This should have happened a long time ago…
8 minute read
November 25, 2019, 8:35 AM
Recently, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, and there was someone that I didn’t know in my “People You May Know” list who had an emblem for an organization called “Food & Water Workers Union” on their profile photo. This piqued my interest, because as you may know, I used to work for an organization called Food & Water Watch. The similarity in the name made me wonder if it was related, so I looked it up. I figured that it was some branding that my former employer was using for a campaign of some sort on the environmental issue du jour. Imagine my surprise to find out that it was for a recently-formed Food & Water Watch employee union, part of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union. At the time of this writing, they had voted to unionize, and, according to a tweet, were negotiating over which positions will be represented by the union. I have to say that I’m proud of them for organizing, but I’m also surprised that it took them this long to get to this point. Their becoming a union shop really should have happened a long time ago.
I don’t know what prompted people to organize, but I can only imagine that people finally got fed up with the culture that I left for greener pastures back in 2013. Back then, there was rampant favoritism, little to no room for advancement, no respect for different people’s roles in the organization, and no respect for procedure. There was also the backdoor way that my former boss, Lane Brooks, liked to use to get rid of people, including the finance manager and myself, by creating a new position specifically written to be outside of the targeted employee’s qualifications, and then advertising it out, effectively demoting the employee. If that by itself didn’t make them leave, he would then put the screws on the employee until they quit. And if that didn’t work, he made more overt moves to fire them. After the targeted employee left, the new position was abandoned, having served its purpose in ousting the targeted employee.
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Categories: Work
Excited, nervous, and so many other feelings…
5 minute read
November 17, 2019, 9:56 AM
This coming December 6, I will be going in for surgery at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney, where I will be having a sleeve gastrectomy procedure, commonly known as a gastric sleeve. This is a surgery that will help with weight management. This is done laparoscopically, and it removes a portion of the stomach, leaving a much smaller stomach behind that’s roughly the size of a banana. This one only reduces the size of the stomach, and preserves the original path of the digestive tract. Compare to the older Roux-en-Y procedure, which separates the stomach into two sections, and reroutes the digestive tract.
I am doing this because I have been heavy for most of my life (I haven’t seen the underside of 200 since eighth grade), and diet and exercise alone haven’t gotten me nearly as far as I needed to be. Sure, I looked far better at 275 than I did at 384, but it was still too much weight to carry, and I still had weight-related health issues at the lower weight. Over the course of the past year, I have attended classes with a dietitian, had various evaluations and tests done (the endoscopy that I wrote about last April was part of that), and after all of that, the insurance gave the surgery their blessing.
I have to say that I have a bunch of different feelings running through me about this. On one hand, I know that this is a necessary step. My primary care doctor first suggested it to me about a year ago, and then I unexpectedly got a second opinion within a month or so from a specialist that I was seeing when they suggested it as well. As far as I was concerned, that was a pretty strong indicator about what I needed to do, when two out of two doctors, in their professional opinion, suggested it, completely unsolicited. I also feel like I’m ready for it. I know what I’m supposed to do to prepare for the surgery, I know what I’m supposed to do immediately after surgery, and I know what I’m doing during the healing process and thereafter on the maintenance diet. At the end of every dietitian class, they told us “Chew, chew, chew, sip, sip, sip, and walk, walk, walk.” I’ve also stocked up on my multivitamins and my calcium citrate, as gastric sleeve patients will take multivitamins and calcium supplements for life. This also has the potential to get me off of some of the medications that I’m on as well as the CPAP (for sleep apnea). That latter point is exciting, because while I’m used to the CPAP, it’s still a bother, and I would be more than happy to be rid of the device that I’ve described as “the most expensive fan that I’ve ever owned”. I’ve also spoken with colleagues who have had the same surgery, and they have generally had good experiences, which leaves me feeling optimistic. After all, if they can succeed with this while doing very sedentary work, then so can I.
Categories: Personal health, Weight loss
Such an isolating feeling…
4 minute read
November 7, 2019, 11:24 AM
Let me be the first to say that I am glad that the baseball season is finally over. For those not familiar, the Major League Baseball team that is based in Washington, the Nationals, made it to the World Series, and ultimately managed to prevail, with the franchise’s winning the first World Series title in its history, both as the Nationals, as well as the Expos before that.
I don’t know how you’re “supposed to” feel about when the team that’s based in your city is in the championship round, but I felt a bit alienated. I don’t pay much attention to professional sports, other than what I pick up at work (let’s just say that I am well aware of the Redskins–Cowboys rivalry). It just doesn’t interest me. When everyone around me was celebrating the team’s making the World Series and then winning it, I felt bad because I couldn’t muster up the joy myself. It made me feel very isolated, with everyone around me wrapped up in baseball fever, and my feeling incapable of sharing in the hubris.
It really came to the forefront for me when we were all given World Series hats at work, and encouraged, though not required, to wear in place of our our standard uniform hats if we so desired. I was asked to put it on to verify that it fit when it was given to me. It really brought that feeling of emptiness that I felt for professional sports to a head, and that made me feel guilty because I felt nothing over the success of the local professional team while everyone around me was overjoyed. I never did wear the hat beyond the fit test, and after the period that it was authorized for wear expired, I gave it to Elyse. I didn’t want it, but it made her happy. So that’s a win, I suppose. I also suppose that the hat was a moot point to begin with, considering that I haven’t worn a hat to work in more than a year.
Categories: DC area local news, Washington DC