good people dealing with bullshit ... why is life so damn unfair?

I had dinner with a dear friend on Thursday night. This woman is one of the kindest, most honest people I know. She loves her job and never loses sight that her job is in the service of college students, no matter how frustrating their behavior may be sometimes!

She is having trouble at work thanks to a supervisor who is clueless about the job she does, but he's throwing his weight around as an "office manager." She's been at the job four years longer than he has ... I think the only reason she was not/can not be promoted to a position of authority is the fact her college degree was not earned on U.S. soil and although it's called a B.S. or B.A., it's really not in the eyes of the college she works for,

For as long as she's held the job, her start time and hours were from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. That *hour* for lunch she seldom took in its entirety; the students needed her and she is pretty much always available. She never leaves work at 5:30. I can't think of a single time she's met me in the parking lot at 5:30 ... if she's working with a student, she finishes that exchange.

Her new boss, on the job for a year, has never said anything to her about her work hours being any different. But last month, he wrote her up for being "late" and deducted time from her timesheet. She was always careful to make up that missed time: if she came in ten minutes late, she stayed ten minutes later.

His main bitch: She was consistently 30 minutes late from her start time of 8 a.m.! She had no idea she was supposed to be at work at 8—AND said supervisor never verbally counseled her, but rather kept notes and confronted her with a written warning about tardiness.

This woman does not deserve such treatment!

Why is it when small insecure people get into "power" they do stuff like this? I have a feeling he's trying to look *tough* and protective toward the college, making sure every employee gives good value for their wage. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is forgetting you are dealing with human beings ... and how important it is to foster a sense of teamwork and openness at work.

My friend has yet to pull her union into this. I am not a fan of unions but this is why people pay dues: when they are treated unfairly, the union is supposed to be her advocate. I also told her that if her hours are 8 to 5, then she needs to start work at 8 and walk out the door at 5:01. Never mind if there are students waiting for her assistance. Let her boss deal with the students' complaints. Maybe he will be forced to learn her job ... maybe he will understand the nature of working for a college. It's there for education and not pissing matches.

Obviously doing a good job and caring about said job is really not important anymore.

Musings on What’s Wrong with the World

It’s tough to be positive sometimes the way things work in the early 21^st century. I really try to live the motto “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.” I smile at cops. I hold my tongue when people I know and care about do silly, selfish things. I try very hard to keep my promises, even pushing my poor crippled back past its point of tolerance.

Which brings me to today’s bitchfest. I’ve been waiting for THREE months for approval on a procedure on my back which will allow me to walk more than half a block and not have to take pain medication every six hours (needing it more often than that, but ever-mindful of my family’s history of drug abuse). A couple of weeks ago, I received a denial notice in the mail. Why was the procedure denied? Because my doctor, a man with 30 years of experience in delicate spinal surgery, did not chart the specifics of how improved I was after the procedure. Nope, it’s not enough for him to say “She’s better and has less pain” after the rhizotomy. He’s supposed to go into a narration of specifics—for example, “When her back doesn’t hurt so bad, she can drive or sit in a car for more than five minutes without pain,” or “When her back doesn’t hurt so bad, she prefers to take the light rail to work and walk a couple of blocks to the office” or “When her back is better, she can go for 12 to 16 hours without needing pain medication.”

Because he failed to do that, some physician who has never met me has ruled I don’t need the procedure. Furthermore, this same god has ruled that narcotics for pain is bad, bad, bad, and that I should not take them, and that I need to be drug tested to make sure I’m not buying anything on the street or having multiple doctors write multiple prescriptions, or using multiple pharmacies.

This crap is a result of new worker’s compensation law here in California, something I voted for and still am in favor of. There was so much abuse in worker’s comp when I was hurt and worked in the industry in the mid-1990s. But taking a case that has been settled since 1996 and deciding someone with a back that’s been cut on three times is NOT in need of treatment or medication is taking things a bit far.

I have not yet had the energy to fight back yet.

Bitchfest #2: attorneys. They are all that is wrong with the world.

Don’t get me wrong. Some perform very necessary functions, like estate planning or prosecutors or defense attorneys to protect the public or wrongly accused individuals. Imagine this: what if everyone managed to live by “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you,” and we were kind and honest and ethical toward each other? And by “ethical” I don’t mean lawyer ethics, because those aren’t anything close to the ethics I believe are in the Bible. I guess if lawyers went by biblical ethics, defense attorneys could not defend their clients by shifting blame to others.

Attorneys run around wielding power and threatening action against people who have different beliefs than they do. There are some who choose to blog and share their own rants and irrational thoughts, and go on to read other people’s blogs and threaten the writer if they write something the attorney disagrees with. Many love to toss the terms “libel” and “slander” about to silence people who disagree with them.

I guess what ties these two thoughts together is truthfulness. Just be truthful … treat people the way you want them to treat you. If you disagree strongly with someone’s opinion, don’t threaten to hurt them physically or legally. Unless it’s life or death (and it seldom is, really), just shrug and forget about it. Don’t lie about the person whose opinion you disagree with to make yourself feel superior. Throwing around terms like “You are an uneducated trailer trash bitch,” or “You are stupid and delusional” are childlike and show a lack of rational thought.

Chose your battles carefully. And let people fight their own battles.

And to end this with something positive: in the race for California senator, a fiscal conservative, Tom Campbell, is polling ahead of the incumbent Barbara Boxer. I pray there are enough intelligent Californians who understand that today’s fragile economy is the most important thing we are dealing with, and that the democrat’s answer of “tax and spend” simply doesn’t work. It’s time government enjoyed some serious belt-tightening, and that elected officials start living like “regular” people and not elected royalty with bottomless pockets!

So frustrating ...

For a brief period of time in the mid-1990s, when my surgically-repaired back was as good as it was ever going to be, I worked as a worker's compensation case management nurse for nearly two years. I was hired because I myself was an injured worker, having been injured on April 25, 1989 at Soledad Prison. I destroyed my back one night while keeping an inmate from flopping off a gurney onto the floor. I should have let him flop—when we arrived at the hospital, the ER physician quickly determined the inmate had been faking his seizures. I'd just completed an 8-hour shift with two inmates having uncontrolled seizures. Part of the treatment standard was to put their mattresses on the floor so they couldn't hurt themselves. But I'd have to squat or kneel every time I needed to re-medicate one of those men. At the end of my shift, and as the medical crew declined into a skeleton crew consisting of LVNs only, it was decided to transfer the seizing inmates to Salinas. I took what was thought to be the most unstable one.

Long story short, by the end of that 14-hour workday, my back was destroyed and my career as a bedside nurse was over.

It took eight months (and three physicians) to get a proper diagnosis and 10 months to have the first surgery. From April 1989 to early 1995, my life was consumed by surgeries, recoveries from surgeries, physical therapy. I honestly don't have a good sense of what was happening in the world at that time.

While I was working in worker's comp case management, I came to a conclusion about injured workers. They either are or they are not, and the ones who are not injured are the most troublesome. I had several clients who just did not act right, who claimed they were unable to do certain things after their "accident." We had a plague of deli workers at Nob Hill grocery store who "fell" and injured their backs. It was nearly impossible to get those people back to work. I had another client who claimed he could not raise his arm over his head following a shoulder dislocation and repair by a physician in Santa Cruz. I talked the carrier into a repeat surgery, this time by a doctor associated with the SF 49ers, thinking this injured worker would be impressed by this doctor's results with football players. Well, the guy had the surgery and claimed he was no better. I felt he was bogus, and he was surveilled and found to be repairing cars while drawing temporary total disability pay.

My back injury is long settled, and I am supposed to have lifetime care on my back. Sounds good, and when I get that treatment, it's great because I don't see a bill. But every since the worker's compensation overhaul we've had here in California—something I supported and voted for—it's been hell to get treatment.

Right now what is happening to me is a consequence of a two-level low lumbar fusion. The vertebra immediately above the fusion are not designed to bear the weight they do, nor are they designed to function like the lowest two vertebra. I'm having what is called facet disease, and according to my doctor, it's coming right on time, 15+ years after the fusion (fusion was in 1992). The treatment is pain medication and something called a rhizotomy, which is simply locating the offending nerves that are causing the pain and zapping them with an electrical current. Then I'm good to go, the pain is less, and I don't need to take as much pain medication orally.

After waiting three months for approval, I got a notice in the mail that the procedure was denied because my doctor had failed to document in specific ways how I improve after a procedure. It's not enough that he says it's so anymore. So I dashed off an e-mail and described what I do when a rhizotomy is working, and how I feel when it's not working, and the impact on my life.

And for some reason, the worker's comp carrier thinks I should not be having narcotic medications to treat pain. Huh? It's prehistoric thinking like that which will drive patients to do maladaptive things ... drink, acquire and abuse street drugs. I honestly don't know what to do if my doctor stops prescribing pain meds for me. I am very responsible with them; I don't mix alcohol with them, and I take them when I need them, or try to put off taking them.

So in a nutshell, when a neurotomy is on board and working, I can walk up to a mile and sit at my desk for hours, working. I can take the light rail to work and enjoy the three-block walk from the station to the job. I can do light housework and not be in immediate pain.

The consequences of not having the procedure: I do not sleep well, I wake in the middle of the night in severe pain and it takes up to two hours for the medication to work. I have my daughter drive me to work on those days I need to work onsite. I cannot work more than 4 hours, and need to take a pain med while at work because the chairs are so crummy.

I need an attorney to take on the fight and remind State Fund that we agreed on this years ago and they need to hold up their end of the bargain.

If I have to wait another three months for this, I may well be driven to drink.

Seems like I've dropped off the face of the earth ...

It sure does seem as if it's been forever since I've done any fun writing for myself. I've been blessed with a bunch of work, greatly appreciated, and between that work and still waiting for the Worker's Comp carrier to give its blessing for treatment (they hope I die in the meantime, unfortunately for them what I have isn't fatal ... directly anyway) I've neglected sharing any random thoughts.

I am trying to be a bit better about going to my internal medicine doc. I don't like going to the doctor. I have insurance, but I just think what a waste of money to have to go at least four times a year, mostly for lab work because of statin therapy for familial high cholesterol. Strange though, I've been getting what could be perceived as good news at my last two visits.

At my November visit, the scale, never my friend, revealed a 17-pound weight loss from the last time I'd been seen, a tick less than a year previously. It hasn't yet equated to a full drop in clothing size, but stuff hangs on me. At my full physical 10 days ago, the scale said I'd lost another four pounds... that is over the Christmas holiday, without extraordinary effort.

In part the weight loss is due to scary low income. There have been times I have one "meal" a day which might consist of ramen noodles and cheese, and a glass of milk. College student fare, and if it keeps them going, I guess it's good enough for me. Combined with the stress of slow work and pain, I'm just not hungry.

We've also switched to nonfat milk and I do not drink carbonated beverages at all, not even the diet stuff. I don't know if weight loss is all that easy, but imagine how nicely a weight loss might progress with an increase in exercise?

I can hardly wait! This time, I will be rid of my "fat clothes" as soon as I possibly can!

Yay for work!

There is nothing that feels as good as having work, being productive, using the skills that God and a good education gave you and allowed you to develop, and learning new things from students to boot.

'Twas a good day today. Maybe 2010 will indeed be a better year?

Holiday depression crap

As I get older, I dislike the holidays more. Not because I don't like or believe in the reason for the season—I know that over two thousand years ago, a remarkable man was born mortal but under extraordinary circumstances, and that this man had gifts and abilities that we have not had on this planet since. Unfortunately I don't think we remember this is why we have this holiday, and it's become something else, a time of reflection I suppose.

Today my daughter left open her Facebook page to her cousin, my deceased sister's daughter. I do not consider this young woman to be my niece, but it's her choice. She has totally embraced my deceased father's widow and her family as her family—something I cannot do. This girl posted a bunch of Christmas photos taken with my father's widow and her children. It was like a stab to the heart. They celebrated the holiday in the huge house my father built his second wive; it's a 4 or 5 bedroom home, and it was built for the two of them, plus plenty of extra bedrooms for "visiting family." My father has been dead longer than he was married to this woman, yet she continues to live like a queen, and her daughters continue to benefit from their mother's good fortune to marry an older man who fortunately for her, died and left a crummy will.

I look at those photos of that house and see no sign that my father lived there. The furniture is not what was there when he was alive, except for the ebony baby grand piano that no one is able to play. There were gifts strewn about everywhere. Everyone is wearing nice clothes.

When I was a kid, my father was quite thrifty, and drummed it into my head that we were sacrificing for the future, that he in his old age would not want for anything and that his children would have his investments to help them to live comfortably long after he was gone. I believed everything my father said. I did what he asked. I did not report him to the cops when he hit me when I was a teenager, convinced I was a slut (believe me I wasn't). When my father remarried, his new wife was quite a bit younger than he, and I was warned by a co-worker that she was a golddigger, out for the money. But what could I do about it? Nothing.

Her three daughters became his perfect new family. He took them on vacations to Mexico, Hawaii, and places I don't know about. Vacations we did not take when I was a kid because we were sacrificing for the future. They had designer clothes; we had mail-order clothes from Spiegel. They had anything they wanted; when I was a kid we couldn't afford it.

One constant was the promise that there would be a piece of property for each of my paternal grandparent's grandkids—that promise had been made by my grandparents, understood by my father and uncle. But my dad kept stalling, saying he needed to transfer the property in the most beneficial manner tax-wise. A couple of years before he became ill, we decided on which lot he would deed to me, and I had house plans drawn up. My father knew I wanted to have a place to keep horses. My dad had also had numerous conversations with me regarding his estate, his wishes, and how I was to be executor even though I wasn't so crazy about the idea.

He wanted his widow to have income from certain investments, and I agreed that was the right thing to do. However, there were certain real estate investments he wanted held in trust to benefit his heirs, and that included an apartment complex, mobile home park, the 350+ acre ranch owned by my family from before my birth, the house I grew up in and the house he built to be held in trust.

Long story short, that's not what happened, and I had to endure my father's widow telling the cops that I'd made a death threat against her while his last-minute non-attorney written will was being probated. It was easier for me to leave the area rather than deal with her threats and accusations. She lives on $12K a month, most of that from his investments and his social security benefits. I am having a good month if I earn $3K. Usually it is quite less than that.

While my father was alive, I never asked him for money. My siblings did. I should have gotten a piece of the pie while he was still alive; I'd have at least gotten something. As it is, I don't have the promised acreage, and my beloved horses are gone. I thank my father for his cruelty and mind-fucking abilities daily. (note sarcasm)

It's not healthy to wish ill on someone. It's also not healthy for a kid, even if that kid is an adult, to not be able to remember one truthful thing a parent has said to her. But I cannot help wish that somehow something my father said would become the truth. I look at those photos and feel a hollow emptiness toward my father that is not healthy, and his widow has done her level best to keep me feeling that way.

Someday her lies will come back on her, and she will be made to face up to her greed and cruelty, if not this life, the next. And my sister's daughter hopefully never needs her mother's blood family for any reason.

Patriot Rally (there are good people in this world!) and more on the community college thing

The rally was held at San José's Discovery Park. Yes that's the World's Largest Monopoly game board. The light rail station is at the back.

I wish I had photos to share, but I spent a nice fall afternoon with about 200 like-minded patriots who came together to talk about the plight of the San Joaquin Valley farmers who have had their water turned off because two environmental experts said that irrigation was bad for the delta smelt, a pretty worthless little bait fish.

So to keep the delta smelt happy, the water that farmers need for their orchards and fields has been shut off. And for the most part, democrats in Sacramento and Washington have utterly ignored this whole issue.

Small towns in the Central Valley are dying. Some are suffering a near 50 percent unemployment rate. Fourteen percent of the produce we eat in the U.S. comes from the Central Valley. When farmers cannot farm, they cannot employ farmworkers, let alone taken care of their own families.

There was no media coverage in this overwhelming liberal area. I’m not surprised one bit

The Patriot movement isn’t about Republican or Democrat. It’s about upholding what the U.S. constitution says. It’s about less government intrusion. There were conservative independents, Republicans and Libertarians at the rally.

Why the media insists on calling this gathering of people “teabaggers” (and then they snicker at the double meaning like Beavis and Butthead) is beyond me. All these people really are is a gathering of individuals who remember what a great place America can be, and want to restore this nation to prosperous times based on sound economic principles.

My mother joked and said I was too old to go protest, and then reminded me not to resist arrest. Not a cop in sight and some members of the group walked around the park and picked up garbage that had been there before we were! I parked my car at the light rail station and rode the 3 miles into downtown.

Back to the community college thing …

One of the local televisions stations presented a two-part report about how mismanaged the community college district’s funds have been since August 2005. I watched in disbelief as I learned that things were worse than what I knew about! The reporter showed a large table full of documents, all public information and there for the asking, and started weaving his story.

In August 2005 the District had $14 million in the bank. Today, it’s cutting programs left and right, firing employees, cancelling classes. All while the chancellor, who is on leave of absence until the first of the year (and who will retire on June 30), is earning $300K a year, has a travel and expense account, yet still is reimbursed for coffee and Mentos! Yes, she asked for reimbursement for a pack of Mentos! I presume she did receive the money back, too.

I knew she did lots of traveling. When I first started doing some of the PIO job, I was informed as to her availability, for how long she was gone, and at first, where she was. I didn’t know about the Scotland thing in until the news report.

I’m not even going to get into sexuality and race here. Any person of any race or sexual orientation could have done what was done in this case. The community college district paid for a membership to an exclusive club called the Capitol Club, $5K for the chancellor, and I presume her life partner and the two community college presidents. There was a receipt for a $1200 dinner at said Capitol Club.

She promoted her life partner into jobs she was minimally if at all qualified for. I very nearly applied for a job working for this person, but there was a little voice in my head that said “Don’t do it. The great state benefits are not worth what you will go through. No one else can work with this woman. You get along with her now but every day … maybe not.”

As it is, that department is probably no more and I’d be unemployed again.

I think what bugs me most is how flawed my thinking was when I accepted the contract job. I could have charged up to $150 an hour for my services. Seriously, that was the going rate. But I felt that any dime not spent on me would be spent on students. Boy was I wrong! Any dime not spent on me was spent on travel!

I think of two marketing pieces I wrote trying to persuade employees to sign up to make automatic payroll deductions to the SJECCD Foundation “for students.” I went looking for heartwarming student stories, convinced people to give money so those students could get an education and give back to the community. What I was really doing was unwittingly stealing from those good people. I had no idea that their donated money would be used for recruitment trips to Thailand (where they didn’t recruit one single student!) and a trip to Scotland to see a K-12 program (That’s not higher education, why do college administrators need to study K-12? Anyone?).

If I were still working there, I'd have written those pieces about two weeks ago.

Watch the reports for yourself. Tell me you aren’t angry about it, even if you don’t live in the Bay Area.

Chancellor's lavish spending questioned

Chancellor's lavish spending went beyond travel