I was wrecked, but I'm feeling better...
No, I didn't take some of Rachel's meds. I took a hot tub and got a massage. It's been a long couple of days.
For instance, yesterday, I had to be on a conference call at 6:00 AM that lasted until almost 4:00 PM with a break for lunch. Wore down the batteries on both of my phones and halfway through a third. And whenever we had a break, I spent that time feeding and medicating Rachel. And lunch time was spent getting her in and out of the hot tub. And then the call wrapped up and I spent some time reviewing notes and working on call flows.
Then I had to take Rachel to her first Physical Therapy appointment in Lakeport. Then we had to take Jake to Santa Rosa to refill his prescription and get his blood work done for his Remicaid appointment on Monday. And, of course, I'm going to have to take time off work to take Jake to that. Rachel says she'll do it, but there's just no way I'm going to let her drive to San Francisco and then sit in an uncomfortable chair for four hours and then drive home.
And Rachel feels guilty that we have to take care of her even though we do everything we can to let her know how much we love her and don't mind. She's just that way.
And honestly, I go through these periods where I am just wrecked - worn out, nothing more to give. And then I say to myself the last line from Waiting For Godot - "I cannot go on. I go on." At least I think that's the last line. I never read it. And then we ate dinner at the Lyon's in Santa Rosa that Tom Waits supposedly hangs out at since Reihart's Truck Stop in Petaluma closed. Only it isn't a Lyon's anymore. It's one of those Chinese/American Buffets that seem to be popping up everywhere in the Bay Area suburbs. And Tom Waits doesn't hang out there anymore. But we ate there anyway. And we didn't get home until almost 10:30. And, of course, as tired as I was, I was all amped up on adrenaline and couldn't fall asleep.
Anyway, then I had another call this morning, same time to wrap up what we started yesterday. And about 15 minutes in to that call, one customer representative came in with the news that they were having another meeting next door that pretty much made 90% of what we had done the previous day worthless because the whole scope of the project changed. But the group in the room of the call that I was on decided to move forward anyway. So instead of 5 applications, we are talking about perhaps 25. No documentation on up or downstream systems. The communications interface between the various back end systems has yet to be defined, let alone developed. Their customer address information is both inconsistent and often inaccurate, and does not conform to USPS Standards. Which is going to make our address lookups really challenging. Sort of like trying to find a specific needle among many needles in an enormous haystack based on a blurry picture of the needle in question.
I am really proud of that last simile.
And to top it all off, they have an outside consultant who is insisting that the first prompt we play is, "To speak to an operator at any time, press or say zero." And, of course, I advise STRONGLY against that because most people will just hit zero and not even give the system a chance. And the main goal of the project is to automate tasks. And whenever we have done what she is insisting on for "maximum customer satisfaction", six months after we deploy the system, the call center group complains that the IVR system is under utilized and we failed to meet our call deflection goals - like it's somehow our fault.
And sorry to most people, but some of my friends and colleagues know exactly what I'm dealing with and how frustrating it is.
And today I got a call in the middle of my conference call from my AAA claims adjuster who relayed information from the at fault party's claims adjuster who said that because the woman who hit Rachel was in a borrowed car, the maximum liability is "probably" going to be rolled back to the state minimum requirements of $15K personal injury and $30K property. And that would just about cover the ambulance ride and the first visit to the emergency room.
Then, if the woman who hit Rachel had insurance, that would kick in. And if she doesn't, then ours kicks in another $85K to our policy maximum of $100K. And I don't have any idea if that's going to be enough.
But we don't know if the lady who hit Rachel has insurance because every time our claims adjuster calls her, she hangs up and then doesn't answer the phone when she calls back. And that really pisses us off. To the point that I want to just hand everything over to our attorney and sue the woman and see if we don't end up with a nice Summer house up in Cobb or something.
And of course, we do have medical insurance through my work, but I don't understand why my medical insurance should have to pay for this awful woman's negligence.
Sorry, I don't know for a fact that she's awful. I'm just assuming she is since she is ducking our claims adjuster. Oh, and because she did what she did to our dear Rachel.
Where was I going with all of this? Oh yeah, so like I said, I was wrecked. And I got a massage. And I learned that because my shoulder has been bothering me so much lately, I didn't even realize how jacked up the rest of my body is. And I'm a little sore from the experience, but it was great to just shut off for an hour and let somebody work out my stress. The best thing is she lives right up the street and has a massage room in her house. Not nearly as cool and relaxing as yours, Laurie. But the thing I hate most about getting a massage is having to drive home from Calistoga or wherever it is. It just makes you all tense again right away. But with this lady, I just hopped in the golf cart and drove up the block. The only traffic was a friendly little kid on a Big Wheel who told me he liked my spotted balls. Which made me laugh because he was referring to the fuzzy dice on the Hotel Yorba Courtesy Car.
Anyway, I feel better emotionally. I even had a little cry after the massage while I was laying there by myself for a few minutes. That was kind of weird, but good, I think. I came home and drank some green tea and a ton of water. Then watched Earl and a new CSI with Rachel. And then I put her to bed. And now I'm going to go drink some more water, take a quick hot tub, and go to sleep. And I don't have to be on a call at 6:00 tomorrow. Just 9:00.
Oh, yeah, and today was all about me and a lot of people are checking in to find out about Rachel. So here you go:
Her pain levels were noticeably higher today, but that is to be expected because of the manipulation and measurements for baseline pain and flexibility tests, the e-stim and cold therapy that were done yesterday. She has a follow up with her doctor on Monday. Which conflicts with Jake's Remicaid, so I guess we're going to have to change that one or something. I don't know. We'll work it out somehow. Oh, and she's really bummed because the power plant she's been working at from just about the get go finally got online this week and they had a party today to celebrate. And, of course, she couldn't go.
That's it. Sorry the text to picture ratio is infinite in this post. I just don't really have any new pictures. So go ahead and lok at Barry and Rod again if you want.
For instance, yesterday, I had to be on a conference call at 6:00 AM that lasted until almost 4:00 PM with a break for lunch. Wore down the batteries on both of my phones and halfway through a third. And whenever we had a break, I spent that time feeding and medicating Rachel. And lunch time was spent getting her in and out of the hot tub. And then the call wrapped up and I spent some time reviewing notes and working on call flows.
Then I had to take Rachel to her first Physical Therapy appointment in Lakeport. Then we had to take Jake to Santa Rosa to refill his prescription and get his blood work done for his Remicaid appointment on Monday. And, of course, I'm going to have to take time off work to take Jake to that. Rachel says she'll do it, but there's just no way I'm going to let her drive to San Francisco and then sit in an uncomfortable chair for four hours and then drive home.
And Rachel feels guilty that we have to take care of her even though we do everything we can to let her know how much we love her and don't mind. She's just that way.
And honestly, I go through these periods where I am just wrecked - worn out, nothing more to give. And then I say to myself the last line from Waiting For Godot - "I cannot go on. I go on." At least I think that's the last line. I never read it. And then we ate dinner at the Lyon's in Santa Rosa that Tom Waits supposedly hangs out at since Reihart's Truck Stop in Petaluma closed. Only it isn't a Lyon's anymore. It's one of those Chinese/American Buffets that seem to be popping up everywhere in the Bay Area suburbs. And Tom Waits doesn't hang out there anymore. But we ate there anyway. And we didn't get home until almost 10:30. And, of course, as tired as I was, I was all amped up on adrenaline and couldn't fall asleep.
Anyway, then I had another call this morning, same time to wrap up what we started yesterday. And about 15 minutes in to that call, one customer representative came in with the news that they were having another meeting next door that pretty much made 90% of what we had done the previous day worthless because the whole scope of the project changed. But the group in the room of the call that I was on decided to move forward anyway. So instead of 5 applications, we are talking about perhaps 25. No documentation on up or downstream systems. The communications interface between the various back end systems has yet to be defined, let alone developed. Their customer address information is both inconsistent and often inaccurate, and does not conform to USPS Standards. Which is going to make our address lookups really challenging. Sort of like trying to find a specific needle among many needles in an enormous haystack based on a blurry picture of the needle in question.
I am really proud of that last simile.
And to top it all off, they have an outside consultant who is insisting that the first prompt we play is, "To speak to an operator at any time, press or say zero." And, of course, I advise STRONGLY against that because most people will just hit zero and not even give the system a chance. And the main goal of the project is to automate tasks. And whenever we have done what she is insisting on for "maximum customer satisfaction", six months after we deploy the system, the call center group complains that the IVR system is under utilized and we failed to meet our call deflection goals - like it's somehow our fault.
And sorry to most people, but some of my friends and colleagues know exactly what I'm dealing with and how frustrating it is.
And today I got a call in the middle of my conference call from my AAA claims adjuster who relayed information from the at fault party's claims adjuster who said that because the woman who hit Rachel was in a borrowed car, the maximum liability is "probably" going to be rolled back to the state minimum requirements of $15K personal injury and $30K property. And that would just about cover the ambulance ride and the first visit to the emergency room.
Then, if the woman who hit Rachel had insurance, that would kick in. And if she doesn't, then ours kicks in another $85K to our policy maximum of $100K. And I don't have any idea if that's going to be enough.
But we don't know if the lady who hit Rachel has insurance because every time our claims adjuster calls her, she hangs up and then doesn't answer the phone when she calls back. And that really pisses us off. To the point that I want to just hand everything over to our attorney and sue the woman and see if we don't end up with a nice Summer house up in Cobb or something.
And of course, we do have medical insurance through my work, but I don't understand why my medical insurance should have to pay for this awful woman's negligence.
Sorry, I don't know for a fact that she's awful. I'm just assuming she is since she is ducking our claims adjuster. Oh, and because she did what she did to our dear Rachel.
Where was I going with all of this? Oh yeah, so like I said, I was wrecked. And I got a massage. And I learned that because my shoulder has been bothering me so much lately, I didn't even realize how jacked up the rest of my body is. And I'm a little sore from the experience, but it was great to just shut off for an hour and let somebody work out my stress. The best thing is she lives right up the street and has a massage room in her house. Not nearly as cool and relaxing as yours, Laurie. But the thing I hate most about getting a massage is having to drive home from Calistoga or wherever it is. It just makes you all tense again right away. But with this lady, I just hopped in the golf cart and drove up the block. The only traffic was a friendly little kid on a Big Wheel who told me he liked my spotted balls. Which made me laugh because he was referring to the fuzzy dice on the Hotel Yorba Courtesy Car.
Anyway, I feel better emotionally. I even had a little cry after the massage while I was laying there by myself for a few minutes. That was kind of weird, but good, I think. I came home and drank some green tea and a ton of water. Then watched Earl and a new CSI with Rachel. And then I put her to bed. And now I'm going to go drink some more water, take a quick hot tub, and go to sleep. And I don't have to be on a call at 6:00 tomorrow. Just 9:00.
Oh, yeah, and today was all about me and a lot of people are checking in to find out about Rachel. So here you go:
Her pain levels were noticeably higher today, but that is to be expected because of the manipulation and measurements for baseline pain and flexibility tests, the e-stim and cold therapy that were done yesterday. She has a follow up with her doctor on Monday. Which conflicts with Jake's Remicaid, so I guess we're going to have to change that one or something. I don't know. We'll work it out somehow. Oh, and she's really bummed because the power plant she's been working at from just about the get go finally got online this week and they had a party today to celebrate. And, of course, she couldn't go.
That's it. Sorry the text to picture ratio is infinite in this post. I just don't really have any new pictures. So go ahead and lok at Barry and Rod again if you want.
posted by Eric Soderstrom at 12:24 AM
1 Comments:
Breathe........
You are good.
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