Well, it’s my first day starting the show (opening the station) in almost 6 months. I’m rusty as hell, and am fighting the urge to get there a half hour early. The last time I screwed up, they gave me an awesome job change. I’m afraid if I screw up this time, they’ll give me my career goal of sitting in a dark office counting paperclips.
Yeah, yeah. I disappeared of of the face of the earth for a while. Probably just making a drive-by at the moment.
If you didn’t know, I’m bipolar, and there’s a bunch of stuff that comes with it. My medication usually works well, but it occasionally doesn’t work as well as it usually does. When that happens, well, all sorts of things happen.
I should have known it was coming. I started obsessing over a single thing: Nimrod lighters. I ended up with more material than I could ever use for an article, then lost interest.
Then social networking started to feel more like work than fun. Facebook, MySpace, even semi-social networks like YouTube and Flickr felt like it required dragging myself to the computer. I’ve never been totally social, but this was like shutting down.
Then I went through a spree of compulsive spending. I had to have all these antique lighters, and they had to have a distinctive set of rules before I would buy them.
I got on top of that, albeit a bit too late for my credit card, but remember that I mentioned that the selection of lighters needed a distinctive set of rules? Then I started obsessively organizing and compartmentalizing. I spent hours reorganizing file systems on my computer for no good reason, other than I wanted it organized in some specific way.
Then I made the mistake of hanging out on deviantART. I started obsessively collecting, again, a distinctive type of art. Then I spent weeks organizing what I had downloaded.
These are soothing activities that keep me feeling safe, but they have become intrusive, affecting a lot of my life. So I’ve been struggling to keep it under control. I’ve got a week off, a week back at work, then two more weeks off, since I always take Halloween off. I’ve done more on the yard in two days, than I’ve done all summer, and I’ve got a bunch of other things done that I’ve been neglecting.
Oh, and I’m specifically Bipolar II, which means instead of manic manic highs, I get really irritable and cranky. And I have a bitch of a new boss. We call her The Gargoyle. So you can imagine what our working relationship has been like, although I have gotten off some of the best zingers recently.
We were at a staff meeting. I tend to have a dry sense of wit, so I’ll say something that will take a minute for it to sink into someone’s brain. We have a supervisor named Phil who really was confused by me for a long time, and then he started laughing, and, I swear, telling jokes. Anyway, the topic of Phil comes up in the meeting, and I look over at Phil and say, “And Phil even grew a sense of humor.” And while everyone was still laughing, I turned to The Gargoyle and said, “So there’s still hope for you.”
And to keep a long story short, she managed to drive through own garage door the other day. I swear, it’s true. So her car ends up in the shop. Later, we get in a heated, uh, disagreement over an issue, and I invoke the OIG and my attorney, so you can imagine how loving our relationship was after that.
Later, at closing, she calls me up on the intercom to yap at me about this and that, and then she asks, “Oh, would you give me a ride home?”
“Has Hell frozen over?”
“I was just kidding (with no kidding in her voice)! I’d ask 500 people for a ride before I’d ever ask you!”
“And you’d be lucky if any of those 500 people said yes.”
“You are so rude!”
“And your point is?”
Yeah, nothing but fun at the ol’ postal service… And you should hear my employees say about her. I am absolutely obscene but there’s even some things I won’t repeat. That’s how bad it is.
Anyway, I’m still not all that ready to pop back into the social network scene, and I do have odds and ends to do. I have to fix my stuck garage door, download new firmware for my Omnia and see if I can get it’s internal GPS unlocked, fix a running toilet (where’s it running to?), clean out the garage (yeah, right), and start setting up for Halloween.
I’ll start posting stuff that I haven’t gotten to for a while.
Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this thought:
Sorry I haven’t been around lately, but work is trying it’s best to kill me. I’ve been working 3 days weeks now, 6 days a week, 12-13 hours. I wake up confused, trying to remember if I’m waking up to go to work, waking up from a nap and have to go back to work, or just waking up from a nap. One more week to go like this. Hell, half the time I don’t know what day it is.
Doing the work of 3 people, on of whom never finished their critical paperwork, and I can’t find it, and a dozen departments are demanding it on a deadline.
Also found out that headquarters thinks I don’t exist, except to pay me and take money out of my pay. Locally they lost all my information (assholes), so there was nothing to send up to HQ when they centralized there.
God, I love my job. I’m gonna need a week straight of therapy after all this.
Thought I’d do a simple post today.
Yes, a Zippo or refillable butane lighter can be sent through the mail. Here’s how to do it:
Post Office: If you’re shipping the lighter at the counter with the window clerk, they’ll ask you “Does this contain anything liquid, hazardous, flammable…” you can honestly say no. You don’t have to declare it’s a lighter unless you’re shipping it overseas or Registered. If it’s an expensive lighter, I’d suggest sending it Registered, not Certified. Registered Mail goes straight into a vault, and is transfered through the Postal Service under lock and key until it gets to it’s destination. I’d also suggest sending it Insured. It doesn’t cost that much. Using one or the other, you can verify delivery of the lighter when it reaches it’s destination. If you use Express, it’s trackable through the entire process and is automatically insured for a $100. If it’s value is more than $100, you can always add additional insurance.Hope that helps!
PMG OUTLINES ACTIONS TO ENSURE LONG-TERM VIABILITY OF USPS
Speaking yesterday to the Board of Governors, PMG Jack Potter re-emphasized the fact USPS faces extraordinary financial challenges in the months ahead, and that there is no indication the faltering economy or continuing decline in mail volume will stabilize in the near future.
Mail volume was down more than 9 billion pieces last year, Potter told governors, and preliminary reports show mail volume dropped more than 5 billion pieces during the first quarter of FY 2009. And, with no economic recovery expected for the remainder of the fiscal year, year-end mail volume could tumble a total of 12-15 billion pieces.
If current revenue and volume trends continue, Potter said USPS could experience a year-end net loss significantly higher than last year’s $2.8 billion loss, due primarily to the cost burden imposed by the Postal Act of 2006. That Act requires USPS to prefund future retiree health benefits in addition to paying for current benefits.
“An adjustment in our retirement health benefit funding schedule could have a significant and positive effect on our bottom line — some $2 billion in 2009,” said Potter, explaining that legislative change to the funding schedule would not require any appropriated funds. It also would have no effect on retirement benefits, themselves, and would not change the Postal Service’s obligation to retirees.
To meet the challenge of declining revenues, USPS also is taking major steps to cut costs immediately, said Potter. These steps include:
“The Postal Service is an important public service and a vital economic engine,” Potter told the board. “We are focused on identifying and implementing strategic solutions to ensure the Postal Service continues to deliver for Americans today and for future generations.”
