Category Archives: Life and Change

My thoughts about life, my experiences and the times of change that we must all go through

Rough Day at Work…

Life and Change

So the work week started off pretty up beat this week. I opened the restaurant on Sunday and Monday with no problems, no call ins and everybody showed up on time and ready to work. While prepping food in the back of the house on Sunday we were able to get a little more done than usual and help out not only the next shift but the next day as well. Everything went extremely smooth and everybody was able to get everything done on time and the shift change was excellent. Monday we ended up having a few extra people scheduled which allowed us the opportunity to do an extra cleaning task and still help out with the evening and next day prep. Our extra cleaning task was deep cleaning and scrubbing out ALL of our garbage cans. When we put so much food, especially meat, into garbage cans they can get grimy and stinky pretty fast. Unfortunately some of our garbage cans for the dining area are metal and painted red on the outside so when we scrub the outside the paint comes off :(. We decided we would be able to utilize the extra time the PM shift would have since the AM shift was doing all the PM prep as well. So I asked the closing manager to scrub the outsides of the metal garbage cans and repaint them that night so that they could dry out back overnight. And again we had extra prep done for the next day to help them out. In my opinion, if someone does something nice and helps out your shifts (PM and following AM – same manager) by doing all PM prep and extra AM prep for next day that maybe you could either take the time to actually finish the garbage cans like I asked or leave some extra prep for me on a day where you are already aware that I am going to be short two people. But instead you neither do the garbage cans and another PM shift manager does them another night and you leave me with almost nothing prepped when I have to open a restaurant shorthanded. I really wanted to leave you with the same amount of prep for tomorrow that you left me but I decided that I would be the bigger person and end up still doing the same amount of prep that I did those other two days and still ended up saving a ton of hours according to the matrix. One day I hope people will have the courtesy to notice such things and try to reciprocate such actions.

Awful Day

Life and Change, , ,

Migraine

Yesterday was probably the most awful day of my life. Not in the sense that most would probably think when they first see that sentence. I did not have my heart broken, my life as I knew it did not completely fall apart, I didn’t lose my job, nor did I lose a loved one. My most awful day came about due to a sort of illness, one I hope to never have to deal with again, but alas, I fear it is only the first occurrence of many more episodes to come.

I experience my first ever migraine. And I do not mean that what I had was just a really bad headache that put me in a bad mood for a few hours and some Tylenol or Ibuprofen and maybe a nap could fix it. What I had was an actual, full-blown migraine headache; with the light and sound sensitivity (my boyfriend would talk to me and it felt like he was shouting and my head wanted to explode!), the pain made me so sick to my stomach that I was wondering if I would vomit (and if I would be able to make to the bathroom in time if I did). So in the spirit of research, I decided to read up on migraines and share that information here.

So first off, I went to mayoclinic.com and looked up migraine under their diseases and conditions. First paragraph tell us exactly what I just said that I experienced:

A migraine headache can cause intense throbbing or a pulsing sensation in one area of the head and is commonly accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound.

It goes on to say that symptoms of a migraine headache can last for a few hours or up to a few days. Which would explain why it is a day later and I still have a headache, albeit a regular headache, still feel tired, sluggish, and still have a slight sensitivity to light and sound. In my case, my migraine was so severe that the only thing I could think about was finding a dark and quiet place to lie down with a nice, cold ice pack to help ease the throbbing pain in my forehead.

Symptoms

Migraine headaches often begin in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood (I happen to be 23 years old). There a four stages to a migraine, but not everyone experiences all four stages: prodrome, aura, attack, and postdrome.

Prodrome

Tends to occur one or two days before onset of the migraine and symptoms include:  constipation, depression, food cravings, hyperactivity, irritability, neck stiffness, and uncontrollable yawning.

Depression? Check.

Irritability? Check.

Food cravings? Check.

Neck stiffness? Check.

Aura

May occur before or during migraine headaches. Auras are nervous system symptoms that are usually visual disturbances, such as flashes of light. Sometimes auras can be touching sensations, movement or speech disturbances. Most people do not experience aura with their migraines (apparently I am not included in that most). Symptoms include:  visual phenomena (such as seeing various shapes, bright spots, or flashes of light), vision loss, pins and needles sensation in arm or leg, and speech or language problems (aphasia)

Pins and needles in arm? Check.

Aphasia? Check.

Attack

Untreated, a migraine usually lasts from 4 to 72 hours, but the frequency of migraines varies from person to person. During a migraine you may experience the following symptoms: pain on one or both sides of your head; pain that has a pulsating, throbbing quality; sensitivity to light, sounds, and sometimes smells; nausea and vomiting; blurred vision; lightheadedness, sometimes following by fainting

Pain on one side of head? Check

Pulsating, throbbing pain? Check.

Sensitivity to light? Check.

Sensitivity to sound? Check.

Sensitivity to smells? Check.

Nausea? Check.

Lightheadedness? Check.

Postdrome

The final phase occurs after a migraine attack. During this time you may feel drained and washed out. Though some people have reported feeling mildly euphoric.

Drained and washed out? Check.

So to end this, my awful day apparently began on Wednesday when symptoms started occurring and as of right now I am still experiencing some symptoms of postdrome. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day 🙂

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. –John Lennon

“If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you’ve made, if they don’t realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

My College Experience

Life and Change

univeristywisconsinriverfalls

So when you’re growing up and having all of these big dreams about what you’re going to do when you finally do grow up, how often is college (at least of some sort) part of your “Grow Up Plan?” For me it was never a question, it was a certainty. When you are in high school you have all this pressure from your parents, your teachers, even your classmates to decide on what you want to do for the rest of your life. When you’re sixteen or seventeen years old that seems to be the question everybody has for you. “So what are you going to do after you graduate?” How is one supposed to know what they want to do for the next 50 years? And for that matter, if you are unsure of what you want to do for the rest of your life, how do you know if going to college should really be a part of your plan?

When I was in high school I had all these plans to go to a specific college, get a degree in biology and then go on to medical school after graduation. Soon after I moved into the dorms I realized that most new college freshman don’t understand how to utilize their time well and end up staying up late all the time (keeping people like me awake with them when I have an 8am class the next day) and tend to get behind in their classes from day one. Living in the dorms was something that just simply didn’t work for me; add that to the fact that I was completely unhappy with where I was (so far away from home and everyone I had ever known), I decided do transfer to a college back home. After I transferred closer to home, I figured out that I was still unhappy with what I was studying. I chose a science degree solely because I was always good at science in high school, not because I could really see myself becoming a doctor. I had all this pressure to decide on something to do for the rest of my life that I basically chose something related to what I was good at, not something that I enjoyed doing.

So I finally realized that I never really wanted to study science or become a doctor. Problem number one solved. My next problem was that I still had no idea what I did want to study and do with my life. Not knowing what to do and having everything I though I wanted get turn on its end pretty much scared the crap out of me. The way I saw it was that I had nothing and didn’t know where to go from there. Thankfully, my mom was supportive of me and whatever I decided to do (which is something I can’t say about the other side of my family). So I decided to withdraw from college, just work, get some life experience, and just wait and see if I found whatever it was I was looking for. I had already been working at the local grocery store and was able to was full time hours after I withdrew from college. I was working for these really great people that ended up giving my more opportunities than I could have imagined. They gave me a management opportunity and the opportunity to learn about bookkeeping which help me figure out what I could go back to school and study…Business – Management.

So after I re-enrolled and changed majors I opted for going to school only part-time to get back into the swing of things again while I was still working full-time at the grocery store. I decided to only go back to school part-time because I didn’t want to over extend myself for fear of quitting school again and if I did that I probably wouldn’t go back again. I eventually was able to work out a schedule that allowed me to work full-time and got to school full-time as well; at least up until those great people that I worked for decided to sell the business and retire. I didn’t really care for the new owners and decided to find employment elsewhere.

I ended up working as a waitress at a casino. Easy enough job but the downside was that I was working swing shifts (6pm-2am). Working these shifts four days a week and having 8am classes Monday through Friday was pretty brutal and I ended up only working there for four months before I changed jobs again and ended up at the place I work now. I really enjoy my job and the opportunities it provides me with. After working there for almost year, one promotion and another one soon, and graduating for college with my Business degree I am kind of at a loss for what to do with myself. I am once again at a place in my life where most people expect me to go out and find a “real job” as opposed to one in a company that is technically fast food and offers so many opportunities for advanced into the corporate world. So now that I have my degree and a job that I enjoy, how do I figure out what is right for me?