Odd Ball

Hello World, Well, it's all too easy to complain about the weather, heaven knows, but there's certainly nothing like the prospect of golden yellow forsythia all over to bring cheer to the gloomiest day, and single-handedly renew a person's faith in better days ahead - and it goes without saying, hopefully sooner rather than later at this point. It seems later than usual for forsythia (especially at the hospital, where they bake in the sun against a brick wall all day long, and invariably open earlier than anywhere else) but their perky glow is welcome anytime, and a joy to behold. And speaking of joy, unfortunately there is none in Mudville, as pitching ace Johan Santana is expected to miss the entire season in what may turn out to be career-ending shoulder surgery, and dealing a big blow to the hapless Mets' chances, from which they may not have time enough to recover and salvage anything out of this year without him. This is a tough luck break on many levels, especially after the bird-brain management traded away Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey over the winter, which should remind all of us that you make your own luck, most notably by not making stupid decisions to start with. And while we're on the topic of luck - good, bad or indifferent - last week I picked up a lucky penny on the floor at the diner, took it with me carefully tucked inside my pocket, and then promptly dropped it in the litter box at home, which pretty much belies its name as a lucky penny, I'm thinking. Around here, that's what we call the poop, the whole poop, and nothing but the poop. Meanwhile at work, there had been rumblings that an old and heretofore little-known provision of the pension plan was about to be eliminated, at a cost-savings in the millions, that would basically be coming out of the pockets of future retirees, who would no longer have access to this advantage. It would be no exaggeration to say that this rumor essentially scared the pants off of our most long-term employees who fit into this category, and who then took the sensible way out, and figured they should get going while the going was good, so 40 people left at a stroke on December 31st, with their coat-tails flapping behind them. Two of them were from Purchasing, which had a considerable impact in a department with only 4 employees to start with, especially since only one of the positions was expected to be replaced, and the other was being re-allocated to a different department altogether. This put a lot of pressure on the two of us that were left, not only to do the extra work of the people who left, but heaven forbid, if one of us got sick, the entire department could come to a grinding halt. Even worse, at least from my perspective, the consultants in charge of our department decided that it should fall to me to pick up the slack, in spite of the fact that I was already working through lunch and staying late every day, just to keep up with the work that I already had to do - and not keeping up as it was, thanks not. Of course, I already knew that I could never afford to retire, and would just have to drop dead at my desk, but I always figured it would be from old age, and not trying to do four jobs at once. Adding insult to injury, there was the bone-headed decision to close the Mental Health department, where anyone can tell you that they had been holding a padded room for me - on the clear and certain knowledge that I would absolutely need it one of these days, and many times just the appealing idea of its cozy confines was all that kept my Evil Twin at bay, and an unsuspecting public from unspeakable danger. (Don't forget that I hold the chair-throwing record at church after years of cantankerous congregational meetings, and there is no safe distance from me when I let fly with two hymnals at the same time, believe me.) If there was some method to their madness, I failed to comprehend it, and it would be too late for regrets when I finally snapped, and they would feel my wrath in a hail of chairs, with no one to blame but their very own idiot selves. On top of everything else, those of us who are dues-paying members of the 1199 SEIU local bargaining unit of business office workers were rather rudely informed that the hospital had failed to submit its mandatory contributions under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, so the union summarily canceled all of our medical benefits out from under us, thanks not. For their part, the union nabobs wrote a letter telling us that we should complain to the hospital management, but here I'm thinking, then what the heck am I paying you for, if you can't enforce the terms of the agreement, and your so-called solution is that the rank and file should complain? I've got a complaint alright, but it's with the spineless weasels at the union, who seem to forget that I'm paying their salaries, and you'd better believe that I've got a chair with their name on it, and I'm not afraid to use it. So just when we thought that the light at the end of the tunnel would turn out to be an oncoming runaway freight train, it only took them 3 months to replace the retired employee in our midst, which at the time felt like a year in the salt mines, and I ought to know. Our newest addition, the eminently qualified Ethel Gonzalez, started bright and early on April 1st, which should have told us something right there, if we had been paying attention to the warning signs. On her first day, they had to frantically call in the exterminators to fend off a serious rodent infestation, which caused widespread mayhem and panic among even the staunchest coworkers, and is something that has never happened in that building for as long as I've worked there. Next, the auditors came up with some cockeyed scheme they called the Payroll Payout Audit, which is something else that had never happened before in the history of the hospital, where the plan was to hand out paychecks individually, rather than by department as usual, and each person needed their ID badge for identification, and had to sign for their check in a log book. In addition, there would be no direct deposit and no on-site check cashing service as there always was, so this was really a bolt out of the blue in so many ways that the possibility of alien abduction could not be entirely ruled out. Of course, it didn't help that they decided to spring it on us at the last minute, with the end result that it was total chaos, instead of the usual simple process that we've come to expect every payday since the 1890's, and that's not just a lot of buggy whips and bustles, believe me. With the infamous "comedy rule of three" in our minds, we couldn't help but wonder what fresh horror would befall us, since everything seemed to be going topsy-turvy after she started, and who knew what would be next. We didn't have long to wait, and as surprises go, this was really one for the books. Now, Ethel is the first person who has ever worked there who likes it hot, and was looking forward to an office in our old rattle-trap flea-bag of a building (which alert readers will remember is made entirely of mud and straw, and pre-dates the invention of elevators) where the relentless steam heat is so oppressive that everybody leaves their windows open and air conditioners running full-tilt all year. It is only due to the perversity of fate that since the day that she started, our building has been noticeably colder than usual, so much so that people have been wearing their coats all day long, and this is in April, mind you. It was Friday when a nasty storm blew in, and it was so frigid in my office that I actually turned on my heater, and anybody who knows me will agree that I would rather tear off my own arm than add any more heat to my usual sauna-like surroundings, so to say that this was an extraordinary turn of events would be an understatement of epic proportions. I will say that it has certainly cut down on the volume of unwanted visitors to our location, and even those who do brave the indoor elements - which in too many ways, mimic the more unpleasant aspects of the outdoor elements - tend to transact their business at a hasty clip, and flee the premises at a trot. I would be less than candid if I didn't admit that I happened to consider this a vast improvement over the usual state of affairs, and seeing poor Ethel all bundled up like an Eskimo in her uncharacteristically frosty office did nothing to change my opinion, alas. Just like the bird bath heaters, I should have realized sooner that all we needed to do was hire a person who likes the heat, and from that point forward, it would be a veritable deep freeze in our building from one end to the other. I don't really mind the skating rink in the conference room, but frankly, I thought the snowball fights were just way too much. Elle