The Emerald Rose

         Let’s start with hilarious and move to mundane shall we?

         Got a call last evening from one of the “”Home Improvement Superstores” where I had filled in one of their computer kiosk applications. Not a real person mind you, but a voice messaging machine thanking me for applying and asking me to call an 800 number and give them confirmation # XYZ12345. So buffered with my second cup of coffee this morning I make the call. Obviously it is going to an “HR Call Center” (or that’s what the girl said it was) she asked me if I was still interested in a position, (Uh DUH! Yes.) She then tells me they are going to do a phone interview with me and the answers will be recorded, with my permission, (Sure, whatever it takes!). So she asks me two questions, #1 with my background in retail please tell them what customer service should be like in a store, (so I recite the party line straight from the Dummies book of retail training) she says “Good, now can you tell me a specific occasion where you saw the results of good service, (again right out of the book, with a little embellishment and changing of the names to protect the innocent). “Excellent, now let me tell you about the job and the pay and all,but the next step will be the local store manager contacting you about the job and seeing if it is a fit for him,…okay?” I sound excited and say yes by all means what are we talking about here, please ma’am.”

        Turns out the “position” is for a part-time “freight supplier” at $9.55 an hour and about twenty hours a week! $191.00 (before taxes of course), and the hours are 8PM to Midnight five days a week, (Man what a break, I’ve been looking for a career position to feed my family and pay the rent and all, and the $764, minus 20% in taxes, will sure help with that,…..I hope I get to run one of those cool forklifts!) So here I sit anxiously awaiting a call, ready and raring to start my new career. Since the place basically closes about an hour before I go to work what the hell was the purpose of the “customer service” questions, just a ‘by the way’ comment.

            Then one of the condo association manager positions I applied for called last evening as well to set up a third meeting with me on Wednesday morning to look at the “20-30 hours a month” of miscellaneous cleanup and “fix-it” items so I could give them a firm price, in addition to my monthly charges as a manager of $1600. (Is that High Cotton I smell in the future?) So I could work 9-5 on the condos, have supper take a nap, go to the “Home Improvement Superstore” from 8 – Midnight, even my Pub closes at 10 pm so just home to bed I guess,….but making the dough (I hope). Life was supposed to get easier as you got older, experience was supposed to mean something,….well someone did not read the same books I did I guess.

        Well that leaves me falling back to becoming a novelist, (sure hope the first royalty check gets here before the peanut butter runs out!)

        Ok, let’s see, Chapter One,…..”It was a dark and stormy night…..”

        The good news is there is a national election next week, and with a little luck “We the People” can recapture this current madness and bring some sanity back to the country and then business will begin to prosper and grow and hire folks and pay them so they can spend money buying things that other people have jobs making and we can all get back to living healthier ever after. (“I can dream can’t I?”)

        Oh yeah, on the health front, just lost my second doctor, my cardiologist. Seems like the local Hospital is really pushing the Doctors around with demands for more tests, more operations, more billable hours, whether the patients need it or not. Does this sound like pure short sighted stupidity to you?

         First we lost our “regular” Doc, who was an internist. As far as I was concerned he was right on target every time, never over prescribed medications, always took his time we would chat, he was “up front and honest” with me and back when I was having my little “triple by-pass adventure” he would call as soon as he got test results and all, even if it was 8:30 at night or 6:00 in the morning. Now that;s a Doc I can respect. But they drove him out of her. (Actually he told them he was leaving for the above reasons and that was not why he went into medicine to “made the Hospitals money”, but to take care of patients,….PROPERLY! How can you hate a man like that? His replacement, my new “Internist” is a firm believer in the prescription pad. In fact he carrys three of them in his white lab coat, and is faster on the draw than Billy the Kid could ever have thought of being. “Tight cough? I got something for that (scribble,scribble)”, “Oh your nose is running, let me give you something for that (scribble scribble)” And of course “I’ll tell the nurse to book you a follow up with me next week, and we’ll see how you’re doing.”

        And now my cardiologist is leaving. Guess the doctors know how to cut stress levels in their lives huh?

       On other miscellaneous fronts I have 17 minutes left to finish my workout schedule for this week so I guess I’ll watch a football game at the Pub and become my alter-ego, and super hero,….”Mr Sarcastic” . It is a dangerous job here in the Southern United States, particularly in the National Collegiate Athletic Association  territory of the “South East Conference” ( or as the rednecks call it, the “NC,dubba A, Sec” .

       It takes about ten seconds to size up the crowd, see who is rooting for Alabama, another ten seconds to come up with a line like, “Say buddy, that fat guy with the “78” on his shirt, is he wearing pantyhose?”, or waiting until the other team tackles them and saying something like, “Well stupid, bite the bastard on the leg.” (That’s where all my exercise on the treadmill comes in handy, haven’t met a bubba I can’t out run yet!)

     Well enjoy the day, tomorrow is Halloween around here so I guess I’ll be doing “squat thrusts” from the recliner every three minutes to give out candy.

-30-

      “What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other.”

                                   – George Eliot – novelist