An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.
As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
@grumpyoldnurse:
Yeah, that’s what they tell us, but it really doesn’t seem like the best way to go most of the time. You know your situation way better than I do.
The only bit of my post that I stand firmly by is that you are an awesome person, who would make a fine coworker.
Squee!!!
“Tell me a story of when you were a kitten, Grandpa!”.
“I can’t, little one”.
“Sure you can, Grandpa!”, stops to nibble on fore leg, “I bet you were a great kitten”.
“I never was, little one”.
“You mean, you were always old, Grandpa?”.
“No, little one. I mean I was never a kitten”.
“You must have been little one time, Grandpa”.
“Yes, I was, little one”.
“So, tell us a story of when you were a kitten, Grandpa”.
“I can’t, little one. I was a puppy!”.
“That’s silly, Grandpa! Dogs were puppies”.
“Go back to sleep, little one”.
“OK, Grandpa. G’night”.
Bwahahahahaha!
Love your Grandpa story!
Thanks, contrapangloss, very kind of you! 🙂
I just really hate it when policies try to shoe horn solutions without taking into account the context of the situation. I did work with a nurse who pressed charges against a violent patient once. It turned out kind of OK for her, but the rest of the staff really supported her, as did the head nurse (this was a long time ago). But that ward was completely different than where I work now. I can expect to see this patient for a very long time to come, and will probably have to provide care for him in the future. I honestly don’t think pressing charges would help me get any closure, and I really doubt that it would protect my co-workers. I’d much prefer an in-house solution.
Also, and I realise how stupid this is even as I type it, I keep wondering what I did wrong, you know? I guess I’ve really been successfully socialised to accept responsibility for other people’s actions towards me. I know how messed up that is, but I still feel guilty and ashamed.
@ kittehserf – thanks! Humour and squee are my crutches of choice, these days.
They’re pretty darn good ones, too, grumpyoldnurse.
@GoN Also, you didn’t wimp. You told all your colleagues so they knew to beware.
More Merkin:
Such a sweet, gentle doggie.
Grumpy Old Nurse, I have nothing helpful to contribute, but I’m sorry that happened and that it put you in such a difficult situation.
Spring gardening help.
http://i.imgur.com/36K6t3e.png
I do happen! I didn’t even think of scuba diving there, but I’ll have to look it up. Is it the kind of thing you’d want a dry suit or at least a semi-dry to do?
You’d want a dry. If it’s summer, you can get away with a semi-dry… and there are some silly people who go with wet-suits.
Not a good idea, though.
Dry suits are worth it.
Wow, a semi-dry in summer – that’s harsh. I’ve only dived somewhere cold enough for a semi-dry once and I only lasted 20 minutes in the water, but it was worth it because it was to dive with seals.
Being above the water however, was not fun. oh my god the smell.
Yup. The Smell.
Watching docos on tele is far and away the best means of looking at animals. We used to have quite a large colony of little penguins down at Granite Island off Victor Harbor. There’s barely a handful left now. They were seriously cute to watch (they used to be called fairy penguins, little cute bundles of waddling feathers), but the smell!! on a warm day was more than a soul could bear.
… it’s not that cold. The person I know who did a lot of diving in Sitka just really likes keeping warm.
If you want to know ocean temps, Noaa tracks them pretty well. The average summer gets up to 56 degrees F at the surface, while winter usually gets to right around 40.
Some of the seals here don’t smell that bad? The sea lions down by the pier in San Francisco do, but my dad dragged me to Monterey while he was here and all the seals were up on the dock rather than in the water (because a great white had recently been swimming around the harbor near them, at which point they all hopped out of the water and up on the dock, according to a local fisherman), and they weren’t stinky at all.
GrumpyOldNurse, I think you should do whatever feels like the best option to you, since you know your situation. Definitely make sure that your coworkers all end up knowing about this guy, though, since it sounds like nobody realized he was a potential problem before.
(Hugs)
Hey, thanks, everyone, for the support and kind words and wishes.
I’m doing better today, because I have a (hopefully) pretty good plan to deal with this. Also, sleep has helped.
Right now, I’d much rather discuss SCUBA diving with interesting wild life! 🙂
Distraction? I can do that. So, fisherman being totally nonchalant about the great white that had just been swimming around near his boat (“it was just a young one”, he says)? I love that about California, how everyone has just adjusted to the fact that these giant toothy things that are almost as ancient as dinosaurs are swimming around in large numbers just offshore.
It’s cool how people adjust to stuff in their environment. It’s not necessarily that one is being indifferent, you just stop being terrified. I’ve been hiking and camping a lot in grizzly country. I’m not scared of bears, but I sure do have a healthy respect for them! I also follow all the rules of safe camping and food storage. I still know that a bear incident is still possible, I just take reasonable precautions and keep my eyes open. I imagine your fisherman is much the same way. Whereas I, a person from a non-great white area, would be freaked out by sharing water with such a being! Even if I was in a nice safe boat!
I think part of it is that nobody can operate while in a state of pants-wetting terror for very long, or very effectively, so we just sort of adjust. Certainly I’m not too keen on going swimming here, and the water is too cold anyway, but the “holy shit, WTF, we’re all going to die” feeling does seem to fade after a while. I mean, I used to go swimming in Saudi, and everyone knows there are shitloads of barracuda there.
Barracuda!?! GAH! This land lubber needs to go hide under a bed, now!
One thing about where I am today; all the bears are hibernating, and any great whites or barracuda would freeze solid! It’s too cold to drive anywhere today, so the little grumps and I are hunkering down and trying to stay warm and amused inside. The temp is only about -30, but the wind chill is more like -45. Brrrrrr!
“Only” minus 30? Really? I think I’ll take my chances with the sharks, at least they’re not guaranteed to try to eat me every winter.
If anyone needs a distraction, we could post pictures of our cat traps…
See! That’s what I mean about adapting to one’s surroundings! 🙂
This is in ref to past mentions of 51st state and if it is Aus or UK. (OK, I just love the song)