Whoa Nelly!

I'm ranting today. I have only slept 4 hours and came in for another 12-hour shift of overtime. Boys are dumb. In my first blog post, I said that I had changed career paths after being downsized. I worked at a small locally owned bank in the loan department, primarily working on mortgage loans. Yes, I know all the hoopla and pointing fingers going on with the recent bailout and all the foreclosures, but we were not predatory lenders (those who preyed on individuals that were not in a very stable financial positions and shouldn't be buying houses). We did Fannie Mae loans and there are guidelines and parameters people had to fall into to be qualified. Were there people who qualified who shouldn't really be buying a house? Yes, but by law if they were qualified, we could not try to dissuade them because it is against the law. Thankfully we had few that went belly up. Okay, now I am totally off track. I worked for 8 years at a place I thought I would retire from and get a nice shiny piece of jewelry when I left at 62. Not the case. So now I work in a factory. Quite a change of pace for me, but the money is much better than at the bank (you only get rich in banking if you own the bank) and I was lucky to get in as it is a much sought after place to work. But I work with probably 70% men, including my husband. Now you would think this is a good thing and maybe if I was single it would be another story....although probably not as many of these people are morally bankrupt. One older lady said it was like Peyton Place; maybe Melrose Place for those not approaching retirement for another 20 years. This is the only place where I have worked that men and women who do the exact same job get paid the exact same wage-we aren't union, but they founder was very forward thinking. Let's face it, usually factory work is a man's world. I have to do everything a man can do here. I had to do a physical to make sure I could lift 70 pounds, I could bend and stretch, take a mechanical aptitude test and learn to drive a forklift. So today, on overtime, helping out the team opposite mine, I'm getting attitude! I'm still learning my job and when asked to move a load of product off a new conveyor belt that was moving, I said I really didn't feel comfortable doing so. So after the gentleman who asked me to do so did it himself (because he screwed up and didn't make sure something from dayshift was changed) had me put all his product-some few hundred bags of product back on the line to repack-and didn't say thank you! And rolled his eyes when I asked him if he wanted me to bring some more packaging materials into the area. Normally I would let it slide because some people still think it is wrong to have girls doing a "man's job", but lack of sleep and a realization that my 25th high school reunion is around the corner (sob!!) and thinking about when asked what I do I say "oh, I drive a forklift and put ________ in packages and then in boxes and fix big pieces of machinery that could kill me if I don't lock it out correctly, and wear a uniform that doesn't look the least bit sexy with my steel toed shoes, hairnet, eye protection and hearing protection". So basically, due to lack of sleep I am feeling sorry for myself because some random person I don't normally work with hurt my feelings. I want my Mommy!


Up tomorrow: PMS, is it a valid excuse for running over your hubby? Kidding, kidding. Actually I will be posting beef stew. Since I had so little sleep I didn't think cutting up veggies and meat was a good idea. Of course, operating big machinery that can kill me, fine, but a chef's knife-not a good idea.

Sniff, sniff-where is the love people?

**I have calmed down some and the person at whom I was miffed actually thanked me for helping tonight and apologized for the insane night we had. While I'm not eating crow, maybe just chewing on a little barn swallow.