Welcome to the Jungle

It's been a busy day at work to say the least. I kind of felt like the cow in the picture below...new applications kept shooting at my face in a steady stream! I spent all day working on registering applications which is unusual. I can usually register all of them before lunch but today after 10 hours I still had over a 100 applications left. Crazy! New ones were being submitted faster than I could clear them. I did have a laugh when I saw a fake application that was submitted for a Potato Chip and Ida Chip who have 2 kids! Seriously though, I have enough to deal with other than Potato and Ida!

I know I'm not the only one who feels overwhelmed. I guess it explains why one of my co-workers near the end of the day turned up his radio for everyone to hear Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses. I think the chorus describes pretty well what's been happening in my office this week with PCN open enrollment:

Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play (or you could say work in our situation)

It's a good think this only lasts 5 weeks. Hope it passes quickly. I can't wait to get back to a more predictable schedule!

Dealing with little old ladies and needles

This week has been crazy so far! Yesterday PCN (Primary Care Network) opened enrollment. It's been nearly a year since it last opened and people have been applying in unheard of numbers. Enough people applied online that it actually caused the online system to crash. What a mess! This pushed more people to come to the office since they couldn't get through on the internet. We had lines out the door!
I did get a good laugh yesterday though which helped me get through the day. The funny moment came when I talked with a little old lady who loves to talk. She's less than 5 feet tall and about 80 years old. She's a "frequent flier" in the office (meaning we seem to see her a lot). She's a little difficult to deal with though since she doesn't like to be corrected or interrupted and she's particular about who she'll talk to. She kept telling me over and over again "I don't want no homo on my case!" I was surprised at first and a little confused. I couldn't figure out if she was talking about her case worker or what. After several minutes I finally figured out she was talking about medical HMO's! Too funny. Definitely a big difference from "homos"!
Today was busy too but nothing really stood out to me. I gladly welcomed a break in the middle of the afternoon when I went to the chiropractor. I snuck a nap in while I had the heating pad on my neck. It was nice. However, at the end of treatment today my chiropractor did acupuncture on me and also put an herbal patch on my back. Kind of interesting and it hurts tonight but it's supposed to make a huge difference in the long run. Hope it works!

Rings of Fire and Insanity

It's been a slow day at the office. I guess with the nice weather everyone is outside playing. I assume they'll all show up next Monday since rain is predicted. I do have 2 stories that stood out to me today though.
The first was the funniest. A man was frustrated with all the paperwork required to get his case approved. He then proceeded to tell me he feels like his worker is holding a moving ring of fire and he has to jump through it several times to get anything accomplished on his case. The fun part was that he was hopping up and down as he explained the rings of fire. :)
The second story was a man that came to the desk with questions on a case. There are 3 of us that work at the front counter. He went to one of my co-workers first and didn't like the answer he got so he left. A few minutes later he came back and asked my other c0-worker the same thing and was given the same answer then walked away again. I couldn't help but smile when he walked up to me a few minutes later asking the same question. I told him the same answer and he walked away frustrated and upset. We only sit a few feet apart at the desk so it's not like I didn't notice what my co-workers were doing. Especially since he was the only one in the lobby! It brought to mind the quote by Albert Einstein "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If he'd listened the first time and done what was needed to solve the problem he would have saved himself some frustration.
I was just getting ready to leave for the day when the police showed up at the office. I guess a cat was hit in the parking lot. The cat is still alive but it's obvious the back leg is very broken. The officer is calling in another unit to come put the cat down. Poor thing. It provides a little excitement to end the day though. Can't say I'm too sad...I hate cats!

St. Patty's Day!

I love St. Patrick's Day! Even though we've Americanized the holiday I still enjoy wearing my green clothes...including my green shoes! I had a good laugh this morning when I went to see my chiropractor. He told me that his wife had served him green eggs and green pancakes for breakfast. He said he'd refused to wear green today since it was already in his belly! Funny guy. For a holiday, my day was actually pretty boring. It was a slow traffic day at work so I was able to get more of my paperwork done without all the people coming in. However, this means I don't really have any good stories from work to tell. Maybe I'll find a good one tomorrow.

Sunny Day

It's a beautiful, sunny day so far outside. I'm glad I have a window by desk. It's starting to feel more like spring! I keep thinking about my dream from last night. I get some strange ones. Last night I dreamt that I had twins. That's not too unexpected when there are several sets of twins on my dad's side of the family. The rest of the dream was too strange to even write. Not sure what goes on in my brain at night sometimes.
I'm writing this at work in between waiting for applications to load so I can register them. Not the most exciting thing but it keeps me busy. I get to listen to my ipod while I clear applications which is a great way to start the day!
However, my entertainment at work mostly comes in the afternoon when I sit at the front desk in my office. I have coworkers that wait to hear the "story of the day." That's the main reason I started this blog is to write some of those stories. The best one in the last month was a man that came in and told me his life ambition is to weigh 600 pounds so he can go on the biggest loser as the biggest man ever and win $250,000. He said he only eats peanut butter ice cream and potato chips to help him achieve that goal. He also told me he's leaving his wife since she wants him to eat more than peanut butter ice cream and potato chips. Seriously, this is sad but true. Another lady told me she'd rather stuff her husband under a sagebrush than put him in a nursing home. I also watched a man get arrested since he was higher than a kite and carrying drugs in a drug free zone. That's just a sample of what I see walk in the door every day. I'll post more here as they happen.
One last thought for today. I love the comic strip Pickles. The one from yesterday made me laugh out loud. Take a look, I posted it below.

Here I am!

I finally gave in and created a blog. I've been thinking about it for a while it just hasn't happened until now. I enjoy reading updates from friends and family on their blogs so now you can see some about my life here. I don't have much to write about today other than I'm having fun figuring out blog spot. This is just the beginning.