How ironic is it that my TransPASS, purchased in advance at a discount as one of my employee benefits, arrived in the mail today?

Well, at least I get to ride SEPTA as much as I please in June. That'll come in handy if I find myself getting temp assignments. Yeah, I'll be reactivating my registration with the temp agencies I was working for. Hopefully I'll find something full-time before long, but who knows?

Actually, this saved me a call to my former employer's benefits department. I know that the money for the June TransPASS was already deducted from my paycheck earlier in the month. So if the June pass didn't arrive, I was going to ask for a refund of the purchase price of the pass.

Good. At this point, I think I'd rather have the TransPASS anyway. I can get a lot of use out of that thing.

I can't help but wonder how they're faring at the front desk today. Actually, today shouldn't be all that bad. Tomorrow, however, will be another story entirely. Not only will there be an unending procession of patients from 6:15 AM (no, that's not a typo) until 4:00, but there will be dozens of charts that need to be prepped for Tuesday (Monday's a holiday). Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays are extremely busy days, without exception, because those are the days when the most doctors are in the clinic seeing patients.

Last Friday, the temp PSR worked until 10 PM getting Monday's charts ready. And that was WITH a full compliment of staff at the front desk. Tomorrow, the temp has the day off and the front desk will be shorthanded to boot. Someone's going to have to find time to prep Tuesday's charts, in among the time spent checking patients in and out, doing the billing, and manning the phones. I hope the pointy-haired-manager who is my ex-boss's boss is there until MIDNIGHT prepping charts. It would serve her right for not at least waiting until the vacationing employees returned to work before dropping the ax.

You know, I thought I'd feel worse than this after losing the job. Which, as should be clear in the past couple months' worth of posts, I have felt was only a matter of time before it happened. Maybe the long amount of advance warning that I was a dead PSR walking helped to soften the blow. Maybe the latest bout with depression (yes, I've been to the doctor) is actually playing in my favor, as one of the hallmarks of depression is my near-inability to feel anything, good or bad.

But maybe I'm not as upset as I expected because that this job's stress was the direct reason why I've felt so sick and missed so much work time since March. And that source of stress is now gone. No more spite brigade searching for things to complain about. No more Doctor Evil complaining about my phone message, while finding a nearly-identical message from my colleague to be perfectly acceptable. No more feeling that I had to be perfect, every day in every way, so there'd be nothing for them to pick apart. No more feeling that no matter what I did, someone'd find a fault in it anyway. No more politely declining offers of help because they were motivated by the desire to tell the rest of the department, 'Look, she can't even handle her own work, I have to do it for her". No more limiting myself to asking questions of only certain people because the rest of them would tell the world, "She's so stupid, she didn't even know ___". No more staying until 7 PM on a Monday, Tuesday,
or Frid

Is it any wonder why I was getting migraines? Why I threw up at work and got carsick on the bus on the way there and/or on the way home? Why I missed more sick time in the past two months than I've ever missed in my life, minus the short-term-disability I was on when I dislocated my kneecap?

No freaking wonder they went through three people in six months, prior to hiring me last year. If the other three people had to put up with this nonsense, I can't blame them for bailing. That is, *IF* they actually bailed, rather than getting hounded to death and fired.

And no freaking wonder that instead of being as upset as I'd expected I would be on The Day After, the primary emotion I'm able to generate feels more like relief.