE interested in it as time goes on. I don't know how much more I can take of it - I'm now reading in bed at night with my iPod on so I can drown out the noise of the TV in the other room. I'm going mental.

I can see that my husband is clearly addressing me, but all I can hear is "Wwah wwah wwah Obama. Wwah wwah wwah Clinton. Wwah wwah wwah election wwah wwah McCain."
I Don't Care. Please stop trying to make me. I don't care if Obama's wife spoke well, or if Clinton's supporting him enough, or if McCain really is just Bush again.
I DON'T CARE.

It's not even just that it doesn't interest me - it goes beyond a general disinterest. It actually makes me angry. Why can't he be obsessed with something less irritating - like collecting figurines or speaking in Vulcan? ANYTHING would be better than this.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I miss the days when he'd watch wrestling or UFC and try to explain to me why the 'story behind the story' is what's interesting. Those were the days...

I should try harder (and slower) at learning

Today, I relearned a valuable lesson, for the 10th time (which probably means I should try harder at learning)

Do not try to things quickly, because you will mess them up

It was 10:15. I had a meeting set for 10:30 and an announcement to send out first, and I had to pee. I thought, I'll send this announcement out quickly, then pee, and still have time to get back to my desk before my meeting. I'm so good.

First, I sent the announcement to our admin (who asked me to distribute it) with a little message at the top saying "hey Mel, I put it in the Message from the President template and fixed the second line. I'll send it out to everyone now. ~Daph."

Then, I sent the same announcement - with the message to Mel at the top - out to the whole company.

I run to the bathroom and come back to find Mel and the President's EA looking for me - not a good sign. They told me what happend and I felt like such an arse. I guess it could have been worse - at least I didn't swear or say something inappropriate about the President or something.

Oh, and also, the Recall Message thing in Outlook doesn't work. Everyone in the company recieved my original message, a recall message, and the new message - and could view all 3 of them. If it doesn't actually recall the message, then what the hell's the point??

Adventures in editing

We have 3 newsletters at my job, which I manage. I write two of them myself, and the third is our employee newsletter - we have an editorial board who do most of the writing, and I'm the executive editor.

We have a new board member who was to write about our new defibrillators, since she's also on the Health & Safety committee. She submitted her article to me on Monday with this email:

this kinda sucks but i've just been insanely busy-promise better results
next time
your the best !!!!!

Shudder. This is a punctuation nightmare. And, I'm the best WHAT? Oh, I see, you mean "you're the best." Shudder.

So I open the attachment entititled "Defribrilators" - great. You left out one L and added a superfluous R. Perfect. This is going to be good, I can tell. The 'article' she submitted is below. I say 'article' because everything but the first paragraph was copied and pasted verbatum from an announcement that was sent out two weeks ago. Sorry, that's not fair. She did change it somewhat. She copied and pasted it, then messed with the font, and screwed with punctuation and spacing for no apparent reason. Oh, and she changed "fool-proof" to "idiot proof" - nice. What I love most is that she starts the article off by reminding our readers of a fellow employee who died of a heart attack at a work conference 10 years ago. Way to get their attention by hitting them in the face.

Without further ado, here's what she submitted. I think I'll highlight a few glaring issues, just for fun.

__________________________________________

AUTOMATED EXTERNAL DEFRIBRILLATORS (ya, that's not spelled correctly.
That's why there's a wavy red line under it.)


Had debrillators (What?!) been available at the conference years ago Mike Lenucci might still be with us .But they were not and he is not.

An AED is used to treat the most common causes of sudden cardiac arrest where the heart stops pumping. When used correctly, the AED automatically analyzes the heart rhythm to determine if a shock is required. If it is, the AED sends a shock
across the heart to reactivate the heart. The use of this device in conjunction with CPR can be repeated until emergency medical services arrive.

A few weeks ago Our Company made the investment of several defribillator (this was spelled correctly in the announcement she took it from) units to be made available on each floor. Training was provided to select employees as to how to employ these units.But training was not essential since these 1 use only units are virtually idiot proof.They will not generate a charge if a heartbeat is detected or if the unit is not placed on the torso properly .Each are easily accessible on all OurCompany (there should be a space between those words) floors The following first Aiders have completed AED training and are your primary resource for using these
devices:

***********
***********
***********
***********
Training for the remaining First Aiders will be completed over the next few months.

AED's have been installed at the following locations: ***********, ***********,
*********** .


Please feel free to contact anyone on the Joint Health and Safety committee for any further information.

__________________________________________

Awesome. Just awesome. I'm so glad she joined our editorial board. Now I can look forward to rewriting her articles every month. Yay!

I could rip my face off!

I haven't posted in ages... sorry. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Last Tuesday I started getting some sort of allergic reaction to something unknown (I have no allergies... that I know of) and spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights hopped up on Benadryl, which knocks me out. I had to work still, but my face and neck were so itchy I could rip my skin off. To make matters worse, my left cheek swelled up like crazy and was so red it looked like I got punched in the face. Awesome. Itchy *and* abused.


So now I'm down to just a few itchy welts on my neck, which Reactine helps a lot. Bloody hell. I really don't know what the problem is, but it sucks. My in-laws stayed with us Saturday night, so they had the Sunday morning Indian show on the TV. The horoscope guy (who, according to my mother-in-law, is "always right!") said that Sagittarians should watch out for allergic reactions, especially to seafood. Creepy, right? Now, I've never had an allergy to seafood before, and in fact, me and seafood are close friends (if by 'friends' I mean that I love them and eat them and that's good for me but bad for them).

I had shrimp twice last week. I swear to god, If I've developed an allergy to shrimp, I might as well just die now. It would be that horrible.

A friend of mine developed an allergy to chocolate sometime in her teen years - previously, she had been a chocaholic. The allergy got so bad that she didn't just get itchy welts, her throat started to swell up. So she had to stop eating the most perfect of all foods, or she could die. It was terrible. Then, miraculously, the universe righted itself nearly 15 years later. She had allergy testing done before she went on her honeymoon, and found that her allergy was gone! Needless to say, she called up the bakery making her wedding cake and promptly changed her order from boring ol' white to chocolate truffle. MMmm. it was gooood.

Anyway, her chocoate miracle aside, I CAN NOT BE ALLERGIC TO SHRIMP. I'm hoping it was a new moisturizer that I had been using for a few days before the flare up. Or a short-lived bout of the plague or something. Once my neck is entirely back to normal, I'll have to throw some more shrimps on the barbie (well, on the George Foreman, since I live in a condo) and test it out again. With a big box of Benalyn nearby, just in case.

Hump Day.

A couple of quick things:

I had another baby dream last night. At least this time I wasn't actually 'me' in my dream - I was someone else who had adopted a Chinese baby.
This dream didn't freak me out as much - first, because it wasn't actually me. Second, because I know why I had the dream - I was watching America's Got Talent (actually, my husband was watching it, but I watched about 5 minutes worth. I don't know why he loves 'reality' TV so much) and there was a segment on this adopted Chinese girl who is a contortionist.

Anyway, I'm really REALLY counting down until I know I'm not pregnant. Good lord - this has been the longest month ever!

On a different topic, I wonder why it is that working with the IT department to get something done is always such a bloody ordeal. It doesn't seem to matter what company you're at, the IT team is always the same. I've been asking for a folder on a public server since March to complete a re-vamp of our communications here. All I need is a folder where I can house documents so I can link to them within communications to staff. That's it. A folder on a server. And here I am, FOUR MONTHS LATER still chasing them down, and now they're trying to set me up with a SharePoint site instead of getting me a simple folder - which is much more complicated than it needs to be.

All I need is a folder!!! With write-privileges!

Why is this so difficult?
UGh.
I'm going to lunch.

Half "Baked"

We went to a wedding in Stratford on Saturday, and before we drove back to TO yesterday, we stopped at Tim Horton's for a bit of breakfast. We decided to try out their new hasbrowns.

Generally, I'm a big fan of Tim Horton's. I worked there as a cake decorator through highschool and most of University, and, for the most part I love the food.

But I have to say how incredibly unimpressed I am with the new hashbrowns. They were soggy and peppery, and decidedly un-delicious. Even my husband, who will eat anything made from potato (especially if it's fried), didn't finish his because it was so vile. My husband opted out of hashbrowns. That's something I thought I'd never say. I hope they're a limited time thing, because yuck.

Also, one last little beef before I get some work done (after all, I am at work...).

QUIT MARKETING EVERYTHING AS 'BAKED' - AS THOUGH IT'S A HEALTHIER OPTION! We all know that the hashbrowns, along with the donuts, were fried first at the factory, then flash frozen and shipped to the stores where they were 'baked' for 3 minutes just to thaw and warm them.

WE'RE NOT MORONS! We know that there's no such thing as a baked hashbrown or donut! We'll eat them despite knowing they're fried - but please, just be honest! Better still, JUST DON'T TELL US HOW THEY'RE MADE! We won't be angry - we don't want to know how much butter is in that butter croissant, we just want to eat it. Don't tell us!

Ok. That's a lot of ALLCAPS for one morning. Off to work.

How 'bout we try, "were"

I was listening to the radio on my commute today, and okay, I know that I'm a grammar nazi. I also know (and accept) that some people use poor grammar because they don't know any better, or because it's a regionally accepted convention. Fine.

But hey, New Kids on the Block! We all know you come from upper middle class families in Boston - not some ghetto where you weren't taught to conjugate the verb "to be".

"You wasn't looking for a man"
"As long as we was together"

Honestly, the song wouldn't be half bad (certainly not musical genius, but hummable, if forgettable) if it weren't for the awful lyrics. I just can't get past it.

Quit trying to sound like you're younger and more 'raw' than you are. You just look like tools.

Your Keywords: Disappointed and Confused

It's a sad day for Daphne's iPod.



When I worked in Insurance Hell, I started downloading a variety of CBC podcasts to listen to on the subway. I quickly became hooked on SearchEngine. What an insightful, current and decidedly un-geeky program! I love that it's about current events but doesn't feel like the news.



Since I started working at the Publisher, I haven't been listening to podcasts so much. My drive is only about 20 minutes, so it's almost not worth hooking my iPod up in the car. I don't listen to them at work - just music while I write and edit.



Anyway, I'm starting to get tired of the radio (hearing the same damn songs from 7:45 - 8:05 and 4:50 - 5:20 every day gets a little wearing) so on Monday I decided to go back to the CBC site and download the Search Engine and other podcasts I've missed.



I listened to the "keywords" of the podcast for June 19: "Jim Prentice unlocked, small town cyberwars, and the last episode of Search Engine....vol.1 "



WHAT? Last episode of Search Engine?? But it's such a great show! It's received awards; it's listened to internationally; it makes me happy! It won't return in September in the form I know and love.... and I'm just not optimistic about the new format. I don't listen to other shows regularly, so the little snippets of SE stories that will apparently be included on other programs will not be very helpful to me. And while I'll no doubt continue to listen to Jesse's new 'raw and off the cuff' podcast, well, it just won't be the same.

Not a happy girl.

Why does it seem like my in-laws are hell-bent set against letting us sleep in? We have spent the last 4 EFFING weekends in London due to family birthdays and anniversaries, which has been really, really wearing on us. We get no weekend - we spend the whole time driving back and forth to London and chasing our neices and nephews around.

Fine. So April has been a wash - nothing we can do about that. Birthdays are birthdays, and April is always going to be like that. Fine.

So yesterday was my brother-in-law's birthday, and since they live in the GTA, the London side is driving up here today for a BBQ. Awesome - a Toronto weekend, even though it's a family weekend. We went out for dinner with them last night and were saying how excited we are to sleep in today - we don't have to set our alarms, we don't have to get up early. Wooo.

So, guess who calls at 9:30???? My sister-in-law. "Oh, you weren't sleeping, were you?" "Well, I woke up about 5 minutes ago" (But was trying to fall back asleep). "Oh, I'm so sorry... did the phone wake my brother up?" I look over. "Yes, looks like it." "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it isn't 10:00" (since when is 10:00 ok, even? Though it's better than 9:30, it's still too early to call, since she knew how much we were looking forward to sleeping in) There was a pregnant pause while she expected her brother to pick up the phone, despite the fact that she just woke him up unnessesarily. "Um, can I have him call you back when he's up?" "Oh... yeah okay. Sure."

Right. So you're not actually sorry you called us early, effectively ending the only sleep-in opportunity we've had for freaking ages.

My other sister-in-law used to do this all the time, and when my husband says, "Uggh, it's 8:00 on a Sunday. Why are you calling now - I'm sleeping" she'd say, sarcastically, "Oh, I'm sorry. I don't get to sleep in - I have two kids. I'm always up now" As though her choice to have two unruly children who have no concept of discipline is cause to make our mornings miserable. Like, we should pay for her not sleeping. That seems to have ended though, after my husband suggested that he start calling her at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, because , "oh, I always work late - I don't get to go to bed early. I'm always up now." She was appalled and responded with something like, "No! You can't do that, you'll wake the girls up!" Exactly.
I think that hit home a bit.

My rule: Unless it's an emergency, or you absolutely know we're up (like, we have to be over at your house at 11, or something), NOTHING BEFORE NOON. It's not like we're sleeping until noon, but maybe we'd like to have a morning without talking to our families every once in a while. Perhaps we, as a still newly-married couple, would like to spend our morning in bed, or having a nice, quiet breakfast, or reading, or ANYTHING ELSE that doesn't involve listening to you bitch about something.

Great, now I'm starting out my Saturday grumpy. And the TTC is on strike. And it grey and ugly out. Great.

Update on the "the facebook status incident"

I showed the status to one of the managers who is actually a 'work-friend' of the evil woman's. Even he said 'wow, what a bitch!' when he saw it. He then went in to speak with her about it, and she altered her status slightly so it wasn't *totally* a Daphne-bash.

She then sent me this facebook message:

re: My Status...

Was not referring to you. It was referring to the recruitment process.
~She-bitch

To which I replied:

Glad to hear it. After hearing what you said very loudly to the MarketingManager on Tuesday to the effect of "I never thought she was that great anyway - I won't miss her," I'm sure you can understand why I took it personally.
~Daphne

"Them's fightin' words, Daphne!" said mutual-friend manager.
Damn right. I'm tired of the bullshit, and if I can't say what I think now, after I've already quit, well, when can I?

We haven't spoken since the incident. I don't miss her.

It's like bizarro world

So there's a potential new writer here doing a writing test.

I went on to Facebook, and saw this status update from the bitchiest manager:

She-Bitch is hoping we'll find someone who can actually write!!!!

Thanks so much. I hope you do too. And that he/she then quits because you're a cow.
I've saved a screenshot of that, and plan to take it to my exit interview. Just one more reason that this place is toxic. I almost want to go in and warn that poor guy, in there, writing away, oblivious to the bullshit... for now..


Another weird thing this morning. Ben, one of my old colleagues (one of the former Communicator's Corner here in Insurance Hell, who was unceremoniously laid off in October) messaged me to tell me he was contacted about my job opening - wondering if he was available still! He got an email from HR, and a phonecall! And the message said something like, "funny how things turn out sometimes... but anyway, wondering if you're available." Ben's answer was officially, "no, thank you," but to me he said, "HELL NO!" Why the hell is HR asking Ben to come back? There's no way my boss knew about that - no way in hell. I told the MediaManager about it and he's like, What? I wonder if Boss2 knows??

Bizarro world.

K. Off to mail off my signed offer letter. yay me :P

Aftermath

I said before that I wonder if being hired with 3 others was a positive thing for me or negative. On the positive, I had 'allies', so to speak. On the negative, I was lumped in and probably didn't try as hard as I would have if it were me alone.

I think today I saw what my career at Job2 could be, and it's not all bad. I've never had more people come in to see how I am - ever- and just to talk to me as a peer. All of a sudden, I feel respected as I definitely have not been before. People see me as a survivor, or, as Job1'sPresident said, I'm a 'go-forward employee'. I think this is really my time to grow and prove myself - If I want to.

Was I so dissatisfied before because I was underutilized, under stimulated, and simply unhappy with the managers versus the 'new writers' atmosphere? Probably that played a big role. I certainly don't like the insurance industry any more today than I did yesterday morning, but I think I can certainly be be more content with things as they are now.

I do feel terrible that my success and satisfaction had to come at the expense of three very good people's jobs. I don't know to what extent their firings were 'out of Boss2's hands' and how much hinged on their actual ability in the job. I never really saw their work so I can't judge that, nor would I want to. But even MediaMan today told me that they simply weren't getting it. I don't know exactly what he meant by that, but the opposite was implied; I do get it, apparently. I hope that's true, because I don't wish the team any ill. I don't want them to find they've made the wrong choice and that they should have kept Ben or whoever.

I'm seeing this as an opportunity to start fresh. Old habits I had that were products of both my apathy and the foursome mentality are now wiped clean. I am now Daphne the Communications Officer instead of "One of the new writers."

The only issue remaining is whether I really want this job. And I suppose that remains to be seen.