He terminated her for violating a policy which he did not have, had never mentioned, and made up only AFTER she pushed him to explain his reason for terminating her. He lost the initial dispute for unemployment because he didn’t have any documentation.

Then, as if by magic, he produced a photocopied page from “a” policy manual, which Jenna had never seen, and another page from somewhere else (that didn’t even have the same font or font size) that he ALSO claimed was part of his policy manual. Jenna was never given a copy of this document (probably because it didn’t exist), and EVEN IF THE DOCUMENT DID EXIST, HE DIDN’T FOLLOW THE DISCIPLINE STEPS IN THE FRIGGIN DOCUMENTS! It said two written warnings would be given, then possible termination. Well, he didn’t give written warnings.

His other point in his appeal was that Jenna had a job and was, in essence, scamming the unemployment system. He was referring to Jenna being on the radio… which she is. However, what he didn’t know (since it was none of his damn business) was that she is a volunteer. She’s killing time while she looks for work. She’s never been paid a cent.

He sent a page from her blog on the radio station’s website claiming it proved that she was working.

The fact that he won this appeal only proves that he must have lied through his teeth to the judge. There’s no other way he could have won. The facts were not on his side. He couldn’t produce one solid piece of evidence that she violated a policy, and he didn’t even follow the policy that he submitted (which was apparently downloaded from the Internet) to the judge as evidence. And his second claim of her being employed was just bunk. He assumed.

If you just go by the “facts” that were presented in the documentation, he can’t win. He must have just lied and lied and lied.

We could fight it, but frankly it wouldn’t help. The next appeal step doesn’t allow any new information to be added, a panel just reviews the current file to make sure the JUDGE didn’t break any rules with the judgment. Which I’m sure she didn’t.

We could hire an attorney and sue the idiot. But Jenna and I have already had 4 months of this guy trying to cause us sleepless nights, stress, and just general anger. I think 4 months of him upsetting us is enough, and so my decision is to let it go.

It’s not fair, in fact it may be criminal. It’s DEFINITELY jerky, for someone who acted like he was friends with Jenna up till the day he fired her then fought tooth and nail to stop her unemployment. And the thing is, it might have cost him a few hundred bucks on his unemployment rates, but the money was coming from the state, not from him. If he had any understanding of the system he’d know that it was only a few bucks to him but ten THOUSAND bucks to us.

Either he’s evil and trying to ruin us, or he’s a complete moron who doesn’t understand how the system works. Before the appeal hearing, I might have guessed moron, but after all the lies, it has to be evil.

Anyhow, we will be accepting donations, because we have to pay back the unemployment money they paid us for the last 4 months. Talk about adding insult to injury!

But truthfully, we will be fine. We will even be fine financially. It’s a temporary (and brief) setback. And in the end, I can still say that I never got a DIME from the government, ever. When I was laid off back in the 90’s, they wouldn’t let me have unemployment because I signed up for classes. Now, we’re paying back what we got for Jenna, with interest I’m sure.

I can preserve my pristine record of never getting a handout. I hope he’s happy with his 3.2% UE rate instead of it going to 3.3%.

And yes, I did tag this post in the category “Gay Stuff.” LOL

More accurately, we are going with Devyn and Geoff to the Cinema Suites to see Twilight.

Yeah, I know. Gay.

Even the girls don’t think it’s a good movie, they just like the eye candy.

Six months of little sleep makes you grumpy, I’ve found.

Anyone who has some home remedies, feel free to pass them along.

Especially their chicken alfredo. Cheap, buttery, delightful alfredo.

Sadly, they changed their recipe, making it even more delicious, but also toxic to my weak stomach.

I got to experience my gall bladder attempting to exit my body via my ribcage. It was awesome. I was up all night. There’s literally no medicine you can take to help it. There’s nothing an ER can do about it. The only fix is removal of the offending organ, which seems a bit extreme when I can simply NOT eat that crap anymore.

Sad. I miss it already.

Now I’m having to take on every photography and web project I can get my hands on to pay the bills.

I’ve been doing 6-10 photo shoots per weekend since mid September. I’ve also been taking on extra web design projects.

So after work, I work on websites. On Saturdays I shoot all day. On Sundays I do church gig, then I do another photo shoot, then I go home and photoshop.

I am really ready for unemployment to kick in!!!

I get my FIRST wind around 4 PM. I don’t even get remotely sleepy till 3 AM. Even when I’m up early, I can’t go to sleep at night.

I need sleep!

On the plus side, I get a lot done these days!

The first doc I saw was Jenna’s boss, who is a chiropractor. He suggested seeing an MD to have it aspirated. I went to my MD early last week and he referred me to a wrist specialist. This orthopedist promptly shoved a needle in and sucked out the gunk. It felt better for about 8 hours until the cyst came back.

I was irritated that the aspiration only lasted 8 hours, but what’s a guy to do? I made another appointment with the specialist for yesterday.

This time, rather than aspirating it, he decided to rupture it. Most of you have heard the old-fashioned treatment for this malady – smashing a book on it. Well, we’ve advanced beyond that.

This particular doctor had a special vice-like device that he acquired during the inquisition (during which he was already practicing – he’s old). He stuck my wrist in the contraption and started squeezing it down.

Now, I like to think I’m not a giant wussbag, but this definitely hurt. As he was crushing it, I’d say it was about a 9 on the pain scale. I didn’t make any noise – that would have been girly. I had involuntary tears coming down my face, but I was gritting my teeth and taking it like a man.

Then I felt the cyst rupture. That nine on the pain scale jumped up to @#$@$!!#@$!. I had a momentary bout of Turette’s syndrome, and I blurted out “YOU @!#HOLE!”. As soon as it ruptured, the doctor took off without saying a word. He’s probably the most pompous, unfriendly doctor I’ve ever met.

The tech told me to massage the area FIRMLY to keep the cyst from refilling. So I dutifully rubbed it for the next 3 hours until my other hand wore out. When Jenna got home I asked her to continue the painful massage. As she was doing it, I was biting my hand and cringing, and she kept asking “what is this floating around in here?”

Well, I figured it was just my tendon snapping across the bone, so I ignored it.

This morning, however, my wrist was swollen and red, and I couldn’t bend it. So I went back to the inquisition doctor and they did another x-ray.

Oops. They chipped the bone.

THEY FRICKING CHIPPED THE BONE ON MY WRIST, WITHOUT ANESTHETIC! No wonder I called him an @#$hole!

I felt vindicated that I was not really as big a wuss as I thought the day before. Anyone would yelp if someone crushed and broke their bone while they watched.

Anyhow, the doctor seemed much more interested in my case today, much friendlier, and more conciliatory. He offered all of my followup treatment for free (thanks but no thanks) because he could smell his malpractice insurance premiums going up. He told me to splint the wrist for 6 weeks and it would heal just fine.

My MD has referred me to another orthopedist so I can get a second opinion this afternoon.

Whatever else I know, I know for sure that I will not be paying one cent for treatment on this.

Now I’ve developed a new repetitive stress problem, this time in my right wrist. It’s called a ganglion cyst. Apparently they’re pretty common, and usually don’t cause any pain… unless they’re in the right location. Mine is a dorsal wrist ganglion, which means it’s on the top, but deep between the tendons that move my fingers. It’s in the perfect spot to hurt like a son-of-a-gun.

It doesn’t hurt if my wrist is straight, but if I bend it forward or backward (you’d be amazed how often you do this every day), it’s a sharp pain that continues to radiate even after I’ve straightened it back out again. When I type, the pain radiates down my first two fingers. That’s what sucks. I type about 10-12 hours a day.

You can only take so much Tylenol in a day, and it’s not enough.

I’m going to the doc this afternoon to talk about the options. There are really three common treatments. First is immobilization… they just give you a custom splint that you wear so that the cyst stops growing. That may work, I’m not sure. Second is aspiration, where they shove a needle in and suck out the gunk. The problem with this method is it almost always comes back, because the sack is not removed. The third option is surgical removal, where they take out the entire thing. That’s the most effective, but also has the longest recovery time (up to 6 months).

I imagine the doc will want to start with option one and move up from there.

It hurt enough the past couple days I almost cut it out myself…

I definitely think my wrists are trying to tell me something.

10. The smell of ink and the sound of the presses and bindery equipment
9. Going to lunch with friends every day
8. The crazy girls who propositioned me (and flashed me) regularly
7. The woman who told me “I was here before you were born, and I’ll be here after you’re dead” when I became her supervisor
6. Being able to see screen angles with the naked eye
5. The three minute commute
4. Night shift
3. The manager who hated me because I was male
2. Doing quality statistics
1. The easily-manipulated rumor mill

Yes, it was a fun place to work. There’s no wondering why people hardly ever leave there permanently. Some people quit and then go back after a year or two. I’m one of the rare exceptions that has left for good.

You might think that some of those items look like bad things, but I assure you, they stink of familiarity. I get nostalgic even about the nutty people who hated me. I really enjoyed night shift my first few years there. Those were my favorite times. Here’s a picture of the rag-tag night crew:

When I tell people how much I weigh, they’re usually surprised. I don’t look like I’m 210, because I’m… for lack of a better word… dense. The only time I’ve ever been at my doctor prescribed “ideal weight” was after I’d spent a year unable to eat without getting sick. I got down to 180, and I looked like a survivor from a concentration camp.

I wasn’t meant to be that thin, and I tried to convince my doctor of it. Yet he still insists that I’m fat.

It didn’t help that my blood pressure was frighteningly high – 160/105. Immediately he wanted to blame my weight for my blood pressure. He thinks I’m too young for BP medicine, and seems to find it irrelevant that I have high blood pressure genes coming from both sides of my family.

However, in the interest of not kicking the bucket at 40, I’m going to attempt to listen to him. That means no salt. Like… NO salt. He doesn’t want me salting anything, even when I’m cooking. He wants me eating potassium rich food daily. He wants me to lose 15 pounds. Yes, he compromised a little from what the chart says, considering I am pretty dense.

I just find it irritating because there a millions of people MUCH more overweight than I am who don’t have high blood pressure. I got the short end of the genetic stick.

And for the record, I may be fat, but my doctor’s ugly and I can diet.