Tit for Tat Scars

Hello my darlings,

I am currently sitting on a two-hour webinar about goal-setting and performance management.  I'm pretty sure I've heard all of this material at least 85 times prior, but this is a mandatory meeting and apparently at the end they give you a special "instruction" that you only know about if you attend the meeting, so I have to endure the whole thing to get credit for attending.  Yeah - employing juvenile techniques to mandate compliance, this might be my new most favorite thing in Corporate America.  Since I am stuck doing this and since I had something truly terrifying to share with all of you I thought I would use this time to rant, vent and whine to all of you.  Looks like we are all LUCKY today!  teeheee

As I am now transitioning between my boot and a shoe with an ankle brace people are suddenly very interested in seeing my scar.  I've worn a sandal with my boot, so I've been able to show people the totally healed version on my left foot and just say that's pretty much what the scar is going to look like. The questions about scars are annoying, but generally innocuous. I basically think we all have scars in one form or another, so looking at someone else scar is just not a thing that fascinates me.  Interestingly enough though I find that much of the time people start this conversation as a segue to show-off some old wounds.  It becomes some sort of some tit for tat scar one-ups-manship.  Unfortunately, once in a while there is someone feels it's necessary to take it one step farther. 

This morning after an unfortunate (and very painful) misstep (see PS below for more about that) while wearing my shoe, I decided to put the boot on to walk the third of a mile between buildings in the rain. Now, I'm back in my building on this nonsensical conference call, so I decided to take my boot off again, that's when Ms. Shay (her real name is Sharlana, but she goes by Shay) stopped by my desk.  Shay is our new PeopleSoft admin that started here just over a month ago.  She relocated from Houston and is trying to get acclimated to Colorado (and attempting to learn to navigate roundabouts, but that's a whole 'nother coffee)  For the last two weeks I've been asking Shay to compare developer permissions between the current environment and a snapshot of the old environment because of an issue that was raised TWO WEEKS ago.  This morning she finally got back to me with a list of users that are different between the two systems.  Um, yeah... Soooo, uh thanks, not what I asked for.  It's raining, its Tuesday and frankly I am not in the mood to deal with it today, so I just said that we probably don't need to worry about it.  The developers aren't screaming that they can't work and what the hell they are developers in a development environment, do I really need to worry about permissions there.  Case closed, right?  

OMG, I wish the story ended here.  Lucky for me at this point in the conversation Shay notices that I don't have my boot on and asks me if I am putting any cream on my foot.  WTF?  Why are you so interested in my damn foot?  I know she's just trying to be nice, but I really and truly am NOT IN THE MOOD for this conversation, but I am trying to be polite and nice (FWIW I SUCK at it and it doesn't feel right, so I am not planning to make a habit of this) so I ask her what she means about cream.  She has a bad knee and a bad hip and back problems (my inside voice is saying, yep weighing 300 pounds will do that to you, but my outside voice says nothing ((Chalk one up for discretion and actually having an inside voice -- WOOT WOOT!)) so she uses a menthol cream to help with the pain.  In the most polite voice I can muster (about an 8 on the bitch-o-meter scale) I reiterated that I am really not in much pain (I'm sort of lying because of my "misstep" but I'm NOT telling her about that.)  She then begins telling me about some condition that African Americans get that causes scars to be really pronounced.  Newsflash, I'm not black - HELL, I'm not even remotely tan right now.  However, Ms.Shay IS black and at this point in the conversation she steps closer to me, (read, OMG total violation of personal space) so she is mostly hidden by the cubicle wall in front of my desk (apparently that's her version of discretion, which I take as a sign that the whole developing-my-inner-voice thing was a BAD idea.) and before I can even question what she's doing she lifts her shirt to show me her C-Section scars.  YEP!  Those babies sure are pronounced!  

AAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  I'm not going to give you any details, other than to say I am now TERRIFIED of railroad tracks and I think I am going to drink BLEACH for lunch.   

Until next time.....

XOXO

PS -- By the time I get around to writing another one of these I will have forgotten about the pain (unless I did something really damaging which I think is pretty unlikely) from my "misstep" so you can consider this bonus material..... 

When I got to work it was pouring rain and even though I have a temporary handicapped parking tag, so I could very easily have parked ten feet from the door in one of the five gimp spaces that are only used by Jimmie Johns delivery people, my dumb ass decided this would be a good time to get a few extras steps.  (Damn you FitBit!)  In order to get those 50-75 extra steps I parked further out in the parking lot and with the rain that was falling and the puddles around the parking lot I didn't notice a pothole.  In case you did already know this, anytime your heel drops below the ball of your foot that is ALL Achilles tendon.  Word to the wise (FAIL) If you've had your Achilles detached and repaired in the last couple of months or so you probably (read, Holy Mother of you don't even understand how painful that was) don't want to do that.  As a result of this incident I dropped my lunch on the ground, but I didn't collapse and I didn't pee my pants from the pain, so I guess overall it could have been worse.    

I wonder who I should sue first, Fitbit for making me want to be all steppy or the property management company for not notifying me that there was a pothole.  I mean seriously, just because it's spring and there are potholes everywhere shouldn't they really be thinking of me and my gimp-foot and my stupid FitBit enticing me to get those extra steps.  Seriously, DAMN YOU FITBIT!