I'm back.

“Where have you been,” you ask. Well I’ve been working.

All work and no play have made Bob a very dull boy.

First let me get this off my chest. I am sick and tired of working so hard. I’ve worked hard all of my life. When the f*ck does it end? My working two jobs has never been a problem, I just did it. Well it seems to weigh on me now. I am more tired than I can explain. I have just enough energy to get through my workday and that is it. I am not good for anything else. My yard is going to hell for one but I don’t have the time or the energy to do anything about it.

Want some cheese with that Whine? Want some French Cries and a Whine-a-kin? How about I call a Wha-a-a-a-ambulance?

Time for that famous Dillon line “you’ll be all right.”

OK, enough whining.

I’ve been working hard. I work at two different hospitals here in Tucson. One job is nothing but a f*cking sweatshop. We work ten-hour (or longer) shifts and while it is always busy there it has been unbearable this winter. I can’t take much more. I spend my day hunched over a bench, identifying bacteria. If you so much as look up, or casually try to talk to a co-worker you’ll find yourself even further behind. We work till the work is done and it usually takes ten hours. I have other irons in the fire and pray one of them pays off with a better job.

At my other job I work in the laboratory at another hospital as a Med Tech. I don’t have a whole lot of experience but they have been willing to train me where they need me. In most labs Techs specialize in histology or microbiology (like me) or they work in the main lab (hematology, chemistry and blood bank). I have always stayed away from blood bank for two reasons. One, we are not paid enough to take patients life’s into our hands. You screw up or make a mistake and the patient is dead. Secondly, the lab world is experimentation in a great Matriarchal society. It is mostly women, run by women for women. Men are allowed in only as fodder for torture. What few men do work in this field often work the off shifts (nights, weekends, evenings). Example, I work every weekend at the Sweat Shop. I figured as long as never knew blood bank, I could avoid working the night shift. (Staying up all night would be impossible for me.)

I’m learning blood bank and it’s not so bad. There are so many safeguards that it would be difficult to “kill” a patient (but still is a possibility). Of course, once I knew my way around the blood bank I was asked to work 3rd shift and I refused. This is only a part time job with no benefits. I could take it or leave it. Too bad if I pissed off anyone or let them down. I let them know when I started that I could work 2 or 3 days a week during the day only. I'm too damn old to be working different shifts at different jobs. But I found it funny that the women there expected me to work the odd shifts for them as soon as I was able. They have been cool about it so far. I doubt they would be so nice if it wasn't for the shortage of Med Tech's in this town.

I keep threatening to write a book about the great matriarchal society of medical laboratories. Perhaps I shall.