Despite having a few days off last week to help recover from whatever hellish ick that I caught, I was still sick all this week. Including today. (The rest of this is just about being sick, and miscellaneous work stuff, so only people who really really like me will give a damn. Everyone else, continue surfing elsewhere.)

Basically, in the last week I’ve gone through 3 large boxes of Kleenex with lotion, 2 bags of Ricola cough drops (highly recommended, btw — but only the Natural Herb or the Mountain Herb flavors, as they have the most active ingredient but don’t taste like shit), and many many doses of NyQuil and Mucinex. (Am I the only person on the planet who can take NyQuil 24/7 and not be made the least bit sleepy by it? And why does this idea seem to absolutely stun people?) And still — STILL — the wracking cough and clogged sinuses and runny nose continue unabated. I had a 5-day sinus headache that took me to entirely new levels of misery, and when it finally went away Thursday morning, I got a migraine for the rest of the day. And another today.

I not only feel like hell, and look like hell (raw red noses will never be sexy, or even cute), I sound like hell. I talk on the phone for 8 hours a day, pretty much nonstop…and I realized today that, in an effort to lessen the pain of my sore throat, I’ve been speaking in a rather low, breathe-y voice that didn’t sound entirely professional. Sort of Lindsay Lohan-ish, even. *cringe*

Work has been all over the place this week. It was actually slow on Monday & Tuesday. (It’s never slow on a Monday!!!) Today, however, the phone system threatened to tank, so the leads sent half our department up to the hot site, since they’re on a different server system …or something like that. For about an hour, I saw the queue hit the high thirties — which it’s never done since I’ve been working there, except for that one day when the paging system blew up. (Our normal queue is between 1 and about 7. If it gets above 10, people start getting tense. If it gets above 20, the leads all start having coronaries.)

In other news, we’ve lost another 2 people this week (not counting the trainees, who I ignore as much as possible since they’re still in training, and I really don’t care if they quit or get fired at this point, since they are not yet helping on the floor). One of our operators who was nearly at the end of her probationary period was fired, and another is transferring to another department at the end of the month.

Both of them had less seniority than me, so losing them wasn’t an advantage in any way. Speaking of seniority, the new points list was printed out today, and the lead showed it to me. I’m now 12th in seniority in the department. Seniority is based on the number of hours you’ve been paid for, whether it’s actual hours worked or paid vacation or paid sick time. Just on points alone, I’ve now bumped ahead of the 3 gals who were hired immediately prior to me, including Molly. (Sorry, hon!) This really only matters for vacation days, holiday shifts and graveyard on-call shifts, but it does mean I’ll have much better options on getting the days I want. (And any day that I can get paid not to work is a good day!) I already have a solid week of vacation time approved around the week of my birthday — so Lyse & I can go on a BFF road trip!

As for the new batch of trainees… well, I’ve only met a few, but there seem to be at least 5 or 6 of them (not that I’ve been tracking that well). One of them seems to be a nice and thus-far professional black woman, one of them is a easily-flustered but pleasant ditz of a frumpy white gal, and another is a total fucking fruitcake. Upon first meeting, she noticed I was rubbing my forehead (the sinus headache hell) and said, “I have something that will get rid of your headache. It’s not a medication, though. It’s a scarf. You put it on your head and it just takes the pain away!” I managed not to tell her what I thought of that. (Please, Goddess, let her NOT be a Pagan. People like that make those of us who don’t believe in “woo-woo” nonsense look really idiotic. And pathetic.)

My goal this weekend is to get better, with naps and comfort food and lots of fluids. I’ve bailed on date night with Karel for 2 Fridays in a row now, and I feel totally craptastic about that… however, I don’t want him to catch what I have, and I don’t want to be lousy company (both part of the downside of living with me, as Geoffrey knows all too well). One of the worst parts about being sick is that it hasn’t killed my libido enough…the spirit is willing (!!!), but the flesh is too busy having coughing fits and blowing its nose to even consider getting frisky. Grrrr.