Collected Thoughts

On Nov 19th I hit my head at work and had a concussion. There was a fixture in a storage room that shouldn't have had a fixutre, it was shoved in so the only 2 arms left on it where at my head height and the door just opened past them. I walked into one of them and hit directly on my right temple. It's been a long saga I won't relate here just because I'm tired of it. But getting hurt the weekend before Thanksgiving ,when the store is without an HR manager is just.. not fun. I ended up going back and forth about work, got told to stay home a week, got cleared, and then had to go back and got uncleared until I see a nuerologist.

The first time I heard from Worker's Comp was on the Tuesday after thanksgiving when they returned my call. It's been like that the whole way. I just got confirmation yesterday that my new work status of out of work has been approved and they just cut me a check for the days I've missed due to this. In the state I'm in if you are out for 14+ days due to workers comp issue then you get the first 7 days that workers comp normally doesn't pay.

I did work for some of that because I kept getting notes from the ER that said go back to work in 2 or 3 days and I didn't actually see a doctor that wasn't in the ER until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

I am getting better but I'm still having issues of brain fog, senstivity to light. I get tired really easily and there is something going on with my right eye, although that has improved. Either that or I'm getting used to it. Workers comp is tryign to find me a neurologist that does workers comp so..who knows when that will happen.

AO3 put a limit on tags. and I was reading the comments (and commenting) and found some neat things to read from that.

My "use people's bookmarks to find fic" has been a pretty good strategy.

I updated the tags on my stories just because I figured and changed the rating on some and then checked the stats since I don't pay attetion.

The story with the most hits is Biogenesis (Smallville) with 365 (I mean these predate AO3 and are short works that are more character studies so not expecting anything great).

The story with the most kudos at 11 is Variations of a Kiss (Smallville), it's been bookmarked twice and it got kudos yesterday.

I kind of feel bad that they have so little kudos. But the summaries are basic, I didn't use too many tags and they are older and there is only 5 of my stories on A03. I'm pretty sure I lost a few others. I never wrote much.

It's really cool to get a kudo in email because it's like -oh! someone found it! and they liked it!

I haven't written anything in a long time and there's just no inspiration or stories I want to tell so I just don't.

I got written up at work for attendance. I called out 2x , left early (wasn't feeling well at all) and was late becuase I mixed up my schedule. That's 3.5 points, you can only have 3 and you get written up. If I had someone to cover me I would have been fine but I called out same day and we are so understaffed there is no one to just cover a shift. I could have traded but again it was same day and that's hard to figure out.

Pre pandemic there was more forgiveness for this kind of thing but now with the staff shortage there isn't. Last Sunday managers were scrambling around to try and get people to take a short lunch or stay late because there were enough call outs it was going to put us well below hours..which means corporate cuts hours the next month thinking we don't need them.

So it sucks this happened. My manager made it clear she doesn't think it's a behavioral problem or anything , stuff just happened. They fall off after 6 months but they are close enough together it's going to be Jan before most falls off.

We have 1/3 of the staff we did pre pandemic. And we are actually doing better in sales most days (I think fulfilling online orders is a huge part of that) and with some fitting rooms open it's harder to staff because we need at least 2 people (ideally 3) at those registers and we don't have that many employees. Although we went back to only having 2 fitting rooms open because of Delta variant surge.

I'm getting worried about Christmas and if we will have enough staff to handle everything.

Cat #3 goes to the vet today, He has something going on with the side of his mouth, it was an issue under his chin. It looks like a scrape but...but it's not and his fur is worn off a bit. I don't know, he went last month (month before?) for the otherisde of his mouth and they were like "it's just a cut" but it's got to be more than that.

Sunday at work a used condom was found in the men's dressing room.

It's not the first time a used condom has been found in the store. People have been caught having sex in the fitting rooms before and, I didn't know this, but a couple holiday seasons ago a couple was caught ON THE SALESFLOOR (in a corner mind but still on the salesfloor) with the chick giving her guy a blow job.

It's gross. It's gross seeing it, it's gross dealing with the aftermath.

I've read a few fanfics where there is public sex like in a bathroom or a fitting room or the library stacks or something and my reaction is always NOOOOO!!!!!! No please no. At the least have them do it in a car in the parking lot. Or a parking garage. It's more private. (Fun Fact: One of JEB Bush's sons got caught having sex with his then girlfriend in a car in the parking lot of the "other" mall in Tallahassee. Which I guess is better than JEB's other son who was stalking/harassing his ex).

We also had a bunch of call outs on Sunday so they were people who got off before we closed if they could work later and those who worked until close if we could take a half hour lunch instead of an hour. It wasn't mandatory and I understood why, if we are under too many hours then next month our hours will be cut. You would have thought they were doing this for some arbitrary reason the way some people complained.

I've been reading a lot of MCU fic but I've read a few stories where Clint was based on the Hawkeye comics and I kinda like that characterization better than MCU Clint. So now I Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon Vol 1 from the library. I need to remember the library is a decent way to get my comics fix. Not buying them. That way just leads to me spending all my money on crossovers and back issues.

I still haven't watched most of Age of Ultron. I did rewatch Avengers recently and kinda felt like...ugh Joss Whedon.

I've also been watching Gotham, very slowly, with my boyfriend bc he only wants to watch like once a week. But we finally made it end of Season 3 I think. I dunno. I'm torn between-- wtf? Why? in a bad way and WTF?!?!?! WHHYyyyyyy!!?!?!? in like a totally good way. and occasionlly..why why am I still watching?

Schools started here today. Which hopefully means the end of the kids department getting completely destroyed. Saturday I was trying to do recovery in one area and had to give up and move to another section of kids because too many people were still shopping and as soon as I got something looking nice it got messed up again, like you couldn't tell I had done anything.

Yesterday it seemed to be Obvious question day. I had a customer who was holding some Small Girls clothes and asks me what size a small is, I wasn't sure if she had the little girls of the older girls and she tells me she's got the 7-16 size girls. I told her a small would be 7/8, and she asks me "so a 7 is the smallest size".

I had to try very hard not to be sarcastic when I said "yes, 7 is the smallest size in the 7-16 sizes".

And then later someone asked me about open fitting rooms so I directed them to the one in Juniors, referred to it as juniors and she says "oh you have a juniors department? where is it?" So I give her the directions again, but kind of downplay the fitting room part. I was pointing because we were over half way from it- all she had to do was walk to the end of the building and it was the corner the walk way deadended in, she'll see the clearance and where the fitting rooms are and that's where it starts (at least on that side). She then asks where I said the fitting rooms were.


Which is a little less frustrating than when someone asks if something is availble in a certain color and I say no it's only available in black (for example) and then they keep asking about different colors. Nope, not red, not white, not beige, only black. That's it.

My team lead left, well he got promoted.. our former manager (who is now a regional manager) recruited him to be a team manager at a store where he is based and our store tried to offer him more money and a promotion but it would have been more sales focused and he didn't want that. Plus moving gave him a fresh start where people would only know him as a manager.

The team lead that was supposed to switch into his place gave his notice. So now we are down an operations lead and a fufillment lead. Which is not where we want to be at this point in Q3. I don't know what they are going to do. I'm hoping they can get someone from another store to transfer in at one of the positions because we don't need 2 brand new people coming in.

Several other people have left. One person left because she didn't like how much she was getting paid (she actually told me at one point and I don't blame her for that) and she felt like she was constantly singled out by managers and getting in trouble. That was more her fault, when she first started she would wander from where she was supposed to and they were constantly having to page her to get her back to her area. Sometimes she was doing go backs but she would chat or whatever. And she would shop on the clock AND hoard stuff for herself. She got transferred to a different department and the wandering kind of stopped but I know she was still holding stuff to buy and getting talked to about that. So she developed a rep and then didn't do anything to correct it.

Racist Co Worker is quitting! I think next week is her last day. I overheard someone saying she had changed her mind a few times but I think she has a definite end date and I don't think they'll let her change it. I'm sure I have other co workers who are racist but she is the only one who lets that come out at work.

I've been taking Cymbalta for almost 2 weeks now. I was depressed and have been for longer than I realized. Once I was at the stage where I was staying in bed almost all day and had no energy to do anything (except for scroll through tumblr or buzzfeed articles) I realized I wasn't that far from calling out at work.

When I have to refill my ADHD med I'm going to increase the dose and see if that helps as well.

I've been feeling better but my stamina on days off is just.. nil. Not physical, just mental. Today I've gotten up and done some stuff and now I'm ready to go curl up in bed for a nap because I'm just tired. Not physically (well I am sleepy) but just .. whatever.

Next weekend I have 4 days off (at least). I asked for Sat and Sunday off and just let my unpaid days fall how they may. And I was scheduled off Thurs, Fri. Later this week I'll know about the following week. Even if I don't get mon or tuesday off I'll still have 2 unpaid days off.

My parents have had their first vaccination shots. I think Dad gets his 2nd this week and mom next week.

So I've started watching The Expanse as well as Shameless.

I 've also been back on Tumblr so it's pretty much Shameless, Amos Burton, Supernatural , Witcher, and soem shows I don't follow but people I follow do so I see those.

Anyway it's got me in the mood for vids and I am trying to figure out where to start. There is stuff on youtube but it's... there's a lot of , basically scenes cut to go over songs but they have the dialouge all in tact. I do not like this. It's hard for me to process both the lyrics and the dialouge- especially when they are going on at the same time. But also I prefer vids that rely on the viewers knowledge of the source material adn editing to tell stories. I realize that something like Shameless might end up being more talkign heads at times but there is plenty of action in The Expanse!

So now I need to deep dive into Dreamwidth to find some vids.

I have a few but new one is people not using the tag Alternate Universe when they are writing an AU.

And Alternate Universe is a tag that can be excluded but only if people tag their fic that way.

I found stories that only mention that it's an AU in the author's notes --not the tags, not the description , etc.

Also if something is tagged "Coffehouse AU" then I have to exclude that tag and there are a lot of AU styles to have to exclude.

Which gets me torn about -why do people use so many tags on their fics, like it's tumblr or instagram tags and then also WHY aren't people using enough tags damnit!

I have, apparently, skimmed through all of Shameless. I've seen it mentioned, knew it was around, never really watched it. Watched some of the original UK show but not a lot. I started watching it and then just skimmed around mostly watching the Ian/Mickey stuff, which means I missed a lot of the show.

How the hell does Frank Gallagher get all the women? I'm very confused.

So now I'm poking around AO3 trying to figure out good stuff to read and I'm about to start poking around Dreamwidth.

I'm really intrigued by Mickey and his character development.