In Limbo
Today I spent from 5:30am until 2pm in a constant state of, “should I stay or should I go?”
I woke up and had cramps and heavy bleeding. I waffled for a few minutes before getting into the shower. When I got out of the shower, I waffled before eating. I kept thinking, “Should I go back to bed? Will this get worse? Should I just go and tough it out and maybe it won’t be so bad?”
I could only eat a bowl of cereal – everything else did not seem appealing AT ALL. I was barely hungry – how can one be hungry when one is cramping and bleeding profusely? I just wanted to go back to bed, but I was in limbo. I felt like a zombie. I had no idea why I should keep moving, but I just had to.
Then I started thinking, “are you doing this because your father always says, go in even if you have to crawl in?” And I thought about it, and I had no definitive answer. My head was clouded with pain and hemorrhaging.
I found myself putting on shoes and heading out the door at 7:05am and I thought, “well, I guess I’m going in!”
The cramps hit harder about ten miles from home. I thought, “I could turn around right here…”, but I kept going.
The cramps settled down, then flared up right as I was about to get on the bridge to cross the south bay. “I could turn around right here…”, but I kept going.
I got to work, and parked my car. Suddenly it hit me – today is payday. I needed to show up because today is payday, and those assholes never gave me the option for direct deposit, so I have to be physically present to collect my paycheck.
I went inside and started my workday. I spent most of the workday wondering if I should take the next phonecall or call it quits and go home and back to bed. I was literally falling asleep at my desk and my thighs down to my knees throbbed and pulsed because the Endometriosis always affects me bad in my legs.
At 9:30am, my boss called me in for the weekly one-on-one meeting and said that now that the director of support has returned from his vacation and has met with my boss and HR about me, she said about my employment there, “it’s not looking good”.
I marvelled at how they can go on for the last three and a half weeks like this when I’ve had no indication of being sick, working my ass off, remaining in the top ten performers, and here they continue on, going about deciding my fate for the next month, blind to any of the work I’ve done for them. Every Friday, telling me, “we’re still deciding. We’re still unsure.”
In Limbo.
So I broke the news to my boss that it’s been another month and here I am, in case she hadn’t noticed, in pain again. She took stock and realised, then told me I don’t look so good.
No shit, sherlock.
I told her I’d been falling asleep at my desk all morning and that it was highly likely that I wouldn’t last the day. I asked if I could have my paycheck. She said she’d get it for me.
She then told me that the other two who’d been fired this week were let go due to “ongoing performance issues”.
I asked her why, when there is a serious shortage of people in this department, with people leaving on their own due to morale issues, would they go and FIRE people on top of it all?
She answered that since it was ongoing parole basically for those two, and not expecting people to leave on their own, they had to go forward with the firings when the two guys didn’t clean up their acts, because no matter the staff shortage, they don’t want people who are not doing their job well to continue to be employed there.
When I had my first break at 10am, I got on instant chat. My man couldn’t believe I’d had the stamina to go in to work after how tired and wan I’d looked yesterday evening.
I was surprised that I made it to my lunch break, and went out to fetch some fast food because I hadn’t packed a lunch today. The act of walking down the stairs, driving my car, and climbing back up the stairs made the pain return, and with that the intense fatigue and bleeding.
At 1:30pm, I declared I was finished for the day, citing I was now slurring on the phones and couldn’t keep with the conversations and troubleshooting.
I’ll have you know that the only meds I was on at work today was the 600mg Ibuprofen.
I asked to be taken off the phones to finish up my emails. I left work at 2pm, and as I left, my boss asked me if it hurt to walk. I told her yes and felt like saying, “Duh! Haven’t you seen me shuffling around all day and staggering every time I got up to use the bathroom 900 times?” But I was nice. She’s been nice. She’s acted as though she’s on my side. She even at one point in the past month told me she has to say the royal ‘We’ when telling me that the company doesn’t like me being off work, but she doesn’t like including herself in that.
So I was nice, told her yeah it hurt, and that the drive home would be hell because I have to press the gas and brake and that always makes the cramps worse.
She looked really worried to release me from work in my state. I told her I’d take a nap in the car, first. I needed it.
While I was in the car, driver side window open, reclined in my driver’s seat and trying to nap, I heard footsteps and smelled cigarette smoke. I opened my eyes to see my cow-orker standing there, asking if the reason I was sitting there in my car with my hand resting on my head was due to a headache. I told him no, that I have a disease which affects me monthly and so I’m napping before making the trek home.
He then told me that he’s about to be fired if he misses any more work, because he suffers from migraines, which he takes medicine for. He told me that the most recent day missed was because he woke up WITH the migraine and therefore had no time to take the medicine before it got bad. I told him I had a friend who suffers migraines and she has to be hospitalised for them. I told her how she vomits from the pain. He nodded and told similar stories.
So I told him I’m likely fired because I left before the end of my shift today, and that I’ve been on probation with these people for missing 1-2 days a month due to my condition. We comisserated, being two of the top ten performers in that damned place.
He said, “I don’t get it, why don’t they just fire you now then? Why make you come in on Monday just to let you go?”
I know. WTF.