How about a little less of the meme-ing meme's and the meme-ing meme-ness?
I don't feel particularly guilty for not joining in on the November blog-o-rama, what with life being what it has been for the month (read: I'm busy as hell), though I have enjoyed reading the abundance of material in my reader. Thank you, people who write!
Here is a summary of the last several weeks, to bring this blog thing up to date.
I work for an insurance company, which, is a rather focused kind of hell--a test that I feel that God has personally issued to me, because I have hated insurance companies for a very long time. This is Insurance Company Number 2 on my resume, though, by chance, the two companies are kind of connected, so its basically like working for the same place I did before.
Let me sum up my feelings about insurance for you: Insurance = you pay them a crap-load of money on the off chance that something bad is going to happen, and, when something bad happens, you contact them for help and they say things like
, "well....I dunno...I don't think we agreed to help you in this specific situation. Now, if you had this other thing happen to you, we'd be happy to pay, but, not today." Or, at least that has been my experience.
And, if you are the insured, you end up wondering what the f*ck they are doing with all of your money to make it so they can't chip in on your eyeglasses or your dental work, or whatever. It pisses you off. It should. I am of the mind that insurance, specifically health insurance, is broken. Just my opinion. But I work for an insurance company, so I get out of bed every morning and hustle off to work, believing that my goal here is to make positive changes from within. If I didn't believe that, I'd lose my damn mind.
The one cool thing that insurance companies do, although their reasons for doing it are strictly bottom-line oriented, is that they want you to
not go to doctors. Sounds funny when you say that, but, there are people who run to doctors for every little sniffle, get an antibiotic, etc, and, they don't need to do that--they are sucking up the money that people on chemo should be getting, and I would like to take this opportunity to tell the hypochondriacs to knock it off and count their blessings that they don't have cancer. I have found that chicken soup laced with cayenne goes a long way toward killing a cold, so, try that first, before you go to the doctor.
Oh, and also, just because "we have a drug for that" doesn't mean you need to take one. Try changing your habits, first, and see if that solves your problem--maybe quit smoking, or drinking, or maybe try eating some decent food once in a while, or shut the damn TV off and get up off the couch. You'd be amazed at what health concerns you can solve all by yourself. (We'll bitch about the pharmaceutical companies on another day. Those rat-bastards...)
Anyway...insurance. They have a busy season, insurance companies, and, we're in it. Busy season at an insurance company, for me, anyway, means that I get to work at 7:50, immediately begin processing mountains of information (all of which is time-sensitive), eat lunch at my desk while continuing to process information, take a 10 minute break, then go back to processing information for the rest of the day. When it is time to leave, I am torn and feel guilty because there is still plenty to do that would help make that positive change from within, but I gotta get home and feed my children, so, I leave. I'm just one person, after all.
By pure luck, there was some desk re-arranging, and the annoying (horrifically bad) "customer service" person got relocated (sadly, not fired) and I can no longer hear her inflicting her nastiness on unsuspecting premium-payers. That has been nice. Meanwhile, one of my other co-workers, who is charge of a lot of the information that I process, calls in sick a lot, leaving me to do all of her work, along with my own. Because it's the insurance industry, stuff has to be completed before the sun goes down or my company won't be able to deny your claim in a timely fashion--none of it can wait until she is feeling better. Don't worry, we'd denied her f*cking claim, too, and she works here. Anyway, my co-worker likes to party, and, that's fine, but when you get "sick" enough Fridays in a row (just 2 will do it), you're going to piss me off.
So, that's work.
At home, my car died. Yay. Luckily, it was on a Friday, and I wasn't at all busy doing both mine and my co-worker's job or anything, and could devote the entire day to getting that taken care of.
Yeah...
OK, the real luck was that I have friends with tools who know stuff about cars. The battery cracked open. No big deal. We fixed it. Or rather,
they did most of it and I stood around holding the tools and the flashlight and stuff, after buying the new battery. And I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank General Motors for making the battery in my car so damned inaccessible. C'mon, GM! You know that repairs of this nature only need to be done when its F*CKING cold outside!! Do you really need to put the battery in, screw it down with a big clip, cover it with a plastic cover held down by two screws and a plastic clip, then hold down that cover with a metal bar, also held on by two screws? Really? Cuz this "minor" repair took FOREVER. And my toes froze. And it did not make me feel good about any bail-outs, if you know what I mean...if you just fired all the guys who work in the Battery Security department, I'm sure you'd be fine, and, I could find work for them in the insurance industry.
I don't particularly like my car--I sort of acquired it in the separation from my husband. I'm a sedan sort of person, and that is what I usually stick to--I don't have the Hockey Mom gene, and, this car is an SUV. It feels like driving a bus, to me, although, it is actually a relatively small SUV. The husband and I have been discussing the possibility of meeting up in Illinois somewhere and initiating a prisoner exchange, since, he has my little hot-rod (which was NOT made by GM, by the way...) and I have been driving the "luxury" wheels. When I moved here from Alabama, the SUV seemed like a good idea, and we were all agreeable to it. It is still a good idea to keep it, considering that I now live in the land of ice and snow, but I'm not in love with it, so, when it didn't start, I was grouchy, and I may have called the car a couple of bad names which I will not repeat here. When my handy friends diagnosed and fixed it, I got less grouchy, though I have yet to apologize to the car.
Yesterday, I drove it, it worked perfectly fine, and I didn't run over any curbs (cuz its some kind of
giant car and I have zero skill in negotiating it, what with my not having the Hockey Mom gene), so, I'm thinking maybe the SUV and I might start being friends. Maybe.
Meanwhile, I've been looking at apartments. There are many. I love them all. Well, most of them. Give me a cheap, funky brownstone in a hippy neighborhood and I'm gonna be all curled-toes happy. Set me free to decorate it as I choose, and I am one blissed out freak. Of course, you need the $$ to actually move into one, and, though I am very close to having the gigantic lump sum required to relocate, I'm just shy. Delayed gratification. Shit. But no worries...its going to be good when it finally happens. Curled-toes good. Soon. Very soon.
So, like I said, I've been waist-deep in stuff lately. I don't mean to make it sound like busy is bad, because it is the opposite of that! There is so much happening right now, and it is all good--feels like a giant wave of good, actually, and, I'm one incredibly happy, grateful person. One incredibly happy, grateful person who neglects her blog. Whatever.
