Monday morning staff meeting. It’s merciful, in a way, given that most of us are groggy and not feeling up to mindless chatter – the meeting goes far more quickly than when these meetings were held in the afternoon.
After all of the big news items are covered, we do “Around the Room – an opportunity for each Supervisor and Tech Advisor to share up-coming events, news, personnel changes. Anything that may be of general interest to the other assembled management-like-objects.
This week, as we got to TN (supervisor in a different branch) he said “Emily was in labor this morning – if things go well, she’s planning on being here late next week to give her poster presentation at The Big Review…”
Emily, despite being very pregnant with her second child, worked hard on a technical poster for an upcoming review with senior management. Given that she was expected to shell out around the time of The Big Review, she worked ‘tag team’ with another scientist as back up – in case she was unavailable due to childbirth.
i was inadequately caffeinated to have working filters, so the words came out of my mouth while the rest of the group shook their heads in amazement at her ‘pluck’…
daisyfae: Awwww…. That’s adorable! i remember when i was young and still gave a shit…
TN: It’s her choice! i’ve told her it’s up to her…
daisyfae: Tell her to forget this whole “squatting in the rice paddy” thing. Stay home and take the morphine….
Trailer Park Refugee 
Omigosh, that’s like the woman in Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” who had a passle of children. When she gives birth (yet again) while walking, she turns around and asks one of the kids to “pick that up for me, will you dear?”
On a similar note, I went back to work less than two weeks after my hysterectomy out of a misguided sense of office loyalty. Waaaay too soon. Stay home and take the morphine, indeed.
i adore this young woman – a ‘take no prisoners’, hardworking gal, who is a part-timer. She job shares with another Dr. Mom – they both work 30 hours a week to spend a little more time at home. i just wish they had the ability to see the future – and know that in the end, this stinkin’ review doesn’t matter for squat…. (sigh) (and thanks for the reminder that i really need to get out some Monty Python over the holidays!)
sweet mary sunshine! i would haven given my left tit for someone like you when i worked in city hall! i am sitting here laughing my ass off! xoxoxoxo
if we couldn’t laugh we’d all go insane. i love the guys i work with – and apparently, they have enjoyed my snarky, no-holds-barred sense of humor.
Gordon Bennett! Back to work in less than a fortnight?? Here they keep you in hospital for a WEEK before you’re even allowed home, let alone back to work. Something to do with having passed an object the size of a melon through an orifice clearly designed with a small orange in mind, I understand.
I can only fit a small lime in mine 😉
i’m going to keep training with ping pong balls. i can almost hit the television from my bed! 😉
it does seem pretty quick – but i think she’s only planning to do the presentation for an hour or so, and then head back home. so long as she wants to do it… she has paid maternity leave for 6 weeks. for a ‘filet’, it’s 8 weeks.
I wish someone told me that during childbirth, actually, come to think of it, I wish morphine was on offer before, during and after the birth…..
i needed the morphine during the teen years. sadly, they won’t dish it out then, and it has a horrible shelf-life. at least in my home…
How deep into the materialistic world are we that we are okay with warehousing our babies so we can earn more dough to buy stuff with?
it’s not always a choice, driven by ‘more stuff’… my spawn did time at The Charles Manson Family Daycare Center, and were probably better off than if i’d stayed home full time… every family finds a balance, and some have more flex than others. but i’ve known a few folks who seem to have children as ornaments/trophies, and have wondered why they bothered.
My older sister always said that she went back to work because she found out she was not good “mother” material. I’m not sure my niece agrees that it was a good idea, but then, she didn’t experience the “full treatment” of “bad mother material” that my sis could have dished out, either. It is a myth that women are “natural” mothers. And of course, if single parenthood gets involved in the deal, then a decent day care becomes imperative given that our ancient tribal system of mutual aid has disappeared.
Saw an article on the return to “caveman parenting” – communal care raising children. am now awaiting the emergence of “Caveman-Style Child Development Centers”. Probably starting on the coasts and working toward us unenlightened folks in the middle over the next decade…
That’s an urban/racist myth, right? About women giving birth in a rice paddy and not breaking for an epidural? That’s not physically possible, is it?
no. not a myth. we all actually deliver in rice paddies, then sit around drinking cosmos and watching The View for a few hours. the baby daddies are all then brainwashed into thinking we suffered. guilt management. an important life skill, dear…
Sort of makes you wonder how we ever got out of the Stone Age with a population that could potentially explode into billions.
I had an employee for several years who always came back early from maternity leave because she missed grownup conversations.
i took leave without pay for almost a year after my children were born. hardest part for me about staying home with babies? liquefication of my brain. being puked on and shit on blows, too.
The miracle of childbirth my ass, it’s like a horror show. And big ups to you Ms. Daisy for the astute comments at work, i once told my boss that the difference between him and i was that he gave a shit and i just pretended like i did.
i was the original Earth Mother! i wanted all natural delivery, no drugs, all that happy horseshit. when my daughter arrived, at 11 pounds? there would have been NOTHING natural if she’d found her way out through my birth canal. GIVE ME DRUGS, please. More?
Though oddly enough (from comment somewhere above) i am a natural mother or good mother material, strange that i am being all big and hairy and having a penis, wait that didn’t come out right… and sometimes you have to work for insurance and not just to accumulate junk, though it is nice to buy your kid something and be the hero for 20 minutes until they get sick of it and want something else.
you’ve been a caregiver all your life. it DOES come more naturally to some, i think.
My filters don’t work even with caffeination, but my tone is a lot more cordial after I’ve had a cup or two of green tea.
if the guys see me wearing my sunglasses in the office? they’ve learned that it’s a bad time/day to ask me to do something. or to even say ‘hello’. if it’s pre-coffee? they walk the other way… green tea makes me jumpy…
There are filters? Maybe that’s what I was missing. Probably accounts for why I am self employed……
Say it like it is!
Yeah, this happened to me recently too.
I suppose I should have thought about what I was going to say before I sent my boss the power point. Instead, I just stood up there and yammered about stupid crap. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone.
my former division chief said he appreciated my frank, and unfiltered, commentary. i had to remind him that i DO have filters, and that he probably doesn’t want to know the shit i hold back…
Given that all (but one or two returnees) of the female engineers in my facility have recently headed on out on their 1 year mat leaves, I’d be in favour of a little rice paddy squattin’.
…….oh, did I say that out loud?
a year? wow. my frustration was with the women who took off a year or two, and then came back expecting the next regularly scheduled promotion. there is no free lunch, you can’t have it both ways, etc. deaf ears…
Yeah, Rob, you did say that out loud.
Ahem, first born, 9lb 11oz, 2 paracetamol, turfed out of the “Birthing Centre” 8 hours later.
Oh, and lots of stitches and I nearly blew the aqueous humour out of my left eye.
Frank and unfiltered commentary is called Speaking In Bullets, or Shooting Straight, or whatever it is that I’m failing to do right now.
Post Natal Dementia. Still got it.
La la la.
Wecome to The Trailer Park, Alpha Betti! Loves me some Aussie bloggers! You win the “holy shit, did she REALLY pop that out?” award for the day! “speaking in bullets” is a good plan… at least for those of us who no longer give a shit!
OMG. I regret not taking maternity leave when I adopted my kittens.
i take sick leave when i take my dog to the vet. i believe it SHOULD be covered under the “family and medical leave act”…