Happy new year! I've been telling myself that the start of 2014 is kind of when I would start to 'countdown' towards surgery, so here's the first count down post. Just about 3 months away! This also starts my food extravaganza. I want to eat what I want, but stupid me signed up for a weight loss bet this month. Need to loose 6 lbs by the end of the month. I'm not starting until Monday since I'm home visiting family in Philly right now, and I am eating all of the cheese steaks and yuengling that I want! ;)
I've already hit a few snags in terms of what I had planned leading up to my surgery date. I've done a pretty good job of letting my office know about everything that has anything to do with the sick leave and days off I'll need around my surgery. My office is extremely small, and we're 25% short staffed right now. When I take my sick leave we'll be down by 50% and it will leave 2 of our forecasters to work 2 shifts daily back to back for the 4-6 weeks I'm out. I work for a federal agency and our regional office has known about this for some time, and nobody has done anything to help our staffing catastrophe that is going to happen once I'm out for surgery. I feel bad that the two of our guys left while I'm out will be overworked, but this really is just as much not my fault as it is theirs either. For February and March leading up to the surgery, I had planned on taking a few 'last hurrah' trips. I've talked with my co-workers about this (a lot!) as well as had it written on our 2014 leave request schedule. Nobody had issues with anything. I bought a $500 ski pass to use a ton in Feb/March, and starting paying down a trip to Utah with some girlfriends at the end of Feb. All in all I'm about $800 out in things I've paid towards. Leave I thought I had without any issues. And earlier this week I found out the leave is essentially denied. All of it. The 4 Saturdays I had requested off to snowboard with my husband, and the weekend I had requested off for Utah.
Nobody wants to work my shifts since they'll be working a bunch of my shifts when I'm out in April. While I understand, I also feel pretty bummed out; like I'm being punished for having to have my face broken and be put back together. Like I would actually WANT to be out in April for that-- year right! Sorry, that is NOT going to be a vacation for me! Again, I know it's the fault of powers above people in our office, but just like my coworkers are kind of irked at me for them being forced to work a bunch, I'm kind of irked with them for not letting me live life a little bit before I am out of commission for a while. I don't think I would be as upset if they had said something earlier, especially before I bought expensive tickets and passes and mentally worked myself up to look forward to these last hurrahs! Oh well. I guess it is what it is. I'd be lying if I said this wasn't going to get to me a little bit, but I'm going to try to do my best to keep my head up and make the most of the few days off I'll get with my husband here and there between now and the beginning of April.
So.... now I'm sitting on a $500 ski pass that is hardly going to get used and 45 hours of extra leave I will be left with by the end of next year. Know the best part? It's use or loose leave, so hopefully they let me take it at some point! And if it's after surgery, it will be to just sit home and do nothing since I won't be skydiving, backpacking, scuba diving, etc for a while. If only I could sit on the corner and shout "ski pass for sale-- get your ski pass right here!" That thing is 100% non-refundable and non-transferable, unfortunately. What a waste!
I've already hit a few snags in terms of what I had planned leading up to my surgery date. I've done a pretty good job of letting my office know about everything that has anything to do with the sick leave and days off I'll need around my surgery. My office is extremely small, and we're 25% short staffed right now. When I take my sick leave we'll be down by 50% and it will leave 2 of our forecasters to work 2 shifts daily back to back for the 4-6 weeks I'm out. I work for a federal agency and our regional office has known about this for some time, and nobody has done anything to help our staffing catastrophe that is going to happen once I'm out for surgery. I feel bad that the two of our guys left while I'm out will be overworked, but this really is just as much not my fault as it is theirs either. For February and March leading up to the surgery, I had planned on taking a few 'last hurrah' trips. I've talked with my co-workers about this (a lot!) as well as had it written on our 2014 leave request schedule. Nobody had issues with anything. I bought a $500 ski pass to use a ton in Feb/March, and starting paying down a trip to Utah with some girlfriends at the end of Feb. All in all I'm about $800 out in things I've paid towards. Leave I thought I had without any issues. And earlier this week I found out the leave is essentially denied. All of it. The 4 Saturdays I had requested off to snowboard with my husband, and the weekend I had requested off for Utah.
Nobody wants to work my shifts since they'll be working a bunch of my shifts when I'm out in April. While I understand, I also feel pretty bummed out; like I'm being punished for having to have my face broken and be put back together. Like I would actually WANT to be out in April for that-- year right! Sorry, that is NOT going to be a vacation for me! Again, I know it's the fault of powers above people in our office, but just like my coworkers are kind of irked at me for them being forced to work a bunch, I'm kind of irked with them for not letting me live life a little bit before I am out of commission for a while. I don't think I would be as upset if they had said something earlier, especially before I bought expensive tickets and passes and mentally worked myself up to look forward to these last hurrahs! Oh well. I guess it is what it is. I'd be lying if I said this wasn't going to get to me a little bit, but I'm going to try to do my best to keep my head up and make the most of the few days off I'll get with my husband here and there between now and the beginning of April.
So.... now I'm sitting on a $500 ski pass that is hardly going to get used and 45 hours of extra leave I will be left with by the end of next year. Know the best part? It's use or loose leave, so hopefully they let me take it at some point! And if it's after surgery, it will be to just sit home and do nothing since I won't be skydiving, backpacking, scuba diving, etc for a while. If only I could sit on the corner and shout "ski pass for sale-- get your ski pass right here!" That thing is 100% non-refundable and non-transferable, unfortunately. What a waste!
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