Daylight Savings Time in Crazy Land

Daylight savings time renders an otherwise godawful week in Crazyland virtually unbearable. The only good news? My good friend, the Hemorrhoid Guy, was appalled at how dark everything is when I arrive in the morning, so he took it upon himself to see to it that many new lights were installed on every corner of both buildings. When I arrived this morning, it might as well have been high noon. I wondered if the glare was keeping Lillian awake or maybe helping her find her meth pipe a little easier. I confess that thought made feel a bit impish; I had an almost irresistible urge to intentionally set off the building alarm. I was a good girl; I did not do it. I wonder if that counts as one of my good deeds for the day? Probably not.

Both Crazy Employee and the Superhighway are on vacation this week, leaving me to fend off some of the phone traffic. By around 10:00 o'clock, our lovely and brilliant young receptionist has managed to drag herself out of bed and make it to work. That makes things much easier for me. To be fair, when Owner and Hemorrhoid Guy are here, their respective male organs don't seem to impede their ability to answer the phone. The same cannot be said of Golf Pro and Mr. Moneybags. The Foot Lady is of no help, either. If her foot can't be involved, then it's no dice, I guess.

This week also brought me another Hurt Guy. The foreman (whom I probably haven't introduced before), The Ladies' Man, was fabulous and is working hard to get that boy back to work so he's not sitting around all day watching reruns of Law and Order on Crazy Land's dime. Preventing people from taking up residence in their recliner while we pay the price is one of my primary missions in life. Unfortunately, I think L.M. is going to have to come up with an unlimited amount of "restricted duty" activities. This is a knee injury and I'm praying that we won't eventually discover a torn meniscus. If we do, our workers' comp rates are bound to rise. That is never, ever good. The injury isn't a big deal yet, but you know how I hate the paperwork.

Hemorrhoid Guy had to make an appearance at a Benefit Review Conference for the scary Don Quixote. Don has changed his story so many times that even he can't keep up anymore. He's now claiming that his broken hand qualifies as a permanent disability. Sadly, Don had neglected to inform his state-provided attorney that he's actually been working. That kind of argues against the claim of disability and, of course, his attorney was outraged that he hadn't mentioned this important fact prior to the actual hearing. Don tried to engage Hemorrhoid in, no doubt, bitter dialog, but H.G. slipped away before the scary guy could corner him.

Our incredibly liberal local version of the Worker's Comp system has decided to pass Don on to a higher authority, so there will be a new hearing on May 7. Since I know very little about the working conditions and schedules of any of our field employees, I won't have to attend. Poor Hemorrhoid will be in attendance, but he's taking along some reinforcements in the person of the actual foreman of the job. Let's hope that the foreman will remember that loyalty to his fellow "working man" must not outweigh the facts. If he doesn't, I believe Hemorrhoid could take him in a tussle. Fisticuffs might well break out over this particular case. H.G. and I are very, very serious about worker's comp fraud.

Is there more? Well, of course there is, including an encounter with Mr. Moneybags. I needed some information from him this morning to relay to the Ladies' Man, so I had no choice. Moneybags was off and running right away about what an idiot Loathsome is. I agreed. Then he moved on to the "liberal (read Democrats) idiots" who are supporting Spitzer. Maybe Moneybags knows something I don't, but I haven't heard of much defense being mounted by even the party's most faithful. Time to exit. When he took a breath, I told him I knew Foot Lady had finally made some coffee and that I simply had to get down there immediately. It was a rare moment when self preservation outweighed excellent Southern manners. Mercifully brief, or as brief as it gets with Moneybags.

So that's it. I still have two and a half days to go. The phone will be ringing any moment now. My eyes are burning and watering from allergies and I just spilled yogurt down the front of my shirt. Yes, I'm writing this at lunch because otherwise there is no time and I can't live without you. As predicted, the phone is ringing.