Graveyard Shift

This past Saturday, just as I expected, I had to work the dreaded "Graveyard Shift" from 6pm to 6am. I had never worked a 12 hour shift before, let alone a graveyard shift. It was something I hope I don't have to do again.

It takes a certain kind of person to work the graveyard shift: insomniacs, night owls, teenagers and twentysomethings hopped up on speed. These sorts of people can handle it. I can't.

As I clocked in at 6pm, I told myself "OK, just think of this as taking a long flight back to Taiwan."

To fly from L.A. to Taiwan takes nearly 14 hours, and when you're flying economy it's next to impossible to get some sleep. So I just resigned myself to the fact that I would be awake for quite a while, and that I'd just have to catch up on my sleep later.

By 8:00pm, I knew it was going to be a long night because I already started yawning regularly.

"Uh oh, this is not good. I've still got 10 hours to go."
At 10:30pm, I took a meal break and drove home, since I don't live very far from the hospital. I had to take a quick shower to refresh myself for the remaining seven hours that I had left.
By 12:00am, the place was as dead as a morgue. I hadn't seen any patients in quite a while and none seemed to be coming in. One of my colleagues advised me to page the supervisor, and maybe because it was so slow I would be able to leave early. So I paged her, and she called me right back.
"This place is pretty slow." I told her. "I've only seen about two patients in the last 6 hours."
"No, unfortunately we need you there." she replied in a drowsy voice, dashing my hopes of ending the night early.
I spent the next few hours reading newspapers, magazines, internet stories, and writing in my notebook. It just wasn't busy at all. Doctors, who also have to work long shifts, at least have the option of going to empty patient rooms and sleeping when there isn't any work for them. In my department, though, we can't do that.
At 2:30 a.m, Christy called me from home, telling me she couldn't sleep well because I wasn't there. Awww. That made me feel a little better.

By about 3:30a.m., things were getting bad. I had a headache. My wrist hurt, and for some reason my gums were aching. When a patient finally did come in, I had trouble typing simple commands into the computer. I was making mistakes and numerous typos. When I started to talk to a patient, I was forgetting things I needed to say, and I was slurring my speech. They probably thought I was drunk.
At 5:00a.m., I walked to the hospital cafeteria (which was closed) and I ate an egg sandwich that Christy made for me. It gave me just enough energy to make it through the final hour. By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I crawled straight into bed and went to sleep. I managed to sleep for about 6 hours, but was awoken numerous times by noisy kids (my own and others.)

It would take me two days to recover from this experience, just as it does for me to get over jet-lag. Having done it, I really have to admire those people who work these hours all the time. They're truly brave.

Christmas Eve

As a parent, I know that there are only a limited number of Christmas's that the kids will really enjoy before they become disillusioned. Right now Sara pretty much believes anything that we tell her. She thinks that Santa Claus will come down our chimney tonight and leave her lots of presents under the tree. She believes that she has to be asleep when Santa comes, or she won't get anything. These are probably the best years as a parent. Kyle is still a couple of years away from Sara's sense of wonder. Right now he'd rather knock the tree over and try to eat the ornaments.

Speaking of the Christmas tree, it's gone through all kinds of abuse these past few weeks. It's been knocked over countless times. Many, many ornaments have been destroyed. The tree used to filled from head to toe with ornaments, now I'd say only about 50% remain. And you just can't say "No, don't touch that!" to children. It doesn't work. They can't help themselves, they have to touch everything!

We made the decision early on to hide all the presents in the closet out of reach. Had we put them out earlier they'd be ripped open and the paper would be in shreds all over the floor. Tonight, Christy and I will assemble Sara's easel so she can start drawing right away tomorrow morning.

I have to admit that Christmas for me had lost it's excitement over the last several years. It seemed like every year I stayed at my brothers house, each year was worse than the last one. Last year, for example, I had to take Sara to the ER on Christmas day because she was really sick. Then there was my brothers wife who told us that we'd have to start staying in hotels if we want to visit again. That they couldn't make room for us in their two-story, 4 bedroom house. It was getting a bit sad. Now that Christy and I and the kids are celebrating the holidays as a family of our own, I feel a lot more excitement about Christmas. It will be a lot of fun to see them wake up tomorrow morning and see all the gifts under the tree. That kind of stuff is priceless.

(Picture: Sara posing by the tree.)

Month # 5 at the New Job

Unfortunately, I have to work on Christmas Day from 2 to 10:30pm (my regular hours.) I knew this was inevitable, as I've only been here for 5 months and I'm still considered "the new guy." I've been told that everybody has to work the holidays their first year here. I'll have Christmas off next year for sure, but that doesn't really make it any better. To make things a little nicer, Christy and the kids are planning to visit me during my lunch/dinner break at work, and we'll have leftover turkey, stuffing, etc. That should be nice.

Starting on Friday the 26th until Sunday, I have to go "on call." This is something that every employee has to do one weekend per year. I have to carry around a pager for 72 hours, and if they call me, I have to report to work right away, and at whatever time they happen to call. It's very possible I could work some God-forsaken shift like 6pm to 6am. It's entirely dependent on the other people that work here. If everyone shows up and works the shift that they're supposed to, I won't get called. However, this being the weekend right after Christmas, I'm expecting to get called, as this hospital is filled with slackers. Actually, I find it kind of amazing just how many slackers work here. (actually, no, I don't find it that amazing. I forgot I was back in America.) People are getting fired left and right for not reporting to work, and not calling in. They're just not showing up regularly. Frankly, I just don't get it. You would think that with the economy the way it is right now, people would be afraid of losing their jobs and be a little more responsible. Unfortunately, many here don't seem to give a damn.

After five months working here at this hospital, I've found it to be simply okay. It's not a great job, but it's not the worst I've ever had either. The pay is a lot higher than I expected to make in Austin. The hours are convenient. As I'm not a doctor or nurse, it isn't particularly high stress, and the patient load lately is pretty low, so I find myself with a lot of free time for reading, writing, or just going for long walks around the hospital grounds. So yeah, it could be a lot worse.

The negative side though, is the lack of having any time off other than weekends. We have what is called PTO, which is "Personal Time Off" that we accrue every pay period. We have to use these hours for sick time AND vacation time. They're not separate. Like I mentioned before, we have to ask for this time a month in advance. If something comes up, and you need a day off, and you haven't given the proper notice, you'll get written up. If you get written up 7 times in a year, you're terminated. I could really do without this type of management style.

I also have to deal with supervisors who like to micro-manage a bit too much. For the most part, they don't bother me, but I'll often get emails from them with ideas that are just not practical. I guess this comes with the territory. Once you enter the white-collar world of office work, you have to deal with irrational management. C'est la vie.

(Picture: this is the type of pager I have to carry around all weekend.)

Schlitterbahn

On Saturday we drove to a city called New Braunfels (about 45 miles south) to see a place called Schlitterbahn. In the summertime, Schillterbahn is a waterslide park, but in the winter, they turn it into a sort of a Christmas Winter Wonderland. In their advertisements, they promise "over a million Christmas lights!", "snow!" , "ice skating!" "sledding!" and much more. Most of it was true.

We arrived as the park opened at 5pm. Admission was $14.99 for me and Christy, and $12.99 for Sara (Kyle was free.) Luckily for us, Saturday was a warm day here in Austin. The temp got up to 82 degrees out here. (As I'm typing this now, the temp is only expected to be 48 degrees, with a low of 29, quite an amazing change from one day to the next. If it rains sometime today, we may even see some snow.) The place wasn't too impressive in the daylight, so I can understand why they don't open until close to sunset. Once it became dark, it was much more impressive. There probably was a million lights there, and the kids seemed to be in awe.

The "snow" that they mentioned wasn't actually real snow, it was a machine pumping out bubbles over everyone. Bubbles that looked like snow. I'm not really sure I liked this idea. The bubbles started to get into our drinks so we ended up throwing them away. Then the bubbles were in our hair so when we got home we had messy, sticky hair. Maybe they should just import real snow.

The "sledding" was true, but it wasn't slow sledding. It was simply riding a sled down one of the waterslides. They did have ice skating though, but it was so crowded and the line was so long that we didn't even bother with that.

One of the highlights was when Kyle and Sara got to meet Santa Claus. Sara seemed really excited to see him. She kept telling me that she was going to tell him all about the kind of toys she wanted for Christmas. Once we finally got up the Santa Claus, she freaked out and didn't even want to get close to him. Her excitement suddenly turned to fear and she didn't want to see Santa Claus. Kyle, however, didn't mind, and he posed for a picture with Santa. So this is the second year in a row I waited in line with Sara to see Santa and she chickened out at the last minute. Maybe next year she'll be able to handle it.

Overall it was a pretty fun time. After going to so many places that proved to be disappointing, this place was pretty nice.

(Pictures: 1. Schlitterbahn's. 2. The overcrowded ice-skating rink. 3. Klye meets Santa Claus for the first time. 4. Sara (with her new glasses) runs away from the park-mascot dog. 5. Klye walking through a tunnel of lights.)

Dubya Dodging Shoes

I had to laugh when I saw the video of George Bush dodging shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter. The reporter, it seems, was expressing his dissatisfaction with our president, and in the Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is supposed to be an extreme insult. If this is the worst punishment that Dubya receives for his failed and criminal presidency, he should consider himself lucky. Frankly, I think the guy who threw the shoes will receive a much harsher punishment.

In some ways I feel kind of sorry for George Bush Jr. Except for the brief moment after 9/11, he's never really been a popular president. At his inauguration, people were throwing eggs at him and the limousine he was riding in. It was a cold, wet, and rainy day. There was still much doubt about whether he legitimately won the election. Since he had lost the popular vote to Al Gore, many of us simply did not accept him as the "real" president. Now, as he prepares to leave office, his approval ratings are the lowest of any president in history, even Richard Nixon! His fellow Republicans are are avoiding him like the plague, since just being associated with him will damage their careers. Indeed, the Republican party has pretty much been decimated because of this man. Most of the country now eagerly awaits for January 20, 2009, when Bush finally gets the hell out of office.

"January 20th cannot come soon enough!" is a comment that I see quite often on political blogs. How true it is.

Bush must be feeling some envy for Barack Obama. Once Obama takes over next year, you're going to see an entirely different scene come inauguration day. Much like Obama's election victory in November, it's going to be a major celebration. People will be crying tears of joy once again. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel and the country will finally be able to heal itself from the damage of the past eight years. I'll probably get an email from someone out there telling me that nothing will change, and that Obama is just as bad as any other politician. Whether that's true or not, the point is that Obama is not Bush. For a lot of us, that's all that's important. Let's see if Obama has any shoes thrown at him in the next 4 to 8 years. I'm guessing he won't.

Wall-E and the Strange Behavior of Children

I often get the feeling that my children are stranger than other children. I'm sure their behavior is perfectly normal, but I still feel that way.

I recently bought the movie "Wall-E" for my kids to watch, and for some reason my son Kyle has just become obsessed with Wall-E. Every morning when I take him out of his crib, he starts to say "Walleee! Walleee! and he will go and grab the dvd and carry it around ALL DAY.

I have "Wall-E" on blu-ray dvd, which, for those who don't know, is a high-definition dvd. It's kind of expensive, so I don't really like Kyle playing with it as a toy. However, when I try to take it away from him, he goes crazy and starts crying. He won't be quiet until I give the dvd back to him. I tried to think of a solution to this problem, so I printed out a picture of Wall-E on the computer. It didn't work. He just threw the picture on the floor. For some reason he only wants to hold the dvd. So I decided to buy him a five dollar Wall-E doll which I bought from the Disney Store. I'm hoping he will take to the doll the way he takes to the dvd and forget about the dvd.

So now I've got a daughter who's obsessed with her "Night Night" blanket and a son who's obsessed with "Wall-E." Oh well, I guess it could be worse.

(Pictures: The real Wall-E and the Wall-E doll that I bought for Kyle.)

Christmas Parties - Round 2

On Saturday night, we attended another company Christmas party. This time, it was for my company. Fortunately, both me and Christy were able to attend this time, instead of one of us having to stay and watch the kids. We found a babysitter, and they agreed to watch the kids for $12 an hour.

Unfortunately, finding the babysitter's house proved to be a total nightmare. We were driving at night to the city of Round Rock, following directions that we got off the "Mapquest" web site. We got lost, and we ended up driving on toll freeways four different times. On two different occasions I was in the wrong lane to pay the toll, and a camera snapped a picture of our car, no doubt to send us a bill in the mail in the near future. I didn't really Texas had so many toll roads. I wasn't used to it. In Taiwan, all the freeways require you to pay a toll (about every 15 miles or less), but I thought most freeways in America were actually "free." Eventually, after turning around a couple of times (and therefore paying the toll again), we finally found the babysitters house, and we got to the party about 30 minutes late. No big deal anyway, since most people don't show up to parties on time anyway.

The hotel was nice, but the food was surprisingly simple (pasta with marinara sauce, or ham were the main entrees.) We stayed for a little over two hours, until they gave away the four "door prizes." The "door prizes" were four $50 gift/debit cards that you can use anywhere. So the company gave away about $200 in free gifts to 4 people (out of at least a thousand people there.) Not exactly big spenders, but I guess that's just a sign of how bad the economy is right now. I remember the last company I worked for in America, many years ago, used to give out thousands of dollars worth of prizes, to at least 20 different guests. Times have really changed.

(Pictures: 1. A blurry Santa. 2. Christy and two co-workers. 3. One of my co-workers with her husband. 4. A view of the crowd. 5. Another co-worker and her husband (this couple is pretty interesting, actually. She's from Panama City, and her husband is an ex-Army soldier who met her during the American invasion of Panama.)

Riding Out the Recession

It seems like everyone is affected in some way by the economic crisis that's happening here in America. My ex-wife just mentioned on her blog that she was laid off. My friend Jerry Yen told me recently that his company is laying off over 3,000 employees, and he may be one of them, after having worked there for over 10 years. Even Christy and I have doubts about the security of our jobs. I got an email from a supervisor recently that said our hours may start "flexing." This means that, although we may keep our jobs, we might get sent home if there isn't enough work to do.

I've often thought about moving back to California, but currently the unemployment rate there is 8.2%. It's one of the highest in the country. I think if we had stayed in California when we first arrived here back in May, we'd be out of money by now and heading back to Taiwan, feeling depressed that our relocation turned out to be a total failure. Moving to Austin probably saved us from this.

I can't see myself living in Austin forever. Frankly, I can't see myself here five years from now. While Austin has its charms here and there, it's not a very exciting place to live. On the other hand, I absolutely hate moving, and the last thing I want is to be stuck living out of hotels while I'm out looking for a job again. I've been there and done that, and it's not something I would want to repeat anytime soon. For those who read my blogs during the month of June of this year...oh man, was that a stressful time. It's one thing to write about tough times after you've already lived and survived it, but writing it while it's happening is not fun at all.

At the very least, we'll stay in Austin until this recession is over, though God knows how long that will be. We're going to try to ride it out and hope we get through it. Going back to Taiwan isn't really much of an option anymore as it used to be, as their economy is just as bad as the US. I still keep getting emails, though, from schools that want to hire me in Taiwan. I guess I could still find a job in Taiwan, but for Christy it would be tougher. Besides, Christy doesn't seem to have any desire whatsoever to go back to Taiwan. I don't blame her.

Horseshoe Bay

This weekend we travelled to a small, lakeside town called Horseshoe Bay. It's about an hour or so Northwest of Austin. The company that Christy works for was having their annual Christmas party at the Marriot Hotel. No kids were allowed at the party, so I offered to watch the kids in the hotel room (which was free, thankfully) while Christy went to the party. The hotel offered babysitting service, which was actually just a list of about 15 names I could call. I called every number on the list, hoping someone could babysit so I could go to the party. It didn't happen. Every person on the list was either a.) not in town b.) busy or c.) didn't answer the phone. So my Saturday night was spent watching two kids pretending to be rock stars and trashing a hotel room.

I generally like to go to company Christmas parties. It's the one time of year when your employer decides to be generous and give you a lot of free stuff. The dinner is usually good, and then they give away a lot of expensive gifts as door prizes. Christy didn't win anything, but they did give us a pretty nice gift basket.

As for the town of Horseshoe Bay, I couldn't find any place where the lake was accessible to the public. It was all attached to condos and private residences. If you're rich, it seemed like a pretty nice place to left, but for the rest of us, kinda boring. There were also several golf courses out there. Again, though, this was a place primarily for people with expendable income. Had the hotel room not been free, I would see no reason to come here.

Still, the hotel was nice (as most Marriots are), and there was a lot of nice scenery surrounding it. I guess if Christy still works for this company next year, we'll probably be back. For now, though, we've got one more Christmas party coming up next weekend. My company is having one in Round Rock, which is not nearly as far as Horseshoe Bay.

(Pictures: 1. The Marriot Hotel in Horseshoe Bay. 2. Christy and the kids. 3. The "Oriental Garden" outside the hotel. 4. Christy and her boss. 5. More Horseshoe Bay scenery.)

Pet Peeves

I think one of my biggest pet peeves has always been poor spelling and grammar in a professional situation. I'm not talking about typos and grammar mistakes that you come across regularly in personal email (and blogs!) I'm talking about big, written displays in retail stores and restaurants, as well as "company-wide" email that is sent by supervisors and CEO's.

In Taiwan, where the English language is distorted and destroyed on a daily basis, one could go crazy trying to decipher all the bad English. I'm still scratching my head over the giant sign outside of Taipei 101 which read "COMMING SOOM!" Taipei 101 is probably one of the most visited tourist attractions in Taiwan, so this is pretty embarrassing. To see more examples of this, you can check my old blog entry here: http://kenberglund.blogspot.com/2008/04/taiwans-wacky-english.html

Taiwanese people, though, are not native English speakers, so you really can't blame them for trying. What bothers me is, here in the USA, I continually receive company email from management and so called "superiors" who can't seem to put two complete sentences together. For me, it's a bit frustrating to work under people that you feel should be under you.

I remember back when I was working for this company called SCAN in the late 90's, I got "talked to" for correcting a fellow employees email. I didn't do it in public. I sent a private email explaining when to use "there," "their," or "they're." This employee got furious and told her supervisor, who then complained to me. Had it just been a one time thing, I would have ignored it, but this particular person made the same mistake over and over. In my mind, I was just trying to save her from further embarrassment, but it wasn't taken that way. Some people are extremely offended if you try to correct their English. To this day, I still get email at the hospital from someone who reminds me to "tell the patient it is there responsibility." Now I just sigh and click the delete button.

When I was in college, there was a Taco Bell restaurant on campus. This was during the days of the "Yo quiero Taco Bell!" talking chihuahua doll. They had an enormous display which read "THEIR BACK!" (referring to the dolls). I told the cashier about it.

"Oh, we don't have anything to do with that. Management sends us those." she told me.

"But, you know, this is a college campus. It looks bad." I reminded her.

"There's really nothing I can do about it." she answered.

And so it goes. The dumbing of America continues.

Losing Weight the Chinese Way

It's very difficult to find an obese person in Taiwan. They do exist, and I have in fact seen a few, but it's a rare sighting. It's like trying to spot a celebrity in Hollywood. They're there, but it takes a lot of looking.

I've often wondered how the Chinese people stay thin. The things they eat are often deep fried and do not look healthy at all. When I first arrived in Taiwan, the food kind of scared me at first. I would walk by these blue trucks that were selling food, and it just looked awful. I didn't want to eat chicken feet or deep fried duck heads. So for quite some time I was just eating noodles and sandwiches that I would buy from 7-11. So basically, just out of pure disgust of the local food, I started losing weight. Not exactly a great plan, but it worked. I went from 205 lbs to 179 over the course several months.

So today I'm reading a story about three obese Americans who moved to China to try and lose weight, and it seems to be working:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081202/hl_afp/healthchinausoffbeat_081202081540

I thought this story was kind of funny, since I've been telling some of my overweight friends for years to try living in Taiwan for a while if they want to lose weight.

Now that I've been back in America for 7 months, I've gained some of that weight back. Not all of it, thankfully, but about 10 pounds. I'm trying to be careful, though, and not fall into bad American habits of wanting to eat too much junk food. In a state like Texas, where restaurants boldly and proudly claim their portions are "Texas Size!", you really need to be careful.