Saturday, September 23, 2006

I don't like to work.

I got my new shift at work. We had shift bids on the 20th, and I sat around all day, waiting for my turn to call the shift scheduler to take my pick of shifts. I was hoping to be able to land a 24 hour shift, but being at the bottom of 18 full time paramedics, with only 13 24-hr shifts, I knew my chances weren't good. There would have to be 5 paramedics who did not want a 24. Fat chance. I would have been nice though. I would have really enjoyed only working 2 days a week. Instead, I got a 12 hour shift with a rotating schedule. I am working out of the Frisco station, from 8a-8p. The rotating schedule means I work different days each week. If the week is from Monday to Sunday, then one week I work every day but Wednesday and Thursday; then the next week I work only Wednesday and Thursday. It's not so bad, though. If I want to take vacation, I only have to take two days off to get a whole week. And it gives me overtime on one week, while still averaging 40 hours a week. I hope to not be doing this much longer. EMS, I mean. I'm getting bored with it. It would be nice to have a boring desk job that I can leave a 5pm every day. And have an hour lunch break, and a little cubicle to decorate. And then I can go home and have time to do things. That's what I want.

Sometimes I wonder if I just have a bad work ethic. My mom and Jerry have been training me to do Integrated Circuit layout, and they seem to love it so much. And while learning it, it really doesn't seem that hard, but it is a great paying job with awesome benefits. And yet I have no desire to ever go home and practice or work on the work that they assign me to do for the next lesson. I don't think that I have ever sat down and started to draw stuff since we moved off of paper drawings and progressed to drawing on the computer. And while I don't mind doing my job at work, and I take what I do seriously, I don't think I actually enjoy it or look forward to going to work. I worry that if I ever actually get hired at TI for this layout job, that I will dislike it at much as my EMS job. I worry that I will have no motivation to accomplish something. I am not a self-starter. I need immediate and desperate deadlines hanging over my head in order to hustle and get work done. What's wrong with me. I don't have a problem getting things done around my house when I am home a lot. I can do chores and clean all day so long as I actually start doing something. Maybe that's what it is: I don't have issues with the doing, I have issues with the starting. How do I fix that?

Friday, September 08, 2006

For lack of a better way to ease into this subject, I am just going to jump right in and get to the climax of the post, so just imagine that I said something philosophical and intelligent that eases into the subject and doesn't startle anyone. My mom and step dad are separated and they are most likely getting divorced, unless otherworldly forces intervene and change everything. Jerry finally got fed up and moved out last weekend. He and Rachael and Joey are living a cute, very nice apartment down the street from their former residence where my mom is still residing and they had lived their entire lives heretofore. The thing that surprises me is that Joey's Bar Mitzvah was the weekend before and everything seemed fine. They looked happy and like they liked each other. They danced together at the party and I was under the impression that my mom had changed her behavior and all was good. Apparently not.

The last straw was Thursday when Mom found out Rachael wasn't doing well in her math class, and then she grounded her when she asked to be allowed to switch from Pre-AP Math into the regular math class. Mom destroyed Rachael's room looking for her cell phone, threw Rachael's books off her shelf at her, then threw her bookbag at her. When Jerry found out that Rachael had done all of her assignments on time, contrary to Mom telling him that she hadn't, he decided that this was the last straw.

I spent all last week being furious with my mother. She messed up bad, and she is incapable of owning up to her faults and making any efforts to fix them. Now I just have a huge load of pity for her. She doesn't even know how badly she has lost her family. She still thinks they will come back to her eventually. She is still telling Jerry that he is messing up her finances by pulling this stunt. She thinks she didn't do anything wrong. Why won't they just let her be herself. But that is exactly what they are doing. They are letting her be herself, all by herself. The friends have been divided, and all of "their" friends are now "his" friends. She only has her few friends from other places, most of whom aren't very involved in her life. So she is all alone. She is depressed, and I am worried that she might try to kill herself, if only as an attention stunt. But I can tell you that if she ever says that she is going to kill herself, I am having her committed. Even if I only get the mandatory 72 hours in the psych ward of the hospital.

Jerry is doing a fine job of providing for them, even on the limited funds he has until payday. R and J are happy and doing well in school. R's math grades are up. And Jerry said that she hasn't gone to hide in the closet since they left the house. I wasn't even aware that she would do that, but I guess that was the only place to get away. Jerry is planning on buying a new house in the next six months near their highschool and his parents.

This all sucks. This isn't how things were supposed to be. I'm sure things are going to be settled down by my wedding, but now we will all have to walk on egg shells when they are in the same room, and things will be awkward. R and J are supposed to have a mom that loves them and helps them grow into adults. I'm supposed to have kids and be able to drop them off with both of them. Not him or her. Now I have three parents and they are all separated. I have three parents to divide time and holidays and vacations with. Ug, my mom is so stupid.

Anyways, thanks for the therapy session. Let me know how much I owe you.