New development at work. The new co-worker has been sacked and my team lead took today off and didn’t tell us why. Since my evaluation included instructions dealing with the new guy and I got it at 4:20pm yesterday, I don’t know when the shit hit the fan.

I was just told that "now" would be a good time to take an hour lunch out of the office because the new guy had been sacked and needed to clean out his desk. I know nothing else.

I am leaning towards the idea that he got his evaluation and didn’t take it well. I haven’t taken mine well but I know my buttons are being pushed and I am trying to get out from under that before I deal with anyone. I don’t think he realizes when his buttons are being pushed or he feels those feeling are appropriate and should be responded to.

But then again, our team lead sent his no explanation out of office thing this morning at 7am so maybe he knew something already.

I hate surprises.

Needless to say, I am keeping my head down and keep on smiling. Now back to work like a good little worker bee.

Edit: More info came to light. Turns out that other people complained about his poor attitude, the low quality of his work, the lack of him finding work to do during down times and over billing time to projects. The thing that made it easy to get rid of him today is because our team lead took a mental health day because the atmosphere at work has been so toxic.

There is still unpleasantness to go through but I no longer feel it personally. They are just issues that need to be dealt this.

Grrrr Arrrrg. I just got my evaluation at from work. I am to have a meeting with my boss tomorrow or monday. I have to admit there is a lot of good in it but some of the bad really hits my buttons.

It feels like shades of my old boss that gave me so much trouble. Expected Mind Reading is not in the job description or in my set of skills. And because of my previous experiences with this type of situation, I go on the defensive very quickly.

Having my buttons hit is not a good way to go into a meeting with the boss. I am not in a place in my life where I can set aside things that bother me like I was able to do in 2005 and dealing with that last pain in the butt. And I really respect my current boss. Or did. I am not so good with the breaking of faith. I tend to switch on or off. The middle ground is a hard place for me to get to.

Work hasn’t been a pleasant place to be ever since the new guy showed up. It got worse when I broke my foot because that is when he went from talking all the time to being mostly silent. It has really increase the tension I feel in the room. I don’t know how much the difficulty I had to create because of my broken foot has added to this. Or if whatever is my portion started before and I am just finding out about it lately. My team lead seems to be aggravated with me and not telling me. Just sort of hoping I will figure it out. And since I don’t have confirmation just little clues, I don’t know how to deal with it or how large it really is. Grrrr snap.

I don’t think I am going to get sacked. I have too much of what they want and do too good of a job for them. They don’t like my reliability. It doesn’t help that when I started, I heard horror stories of others that had much worse problems than I do. It set my standards pretty low. Not really their fault, just not a smart idea. I am not getting a salary raise, which I don’t actually mind. I make enough, more would be better but not needed right now. And for me, it is all about the environment, not the money.

While some of the structure is still good, it no longer feels like my ideal job. Taking a year to get to this point is a pretty good track record. I just wish now that I hadn’t loved it so much. It hurts more when it dies off and it is harder to just coast through work uninvested.

Geee, it is another case of at mid-year, I was really good and at the end of the year, I am not good and there is no change in money. Yeah,  I know it is not best to let your past inform your present but history feels like it is repeating itself. Wonder what it is I didn’t learn the last time around?

I had my first physical therapy appointment today. While it wasn’t as much fun as what I had for my broken elbow, it wasn’t bad. Mostly it was the therapist telling me how far I could push my foot/ankle and that I should be pushing it.

She was impressed by my range of motion. I did good with taking care of my broken foot. But the advances I made in that regard seem to have cost in my overall conditioning. I was very worn out by what little we did. She suggests that it is because I went from mostly upright during the day to laying down a lot. My quick path to exhaustion seems to be more due to lack of conditioning than my healing foot emptying my reserves. Bah, I thought I was out of shape before the break and that moving around on the crutches would help. Phooey.

Verdict is that I should be down to one crutch as a back up support and trying to walk normally. I can see how a cane would be useful.

I can stand on the silly thing just fine. If I lock it up, I can walk on it just fine, I just use up a lot of energy. I can basicly walk normally on it but need to concentrate to be sure I actually use it instead of automatically locking up and to not twist as I go.

The swelling still needs some work. I have some compression tubes to help and I am suppose to ice it multiple times a day instead of the once a day sometimes that I have been doing.

My foot was decanted from the cast yesterday. The breaks appear to be healing. The doctor said that with a little note of surprise. I figure my foot is immobile in a cast and I keep off it, I didn’t break it that bad, of course it heals. Actually my thought really was, I am Gina, of course it heals.

I can say this now. I never ITCHED!!! Every now and then there was a little tickle, like an ant walking on my leg. I would smoosh the cast onto that area (just in case it was an ant) and that was it. No actual stick something down my cast and scratch.

My left leg is not that thin. It is slightly less massive than the right leg and some of that is the buildup of muscle from using the right leg for so much is am sure. The muscle of the left leg was rather flabby but it wasn’t emaciated like I had been led to expect.

The foot looked a little leathery with a few spots of flakey dry skin. The leg part looked completely normal. It was hard to believe it had been hiding in a cast for four weeks. My skin is always that pale and the only difference between my leg and when I haven’t shaved it for a long time is that the hair was all kinked along the skin.

I asked how normal it was to have so little affect from the cast and the assistant assured me that it was completely normal. I am sure she was trying to make me feel better but since I am not an average person, I piped up and said I wanted to be special. I knew it was within "normal" range but I wanted to be one of the few instead of close to the mean.

I am terribly proud of how different and easy my broken foot was compared to what I have heard from others. The dr and staff got a kick out of the drawing of my injury on the side of my cast.

Sadly, the removal process needs them to cut the sides to get it off. I thought they would cut it front to back. For my plan to mount it on my wall, I need to do more work. I can glue it back together and then find a way to cut it front to back. I think a band saw would do. They told me to pull the stuffing from inside the cast if I keep it because that is the smelly part. Mine doesn’t smell. I am told that casts can get real stinky when they come off. Ooo look, I am special again. (not that the staff made any note about it).

I think the reason my cast process was a little different is because when the swelling went down, I had room inside the cast to expose the skin everywhere by moving it around. The only thing I worked on was to be sure the sock thing inside didn’t stick to my skin.

Swelling is still a problem and I need to get it down. It will cause scar tissue where it doesn’t belong and will hamper my foot’s mobility. But the doctor showed me something cool. He pressed down on the top of the swollen foot rather hard. When he took his finger away, it left a depression. It is like memory foam. It takes one to two minutes for it to fill up again. It is fun to play with and looks so freaky. Sadly, the swollen skin is what hurts. It stings, otherwise I might be tempted to let it swell longer and that wouldn’t be good for me.

I now have a brace for my ankle and a "wooden" shoe for the foot. I keep on the crutches until I feel I don’t need them anymore. The doc suggests that in two to three weeks my foot might be ready for a regular but stiff shoe. The swelling will go on for six months.

I am so very tired. It was also explained to me that the post trauma time is when the body goes through the symptoms of depression because of the healing it needs to do and it no longer has the adrenalin boost that the trauma triggered to take care of things. This would explain why I keep getting more and more tired even when I am resting.  I am still on the every other day working from home schedule for the next month.

I can hobble around without the crutches for short distances but still need the crutches for moving around most of the time. I am going to have to keep using the carts to go shopping.