Stress? What Stress!

This weekend we went to my husband's family's hunting camp to cut next year's firewood. This might sound a bit archaic, and in fact it is a bit, but we have a wood stove, and my in-laws have something like a billion acres of land out in the middle of nowhere and firewood right now is $400 a cord, and, well, both my husband and I are of sound mind and body (ok, sound mind is a bit of a stretch) so every year we (actually, most of the time it's he, but this time it was we) go to the "camp" to cut wood so we can have the fabulous heat and atmosphere that comes with a nice, wood fire at the cost of gas to get there and a bit of sweat that we both can stand to lose.

When I say his camp is in the middle of nowhere, I ain't kidding. To get there you take the highway out of the city for about half an hour. Then you turn right. You drive on one secondary road or another for another half hour. Then you turn left onto a dirt road. You take that dirt road for about 10 minutes. Then you turn right onto another dirt road for another 10 minutes. And there you are. (Click the link to see that when I say it's in the middle of nowhere, I'm not kidding.)

It's in the middle of a bunch of crown land, and crown land tends to equal clear cutting for pulp and paper, but despite the scars from the satellite pic, believe me when I say there's just a lot of trees. No electricity. No plumbing. No nothing. Just birds and trees and wind. (And deer and bear and stuff like that)

So I went back to the camp to grab a sandwich while Dickie finished cutting some wood and I sat in a chair and closed my eyes and listened to the fire crackle and the wind blow (and Dickie's chain saw off in the distance.) I had my cell phone with 2 bars of service, but aside from that, there's nothing that links you with the rest of the world.



And I thought 100 years ago this was life. If there was a shooting in Paris we weren't watching people running from buildings, blood streaming from their faces, as the shootings happened. We weren't hearing hundreds and hundreds of stories and opinions within the first two hours of the event. You wouldn't be constantly in touch with the babble of EVERYBODY through things like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and... well, even here.

To be clear, you'd probably be working sun up to sun down. You'd be washing your clothes with a crank machine and doing a lot of walking or tending to the horses. (Ok, humour me, my dates might be off a bit, but you get the picture. And I know not everybody worked on a farm or in the woods, but even if you were in the heart of the city, there is only so much information you're going to get within a 24 hour period.) You'd be working a LOT harder than you are now physically, but when you were done, and you'd read the newspaper or listened to the news on the radio, you were done.

We just have SO much to process now.

It's no wonder the use of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds is on the rise.

How else are you supposed to process.

It will be interesting to see how our body and psyche evolves to adapt to this change in our landscape.

One last work rant for the day

So, I may have mentioned that I need a ( surgical procedure. )

Anyway. The procedure is scheduled for about 8 weeks away, so I told my boss that I needed some time off and that he needed to start the paperwork process to ensure that I get salary continuance.

His response... I don't know how to do that.

So. Where, in what world, is "I don't know how to do that" an acceptable answer from anybody's boss?

So I told him that he needed to reach out to HR to get a hold of our Disability Management team so they can start the paperwork. (Really? I don't know is an acceptable answer... where?)

So he told his assistant that I was having surgery and would she send me the paperwork.

So his assistant sent me a form for a leave of absence, requesting my banking information so that they could continue to take deductions from me while I was away.

To be clear, I am NOT going on a leave of absence and they're not taking ANYTHING out of my bank account, I'm going on extended sick leave. Jeesh! And further to be clear, he told his SECRETARY!?!? This shit is supposed to be confidential. JEESH!!

So I responded to his secretary and asked her from whom she received the forms because I had some questions about taking money out of my account. (They're supposed to put money IN My account dammit!)

Her response was that if I had questions I could contact... (And she copied and pasted from our HR page) "For Payroll questions, call xxx-xxxx, for HR related questions, call xxx-xxxx, for Grievance questions call xxx-xxxx, etc.

Ok, listen dummass. I'm going on SICK LEAVE. I don't have a grievance. I am not taking a leave of absence. I am SICK. And I need you to continue my salary while I'm off. And to be clear, you're not even supposed to be involved!!

And when I asked her as much (in nicer terms) she told me that she and my boss looked it up on the "internet".

So I copied and pasted our sick leave policy and procedures from our website, which clearly says who to contact and what to do.

And lo and behold, within 10 minutes I got an email from our Disability Management team telling me that I needed to have the following forms filled out and sent two weeks before my surgery, etc. etc. etc.

Seriously. I rarely wish I was unionized, but this is one time I wish I could file a grievance.

"I don't know how to do it"

Right. Because that's always an acceptable answer.