Cold Day in H*ll

Wow. I’ve never experienced being so frickin’ cold in my life. Today when walking from my office building to the train station (two and a half blocks away), I happened to catch a bank sign that announced the current temperature outside. Five. Below. Zero. And that doesn’t include the d*mn wind chill factor … in which I believe was forecasted as being up to Minus 30 Degrees. Hmmm … so that’s why it’s called the Windy City. Heh.

Lucky me was smart enough to wear knee high socks and leggings over the thick pants I wore with a long sleeved shirt under a thick red fleece pullover. Add the awesome North Face hooded coat, awesome winter boots and one of my hand knit scarves … I was go. Or so I thought.

By the time I traveled the one and a half blocks from the train station to our place, my cheeks were redder than my fleece top. And my fingers? Damn those cheap mittens … my fingers felt frozen to the core! So frozen, in fact, that they felt as if all my fingertips quickly grazed across the bottom of a hot iron. Seriously, it felt as if they were on fire!

Well at least I know my coat and boots work great … guess if I continue to work were I do, I should invest in a nice pair of gloves. Hubby says I should get one of those knitted ski masks like we used to wear as children … but I draw the line at that.

Speaking of work … now that I’m two weeks into my new job, I have to say that I’m quite impressed by this company. Coming from an area where jobs are being cut left and right and the overall morale is depressing, both emotionally and economically … (after all, Detroit is America’s Automotive Headquarters) it’s refreshing to enter a workplace that isn’t so downtrodden and beaten to the brow with talks of layoffs and cutbacks. In fact, in our department (Medical Management) we are actually in need of more RN Case Managers.

Oh, I know it’s not realistic to think that our department is impervious to the economic downswing of our nation … I know it will hit us sooner or later. However, to know that this particular place (and more specifically, our department) is indeed reporting actual savings in health care costs? Well, that just is simply refreshing. Because, quite frankly … where I came from, that was just not done. Not that they didn’t try to show cost savings, but for one reason or another they could never get the hard data to prove that they were saving costs.

Okay, I know I’m getting all technical here. To put it simply, this company is achieving their goals by doing the things that I’ve tried for years to do at my previous place of employment. And it’s just nice. Nice knowing that what I had been pushing for (and meeting lots of resistance along the way) in my previous job was actually being done successfully at the place I’m at now.

Needless to say, I’m liking it there. And it’s just one of the many facts to validate that my decision to move careers and locations was a d*mn good one.

Now, if we could just fix this cold weather …