Office Space - The Unseen Pandemic

So we all want that comfy office job. Were we can start the day with a fresh cup of coffee out of the machine in our favorite mug and take it to our desk, sit down in a nice comfy swing chair and let the coffee boot up our system as the computer boots up its one as the morning begins.
Of course there are many benefits to working in an office. One gets to work in doors escaping the elements. The heating is on on those cold frosty winter days and the air conditioning for the humid summer evenings. There's no heavy lifting so one doesn't have to worry about injuries etc. So what could go wrong?
Ideally everyone would have their own corner office with a lovely view of the city or a nearby park. But generally this is not the case. The majority of people work in an open office where they share a large desk with maybe 8 - 10 other people only having dividers separating you from taking over your neighbors desk, or as in my case in one particular job no divider at all and sometimes my workmates piles of work did avalanche onto my desk.
With this said none of this is really an issue until you take into account that you are one of maybe 100 or more people sharing a single room. This is were things get a little bit iffy.  In a recent job I was in one of the said offices. Now to be fair I have been in much worse. But there was one major issue with this office. Something as simple as Air!
I was temping for the summer in the said business. It was good work with reasonable pay but my complaints are strictly in relation to the office conditions. First of all in this giant room of desks and computer I and a few others who were temping were put in an area that contained no windows. The entire office from head to tail was lined with windows all bar our little rectangle in the corner that was all wall.
Sitting were I was there was absolutely no air flow and we actually had a pretty good summer this year in Ireland which is rare. Usually this is a good thing but not so much when you're piped up indoors all day. Although not having a window didn't really matter as there are somethings that are just out of your control and this was one for pretty much everyone in the office. Unfortunately my time in this office was spent while major construction was going on just outside our windows. There were massive machines digging up the old foundations of a high rise building banging and crashing away while at the same time another that stood a couple of stories high was drilling down to create areas for a new one to be laid.
The noise was ear busting, we often joked saying it sounded like a beached whale, this high pitched yet very powerful and resonating sound that went on all day long! To top it off they were working on the water pipes also, so the stench or raw sewerage poured in any open window. It was so bad my eyes would water so in the end having the windows open was just not and option and as Ireland tends to have quite mild summers there was no A/C in the building.
So as we sat there working using as many fans as possible to try escape the humid, airless corner the office began to turn. It began with a distant cough, more of a clearing of the throat. Day by day I noticed it would multiply, you would hear 3 coughs 6 desks back then maybe 1 cough 5 desks back. After about a week someone was basically giving of that cough every couple of seconds. And then.... The people began to disappear.
One by one the seats began to empty. I could see the crowded office with random seats empty towards the back but as the week drew on more and more began to drop. It was finally declared  that a flu was going around. I was thinking a flu in summer? A "Summer flu" they would say, like this somehow justified it.
So the coughs continued but I learnt to ignore it until the person sitting in front of me let out a little well, cough. I'm sure they were just clearing their throat right? So I put my head down and kept working, but then another one "ah hem" she goes. I say to myself that was just a follow on from the first throat clearing. I continue work but then I hear "Ah hem hem hem". Oh no that was a definite cough. The virus had reached us! A day later not a moment went by without someone clearing their throat. I felt a tickle but I tried to fight, soon they all began to drop, the desk was soon baron and then....
I awoke at about 3am. 3 hours before I usually get up. My muscles ached as though I hadn't been to the gym in a long time and went back and did a massive workout. The pressure in my head and sinuses was so bad I felt like I was smothering and to top it off I could feel my stomach right on the brink of puking. I was infected!
I lay for hours saying in my head I will go into work I just need a little rest but the more I lay there the worse it got.  The nausea was so bad I would have preferred to of gotten sick, instead I just had this rotten feeling in my stomach. My alarm went off. I could barley reach over to grab my phone, which was on my bed beside me, in order to turn it off. I had one of those touch screen sliding functions to stop it but my coordination was off and I kept messing it up. The stupid alarm I had set of a boat horn drilled through my head 'eeeerr eeeerr eeeerr" shut the hell up is all I could think however I did eventually managed to slide it all the way across, ahhh silence.
However I now had a new struggle. To call in sick. Though I have no issue with using the phone I just hadn't the strength to call, I kept going through my head of what will I say? What will sound best? After what seemed like an eternity I rang my Team Leader or TL as we said, with the phone on loud speaker. The TL answers and for some god damn reason I put on a sick voice. What the hell is up with that? Here I am genuinely dying and I put on a voice as though I was faking it, was I afraid they wouldn't believe me or something?
So I'm like, in a low raspy voice " hey 'ahem', I wont be able to make it in today I got that flu going round, dying" and you know what the TL says? "No problem what so ever ill pop you in for sick leave and you take care of yourself". Goddamn, if I knew my TL would be so understanding I wouldn't of put so much effort into the voice, all that procrastinating for nothing. Now I feel stupid as well as sick, urrgh.
So I spent the next few days suffering with all the usual symptoms even wasting my weekend off and returned on the Monday. I spent the week working away but couldn't help shake this strange feeling. While sitting down I felt as though I would fall off my chair and kept having a sudden loss of concentration. People where having a hard time getting my attention and I never heard my phone ring. Then come Friday I awoke to what felt like someone hammering a nail into my brain via my ear. This earache was so bad it would make a toothache feel like a massage. I'm calling it now earaches are the worst. So here we go again the dreaded call. I was practicing my sick voice ( still don't know why) but this time round I was having major doubts, I was temping for the summer and  had already called in sick and now only a week later I'm calling in again. Also payday was on Thursday so missing Friday did look a bit dodge. Suspected hangover to be blunt.
In the end I could only muster up the courage to send a text. Which the reply was fine my TL simply said to get a doctors cert, which was no problem at all as there was no doubt I was going to the GP as my ear was thumping. So once again my weekend was ruined. I lay in bed taking the cocktail of pharmaceuticals my doctor supplied and returned Monday, a bit prematurely as I was still sick however I felt missing days so close together looked really bad. But to my surprise when I walked in, the office was practically empty.  Even my TL wasn't there. With a bit of investigation I found out that half the office was out with an earache. It was another epidemic! Only this time I was one of the first to be hit.
This place was a petri dish. I spent the rest of the summer sitting in a sweaty humid corner with a fan blowing hot toxic air at me, constantly fighting off colds and flues. I was so run down that honestly my contract couldn't end soon enough. On my last day I walked out of the office into the street and took a big breath of air. "Ahhhhh" nice fresh air. I survived! But just about.
Now I had the rest of the warmer days to sit back, chill out and allow my immune system to regenerate. All I can say is that sometimes its the little things in life. Maybe even just a little breath of air.

College - The body of lies.

My experience with 3rd level education was, well not what I expected to say the least. On my journey to working my way to get accepted into college I recall nearly a whole society saying how much of a benefit it was going to be to my life. I saw images of students sitting around having coffee with smiles on their faces happy with where they where and what they were doing. There was hope in their eyes knowing that once they had got their peace of paper they were on to bigger and better things. I saw all over the media how great college life was, weather it be T.V shows, movies or even magazines it advertised the epic parties and a the great sense of comradery  between the students that College had to offer. It was a space where open minds could express themselves and discuss topics in an intellectual setting. But this world is fictional and in fact I'm not sure it ever existed from what I have seen.

So I guess my journey began when I was 15 year old. It was at this tender age when my school decided I was too much of a hassle to bother trying anymore so I got thrown out like a bag of rubbish on bin day. I can't say I blame they to be honest. I was a rebellious youth constantly challenging the authority of my teachers and other superiors and always in fights, a lot of fights. During my 3 or so years at my second level education facility I must have been suspended 30 - 40 times before they finally had enough and expelled me. I  spent more time on the streets smoking or at home than I  did in class in them days.

From here I went to work. In my house you either went to school or you worked, there were no free rides in my family. I managed to secure a job in a factory as an order picker were I drove around on a modge with three cages on the back in which I packed with what ever order of items I had to fulfill before loading it onto the trucks for it to be taken off to its final destination.

It wasn't so bad in all fairness and I stayed there for about 3 years and during this time I managed to build up some funds in the bank and had savings in the 1000s of euros that I could always fall back on. But something was missing. In reality I was in a dead end job, I looked at the lads who been working there for years, some 30 years my elder. They complained a lot and didn't seem all that happy. Also I was young and was missing out on my teen years as all my time was spent working. I had a longing for something else so decided to quit the job to peruse something further.

I spent about a year doing courses and dabbling in various areas seeing if I found something that suited, I even spent some time living in Belfast which was pretty cool. I made good friends and got to hang out with some cool people, have great parties, jam with others on the guitar, ride some birds. It was good times. It was also the time in which I  decided I was going to go to College. But I had a long way to go. I had left school with only my Junior Cert which was honestly useless. What I needed to do was go back an obtain a Leaving Cert, this exam would probably be the equivalent to the A levels in the UK or the S.A.T's in the U.S. It is the general route in getting into College in Ireland. So long story short I returned to Dublin and signed up to a 2 year Leaving Cert course in a community college and got enough points to get into College. My plan appeared to be materializing, or so I thought.

I learnt pretty quickly that this image of sitting around drinking coffee and joining a college society (I joined the Boxing society) was not as straight forward as it seemed. The amount of classes I had to attend left me with barely enough time to grab a coffee on the go and the amount of work was so intense assignment after assignment that I found it nearly impossible to find  the time to commit to the Boxing society. All my time seemed to be spent in class or over the computer at home trying to meet the deadline for the next assignment.

How and ever I powered through, worked hard and got my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. So I done it I achieved my goal. Time to reap the benefits I guess? All my life I had heard how a College Degree guarantees you a good job and "there's loads of jobs in computing" and that "getting a degree will open so many doors for you".

Well, the only door it opened for me was the door to my local Social Welfare office were I signed on for Jobseekers Allowance were I got €188 euro a week and seeing how the average price to rent a single room in shared accommodation was about €500 this wasn't so great. But it's better than nothing and supports me as I job seek and job seek I did, pretty damn relentlessly to be honest. However my efforts were futile. All I.T related jobs wanted you to have 3-5 years experience before they would take you on. How the hell am I suppose to get 3-5 years experience if no one was willing to take on graduates? No on was even taking on interns. To add insult to injury I was broke! As for all those saving I had in the bank? Well they were all spent on the annual college fees which went up by €1000 a year. In the end the Degree wasn't worth the paper it was printed on and I had just spent my life savings on it.

Open doors, greater opportunities, guaranteed job, great life experience? These were all the things society had promised me if I got a degree. My entire life everything revolved around how education is the best thing to get you ahead in life. Yet here I am penniless, jobless and in the worst position I have ever been in my life. I was lied to!

It got so bad that I couldn't afford clothes. I had to teach myself to sew, it was either that or walk around in rags like a homeless person. I spent about 2 years or more unemployed, scarping by week to week but did eventually get a job in a Call Center as tech support which was hell! 9 hour days, 45 hour weeks for crap pay living from paycheck to paycheck. I went in with high hopes like I was going to save the world one modem at a time. But instead I ended up being a verbal punching bag for the most vile, irate human beings you can imagine.

I recall sitting there one day panning over the office as some woman wailed at me about her internet service with such venom as if I had caused the issue, as if I owned the company, I listened to the madness of all the phones banging away ringing non stop and about a hundred people shouting over one another yapping down the phone at some other dissatisfied customer and seriously contemplated weather I had died and gone to hell. I'm not religious but I really believe if there is a hell, its a giant call center. So this is what College has achieved for me.  An empty, penniless life in a job I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy.

I had framed my Degree and proudly hung it on the wall above my desk. I have since took it down and thrown it in the bin because every time I look at it reminds me of all the time I wasted on nothing and that hard work doesn't pay off! It literally made me feel sick to my stomach.

So to not to leave on a depressing note.  I have left that nightmare of a job and have been temping other positions here and there which is grand for now however I do have a new plan for what to do with myself and am pretty sure this one will pan out, no thanks to College though.......

CBD what they don't tell us about Weed

So I have been suffering from chronic pain in my lower right leg for nearly 4 years. Sometimes the pain is so bad I feel pressure in my leg as though it is about to explode or even worse cramp so bad implode. Sometimes I can barely walk to the local shop, and I'm in my 20s. So surely something's wrong, right? Well I have gone to the doctors and even ended up in A & E once with this horrific pain. However I have still to get a diagnosis.Yet even so the doctors are happy to prescribe Anti - Inflammatory and  Pain medications along with some other weird stuff for something they don't even know what the cause is. 

Sorry just getting a flash back of being in the A & E, kind of funny now but not at the time. The nurse is putting a needle into the vein on the top of my hand, one of the needles with the open/close valves and the butterfly style stick on tape used to drain my blood at will. Anyway she absolutely butchers me, she doesn't slide the needle in gently as expected but stabs me with it! Blood shot across the cubicle onto the curtain and all over the bed and then she asks. 

"Are you on any blood thinners?" so I was like "No why?"
"Because the blood shouldn't shoot out like that" blaming me, what the? 

I looked at her with eyes wide open in disbelief of how this was somehow my fault, and I'm not squeamish so didn't even complain about her serial killer moment but thought this blood thinner comment was out of ordered so I replied as sarcastically as I could;

"We'll it might have something to do with the fact, THAT YOU BLEEDIN' STABBED ME!"
She got embarrassed and went quite so I just let her do her job in peace. S**T happens after all. Anyway back to topic.

So what is CBD? So within Cannabis, Marijuana, Weed or what ever your chosen title of this wonderful plant is lies two active chemical ingredients THC and CBD. Most will have heard of THC which is an acronym for "Tetrahydrocannabinol". This is the chemical that gets you stoned, makes you feel dizzy, tired , gives you the munchies and for them few awful times makes you paranoid! But on the other hand there is more to be offered by this mystical plant. CBD an acronym for "Cannabidiol" is the chemical that provides all the medicinal properties of the Cannabis plant without all the side effect of being, well...Wasted. All over the web you will hear how Medical Marijuana is being legalized all over the USA. Tests have even been done to explore its cancer curing properties.

So what medical benefits does it have. CBD is an Anti - Inflammatory, Anti - Convulsant , Anti - Depressant and Anti - Anxiety chemical as well as many other things. Sounds pretty good to me how about you? So I guess my turning point was when I was curled up in my bed with cramps in my stomach a major headache and joint pain all over my body for about the 20th time. All this was the side effects of the medications I was given by the doctors and for any side effect they would provide me with another medication to combat that. I felt poisoned, like my body was breaking down, I didn't feel my body could take much more of these prescription medications. This is what lead me to seek a more natural root and after much research I came to the conclusion that CBD was the way for me.

So I got a Vape online. I'm not a smoker but it seemed this was the best and most affordable solution. I began by taking maybe 10- 15 pulls before bed. At first there was no immediate result although I did find it relaxed me. So I kept up the same routine up for about 7 days. It was at this point I realized my leg pain had gone down at least 50% . So I continued using my CBD vape pen more like a supplement than a drug and after approximately 2 weeks I was pain free. So it was a success. As for all them gut wrenching meds, well there in the bin now. No more piles of different coloured who knows what passing through my liver. Just a nightly few pulls and what the doctors failed to treat for 4 years has improved significantly. Also as a bonus I felt more at ease with myself as I do suffer from some anxiety which was great.

Interestingly there are cannabinoid receptors located all over the body and Cannabis grows naturally from the earth so if they are not there for the reason of using Cannabis as medicine what exactly are their purpose?

Now in the news I hear how they are going to legalize Marijuana for medical use in my home country  of Ireland. The argument being used to pass the bill was all the poor epileptic children. As an epileptic, suffering for nearly 15 years I ask what about the adults? Some of us have suffered decades with this affliction and your only concern is "The Children " well I say what about those who suffered as kids and still do. But then again I'm sure that's just the selfish side of me wanting easy access to CBD and relief from seizures. But honestly these kids heroes, modern day revolutionaries. I believe this will be a great leap in healthcare, hopefully worldwide and look forward to the day were we can all go to the doctor and be prescribed a medication that's natural to the body and not some lab made cocktail of industrial chemicals that leave you in a heap due to the nasty side effect. After all Cannabis is legal in North Korea the country said to be run by the most oppressed regime  on earth, so why not legalize it here in the west? So as many have said before me "FREE THE WEED" well the CBD anyway. Peace out!