Feeling Betrayed

It's hard no to be angry with myself.  After all, everyone else has a right to be.  As a precautionary measure, a maneuver of self-preservation, I've been calling out from work to avoid repeating the cycle of intense, 7 hour workouts followed by 2 days on the couch.  Because that's just ludicrous.

It's given me great time for reflection (as retreats often do).  I've shed the stress, found a nourishing routine,  and have allowed my intuition to guide my daily decisions.  It's been marvelous!

I even bit the proverbial bullet and requested a voluntary demotion so I wouldn't keep screwing over my team by calling out, but though no apparent fault of my own, it hasn't come through yet.  So I keep calling out.

Today was supposed to be different, though.  Today was supposed to be the day I showed up for work -- because I was scheduled for in-service and a guard shift, not my usual routine of dragging the equivalent of 4 dead horses down half a football field.  Something I could actually handle without having to call out the next day because of inflammation, swelling, and compression of my spinal cord.  I was actually looking forward to it.  I even got laid last night, that's how lifted my spirits were!

And then... my period happened...

So it's hard not to be angry with myself.  It's hard to listen to what my body is clearly screaming at me from every imaginable cell of my being.  But it's good for me.

Ultimately it's not about anyone else, anyway.  It's about me.  My body, my life, my choice.

Voluntary Demotion

Saturday evening I requested a voluntary demotion at work.

"Considering recent developments in my physical health, and the constant manual labor required of... Team Leaders..., I find it's time to withdraw from a leadership position in this department.  Please accept this request for a voluntary demotion from Team Lead to Lifeguard, effective immediately."

I haven't heard back.

I imagine it's the topic of discussion among the management around the copy machine.  Maybe they even had to defer to HR to see if such a thing is possible.  I hope it makes them aware of the seriousness of the problem.  I literally cannot keep moving 6-person water slide rafts all day, every day.  Let me explain:

On the most recent day I showed up to work, there were 22 large tubes (each large enough to hold 6 fully grown adults) and 32 small tubes (each capable of holding 2 fully grown adults).  If we assume -- conservatively -- that each large tube weighs 100 lbs., and each small tube weighs 10 lbs., that's a total weight of 2,520 lbs that I am responsible for moving and inflating every morning.  Add to that number, the weight of each large tube that has to be moved back to it's starting point in order to be returned to the water (because the air pump isn't near the catch pool) and now I'm responsible for moving and inflating 4,720 lbs. of tubes each and every morning.

If that sounds like a lot, that's because it is.  But just for shits and giggles, let's break it down into something more manageable and realistic so we can wrap our heads around it.

I have an hour to accomplish this task of moving and filling 4,720 lbs of tubes every morning.  Sometimes I have help, and that's a blessing, but the responsibility still falls on me if I'm the only one there, which happened twice last week.  It's back breaking, crippling work.  Literally.

4,720 lbs moved every hour = 78.66 lbs every minute continuously, with 60 repetitions

78.66 lbs moved every minute = 39.3 lbs every 30 seconds continuously, with 120 repetitions

39.3 lbs every 30 seconds = 19.6 lbs every 15 seconds continuously, with 240 repetitions

19.6 lbs every 15 seconds = 9.8 lbs every 7.5 seconds continuously, with 480 repetitions!!

If you want to try this at home, just lift a 10 lb bag of sugar off the floor and hold it over your head for 3 seconds, then put it back on the floor and return to a standing position.  Then repeat that movement 479 more times -- without stopping -- for an hour.

If I made my 12 year old child do that as a punishment for inappropriate behavior, she'd be removed from my home on the grounds of child abuse!

Three times a day this process needs to happen.  Because as the air temperature warms up, the tubes become more pliable and start to expand, which decreases the psi inside the tube.  But if they expand too much, they won't fit on the conveyor anymore, so we have to pop them, discard them, and retrieve brand new tubes from the warehouse by pushing them on a cart for half a mile... and start the whole process over.

This is a test of physical endurance like no other I have ever experienced, and my body is beginning to fail.  So I quit.  This is not work I am willing -- or able -- to do for an extra $1 per hour.  I will happily sit on my ass in a lifeguard chair and prevent people from drowning before I move another goddamn tube around that ridiculous oasis of idiocy.