Me

My Father in law needed some help throwing sod in his yard today, so I wound up spending the day helping him with yard work. I have told the in-laws not to do that sort of work, but to call me instead. They fall quite often, and I don’t want them getting hurt.

I spent about 8 hours throwing sod and working in their yard. It was 95 degF today, so I am spent.

Family comes first. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

I have had some really shitty bosses. My last two employers, while creating shitty working conditions and a bit of wage theft, weren’t even the worst of them. I had a boss once at an ambulance company who wouldn’t let us have food and water in the ambulance, and wouldn’t allow us to have meal breaks. His saying was “I don’t pay you to eat lunch, I pay you to transport patients.” His other (in)famous quote was, “The customer is always right. In our case, the customer is the nursing home, doctor’s office, or hospital that hires our service. It’s not the patients, the patients are cargo, and no one cares what cargo thinks.” He eventually got caught committing Medicare fraud and was forced to reimburse the government some of the money (about 25%) that the Feds accused him of stealing. Yeah, real nice guy.

It was that guy, more than most, who convinced me just how corrupt the government is, especially at the Federal level. It’s also about as rare as hair on a frog’s ass to see anyone get anything over on these kinds of people. It seems that crime DOES pay, if you are friends or coconspirators with the guys who decides what a crime is.

There was one boss that I really wound up getting a bit of payback, and it’s a great story. This was back in the late 90s, while my divorce was pending. I worked for a steel mill back then, and the steel mill went into bankruptcy. They made the announcement at quitting time. They told everyone to shut down the machines, stand in line, and clock out for the day. As you clocked out, they handed you your last check and told you whether or not you would still have a job. As the maintenance manager, I didn’t get laid off that round, but some of my employees did. Many of them complained that their checks were shorted.

One of the employees who got laid off was the girl in charge of the tool crib. It was her job to watch over the tools that employees could sign out, and ensure that the employee signing them out actually brought them back. There was some expensive stuff in there: welders, plasma cutters, some tool sets were thousands of dollars in value. Once she was gone, the employees who were left figured that those tools were free for the taking, and taking is exactly what happened.

A month later, it was my turn to be laid off. When they let me go, I was told that one of my employees would be taking over my job. He had been trying to get my job since I started there- even going so far as to sabotage things and then fix them quickly, pointing out that I wasn’t as good or as fast as he was. It’s easy to find the problem when you are the one who broke it. He would do things like move a wire in a control device from one terminal to another after taking all of the wire labels off. That was a tough thing to find. Trust me, this is important later.

Anyhow, they laid me off and claimed that since I was responsible for all of the tools that were now missing, I could consider that to be my last paycheck. I got screwed out of 2 grand or so.

A few months passed. In the meantime, I was homeless and really hurting for money. At this time, I was living in my car. I had a second job, picking up garbage after the Shamu show at Sea World. That paid less than $7 an hour. I bought a car at a “buy here, pay here.” I wasn’t eating much, I couldn’t afford it. I showered at work. As a perk of the job, the city allowed us to use the gym at the civic center for $20 per month. I joined so I could take showers at the gym. I worked out a lot because the gym was air conditioned.

One day, I got a call from the vice president. It went like this: “Dive, this is Stan.” Me: “What do you want?” Stan: “I have a problem, my number two line is down and Sonny can’t find the problem. I’m losing $2,000 an hour.” Me: “Yeah, you have a problem all right. It sucks to be you.”

Line two was a large pipe machine. It would take rolls of flat stainless steel and roll it into a tube. The ends of the steel would be welded together with a strong (50kw) microwave welder, then it would pass through a high frequency annealer that would heat the pipe using radio waves to temper the pipe. These things are fast- the high speed line was capable of making over 100 feet per minute of 1 inch stainless steel tubing. It’s all controlled by a microprocessor, and some of the electronics can be complicated. The pipe is pulled through the mill by a pair of 100 horsepower electric motors mounted on large transmissions.

So it turns out that I am pretty much the only guy in the entire state who knows how to repair stainless steel cold rolling machines with microwave welders. He is desperate. He practically begged me to come and help him. So, I told him that I would come and fix the machine for the 2 grand he owed me, any parts that were needed, plus a thousand bucks in a flat service fee, and I wanted the money in my hand before I would touch anything. He immediately replied, “Fine, as long as you are here within 90 minutes.” Damn, he didn’t hesitate, I must not have asked for enough.

So I was there in just over an hour, and it was an easy fix. He handed me $3000, I replaced a blown fuse, reset the microprocessor, and the machine started right up. Sonny was livid: “Demand your money back, he didn’t do shit. All he did was change a fuse and push two buttons! I could have done that!”

I looked at Sonny and replied: “So if you could do it, why didn’t you?” His answer was that he didn’t know which fuse to change. I laughed and said, “That’s what costs money- knowing which fuse to change and what buttons to push.”

That $3k really helped. It was two months’ pay at my other two jobs combined, and it was under the table money that the ex-wife couldn’t get her greedy fingers on.

Over the next year, I would get called over there to fix things from time to time. The charge was the same- $1000 per visit, flat charge, for up to two hours of work, then it was $250 per hour after that. I was working 3 or 4 days a month and making as much as I had been while I was working there full time. This gig helped me to be able to eat and eventually get an apartment with a roommate. I will admit that I did feel guilty at one point, and offered Stan a service contract where I would come out one day per week for $500 per week, plus emergency calls at $500 per visit. He said no.

One of the calls was because his eddy tester was broken. The plant had this eddy tester that you would run a pipe through, and it would test the integrity of the weld. The tester was connected to a PC with a proprietary expansion card. You can’t ship ISO certified welded pipe without it. Theirs was broken, and the company that made it charged portal to portal for service visits. It was expensive to have the factory guy come out, and he wouldn’t arrive for a couple of days.

I got there, and it turns out the motherboard of the PC was fried, but the expansion card and sensor was working. So I went to Stan and told him I would fix it that night, but it was going to cost him $5000. He paid it, and I fixed it by running home and grabbing my own PC to use as parts. The next day, I went and bought a new PC for only $1000. Some of my coworkers at the fire department told me I ripped him off by selling him a 2 year old PC for five times what it was worth. Whatever, he had a choice, and it still cost him less than it would have cost to have a factory guy come out, so I had no problems sleeping in the apartment I shared with my roommate.

The place finally shut down, but I got my money’s worth. The funniest part of the story was the two guys who owned the company went on to open another business a year later, and hired me to do some side work in their new place. I cut them a deal- I did the jobs for slightly less. One of those was putting a rotary phase converter into the place so he could run three phase motors on single phase power.

The extra cash I got from those guys was a big help when I needed it, and it was a bit of payback for how they screwed me on the way out.

This story is part of the reason why I get angry when the GenZ faggots tell me that I had it easy, and how hard their lives are now. Those blue haired commie idiots wouldn’t know hard knocks if it pushed a broomstick up their ass.

I now work for a free standing Emergency Room. The regional manager had mentioned during my interview that they were opening a new location this summer, and asked if I would consider taking over as the manager, or was I wedded to just being PRN. I told her that would depend on the terms of the offer. I’m guessing the current managers consider me to be a threat, at least judging by what has happened since.

I had worked a total of 7 days at my new job since completing onboarding: one or two days per week, not counting the three weeks of the Europe trip. I got called into the office by the site manager. On her computer screen, the ED manager from the other site where I did my onboarding was there via TEAMS. The manager looks at me and says “How do you think you are doing?”

I said, “Well, I would have said fine, but since we are having this meeting, I’m guessing that’s not right.”

Both laugh. Then the manager continues, telling me that she has had “people” come to her and tell her that I am taking too long to triage my patients. I tell her that this is concerning to me, and I am more than willing to increase my speed, if they can tell me where I am lagging. No one wants to be “that guy” who no one wants to work with.

They tell me they have no idea. The manager attending by TEAMS says, if only there was some way we could get data from EPIC (our medical charting software) we would be able to tell you. I wish EPIC had a report for that.

“It does- there are reports for everything a nurse does- triage time, treatment efficiency, average time to complete medication orders, all of it. Let me show you how,” I offered.

The manager replied: “Well, we aren’t sure that those reports are accurate. There are ways to game that data.”

So then I asked them where I am slow, and what I can do to show improvement. They tell me that they don’t know. Then they instruct me to go see nurses Amy and John, who are working with me that day. They can watch me work and tell me. They tell me that the standard is for the patient to wait 2 minutes or less in the waiting room, and 10 minutes or less for triage. The expectation is that I comply with those numbers. Then they thanked me for not being difficult and accepting the counseling like a professional.

So I took their advice and went to see Amy and John. That’s helpful, because Amy has worked with me for 4 of the 7 shifts I’ve had so far. They were both surprised, and told me I wasn’t slow, and couldn’t see anything I was doing wrong.

So I turned to EPIC- you know, the ones the manager at first said didn’t exist, and then told me weren’t accurate. According to EPIC, there are 18 nurses in my department. I ran a nurse efficiency report. The report showed the nurses have average triage times ranging from 2 minutes to 9 minutes, with an average of all of them being 4 minutes and 32 seconds. My average time? 4 minutes and 3 seconds. Not one of my patients has been longer than 8 minutes. In addition, I see more patients than my coworkers on the days that I am working, which indicates that I am faster than they are. Not more than any one of my coworkers- more than they are combined. On the days I work, I see 55% of all patients who walk through the door. The other two nurses on shift with me see the remaining 45% combined. I’m fast enough that coworkers tell me to sit down and let them catch a couple of patients.

So I sent an email to the manager informing her that Amy and John had no suggestions, and EPIC showed my average times to be far below the required ten minutes. I then asked if they could be more specific, because I cannot correct a deficient behavior if my leadership can’t even tell me what behavior it is that I need to correct. I attached a copy of the report.

This is some piss-poor management. They complain that my work isn’t sufficient. They can’t tell me what exactly I’m doing that is deficient, nor can they tell me how to correct that deficiency. Instead they send me to talk to a pair of coworkers for advice, who also can’t see where I am doing anything wrong.

What management school is that?

In this case, the email I sent was for documentation purposes. I only work there one or two days a week. They had talked to me about joining the management team, but I don’t want to go full time again, no matter what the pay. I’m going to keep my head down and do three to five more years working part time, then collect social security. I am no longer fighting the workplace wars that are so stressful and aren’t that important.

It’s been over a month since all of that took place. No one has said a word, and I received no answer to my email. I suspect that my MBA, the fact that I am more certified than my managers, I am more knowledgeable on the EPIC software as evidenced by her not even knowing how to run the nurse efficiency report, and let’s face it, because I am a man, all make me a target.

I’ve been watching my coworkers. One of the ones who has a 2 minute triage average? Yeah, when a patient walks in, he moves them in the computer from lobby to a room, then charts his entire assessment and triage. All without getting up from his desk. Then he goes to the lobby to actually put the patient in a room, enters vital signs, and collects any needed labs. In other words, he isn’t fast, he is lying. He isn’t doing his job, he is just reporting that he is doing his job. That is something I refuse to do. This is what happens when management cares more about metrics than outcomes. Too many administrators are like that, but I just won’t do it. Reports are supposed to reflect reality, but too many nurses bend reality to fit what the reports show.

So my plan here is now: No write-ups, no escalations, no drama, not being the fastest, best, or most efficient nurse. Keep my head down, collect my $50 an hour, and go home at the end of the day. If someone says something to correct or counsel me, the answer will be “Got it—I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your input.”

Things are winding down as I glide into retirement. In January, I sold the rental properties and paid off my house. I need to earn enough this year to cover my capital gains from that on next year’s taxes. Next year, I pay off my Jeep Gladiator. Then I keep putting money away to fund my future travels. I don’t need to be right, or be the best, I just need to be paid. Keep my eye on the prize. Let them all keep fighting over who is the best and playing office political games. I’m not playing those any longer.

I only have three years before I can retire. After that, I only work until I get tired of the bullshit.

I don’t talk about it a lot. I’ve mentioned it now and again, the fact that I have twice been homeless. Let me explain to you what it’s like.

The Lead Up

I was newly divorced. I divorced my wife because I was working two jobs- for the Fire Department, and as the maintenance director for a steel mill, and she wouldn’t work. Originally, she wasn’t working because the kids were too young and it cost more for daycare than she would make. I was working two jobs to make it happen, then I would come home from work and my wife would tell me it was time for me to mow the lawn. Dinner wouldn’t even be on the table. The house wasn’t clean. She hadn’t done shit all day but watch TV. I got pissed one morning, put the TV on parental lock, and left her a note saying that once the house was clean, she could call me and I would give her the PIN to unlock the TV. That caused a HUGE fight.

Then there came the day that both kids had started school. I told my wife that she could get a part time job during the day. She refused, and said the whole reason she got married was so she wouldn’t have to work. I started feeling like a walking ATM, and told her so. More fights.

Then our female friends started telling the both of us that I was working too hard. After a year of this, during one of my shifts, a woman who worked at the fire department offered me her couch. I never went home again. Two months later, I filed for divorce and got an apartment. My wife accused me of leaving her for the other woman, but didn’t even consider the reasons why I left, even though I told her so.

Losing a Job

While the divorce was pending, the steel mill went into bankruptcy. I was laid off, along with 80% of the rest of the manufacturing division. That hurt, because that job was paying me almost $30k a year, more than I made at the fire department. I did get quite a bit of money out of them later, but that is a story for a later day. Either way, half of my income was now gone.

I was making $1000 every two weeks at the Fire Department. I lost $280 in taxes, leaving me $720 every two weeks. Following the state law formula, the court ordered that I pay $348 to my ex wife, nominally for child support, leaving me with $720 per month to live on. The support was taken from my check before I even saw it, so I wouldn’t be a ‘deadbeat dad.’ The rent on my apartment was $600, then there was electric.

Life Being Homeless

Within two months, I was homeless: I slept on friends’ couches for a couple of weeks. I had been forced to break my lease- I just didn’t have the money. Their wives/girlfriends didn’t like it, they were kinda funny and all, and now my friends were funny, too. (Those of you who get that reference are old, just saying)

So I started living in my car. I got a second job, picking up garbage after the Shamu show at Sea World. That paid less than $7 an hour. I bought a car at a “buy here, pay here.” I wasn’t eating much, I couldn’t afford it. I showered at work. As a perk of the job, the city allowed us to use the gym at the civic center for $20 per month. I joined so I could take showers at the gym. I worked out a lot because the gym was air conditioned.

My meals were wieners and mac n’ cheese. Sometimes I had 7-11 chili dogs, They were cheap. Once a week I treated myself to a drive thru burger. I lost almost 30 pounds that summer, but I was in great shape. I was running the combat challenge in just over three and a half minutes. Not world record time, but respectable. (The standard is 7 minutes or less. At the time, the men’s world record was 1:20, and the women’s was just under 4 minutes, IIRC) Here is what it looks like:

I lived in that car for about three months. I finally found a couple of roommates. There were three of us living in that 3 bedroom apartment: Two men and a woman. I worked two jobs: Fire department and janitor at Sea World. I also went to college at night, so I could make more money.

The point of this story is that I didn’t give up. I didn’t complain about how things were unaffordable. I didn’t stand on the corner and beg for money, nor did I accept charity. I didn’t scream for the government to give me handouts or any of that nonsense.

Today’s bitching and complaining is some weak assed bull crap.

My thoughts on the question from earlier.

In December of 2024, I was in the room when a violent patient attempted to attack a pregnant doctor because she wouldn’t give him the drugs he wanted. I say attempted, because I stepped between them. He tried to punch a pregnant woman. He punched me in the face. He got probation. The secret is, the guy is a criminal douchebag that keeps getting his ass in trouble for hitting women, children, and feeble old men. The first time he got tied up with someone that wasn’t putting up with it, he got his ass handed to him, then went to jail. The system doesn’t handle people like this very well. He has arrests for battery, domestic battery, stalking, and witness intimidation- nearly all of the victims are women and old men.

In the case of this afternoon’s video, the assailant grabbed a woman’s ass. As it turns out, it was the wrong woman’s ass. It was the wrong woman because there was a real man there. I don’t mean real man in some macho, chest thumping sense. No, a real man is one who understands a couple of things:

• Men are put here to defend and protect those who cannot do so for themselves, women and children especially.
• More specifically, men are here to protect THEIR women and children.
• If a man won’t protect others, he isn’t a man.

Women want that as well. A wife will put up with many things- she will help when money is tight. She will put up with your bullshit. All a wife REALLY wants and needs is to feel safe, and it is the husband’s duty to make that happen. If you can’t protect her and make her feel safe, then you have failed in your main and most important duty to her.
I actually showed that video to my wife, and she fully supports my opinion on this. Her statement was “Oh, we aren’t playing that game.” I told her to call the lawyer and come bail me out. The likelihood of a person with a clean record being charged with anything more than a misdemeanor is very low as evidenced by the dirtbag who punched me.

I don’t care. I will fight that fight in court. One thing I won’t EVER do is stand there and watch while somebody takes liberties with my wife. I will do whatever it takes to stop that attack on the two of us, use any necessary force- up to and including deadly force. If I am not willing to do so, then I might as well not have a wife or a carry permit.

One of the people who formed my core beliefs as an adult was Robert Heinlein.

• If it has to be done, a man—a real man—shoots his own dog himself; he doesn’t hire a proxy who may bungle it.
• Law-abiding people hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons… to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably — or even killed. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places — these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark.

Nowadays, many people think they are “more civilized” because they don’t believe in things like duty, responsibility, and honor. They think concepts like personal responsibility and sacrifice are outdated and quaint. They can’t even fathom things like spanking a child. We are civilized, don’t you know.

So now we are expected to put up with people grabbing our wives. We must do nothing but stare at the floor in shame and call the police. Who will do nothing but take a report and “take cover” behind their police car until the violence is done.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, the kind of person who leaves the defense of my loved ones to others. If you try to attack my wife (and make no mistake, grabbing her ass is a sexual attack) you are about to experience some serious repercussions.

Whatever it costs me to hire an attorney is what it costs.

One of the people on Twitter accused me of White Knight syndrome. At first I thought that he might be right. I had a girlfriend who once accused me of being a professional rescuer in every sense of the word, and she didn’t mean it in a nice way. No, a white knight is one who tries to save everyone. I don’t do that, but I will save my wife. Every time, no exceptions.

As a veteran, as a firefighter, and as a paramedic, I rushed into more dangerous situations than I care to think about. I was willing to die for those people, many of them I haven’t even met. I would do no less for my wife.

It’s my duty as a man, as a husband, and as a human being. I will accept the consequences of that, whatever they may be. One thing I won’t and can’t accept is to stand by while my wife is attacked.

I’m not taking shit. This isn’t bluster- I’ve run towards the sounds of gunshots, into burning buildings, and been into situations where most people won’t go. It’s part of my core beliefs- I won’t bow down to anyone, nor will I allow those I have sworn to protect to suffer or be attacked while I stand by and do nothing.

The last day of the vacation finally arrived. We got up at 7am, went to breakfast in the hotel, then caught a cab to the airport. The plane boarded at 1030 am. For crossing the Atlantic, I always try to fly first class. Why? Because the seats are large, they can lie down flat to form a bed, and it makes a long day otherwise tolerable.

They take your meal order when you get aboard. Soon after the plane took off at 11:10am, I got served the meal. I had a salad, Lasagna, and a pork loin in a tomato gravy that was really good.

Dessert was frozen yogurt with raspberry and granola topping that was outstanding.

While I ate, I watched John Wick, then after I laid my chair down and took a 3 hour nap. I woke up with about 2 hours to go, and they served us finger sandwiches with walnuts, cheese, and crackers as a pre landing snack.

We landed in Boston just after 1pm local time and began our nearly three hour layover for our Orlando flight. When we arrived in Orlando, we were picked up by family and finally got home just after 8pm, which was 2am in Paris. Despite the 3 hour nap, a 20 hour travel day was exhausting.

Our vacation lasted 21 days, spanned 4 countries and an entire ocean. The total cost of the trip was pretty high at just over $15,000, and at the same time was a great value for what we got out of it. It was a great trip and I don’t regret this first attempt at semi-retirement. A good part of it was while I was in Paris, my boss contacted me and offered me three extra days at work, and to entice me into accepting, offered me a $400 per day bonus. Hey, that’s nearly a quarter of the trip paid for.

It pays to be one of two board certified emergency nurses and one of only 5 nurses certified for ultrasound guided IV placement.

To be clear, this series of posts on our European trip is meant to serve as a chronicle of a trip that we returned from 2 weeks ago. Some people seem confused on that point. For OPSEC reasons, I never discuss our travels until after we return. Don’t want anyone who doesn’t have a need to know being aware of our absence.

So this is about day three in Paris, the 20th day of our trip. Being our last day here, we did a bit of shopping, a bit of packing, and some lying around doing nothing. To be quite honest, we had both reached a point where we were just tired of being on this trip. So we went to breakfast, and I want to show some pictures of what a European (French) breakfast looks like. First, there are meats and cheeses:

Fruit:

Baked goods:

along with the Omelet I pictured in other posts.

We walked a couple of blocks to the Champs Elysees. We didn’t get much, mostly because prices were ridiculous. Here is a purse we saw

Yeah. That purse wasn’t big enough to hold $3500 worth of stuff, making the back worth more than anything you would put in it. We walked into the McDonald’s- not to eat, but to establish prices for my Big Mac index. A Big Mac in Paris costs about $10. Just the sandwich.

We stopped by a French pastry shop and bought some Eclairs (chocolate and coffee flavored, if you are interested). We also hit up the Lindt chocolate store. I bought about $150 Euros worth of chocolate. We are still snacking on it two weeks later.

Then it was dinner time and get ready for bed. Tomorrow is a travel day, so it will be a long one.

On the way back to the hotel, I saw a store with a raisable vehicle barrier to prevent smash and grabs.

Today, we continued our bus adventures and also did a cruise on the river Seine.

The island in the middle of the river that contains both the Louvre and Notre Dame used to be a fortress where the king oof France lived. Taking this river tour really reinforced that. You can see how easily defended it was.

We visited the Louvre to see the castle, but we didn’t want to wait in the long lines, brave the crowds, and pay the high fees to enter the museum, but the castle was magnificent.

It was pretty cold. At dinner time, we encountered the first truly rude Frenchman of the entire trip. I didn’t want to drink alcohol and noted that the restaurant we were dining in had Coca Cola, so I ordered one. The waiter presented it to me like it was a bottle of wine and called it “American Champagne” then asked how I wanted my beef prepared- “burned the American way, or the French way.” Dick. It reminded me of this:

After dinner, we went to watch the Eiffel tower at night, as it was on my wife’s bucket list of things she wanted to do while in Paris.

The first 5 minutes of each hour, there are sparkling lights on the tower:

And that was our second day in Paris.