I Promise

When I retire (notice that I say ‘when’ not ‘if’¹), I promise to be very considerate of working stiffs.  It’s hard, nay, grueling, to work full time and stop at the store on your way home to get either something for dinner or something for tomorrow’s lunch.  It’s even harder when you take public transportation and have to schlep your groceries home in your aching arms (because your backpack is full of your sweaty workout clothes) and you have to pray for a seat on the bus or train.

I promise to do my grocery shopping either mid-morning or mid-afternoon, or even late evening², but never in the 4:30 to 6:30 after work time slot, or the precious and brief noon hour.  Even if it means that I am shopping with the stay-at-home parents and their loud and sticky children, and the elderly who use the shopping cart as a walker and need help reaching the products on the higher shelves (it won’t be long before that includes me, by the way, as I already need help reaching the top shelf).  I promise that I will never be that person at the deli counter who has to sample every fecking thing (which is better?  the honey ham or the brown sugar ham?  Gah!  They are the same with a different wrapper!)  before deciding that she just wants a quarter pound of the roast beef (same as last time!), while holding up a dozen hard working, tired wage slaves who just need to get a half pound of sliced turkey for their sandwiches for lunch.

I promise to ride public transportation an hour after the day shift has arrived at work³, even though it means I will be riding with the college students and the indigent.  I will not take a seat from someone who will be on her feet all day standing at a check stand or serving food.  Until I am unsteady on my pins I will surrender my seat to anyone who looks like they could use a break.

I will be the most considerate retiree ever.  I won’t go to the post office during those same hours either.  I won’t be walking my dog when the commuters are striding down the sidewalk⁴.  You won’t catch me in the bank during those hours.  I won’t be at the gym either.  I’ll be there mid-day when there is no fighting over the recumbent bike.  I’ll have lots of time to plan my outings, and I will take the working people into consideration when I do.  I promise.

1. I intend to retire from my current job in approximately three years.  I will not be old enough to collect social security, if any still exists, or my public employee retirement income (again, if any money is left in there), but I am still going to retire.  And then look for a job, because how will I be able to feed myself and pay for my health care?  The key is that I won’t be coming here anymore.  Twenty years is enough.

2. A great time to do your grocery shopping is on Friday evening.  People with social lives are out being social and the only real action at the grocery store is in the beer and wine section (or liquor section if you live in a state that allows that).  Ain’t nobody in the breakfast cereal or baking aisles at that hour.

3. I ride the bus that goes to the hospital.  Some years ago, in the very early hours of the morning, we pulled up to a stop downtown.  Waiting at the stop was an old lady of the crazy variety.  In her wheelchair.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that everyone has the right to get on the bus – it is ‘public’ transportation after all – and that includes people who are less mobile than us fortunate ones with the full use of all of our limbs.  Further, I am delighted at the variety of mechanical advancements the bus manufacturers design.  Each one is better than the last!  I will say, though, that it takes longer for a wheelchair to get on the bus than it does for someone walking.  No big deal!  So it takes longer, so what?!  The only time it is an irritation is when you are trying to get to work, maybe running a little late, and you would just barely make it if it weren’t for that wheelchair rider.  Sigh.  Oh well.  So, we pull up to the stop and the crazy old lady in the wheelchair wants to ride to the hospital.  Of course she does.  Never mind that it’s  6:30 in the morning and none of the clinics are open because, Hello, the workers are on the bus; she wants to go to the hospital and she has the right to get on the bus.  So, the driver deploys the wheelchair device and she wheels onboard, takes a look at all of us in our scrubs and uniforms and work duds, she lets out a piercing cackle and cries aloud, “Taxpayers! Ha ha ha, taxpayers!”  Yeah.  Way to rub our noses in it.  I promise to never do that.

4. I always, always, always, pick up after my dog.  If you stepped in poop on the way to work, it wasn’t from us.  I promise!

Back but not Ready

I took the week of Thanksgiving off work. It was the November birthday week in my family and what with birthdays and the holiday it just seemed like a good time to be at home. Now, however, I’m back at work and struggling to give a shit.

During the week I hardly logged on to the computer. Didn’t check my facebook page, didn’t read my usual blogs, barely checked my email and then only on the crackberry. I pretty much went without the electronics for a week. It was fine. The earth did not stop spinning. Amazing!

Coming back to work after time off is hard. It’s been a slog lately and the break was very welcome. I did ok yesterday, Monday, but today I really don’t feel like being here. I’m restless, and alternating between bored and antsy. I’d like to get out of the office and walk home, but I need to be here and I don’t have the time for that long of a walk today. Instead, I’m looking out the window at the rare winter sunshine. People are calling and emailing with issues and problems and I just can’t find the energy or interest to care. That sounds bad, I know. I also know that it will pass, eventually.

Downtown Update

The Max Green line opened! Yay! This should be a great thing for people living in the further reaches of the metro area, to the north and east; and for anyone heading to PSU. This line runs from Clackamas Town Center to Portland State University. It opened this week and reportedly ridership is already quite high. Well, they tapped into a huge area so it should be filling right up.

The only thing I don’t like about it is the fact that 5th and 6th streets downtown are now nearly impossible to use in the car or on a bike. But, it’s a fair trade off to get all of those cars out of downtown so… I’m not complaining. Really.

Another tidbit of downtown observation: The long empty lot at 4th between Mill and Market streets is being developed. This is the lot bounded by St Mary’s school, St Michael the Archangel Church (site of R & N’s wedding), and the crazy, triangular high rise that B & K lived in briefly.

It has been a parking lot for years and years, and an odd one. The east edge of the parking lot is built up on a rock wall. It had a mysterious, boarded up doorway in the wall that looked like a portal to trouble. Last week a construction fence went up and this week the wall came down. The earthmovers are out there digging like mad. One really good thing: it looks like they are protecting the large, beautiful, copper beech tree that lives in the southeast corner of the lot. I don’t know what is planned for that block, but I hope that preserving the tree is part of the development.

One quick note about the bike commute: I rode down the Hill! It wasn’t as scary as I feared, of course. When I leave my building, the street drops quite sharply. I was riding my brakes down the hill, expecting to see smoke coming off them, but I was being passed by cyclists who were actually pedaling away. Wow! They must have been going 50 miles an hour! Not me, thank you very much. So, I got to the bottom in one piece, had to ride through part of downtown where there are no bike lanes, turned off 4th onto Salmon and rode out to the waterfront. From there, it’s the same commute home. Amazingly, it’s faster to ride down the hill and through downtown than it is to walk to and wait for the Tram.

That’s it for today folks! Hey, you see right below this text where there is a picture of a pen and the underlined words “0 comments”? If you click on the word comments, it opens up a little box where you can type a few words. Try it! I love comments! You can go back and read other people’s comments. It’s all part of the blogosphere…

Work related

So, the question on my mind today is: can I stick it out?

I am so tired of my job! I am so tired of artificial emergencies, of deadlines that are so important that all other work must be suspended ~ and then when the deadline passes, and the work isn’t done, nothing happens. So tired of management that has so little grasp on the workings of the department. Tired of being delegated to and not having enough staff to pass the delegated work on to. Tired of the world of healthcare in general, and the school of medicine in particular.

Maybe I’m just tired.

I don’t actually hate my job. Most of the time it’s just a job. Nothing special but nothing odious. Lately there has been an increase in the amount of work for us to do, which happens to coincide with a decrease in staffing. Not that I would have gotten any satisfactory work out of The Malingerer, but I could have shunted some of it her way. Now, every team member is working full tilt every day. But, more new and complex stuff keeps landing on our desks.

I’m 50 years old. I have 15 years of service in at the Hill. My plan at this point has been to work until I am 55, when I will have 20 years in and then retire from the Hill and get a part time job with benefits doing something completely different. Of course, I’d rather retire and not go to a job at all, but I’m not sure that’s going to be doable. My IRA was pretty much wiped out last year and while I still have PERS and Social Security… I don’t know. It’s a scary prospect. Let’s see, if I saved a hundred dollars a month for five years and hid it under my mattress… yep, I’d still be broke when I retired.

The thing of it is, if I were to change jobs, I’d be taking home less money, contributing less money to my retirement, paying more for benefits and getting less… all in all, not a good choice. So, yeah, I’ll be sticking it out here. Not because I like it, but because I like having a job that pays the bills. In today’s economy, that’s pretty good.

But, I’m still tired of it.