Still Catching Up: The Changes Begin

Wow. I was NOT happy with the comeback entry. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve actually written anything. Chalk it up to rust and accept my apologies. I promise to do better from now on.

Just to tie up some loose ends from the last entry, a photo has been posted. It’s the only one I have at this point, as it was taken by my sister and our professional shots are still pending our final choices for the album.

Also, we honeymooned in Kansas City the weekend after we were married. Obviously, it wasn’t an exotic locale, but we had plans to go to California for Christmas and didn’t want to blow our budget on a vacation that would basically entail a little sightseeing and lots of sex. So, we took a long weekend and drove to KC. We caught a Royals game, spent a day at the KC Zoo and hung out at Union Station. Nothing exciting to most people, but we had a blast. We have pics of the trip, but they need to be resized before they can be posted.

With the wedding finally in the rear view mirror, I began to concentrate on making a decision about work that I had been fighting for almost a year.

When I first made plans to move to Wichita, my goal was to spend as little time as possible without a job. I started with this organization as an administrative assistant and within a year, people were asking me if I was planning to try for a promotion. Because of the high stress and high workload associated with the job, I said no. Repeatedly.

Then a couple of things happened that made me reconsider my self-imposed underemployment.

First, our rent went up. It wasn’t a lot and overall, it would not have changed our lifestyle if I had decided not make any changes–but to me, it was a sign that perhaps I needed to consider it.

Secondly, I was becoming more and more disenchanted (read: furious) with the other administrative assistants that I worked with.

I quickly found out that in terms of work ethic, I was worlds in front of these people. I was ok with that. I like to think that my work ethic is higher than most people’s so that wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t mind it when I had to pick up extra slack when someone was out sick or at a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t even mind when I would ask for the same courtesy, only to find out that no one lent me a hand while I was gone. Over the course of a year and a half, these things were standard operating procedure for us.

Eventually though, I began to feel that my work ethic and willingness to pick up the slack was being taken advantage of. "Doctor’s appointments" began to occur once a week. People would leave early for stomach aches or headaches. Twenty minute breaks became 45-minute breaks. It got to the point that my boss began to expect that people would slack off, so I became the safety valve.

I can take a lot of punishment. I’m patient enough to deal with a lot of crap. It just became more than I could take.

So, I made the decision to get the hell out of there before I became one of those people that I make fun of–the guy that hates his job so much that it has affected his personal life, except now he’s been in it so long he has nothing else to offer, so he’s stuck.

At the next available opportunity I submitted my resume, nailed the interview and breezed to a promotion.

At the end of August, I started training for the new job. For the next two months, I spent every day in a computer lab with six other people and my trainer. It was tough to deal with after a while, seeing the same people’s faces day after day, but I connected with a couple people in particular and we’ve become pretty good friends. One is an incredibly hot 23-year-old girl that recently graduated from college. The other is a 26-year-old guy with a Master’s degree in Musicology. He plays the bagpipes and has one of the sharpest senses of humor I’ve ever been around..

By the start of November, our training was over and we were deployed to our offices on a probationary basis. It’s a high stress, high volume job if you’re not organized, but I adjusted well. I was just happy to be out of the situation I was in and able to sink or swim on my own. At the end of last month, the probation period ended and I passed with flying colors.

So, since my work life was better than it ever had been since moving to Kansas, I guess I should have expected that the other shoe would drop eventually.

One day at the end of November, I woke up with some annoying stomach pain. It wasn’t bad–just noticeable enough to be uncomfortable. I had recently begun working out again and I figured the pain was a result of pushing myself too hard on the ab machine. After about a week though, the pain migrated to my back. It was bad enough that much of the time, it hurt to sit in a chair because the back of it put pressure on my kidney area. I diagnosed myself with a kidney infection and went to the doctor.

The test came back negative. The doctor I saw didn’t really have a good answer for me, so I went to another office, to a doctor that had examined me when I bruised my hip a month prior.

He took an x-ray and immediately began leaning toward a spastic colon. Still, he didn’t want to blow it off completely, so he ordered a CT scan of my abdomen.

The procedure itself was no big deal. The prep, however…Let’s just say a giant bottle of barium a few hours before the scan and another giant bottle just before is not exactly what I call fine dining

Anyway, about a week later, the results of the scan came back. Everything was cool, and the pain had lessened considerably, but had not gone away completely. So, once again, to rule out major problems, the doctor ordered a colonoscopy. If that came back clear, the initial diagnosis of spastic colon would stand. The procedure was scheduled for the end of January. In the meantime, I prepared for a long-awaited trip to Sacramento for Christmas.