The Mutant Poodle has just posted a beautiful tribute to what we lost on 9/11.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I do wish, however, that I could have said it as well as he did.
Category Archives: Life
Did an NHS knee-jerk reaction to the Daily Express cost my son his job?
Daily Express Cover 22 July 09
My son, who is not a British citizen, but who was granted indefinite leave to remain (and work) in the UK over eight years ago, has been out of work since his call centre job ended in March.
Last week, he saw the adverts for jobs with the NHS National Pandemic Flu Hotline and he promptly called the recruitment agency (we’ll call them Agency A) on Friday evening.
He called two recruitment agencies, actually; his last employer (a well-known staffing agency we’ll call Agency M) had also advertised the job.
He was invited for an interview in Glasgow on Saturday with his old employer. Before he left, he was also invited to an interview in Glasgow on Sunday with Agency A.
He was successful at the interview on Saturday with his old employer, Agency M. They told him they would be in touch on Tuesday to let him know where and when to show up for work.
In the meantime, as a courtesy, he called Agency A on Sunday morning to let them know that he would not be attending their interview that afternoon. They were very interested to hear that he’d been interviewed for the position. They told him that if he wanted to work on this job, he had better come to their interview that afternoon, because they were the only company with the contract, and that Agency M must have been hiring as a contingency in case Agency A couldn’t hire enough people.
Lung cancer.
Two people I love have been diagnosed with lung cancer within the past month and a half. That’s why I haven’t been writing anything here, although I made many posts in my mind during the five weeks I spent in the States after the first diagnosis was confirmed. It’s probably best that none of those posts saw the light of day.
And it would probably be better if this one didn’t see the light of day, either, but it’s going to.
I’m very sad, and I’m very scared. I don’t want to watch another loved one go through cancer; there have been far too many already.
But I’m even more saddened by the stark contrast between the environments in which these two people are having to deal with their cancer.
One of them is very lucky. That person is surrounded by an incredible amount of love, and that love is shown with lots of laughter and support. It’s palpable as soon as one walks into the house; someone here is very much loved.
The other patient is not so lucky. That patient lives with someone who professes love, yet who radiates emotional and mental misery, and who is seemingly selfishly intent upon making sure that misery is fully shared by the cancer patient. There is constant arguing and jealousy, and very little (if any) laughter. Whether this person can help acting this way is entirely irrelevant; the point is that it is happening, and I very much fear that it will have an extremely negative effect upon the patient’s ability to fight the cancer.
I am thankful that the one person is living in an atmosphere of such overwhelming love and support, and I am deeply saddened that the other one is living in an atmosphere of such suffocating misery.
Back from hols
I’ve just returned from a 2-week trip to the USA to visit my Dad. I had a great time, and there were several things during the trip that made me think, “Okay, I gotta blog about this.” But can I remember now what they were? Of course not. Jetlag and brainfog prevail.
One thing I do remember, however, is reading about ModX, and now I’m trying to decide if it would be more useful to apply what limited brainpower I have left to learning it, rather than theming Wordpress as a CMS.
I think I jump back and forth between things too much. Javascript, PHP, Wordpress theming, and now ModX. Could it be that I have iADD – internetz Attention Deficit Disorder?
I guess I really need to just sit down, close all the curtains and windows (email, browsers, Skype, and Twitter windows, that is!) and READ for awhile.
That is, if the jetlag doesn’t put me to sleep.