#terrible week for me to call out bc we are short staffed

[angesaurus]

We made it a whole month before anyone got sick this school year and needs to stay home.

Better than last year, where we made it 7 days lol

[akingsfool]

The job thing: everything you said but also terrible working conditions. We were always short staffed bc the DM and RM kept cutting our hours. Long shifts, clopens, empty shelves due to only one person running the store for half a day and what do we get? Employee appreciation day: here’s a coupon for Papa John’s. Fuck you, I quit. And when I did, it caused two of my coworkers and my manager (who had been there 9 years) to quit as well. We WANT to work, but they treat us like replaceable things and not human beings. Sorry for the rant out of nowhere 😅

YES this is exactly what so many work places are like and it is unacceptable. I don’t work at a place like this now but at sixteen I was one of the two employees who kept a local restaurant open. I was working just under 40 hours a week so they didn’t have to pay me overtime or insure me, and worked 6 out of 7 days if the week and often called in on my day off. Any and all health complaints we had were brushed off. My final straw was when we had a fire and we’re yelled at for putting it out because it stopped production.

So many places have no regard for safety, health, or their employees and make their environment unworkable and unfortunately that means many great employees leave. And once your best employees leave some of your customers are sure to go too

[nevertellmetheodds2017]

ok, update time

So amigas, I’ve been a cranky and unhappy camper for some time but things are happening so here’s an update.  After I got randomized to the standard arm of the trial I made one last effort to try to get SABR in BC (prompted by hearing from someone in Ontario with met breast ca with a lung met who had an oligoprogression treated with SABR in May 2020). Short answer was, sorry not possible. Long answer was, sorry not possible because a) there’s no evidence that this has any benefit and b) that’s why we want all SABR to be in trial and c) other locations without active trials might do something else but essentially they’re doing uncontrolled studies on pts.  So, ok, by then I’d become essentially resigned to doing standard rads, esp since my RO repeated reassured me he’d treat me aggressively and was very optimistic about the plan. Then he calls me to say “hey, weird thing about this trial, it won’t let me do what I want to do in the standard arm”.  Took me all of 10 seconds to confirm he COULD do the aggressive standard rads off trial & to drop out of the trial on the spot. So now I’m not in any trial and I will get my aggressive 15 treatments, burning my chest to a nice itchy crisp & hopefully roasting that lung met in the process.  I had my ‘mapping CT’ last Friday. It was tedious; my left shoulder where I had lymph nodes biopsied in 2017 has never returned to full ROM and it was painful being positioned in the CT machine for the length of time needed. I’m now working on stretches because I need to be able to do this for 15 business days for the actual rads. I got 2 new spot tattoos that they use for positioning in the CT machine & they’re re-using some of my old tats as well. And now we just wait for scheduling. I hope it isn’t too long. This stupid met grew in 8 weeks, so at such a fast rate, the mapping CT will be out of date if we delay too long. But there’s nothing for it but to wait my turn. 

Last Thursday, I had my first dose of Abraxane & also went to the private clinic for the first time to get my immunotherapy direct from Roche.  Abraxane first. I HATE IT. I mean it’s supposedly essentially the same as taxol but jesus on a pogo stick, that stuff is awful. I was flattened with pain from Friday night to Sunday night, took my hydromorphone at night for the first time & had to stay fully medicated around the clock or even lying down hurt. Also, I iced but my neuropathy just exploded. My hands feel way worse and I have weird neuropathy in my mouth too.  There are several things I’ll be discussing with the MO. One is dose scheduling. The Roche trial for abraxane + atezolizumab immunotherapy used abraxane at 100 mg/week for 3 weeks on, 1 week off.  The BC Cancer agency protocol for abraxane in metastatic setting is 260 mg every 21 days. So I got 260 mg. And while I like the idea of getting it only every 21 days instead of weekly, this dose is too large, and also we don’t know if it works as well on this schedule. So I’ll be discussing with my MO some options: dose reduce and stay on q 21days; switch to weekly (not sure if BCCA will even allow it as it’s not their protocol); switch back to my dose reduced taxol. Dropping chemo altogether and stay on immunotherapy only is another idea she floated last time but I’m a bit hesitant with that one, esp since I just had a small progression in the lung. Ok, so that’s that. Abraxane sucks so bad. 

(joke! not really nauseous. Totally lost appetite tho) Now the private clinic. On the plus side, it’s literally right behind the hospital and let’s not forget they’re giving me super expensive meds for free. So those are big plusses. Now the actual clinic is teeny tiny, staffed by 2 nurses who were run off their feet when I was there. They have 4 treatment chairs, not spaced very far apart. Total occupancy for COVID under Worksafe is 7 people. The whole place is like the size of my living room. I also had this vague feeling of being in a “clinic” where a “doctor” (you know the one who’s maybe finished med school in some country somewhere but isn’t really licenced) can give you cosmetic surgery for cash. The whole place feels shady AF but presumably it’s a legit place and they gave me real meds. 

Also other than this clinic, the entire block is  surrounded by addictions support services, rehab, transitional housing etc etc. Scheduling for the clinic is independent of the cancer agency scheduling so now I have to wrangle two schedules to fit each other. Next immunotherapy is on the 11th.  

Still waiting on pathology results from the lung biopsy. The local pathologist will confirm if it’s a breast cancer met & run hormone marker tests on it. 

I did hear it looks like they got enough tissue samples to send for the Foundation genetic testing (which Roche is paying for) so that will be interesting to see if they find anything actionable. I’m not getting my hopes up because other than a somatic* BRCA mutation, I don’t think there’s anything in BC that I could get treatment for anyway. This is cutting edge stuff, this tumor genetic testing. It’s what they talk about when they discuss personalized medicine - but we’re still years away from actually being able to target most of the mutations.  *germline mutations are one’s the person has in their DNA. I’ve already been tested for germline BRCA mutations and was negative. Somatic mutations are ones the cancer tissue acquires. They’re not terribly common but not uncommon either. Ovarian esp likes to throw somatic BRCA. 

[fuck-customers]

Friday was a car crash. So, starting next week we have a HUUUUGE sale - as in 70%-of-our-stock sale. There's a lot of prepping - e.g remerching the store, pricing everything, getting the stockroom in order, training newer staff on processes, etc. We have a lot of new staff who are not comfortable with all this prepping so it leaves myself, the visual merchandiser and the rest of the 'full time lot' and two or three part-timers to do it all. HOWEVER, head office decide to fuck us up, and our VM up, one more. For Friday (14.07) they wanted the whole of our windows to be remerched for back to school. We have to do the windows EXACTLY how they want them to be and EXACTLY when. It seemed like the task would be okay at first until we realise the day before they sent us half the wrong shit and that our windows are set up completely different to all the examples. It's fucked as they're due to be started on after close on Thursday (10pm) and before open on Friday (10am). This is impossible as we can't get anyone that last minute to do a nighshift AND it needs to be approved by our area manager first. One of our supers stays back an hour or two after closing so he can set most of it up (e.g just get all the shit in the windows). My manager and the VM go in at 6am as planned to hopefully finish it anyway. I usually start at 8am with another co-worker. Our job is usually to get the store ready to open. To tidy, to replenish stock and to check up with delivery. It's quite a lot to do and usually takes the full two hours and we're usually still replenishing stock when we're open. My co-worker calls in, and, due to transport I'm in work at 7.40am where I'm asked to start work asap. So, I start doing the work of two people, whilst my boss keeps radioing me and asking me to stand outside and give the verdict on the windows (...not terrible but not what head office had planned either). It's A LOT. For opening, we usually have two managers/supervisors, our VM, the two people who come in at 8 and another member of staff. Another manager and sometimes another staff member comes in for close at 12, and part timers do shifts throughout the day/night. On Friday we just had myself, the manager, the VM and our super. Due to being short staffed, we only had one person coming in at 12 and then two people coming in at 6 to help close. The windows were NOT done so it left me and my super on the shopfloor until 12. Nobody in the back, not enough staff to do any floor sale prep either....fucking great. The first three "sales" are all refunds as well. Which sets the day off to be G R E A T. There's then this really needy lady who has me up and down our stockroom about 12 times getting her every single size in every single dress. She leaves buying one. My boss is running around panicking like fuck, keeps phoning head office, other stores, our area manager, etc etc etc for guidance on this impossible task. FINALLY, just before 12, things calm down. Our VM comes out of the window and starts writing notes before deciding to take her (long, overdued) break. I go to the back of the store and start tidying when all of a sudden...out of our door that leads to the back...comes a delivery driver. I'm like ??? as we get deliveries usually about 12.30pm and they come from the upstairs back door - we have a backdoor downstairs too but it just leads to the bins in the malls. The doors are all alarmed and we have a big sign on our door saying "ring ____ if you have a delivery" as we don't have a buzzer and it saves us from the binmen constantly knocking on our door asking us if we have rubbish. We then open the door, take in our cartons and sign whatever we have for them. We then scan delivery into our stock, compile a report and then put away backstock and pull newstock/needed stock to go out on the floor. So, my boss is in the windows, our VM is standing at the till writing and our super is sick and decides to tidy something ...somewhere. So she's still on the floor but not standing about to barf everywhere. Leaving me standing face to face with this guy. "Hiya?" I bean, confused. HOW DID HE GET IN? DID SOMEONE LET HIM IN? IS THERE A FIRE? A BOMB? FUCK. "Can you take in this FUCKING deliver?" The guy barks. I assume our VM let him in through the bin door, possibly due to the guy being in a rush and she's just left him and not signed anything. I nod and go with him. Nope. No delivery at downstairs. He runs upstairs huffing and puffing, "I was banging on your door for fifteen fucking minutes. I tried calling and the line was engaged. What the fuck? You're making me fucking late...." He goes on and on and on, I apologies, explain our lack of staff/window situ. And he goes, "I know its not your fault, pal. I'm fucking late though. Why the fuck have a number on the door if nobody can answer?" I then see what he's done to our back door, he's KICKED IT IN and the alarm is going off. "I set it off ages ago, why the fuck did nobody come check it?" "You can only hear the alarm from upstairs...?" I reset it and he shoves 20+ boxes at me (we were expecting 7...). He gets me to sign whilst still ranting and raving. I organise all the boxes but decide against scanning it all rn, as we're super low on staff. However, I radio downstairs first to make sure. "....so uh... the delivery guy broke into the back and delivery is here..." is all I muster to my supervisor. "Fuck- I'll go get [manager]. Come downstairs. We'll deal with delivery later." I tell the story to everyone in and my boss is SUPER mad. More mad about the guy swearing to me (even tho we all swear all the time) than him breaking into the shop and phones the delivery company asap I mean… I just thought he was rude. The swearing didn’t really upset me but my boss is super angry cos I “don’t get paid enough to hear that shit” and because he knows I have quite bad anxiety triggered by confrontation and was worried that if I was in a worse mood it could have set me off or whatever. He looks at the CCTV and is close to going through the back where other stores get their deliveries and chasing the guy but then thinks it’d make his complaint less …serious? …anyway, after all this hassle guess who comes in for a “visit”? OUR FUCKING AREA MANAGER. Friday was stressful. … The delivery company are refusing to believe the guy was swearing at me because he is a “timid guy” big nope the guy was the one of the most gobby people I ever heard. My manager just responds with something along the lines of, “Why would my staff member who is actually kinda shy lie? She was distressed after this….” goes on a lot… They also refuse to believe he broke into the store as other stores let delivery drivers in the back door. My manager responds with the fact he should have took a step back when the alarm went off as opposed to keep running in and out of the door (witnessed on CCTV) AND THAT we have a sign that says “THIS DOOR IS ALARMED, NO ENTRY - CALL [NUMBER] FOR DELIVERY & ACCESS.” … My supervisor gets sent home sick and my manager and the VM leave early, leaving me and my supervisor until two people come in for the close. Or so we thought. A new start from another location came in as he was supposed to train her (forgot to cancel due to change in shifts) and another staff member who agreed to do overtime today last week came in although there was no record of this. Both staff members stayed which was good for me bc otherwise I would have probably had to stay behind to help out! Very stressful day - I got the Saturday off after it too which helped me relax after the most wild of days.