NEW HEARTHGLEN SUCKS.

OH MY GOD DOES IT SUCK.

I bust ass for my guild. I make a concerted effort to advise people, share information, assist in questing and instances, and generally be a helpful resource to the people in my guild. I maintain the website, I write charters and policies, I set our progression goals and coordinate them. I'm, if not the heart of the guild, at least the brain.

And yet I get accused of never helping anyone, of doing nothing but looking down on people and telling them they're no good while being holier-than-thou. Never mind that I have absolute proof that I DID help him, way back in the day, but... does anyone have a word to say in my favor?

Why do I do this anyway?

This one is for computer people out there, because I'm stumped:

A system in the house crashed, and due to incompetence (not mine) I was forced to completely reinstall Windows.

Post-reinstall, neither wired nor wireless connections are properly obtaining IP addresses from DHCP. Other computers can connect both wired and wireless to the router, and manually assigning IP settings compatible to the router enables a connection (if with slow communications between router and computer, which doesn't bother internet surfing but plays hell with WoW).

I've updated both ethernet card and wireless drivers to the latest versions I could find. I know the problem is somewhere on the computer, but I have no idea what it is or how to fix it. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Edit: I ran a WinSock repair utility which apparently identified a bad file and replaced it, which got DHCP working (at least for the moment). I suppose my question now is: How did so much go wrong on a re-install? The entire Windows Update utility was bad too, I had to refresh it through arcane means I don't understand. And I HATE not understanding.

I suppose part of the problem is that Lenovo sent a CD with *original Windows XP* with the system. No service packs. Nothing. I had to completely upgrade with a SP2-build disc to get the damn USB support to get the wireless modem working to manually assign the IP address to get connectivity to download the updates to repair the system... Man. Why am I not getting paid for this?

I assure you, there is absolutely nothing I love more than getting bitched out for following established policy.

Policy for the ER is that we don't give out wait times. We can't. There is no way we can get it right, because at any moment someone could roll in the door in cardiac arrest or something similar. If we estimate low, people scream because they're waiting longer than we "promised." If we estimate high, people scream because we "lied" to "keep them away." So we simply tell them that we are not able to give an estimate. If necessary, we explain WHY and that it is hospital policy.

Makes sense, neh?

But like most things, this was spoiled from the inside by a whiny employee and a nurse who believes whiners instead of those she works with.

I gave the above answer to a nurse who called down wanting to know how busy we were because she'd hurt her foot. She didn't like that answer. She called the nursing supervisor and whined, the nursing supervisor called my charge nurse and bitched, and the charge nurse reamed me out for being "very inappropriate" in my answer on the phone.

Well, let's see. I'm not allowed to give an answer... I'm not allowed to NOT give an answer... that pretty much leaves the option of freezing and going silent whenever the question is asked. Or better yet, give the call to the charge nurse every time the question is asked... which is what said charge nurse actually suggested. Now every charge nurse will suffer because of this one's stupidity and eagerness to believe the worst of the nonclinical staff!

I get mad *and* even. Though to be honest, I'm so stressed out and overworked right now I was briefly close to tears. (I hope this actually provides some small measure of comfort to people I know have felt bad about their own emotional breakdowns at work, recently.)

Apparently no store in this frickin' city sells a grounding wrist strap.

As an opening thought: There is only one side to any story, that being the side that you perceive.

I have no urge to update this journal. On the one hand, most of my precious words are devoted to my writing, these days; I produce what I can at work, and when I return home I force myself to spend time in games and other recreation that I can't partake of while at work. This leads to little energy and effort directed to the formulation of entries that, frankly, no one cares about.

On the other hand, everything I ever post is negative, because my life is a nonstop stream of negativity. Today I worked my third twelve hour shift in a row, and third day out of twelve straight (which includes *five* twelve hours shifts in a row, Saturday through Wednesday). A massive computer downtime tripled my work for a span of about three hours, and they're introducing a new duty for us that basically doubles my workload, while leaving most of the rest of my coworkers unaffected.

And this is not the worst thing that has happened to me of late.

So I'm shutting down. I'll post again the next time something GOOD happens to me. Until then, anyone who actually cares knows how to keep track of me if they want. See you later.

God. This is all sorts of suck.

God dammit! I have GOT to find my copy of the Worldbuilder's Guidebook. Where the HELL in one lousy apartment could it have GOTTEN to?!

Let's take a moment to talk about courtesy.

When a person works an overnight shift, that means they will be working 8 hours by themselves. They are responsible for every duty that a HUC must do. It is long, rough, and leaves that person tired.

That being the case, the courteous thing to do is allow that HUC to sit at the main desk at the time they come in, where they will be all night. Making whiny excuses and forcing that HUC to sit at the secondary desk, where they have to absorb the responsibility of ripping an extra fifty charts and have to completely log off every active program to move seats at 11pm is th ABSOLUTE HEIGHT of discourtesy.

No policy exists for this. I can't DEMAND that the bitch move. But I'm absolutely sick of being treated like shit by my coworkers. And I'll be damned if I ever give her the courtesy of moving for her, if our situations are reversed.

I hate people so fucking much.

Apparently, no matter what I do, no matter what I try, I am going to suffer from this tooth in my mouth till I get the roots gouged out.

At least this one.

Life is suffering. Every day I wake up in the morning and realize that truth anew.

Credit card update:

I put another call in to the customer service desk today. The man I spoke with said that they simply couldn't restore the money.

Yeah, I knew that, but I was figuring it was due to incompetence.

So I ask to speak to a supervisor. I get put on hold, he comes back and says he'll transfer me to the online service help desk. You know, the one I spoke to twice already, the one that actually DID look into my issue and return my call, but has no actual control over my finances so can't restore my money. I tell him flat out no. He puts me on hold, then comes back and tells me to call my credit union.

Fine. I did just that. Got her voice mail. Crap. I hope she calls me back.

Then I call the customer service desk again, and start off with requesting a supervisor. This latest guy actually gets me one! Well, every organization has one competent employee... I speak to the supervisor, tell him the entire story. He promises to research the situation and return my call by the end of today. I really ought to have said, "no, just restore my money"... but I'm trying to be fair, this guy doesn't know what the problem is. So we'll see. One promised call from a supervisor has already failed, I have few hopes for this one.

More and more angry I grow... I'm starting to believe I will never see recompense for this fucking over.

UPDATE: The supervisor called me back. According to the online credit card payment system I typed in $1000, not $100. I don't believe it, but whatever. It doesn't matter. They're going to refund my money, through some tortuous route.

I spoke with the credit union representative, who told me she could have fixed it instantly if I'd called her. Sigh. That fucking figures. I called the customer service number listed on the card, doesn't that make sense? Evidently not. In any case, she was very nice, and promised that if I faxed her a list of damages she'd take it to her supervisor and see what reimbursement if any could be authorized.

I highly suspect it will prove to be none. But at least this mess is grinding to a slow close.

Hmm. I forgot it was Labor Day today.

I mean, it doesn't actually affect me. I still have to go to work and everything, it's a normal day for me. Why should I remember?

Oh well. Gives me a good thing to hit the credit card company with. "Glad your day off is more important to you than my money and fixing your mistake."

I woke up this morning after about two hours of sleep in agony from searing stomach pain. After lots of attempts to relieve it, I finally got back to sleep an hour later.

Needless to say I feel like crap today: stomach still upset, head throbbing. I agreed to come in an hour early to work, primarily to save myself grief and retain the preferred main HUC seat rather than the crappy secondary one, only to discover that no only had no one mentioned I would be here an hour early, they'd convinced my coworker that I wasn't coming in at all!

So here I sit at the crappy second HUC desk, reminded once again that it would obscene blasphemy in the face of all creation for anything to go right in my life.

I put a lot of work into a story called Entropy's Deceit -- in fact, almost 9000 words over the course of two nights. I really am productive on my overnight shifts at work.

Interestingly, the story is about the refutation of a belief I hold most dear -- that entropy is the most powerful force in the universe, and that we will all lose against it. This is a thought I have kept close to my heart since the credit debacle of a few days ago. One little mistake can ruin a whole life.

I'm so cynical it hurts.

I wish I could be this productive on a regular basis. I'm definitely on a writing upswing, but that's going to suffer this week both due to adjusting back to evening and daylight shifts, and tigerphoenix being here. In fact, my entire schedule over the next few weeks is so work-packed that I fear I won't have time or energy for much of anything else.

I hate that my life is reduced to stasis, that I'm literally unable to do more than work as hard as I can to keep myself exactly where I am. I have no money to put aside for savings, or future plans, or nice things. I'm stuck, and this is exactly where I never wanted my life to go. That hurts me so much.

It's ironic; if I could get published, the money would help me defray my debts, and I could work less hard, and have more time to write. Conversely, so long as I'm working my ass off, I can't put the time and effort into my writing that I need to accomplish my goals. Catch-22.

Something needs to change, and soon.

I want to say so much, I want to explain how I feel, I want to spill out my heart and make myself heard.

But no one will listen anyway.

Why bother?

Can something go right for me?

To quote Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh! "One word: No."

Because the AUD threw out my lunch, I had to go out for lunch. So I went down to Quiznos, a block down the street and somewhere I have gone to lunch many times before.

It took them thirty minutes to make my sandwich. When you realize it takes me five minutes to walk there, you will understand the problem.

Needless to say I did NOT eat. My total food intake for the past thirteen hours is one cinnamon roll. I am not a very happy person right now.

The only upside to this whole experience is that, in my angry letter to Quiznos, I was able to describe the morons employed there as "having all the appreciation for customer service as an unlicensed, misanthropic dentist." I think I'm clever, apparently.

Oh, and speaking of nothing going right:

The second HUC, who was supposed to arrive at 11, showed up late and then disappeared from her desk for another 20 minutes. This delayed my lunch break just long enough for the Assistant Director to pitch my lunch, along with my freakin' tupperware, which I am now going to have to pay out of my own pocket to replace.

I maintain: NOTHING EVER GOES RIGHT.

Of *course* they've left this place a fucked-up mess.

Never mind that they swore blind it'd allllll be up by 6 AM this morning. And they're now five hours behind schedule. This is only to be expected when the people who are in charge of FIXING the problem aren't the ones who suffer from it not being fixed.

I have to say, I like my boss normally, but I lose a lot of respect for her when she refuses to call a spade a spade. If some poor schmuck has his workload tripled or quadrupled by the incompetence of others, that person HAS gotten SCREWED. There isn't a valid counterargument for this point.

Argh. I hate my life.

Apparently at around 8 or so this morning, a sewer beneath Oakland flooded. This in turn caused water to spill into the areas containing a main power line which supplies power to most of Oakland. The power line shorted out, taking out power to a large chunk of the neighborhood, including Presby. Presby, being a hospital, immediately whipped out the backup generators.

They failed.

And so Presby's power died. Along with it, the hospital took out the server farms for every single electronic function in my hospital.

Thus when I came in to work this morning, it was to chaos and despair. No patient tracking systems. No patient registration. No physician order entry. No order entry period. No lab values reporting. No imaging system functionality. No e-mail. No internet.

Now, in a situation like this, who takes it in the shorts? (Hint. The doctors and nurses LOVED it. They like working on paper, the technophobes.)

Today was a nightmare of trying to keep the place functioning, being overworked, writing out every single order, calling hither and thither to try to get anything done, dealing with angry patients... In short, somewhere between triple and quadruple my ordinary workload. For twelve hours straight with only half an hour break.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Dear God, I feel awful. Not only like I didn't sleep at all last night, but like the sleep I got was some awful anti-sleep that actually took strength and energy away from me rather than restoring it. I have to survive 12 hours of work like this?