Take This Job and Shove It -7

By November, I began to develop chest pains.

This was not a good sign.

It felt as if there was a heavy brick sitting on my chest at all times. And it got worse when I got a call or an email or Blackberry message.

Even if I saw a Blackberry.

Somebody else’s Blackberry even!

Somebody stop the red light from blinking!!

I felt it even on New Years Eve at a party.

This is just not healthy.

It’s time to take care of Blue Shoes Manhattan and tell them to…

… Take this job and shove it.

Once I did,

The chest pains were gone.

Tazmanian Devil

I don’t understand it, but I can walk into a spotless apartment and within five minutes, it looks like it’s been robbed.

Why is this?

And there’s no one there but me.

I’m the one that did it.

No one else.

I’d like to be able to blame it on someone or the dog or something. But I live alone.

Without a dog.

Damn.

How can one little person create such a mess?

What’s up with that?

As I walk through, clean in front of me, I turn and look behind me. It’s as if a tornado passed behind me as I walked.

Once I’m through, the place is trashed.

And guess who has to clean it up?

Really?

Take This Job and Shove It-6

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Ugh!

Fever.

Sweats.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Getting emergency calls from all over the territory. Got like 15 requests in a couple of days time.

I was freakin’ starting to lose my shit.

How could I be expected to work when I felt so sick? Why couldn’t I have a couple of sick days? Is this how it works when you work from home? Well or ill, you work?

And how can I be expected to take planes to these towns in a couple of days? How do I make it stop?

It’s not like a regular job. You’re sick. You stay home and watch TV for a couple of days until your fever goes down. Then you drag your sorry ass to work and shlep for the rest of the week.

No. Me? In order for me to go back to work, I have to take a flight to the Podunk town and hope I can fix whatever fucokta problem these people are having. No shlepping for me. No. I can’t just take the friggin’ subway to work, I have to take a plane!

As I lied in bed in my puddle of shvitz, I thought more and more about these things. And I really started to freak out.

Take This Job and Shove It-5

The last time I’d spoken to my boss we had talked about a company meeting on the west coast. That I didn’t mind. But I also needed to be back in New York early the following day. How was I going to be at both places? She wanted me to take the red eye night before. Now, I tried the red eye a couple of months ago. I really didn’t like didn’t like it. It actually made me a little crazy. Because it’s late. You’re tired. The lights are off and everyone’s sleeping on the plane. But me! There’s no good position to be in to sleep. Then, I’m good for nothing the next day. I just slept all day from not sleeping all night.

When my boss “suggested” I take the red eye, it made me very upset. Why couldn’t I just leave the west coast earlier? No. That was not an option. It really pissed me off.

It may have been the last straw.

Take This Job and Shove It -4

I thought it would get better.

It didn’t.

I thought that once I became more experienced it would get easier.

It didn’t.

I thought I’d give it a year and then quit.

But then I got the flu.

I was feeling pretty horrible. My boss knew I was sick. But the Blackberry kept buzzing and blinking and the phone continued ringing. I had fever and sweats. Blackberry beside me. I became more and more ill with each vibration.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

I turned the phone over and turned on ‘silent’. Every couple of hours I would turn it back over.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Yipes!

Blink. Blink. Blink.

No!

I looked at the mail. It was growing.

Oh no!

Turn it back over.

I was sick. I couldn’t keep up.