I'm weak

Wow. Rough day. Good thing I started this blog last night! The only good thing about today is that I don't have to be into work at 7am tomorrow... I can lounge around until 8! I'm in so much pain right now, I'd go to the ER if I thought they could do anything to help. Of course, I do have some vicodin, which I'll take if I can't sleep, but I hate taking it because it makes me super nauseous (that word is so hard to spell) and last time I took it it didn't even make the pain any better!! I should go to sleep soon, but I thought I'd update first, since it was such a noteworthingly bad day (as in, it was worthy of notes but I didn't get to play any!!!!).

My job is mostly to plan and lead activities with the clients at the adult daycare center. This includes music but is not limited to it. Because they're short-staffed, they also want me to "help" with making breakfast, cleaning, serving lunch, driving the van, etc. Well the girl who had been working longer than me and my other co-worker (who started at the same time I did), quit without warning recently. My co-worker absolutely refuses to drive the van because she gets too anxious and it gives her anxiety attacks. So guess who is left!!! Well, I don't like driving the van (I don't even know if it's legal in a liability sort of way for me to be driving it) but I've been doing it. Yesterday I drove for 3 hours picking everyone up and bringing them to the daycare center. That made me exhausted and it made my fibro flare for the rest of the day. Well today, all I did all day for 7 hours was drive!!! And now I'm ready to go to the ER but I know they wouldn't be able to help me. All it would do is give me a very expensive excuse for a day off of work...hmm...

So I drove this morning, picking up clients in Baltimore and bringing them to the daycare center. Most of them weren't ready, etc. but that went okay. Then, when I got back, they told me I had to drive two people to their doctor's appointments (in two seperate locations), and then go get another person and bring him to the center. One of the doctor's appointments was 20 minutes away so by the time I got back from doing all of that (after already driving), I was exhausted! And I had missed all of the "activity" time, which is my job. Well, after the nice boss (I have two) gave me some lunch, I had to back to the doctor's offices to pick up the two clients. On the way to the first one, the gas light came on in the van and I had to drive out of my way to find a gas station (which made me panic because I couldn't find one, and I had no idea how much gas would be left after the light went on since it's not my van). After that fiasco, I was running late and the second client (the one in Baltimore) was pissed. But that's not my fault.

Well, by the time I had gotten back from all of that driving, it was around 2pm, and I had started at 7. By this point, my fibro was in FULL flare. My knees were hurting so much that I could barely walk and my back was killing me ... and everything else like my elbows, hips, etc. When I got out of the car, one of my supervisors yelled to me "stay there, we need you to do drop-offs" (aka MORE driving). I could not physically do any more driving. Absolutely not. In fact, it would have been unsafe for me to do more driving at this point. But who else do they have?

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME????????" is what I yelled back. hahaha. Then I went inside and told the bosses I was exhausted and had been driving all day. Their response was to go yell at my co-worker for not driving. My bad on that one! The program director was freaking out but she ended up driving herself. My bosses were in the entranceway of the building talking to each other with the door closed. I went out and said "I'm sorry I can't drive, I'm just really exhausted from driving all day and also I have a syndrome where I hurt sometimes." The mean one said "How come you no tell us this?" (he's Russian). I said "Well.... because.... I thought you might think I'm weak." To which he replied, "But you ARE weak. And we need to know that because we depend on you."

Wow.

I am not weak!

Grr.

Ok I'm a little bit weak due to the fact that I have fibro. But I think driving for 7 hours with pain in both knees and lower back and shoulders and elbows doesn't not qualify me as weak. And "weak" implies it is your fault, which it is not.

Well I went back inside and then my co-worker and I ended up talking to the social worker, who is an older lady about how they are overworking us and how I have fibro etc etc and she was getting pissed off... so when my boss (the mean one) came back inside and said "what is going on here?" I said, "We're just talking," but SHE said "You need to work on your management skills, sir! You can't be overworking these ladies or they will quit!" and  a bunch of other stuff which I can't remember because I was so shocked she said all that. So he said "Who are you, her lawyer?" and then to me, "If you have a problem, you come straight to me! Don't talk to her!" and I said "I DIDN'T TELL HER TO SAY ANY OF THAT!!!!!!!!!" and ran out (or rather, hobbled out) of the room and started to cry. Oh yeah, it's cuz I'm weak.

Well, they don't like crying. If I cry (which has happened one other time when he was being mean to me), they force me to hug them (cultural thing) and say "calm down." But today I was so exhausted and hurt that I was sent over the edge by all of that.

After that, I was told to go home... but wait, the story isn't over yet! I check my voice mail and it's my boss at my OTHER job, which is teaching at a music center, not to bother coming in any more because I'm not available for enough hours that she can offer to prospective students. Oh well I'm not sad about not working with her again, but my students were nice. And it was an hour away. Plus, I got to go home instead of there after work.

so... I need a job but this one is clearly not going to work out. They need me desperately though so I think I'll ask to reduce my hours before quitting. They need to hire more people, but that's a slow process I guess.

Maybe I will take that vicodin. oww.

I hope your day was better than mine!