I think the hardest thing about my injury is having to deal with people treating me like a cripple. I'm only a temporary cripple, so I can't imagine someone that is bound to a wheelchair and having to deal with other people treating you differently.
For instance, anytime I trip or stumble now, Sallie freaks out. I get the "Are you ok? Be careful. What can I do?" I know she's just worried about me, and a trip put me in this situation in the first place, but after awhile, you just get tired of feeling fragile. I snapped at Sal this weekend for doing that, and felt terrible for it.
Also, I have the same conversation 700 times a day if I go into the office. Everyone that walks by my desk stops and has the, "How's the leg doing?" conversation.
You can tell it wears on me too. In the morning, you might get an explanation, or I might tell you how many times a week I'm going to the gym. By the end of the day, they usually get a gruffled, "getting there" and then I pretend to be busy on my computer.
I know there's not really anything I can do and people are just concerned about me, but it's been wearing on my lately. I'm trying to not let it affect me, but I've found myself getting more and more bitter about the whole situation. When I look at all the money I've had to pay, all the time wasted, all the progress I made on my lawn completely regressed to when we moved into the house, I just get angry.
I'm having a hard time figuring out the why.
And then I feel terrible because I know people personally that are worse off than I am and they are able to put on a bright face.
I think for now on, I'm going to take a deep breath, and realize that I will be fine by summer's end and there are some people that will deal with their body issues for the rest of their lives.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The Karma of our World
I don't necessarily believe in karma in the sense that, if I do good things, good things will happen to me. It don't feel its a payoff system. I feel its a collapse of your life sort of system.
I almost look like it like a video game. There's this line, every good deed and bad deed, decision, and action either drive you above the line in the positive, or below the line in the negative. If you're above this line, you know. People tend to smile when talking to you. You seem to have friends. Every now and then, if you look in the light just right, you might see a halo around your head.
If you look at the world in general, we're treading that line pretty closely, probably ending up on negative side more often than not. Most of the evil in the world, we have little control over. If two countries start a war with each other, or an African dictator kills thousands of civilians, or someone flies a plane into a tower, we don't have the resources to fix this. But there are things on a smaller scale we can do.
There's just lazy things that could help so much. Like this weekend, I went to the grocery store, and in three separate parking spots there were carts sitting in the middle of spot. Just because some lazy bum didn't feel like pushing a cart 50 feet to the cart return, other people have to park father away.
Or when I see people throwing their trash out their car window. You're telling me that you couldn't just keep that cup in your car for another 15 minutes and then throw it away when you get home?
Or in our dumpster right now is 4 cases of Budweiser bottles when there's a recycling bin only 25 feet away. How are people so lazy?
And there's so many people that curse or judge each other. I hear it all the time. In the line at the grocery store, "so and so is such a fat ass. What a bitch!" Hell, half those magazines on the rack print similar things about celebrities.
These, are things we can at least cancel out.
In the cart example, I gathered the carts and pushed them into the store with me. Barely took any effort on my part. I was walking past the parking spots anyway.
Or to balance out idiots not recycling out of laziness, every few weekends, I put on some gloves and walk around the neighborhood picking up trash. Once a year, there's actually an organized event where a bunch of people in South City wake up at 8 am and walk around picking up trash in the neighborhood for a few hours.
Since you can't control what other people gossip, balance it out by complimenting someone. Just a simple compliment about how someone looks or what a good job they did can really make someone's day.
This has just been grinding on me lately. It's most likely because I'm able to get out in the world fairly easily again. I spent six months secluded from the rest of the planet and I forgot how terrible a place it can be sometimes.
I almost look like it like a video game. There's this line, every good deed and bad deed, decision, and action either drive you above the line in the positive, or below the line in the negative. If you're above this line, you know. People tend to smile when talking to you. You seem to have friends. Every now and then, if you look in the light just right, you might see a halo around your head.
If you look at the world in general, we're treading that line pretty closely, probably ending up on negative side more often than not. Most of the evil in the world, we have little control over. If two countries start a war with each other, or an African dictator kills thousands of civilians, or someone flies a plane into a tower, we don't have the resources to fix this. But there are things on a smaller scale we can do.
There's just lazy things that could help so much. Like this weekend, I went to the grocery store, and in three separate parking spots there were carts sitting in the middle of spot. Just because some lazy bum didn't feel like pushing a cart 50 feet to the cart return, other people have to park father away.
Or when I see people throwing their trash out their car window. You're telling me that you couldn't just keep that cup in your car for another 15 minutes and then throw it away when you get home?
Or in our dumpster right now is 4 cases of Budweiser bottles when there's a recycling bin only 25 feet away. How are people so lazy?
And there's so many people that curse or judge each other. I hear it all the time. In the line at the grocery store, "so and so is such a fat ass. What a bitch!" Hell, half those magazines on the rack print similar things about celebrities.
These, are things we can at least cancel out.
In the cart example, I gathered the carts and pushed them into the store with me. Barely took any effort on my part. I was walking past the parking spots anyway.
Or to balance out idiots not recycling out of laziness, every few weekends, I put on some gloves and walk around the neighborhood picking up trash. Once a year, there's actually an organized event where a bunch of people in South City wake up at 8 am and walk around picking up trash in the neighborhood for a few hours.
Since you can't control what other people gossip, balance it out by complimenting someone. Just a simple compliment about how someone looks or what a good job they did can really make someone's day.
This has just been grinding on me lately. It's most likely because I'm able to get out in the world fairly easily again. I spent six months secluded from the rest of the planet and I forgot how terrible a place it can be sometimes.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Why I'm Awesome
So yesterday, I had to go into the office.
No wait, let me back it up to Monday. I get an email inviting me to be a part of a focus group with one of the big wigs within technology. Didn't really think anything of this. My supervisor often has me go to these sorts of meetings and report back to him. So I accept.
Ok, so flash forward to Thursday. I'm in the office, realizing I'm the only one in that day. Figured everyone's schedule got messed up from the short February month. So it didn't surprise me.
I go into the conference room at 2 pm and sit down. I start chatting with one of the escalation supervisors since I hadn't seen in him in a while. More and more people start coming in but I don't really pay attention.
Then they connect the conference call. I look around and realize its me, 4 direct supervisors, their supervisor, the supervisor of our request center team, and on the phone is a bunch of much higher ups.
I look at the escalation supervisor and say, "Why they hell am I in here? I feel like I don't belong." Everyone has a good laugh.
So the call starts and they start blabbing on about how as a company we've been doing really well and we've overcome all these obstacles, synergy, and all these other buzz words. I'm glad I took a 5 Hour Energy at this point cause otherwise I would've passed out.
So then, the conference phone cuts out, and we hear "If you would like to unmute your line, press the pound key. To stay muted, do nothing. If you would like to know more shortcuts press 0." And when the message ends, I hear my name, and a few other names, and then some cheering. I still have no context for why people are cheering on the phone.
Meanwhile, everyone in the room with me is shaking their heads or laughing hysterically. Eventually, our head supervisor Russ turns to my direct supervisor (also named Russ) and says, "Just give him the darn packet."
So I'm handed a thick packet of information and start looking through it. Slowly its dawning on me that I just got a huge honor.
I was selected as a "Technology and Operations Group 2012 Top Performer." I'm one of 12 people selected out of about 1,000 under my tech umbrella. Only 3% in all of technology (about 9,000 people) within Wells Fargo were selected.
Not only do I get to put this on my resume, but Wells is flying Sallie and me to Chicago May 10-11th, getting us a swank hotel on the Magnificent Mile and feeding us, throwing a party for us, and probably boozing us. Everything is paid for. I also will be getting some sort of medal and certificate showing how awesome I am.
No wait, let me back it up to Monday. I get an email inviting me to be a part of a focus group with one of the big wigs within technology. Didn't really think anything of this. My supervisor often has me go to these sorts of meetings and report back to him. So I accept.
Ok, so flash forward to Thursday. I'm in the office, realizing I'm the only one in that day. Figured everyone's schedule got messed up from the short February month. So it didn't surprise me.
I go into the conference room at 2 pm and sit down. I start chatting with one of the escalation supervisors since I hadn't seen in him in a while. More and more people start coming in but I don't really pay attention.
Then they connect the conference call. I look around and realize its me, 4 direct supervisors, their supervisor, the supervisor of our request center team, and on the phone is a bunch of much higher ups.
I look at the escalation supervisor and say, "Why they hell am I in here? I feel like I don't belong." Everyone has a good laugh.
So the call starts and they start blabbing on about how as a company we've been doing really well and we've overcome all these obstacles, synergy, and all these other buzz words. I'm glad I took a 5 Hour Energy at this point cause otherwise I would've passed out.
So then, the conference phone cuts out, and we hear "If you would like to unmute your line, press the pound key. To stay muted, do nothing. If you would like to know more shortcuts press 0." And when the message ends, I hear my name, and a few other names, and then some cheering. I still have no context for why people are cheering on the phone.
Meanwhile, everyone in the room with me is shaking their heads or laughing hysterically. Eventually, our head supervisor Russ turns to my direct supervisor (also named Russ) and says, "Just give him the darn packet."
So I'm handed a thick packet of information and start looking through it. Slowly its dawning on me that I just got a huge honor.
I was selected as a "Technology and Operations Group 2012 Top Performer." I'm one of 12 people selected out of about 1,000 under my tech umbrella. Only 3% in all of technology (about 9,000 people) within Wells Fargo were selected.
Not only do I get to put this on my resume, but Wells is flying Sallie and me to Chicago May 10-11th, getting us a swank hotel on the Magnificent Mile and feeding us, throwing a party for us, and probably boozing us. Everything is paid for. I also will be getting some sort of medal and certificate showing how awesome I am.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)