Work At Home Bliss

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving weekend, whether in person or virtually. Just remember to cherish every moment and remember this won’t last forever.


As we both work in a medical industry by proxy of their third party call centers and are therefore considered essential employees, my roommate K and I began working from home in March. Florida went largely into lockdown and those who wanted to work on site for whatever reason did so at their own risk. By April, among those who remained in the office, we already had at least one positive covid case reported. That drove the rest of us home.


Recently, K was offered the chance to return to working at her office and after weighig the options, decided to continue working from home. I also had the same opportunity (different company, same field), and considered going back, if only for the air conditioning. My pros and cons list ended up overwhelmingly skewed toward staying at home. Take a look:


PROS:
• No commute / savings on gas
• Not having to socialize
• More self-directed work
• Vape at my desk
• Much better mood
• 2 seconds from the bathroom
• Dressing comfortably
• More time to handle personal business on lunch
• Can eat at my desk
• Only contact with supervisors is through chat / email
• No loud coworkers
• My cats lower my stress
• Naps / showers on lunch (self-care, man)


CONS:
• No AC in the summer (house just doesn’t have it)
• Inconsiderate neighbors


So yes, much happier being at home and running my own show than having to deal with the drudgery of actually having to go in.


What about you? Has your work environment changed? Are you working from home when you used to work in an office? Do you still work on site and are you concerned about your safety in having to go in? Please share your experiences in the comments!

Wherever You Are, Be All There

As the stress of existing in 2020 continues to build, it is now more important than ever to remember that stress itself has a wide fallout of other symptoms. Headaches, high blood pressure, anxiety… These are just a few signs of the brain and body experiencing increased stress. Taking just a few minutes out of everyday to sit still, breathe, and meditate can do wonders. While our minds are busy trying to process information about everything we are going through right now, both individually and as a nation, it is imperative that we reset often and let all of it go for a little bit.

It doesn’t take any kind of special knowledge to simply meditate. With practice however you will certainly find the effects become more tangible and you start feeling healthier mentally as well as physically. Once that stress leaves your body there is a noticeable difference. Of course it will return because these are the times we live in. That’s when it’s time to meditate again. And again. Make self-care a habit that you cannot break.

There is always time and a place to meditate.

I live in a house with three other people, my extended family. We are four people in a two bedroom house and understandably it gets a little crowded at times. I work 10-hour shifts and have some small semblance of a social life. Even so, I still find and defend my personal space and time whenever necessary.

As someone who already suffers from anxiety and hypertension, quieting my mind and achieving that peace is necessary to my daily health routine. Though I rarely have any true privacy, there are still places I can go. I have no problem locking myself in the bathroom for 10 minutes. Nor do I mind sitting in the cab of my truck with the windows closed and absolute silence. Sometimes I will drive out to the river during off peak hours and sit alone just listening to the water. Sometimes sitting on the front porch and focusing on a specific bird song, or even the conversations between the mockingbirds and the scrub jays brings me back into myself.

10 breaths is all it takes. A slow breath in, holding it for as long as I can, and slowly letting it go. As I exhale, the picture all the stress leaving my body. Financial troubles, drama at work, the stress that seeps off others… I push it all out with every exhale. Sometimes I will do this between calls at work, usually on every break. After a full day on the phone, it becomes necessary to close my eyes, cover my ears, and just stop everything for a while. Via my smartwatch, I can literally watch my pulse go down from around 120 to 78 or so within the course of a few minutes simply by physically blocking all external stimulus and consciously breathing.

When you feel overwhelmed, never be ashamed to hold up your hand and tell someone that you need a moment. Go off on your own, close your eyes, breathe. It is far better to take a few moments to yourself than to let the stress build. Eventually it has to come out somewhere.

Kombucha and Other Oddities

The inspiration for this post comes from a conversation recently had with my pet about some of the stranger things we’ve consumed. Recently we were in a grocery store looking through the liquor section to find something new and exciting for the night when he came across a hard kombucha, locally made of course, and was asking me if I had ever heard of it. I told him I had, I’d actually been consuming it for a couple years now. A good friend of mine the next county down actually brews his own and sells it in a couple of his stores. When I can’t get down to his shop, I buy it from Aldi’s. Once in awhile I just need it to kind of reset my belly when things get uncomfortable.


He asked me what exactly it was and that’s where he lost interest abruptly. I explained to him that kombucha is a fermented tea and contains live bacterial cultures similar to yogurt. I did also warn him that you can see the strands in the tea and it looks a little chunky, plus it’s a little bit naturally carbonated from – let’s face it – bacteria farts. That generated a hilarious face with a whole lot of nope.


Going back to a previous conversation we’d had with one of his employees, he felt the need to remind me that he doesn’t like octopus either. I had to laugh. I’ve only tried octopus a couple times, both deep fried and extremely fresh. As in still-moving fresh. the fried version I would have been okay with had it not been so tough. It kind of had the consistency of overcooked squid. The other experience I had with octopus I will never do again. It was literally still moving on the plate. I had a brave moment and I actually did try to eat it. Its little suction cups grabbed onto my tongue and even chewing as hard as I could it seemed like it would not die. There was no way I was going to swallow that. The little leg was holding on for dear life.


Other things I have tried or actually do eat regularly that other people might find strange include sawgrass roots from the everglades, gator tail, wild boar, wild turkey, fresh mahi-mahi straight off the line and raw, basically a lot of local wild game and some exotic fruits and vegetables that are hard to find. Lychee, loquat, and dragon fruit rank up there with my favorites. I highly recommend making a habit out of trying things that you never have before. You just might find a new favorite. Life is too short to not be adventurous!

F-Bombs

Have you ever had a memo come out at work as a “friendly reminder” about what is not to be done? Reiterating some obvious rule from the company code of conduct or a recent meeting topic that hasn’t had a chance to make it into the books yet? Every time one comes out, which is a couple times a month for us at Call Center X, we can’t help but wonder who did something so gastly that the rule beared repeating.


We get the usual:


“Please do not take food from the break room that isn’t yours.”
“Please do not bring your cell phone onto the call floor.”
“Please remember all cups must have lids.”


We get the unusual:


“Please do not deposit feces in the bathroom trash cans.”
“Please refrain from engaging in public intimacy.”
“Please do not approach, feed, or touch the alligators.” (That was me.)


Another one that was me:


“Please refrain from using foul language in the group chat.”


Yep, it happened. Give me a break guys, I was having a stressful day and it slipped. All the systems were crashing, it was impossible to work, and someone asked if it was just them. I said nope, all my systems are completely fuckered. The silence after I hit Send was so deafening you could hear the collective gasp from workstations throughout the tri-county area. Oops. It was at that moment I realized how many managers I actually answer to. They all immediately appeared in my private messages.


I apologized dozens of times, after which I got tired of trying to make amends and just landed in the, “you know what, fuck it, I’m only human and we all have bad days” mindset. That afternoon, the memo came out. Everyone knew who the impetus was for this one. They were all there. I didn’t hear any more about it though I’m certain it will be in my annual review. All I can do is move forward and maybe take a little more CBD before I log in for the day. It does make me a nicer person 😉

Couch Surfing Grandmas

I’m not entirely sure what’s happening but every year when I look at my earnings over the years, I find myself making less than I did a decade ago, even as a teenager. Doing relatively the same work, I earned more in my 20s then I do in my 40s. This mystery drives even deeper when I do the math and realize that at my current wage, there is no way to afford my own place whereas before 2012, I’d lived on my own since I was 17. I also was reminded of this when I heard from a friend who let me know that she would be staying with one of our other friends until she could find a place to live. 

We are both mature adults with a long career history. I have a grown child, she has grandchildren. What has happened that neither of us, nor many others we know, are unable to afford basic shelter on our own? Where has the income gone? The LIVABLE income that we used to make? Rents have tripled in the past 10 years but pay rates have gone down. The company we work for does not give annual merit pay increases. Some folks have been at the company 10+ years and are still at their starting pay, stuck because of the lack of work available elsewhere in the area. Middle class is now low income. Here we are, with college degrees and solid work histories, with children and grandchildren, and we are living off food pantries and friends’ couches. Something is very wrong here.

In the recent election, florida voters went all in to approve a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. It will happen gradually over the next few years. In 2025 myself and many others will be back to making what we did 20 years ago. But now what is that going to do to rent prices and other necessities like food and utilities? If the cost of living increases even slightly, we’ll be right back where we are now, struggling, savings depleted just to cover a few months of hardship. Something’s got to give. 

When the Rules Get Ridiculous

Working for any company, regardless of size, rules are going to be there. In my experience, smaller companies have fewer rules and the larger ones like to have these massive handbooks of things by which we must abide. The Employee Handbook. The bible of how one is expected to conduct themselves. Most of it honestly comes down to common sense. Conflicts of interest: don’t. Sexual harassment: don’t. Insider trading: don’t. When they start edging the rules into your personal space however, that’s when I start to take issue.


This particular one gets under my skin to the extent that I’ve vehemently spoken and acted against it: no smoking or vaping in your vehicle while on company property. I beg your pardon? I quit smoking nearly 3 years ago but I do still vape. How do you get off telling me I cannot vape in my own vehicle? If this were coming from some type of business like a hospital, I might understand. But let’s be honest. I work for a call center. This is not a business that deals in person with medical practices, we do not have customers coming in and out. The building does not have a smoking section nearby. It’s a 10 minute round trip walk – breaks are 15 minutes – to the edge of the property, at the edge of a pond (alligators included), with no shelter from rain or sun. There is no separate vaping section for those of us who have quit smoking and now cannot stand to be around it.


When I worked on-site, I would retreat to my vehicle on lunch and breaks, not only to get a break from people (call center work is very high stress) but to seek shelter from 90+ temperatures, pouring rain, etc. And I would vape. I was not bothering anyone. No one had to smell my horrible strawberries and cream or cheesecake clouds. There were no ashes, no cigarette butts, just me and my nicotine Zen. To tell me that I am going to be written up (and to actually do so) for vaping in my own vehicle is far overstepping the bounds of realistic and practical rule-making. I feel like it punishes me for quitting smoking and wanting my privacy and quiet time.


Thankfully due to Florida’s stay at home orders issued in March I was able to start telecommuting to work and no longer need to deal with such nonsense. I was only reminded of this when a mass email was distributed this week reiterating this ridiculous rule because apparently others who still work from the office are still breaking it. Good on you, my peers! Keep breaking those rules that stifle your personal freedoms in the few minutes you get to yourself each day to decompress in the privacy of your own car.

Daily Prompt – Don’t You Forget About Me

As you walk on by…. (Sing it with me now!)

Will you call my name? Will you remember me at all? Will I have done anything in my life that will have had an impact on anyone near to me (or far)? What will I be remembered for?

I never imagined there would be very many people at my funeral, if there was one. I’d always just hoped someone would be in my life who would be willing to dump my ashes off the side of a plane over the Everglades. On the other hand, of course it would be nice to have a finely inscribed headstone commemorating some important aspect of my life. If anything, I’d want to be remembered for the sacrifices I have made in my life to ensure that my child has more opportunities than I did (and they have been incredibly painful sacrifices). I want to go down as a Saint for work with the less fortunate – even while the majority of my life has seen me as one of those less fortunate. I want to be remembered as humble, generous, hard working, intelligent and wise, as a mother, a Christian, and hopefully one day as a beloved wife. I want my writings – poetry, lyrics, fiction and non – to be read by my family and descendants so that they may have a deeper understanding of the person I was. I’m quite forgettable in reality, but I guess in the end, I just want to be remembered with love.

Solitary Solidarity (Coping with Covid-19 Lockdown)

We Are Okay! That is first and foremost the most important thing going through my mind each day. Despite not being able to go out much, despite having to get creative for some meals at home, and despite being cooped up in a house with three other people, things are actually okay. The not going out part, heck I was made for this. I’m a painfully un-social introvert and having been raised an only child, it’s easy to entertain myself. I’m rarely bored. If I am, it’s usually only because I’m too hot and antsy (we have no AC).

I read a lot of blogs and other social media posts where people battling cabin fever try to find ways, some of them pretty outlandish, to stay sane during our nationwide lockdown. I wonder if I’m the odd one out for actually enjoying this quiet time, this alone time. It’s as if I’m sitting back watching the world burn and I will emerge from my mental cave when it all blows over. Certainly there are some things I miss. Kava Kat, a tea bar I started to enjoy going to with friends, of course had to shutter its doors during the crisis. Being a relatively new business to the area, I’m happy they survived the worst of it (so far) and were able to reopen. Some places I loved, like Uncle Carlo’s, sadly have not reopened. This city is a new landscape, sort of a bare bones one, but it will survive as a community. It’s beautiful how people have pulled together to support each other in every way possible.

What’s Your Story?

Following my book launch in January, I quickly re-discovered that self-marketing is a major undertaking. Writing a book is one thing. Actually selling it is quite another! With hundreds of thousands of books and new authors cropping up on Amazon and other sites every year, how do you stand out? You’ve got to have friends in the right places. You need a solid network of creative professionals on your team. And you’ve got to keep at it.

One way to push your networking as an author is to join a local writer’s guild. One exists in my area however in speaking to some of their authors at their Farmer’s Market booth one Saturday, I learned they have some requirements that are a bit out of my reach at this time. Firstly, their annual dues are upwards of $300.00. Not something I can produce right now! They also require their members be previously published through a traditional publishing house. In the world of indie authors and self-pubs, also not possible.

My question to you is: Have you considered joining your local writer’s guild? Or have you already? I’d love to hear your pros and cons about them, no matter which way you’ve opted. Tell me your experiences! Your input will help me (and others) decide if a guild would be a worthwhile venture when the opportunity arises. Sound off in the comments below, and thanks for reading!

Oh, and when you’re done, please do check out the first in a sci-fi trilogy that artfully blends Tech and Kinetics. It is the first of three lovechild creations of myself and fellow creatives Charlie Barbin (10/7 Productions), Ray Wade Jr. (Midian Entertainment Group), and David Rex Bonnewell (Wickedly Written). LOOKER: Lydia Branson, Book 1 is available on KINDLE and in print for a stupid-low price. Click HERE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLYN1ZX

Just a quick note…

…to say this blog is still alive. No, I have not posted in a year and a half. My world has been too much of a firestorm of living hell to rant about non-anonymously, but I am still here. I’m processing a lot of difficult things right now but lack the sort of counseling support I need to do so in any rational fashion so my head’s a mess. I know in time things will sort themselves out. Until then I just need to figure out how to cope without my heart probs getting the best of me under the pressure of it all.