The Training Furballs

Follow up from last blog's report....the Book de la Face experiment definitely backfired, as illustrated by the wife's taunting: "Well, that didn't work. You wasted more time not having facebook and then re-creating facebook than all the time you wasted when you had facebook." Not only that, people are now finding me, which means I'm adding friends to the friends I recently unfriended. Sigh.

I should've come up with a stage name.

Follow up on the left-handed mouse experiment: As people were unable to use my computer at work due to my left handed mouse (I have to share my computer at times and the left handed mouse REALLY freaked people out), I changed it back to right-handed. That said, I've left my home computer as left-handed...so, I'm left handed at home and right handed at work. Seems balanced enough. So far, so good.

In the "well, I didn't see that coming" department, I've run into an issue of which I didn't even seem possible. For the past six months, I have been working as the "trainer" for my company. My job is to babble all day at people and whip them into shape so they are trained to do their jobs correctly...and, to "onboard" the newbies. (What a weird word--onboarding. Alas, that is what they tell me I do, so all aboard!) Onboarding the newbies has been an ordeal, as we've had many a hire during my short tenure as the trainer. All that training has led to a problem......

.....I've developed furballs.

In case you are not familiar with human furballs, they are most definitely different than cat hairballs, so erase that image out of your mind. What happens is all that talking leaves me froggy and phlegmy. (Froggy, furballs, you'll get the picture.) Who knew that talking all day would bother me? I talk all the time. I'm always yipping about something.

Previously, my job was to shut up and listen. After all, who wants a counselor who does all the talking? Counseling is a relatively quiet job. Oh sure, there's all that skill teaching, cheerleading and encouragement, but it's quiet and tends not to involve use of a loud voice--one's job is to sound soothing, not terrifying.

(Side note: I daresay a few of my clients find me terrifying, but that's a subject for their counseling and has nothing to do with my voice...well, not that I know of...)

My training job has challenged my yipping ability. By the time I get home, I'm making all these god-awful throat clearing noises to move the furballs and phlegm and scratchiness out of the way. Laying down to go to sleep is the worst. The poor wife. It takes me 15 minutes to just stop clearing my throat enough to sleep. God knows she's not going to sleep until I knock it off. Even the deaf dog is bothered by my noises.

It's obnoxious. I don't want to do it. I try not to do it. But, that little froggy, phlegmy irritation leaves me powerless. I can't not do it.

In an effort to save my sanity and my marriage, I've taken to all sorts of rituals and life-altering changes. Hot lemon tea with a dollop of honey....throat drops of various sorts (medicated, non-medicated, zinc laced, ...no dairy after dinner (dairy makes the problem a billion times worse), taking my allergy pills earlier in the evening (not that this is an allergy problem, but what the heck), drinking more water during the day, not talking once I'm done working, gargling with salt water, taking a decongestant (although I'm not technically congested), trying not to clear my throat unless it's absolutely, furbally necessary, yadda yadda yadda (or, not yadda yadda yadda in my case--I'm trying not to talk so much). I already take an obscene amount of Vitamin C every day, so I won't be adding more to that. An on-line search educated me on the availability of products designed to help singers and teachers. Lemon tea with honey is a top suggestion, so at least I'm on the mark with that one. (I do not like hot tea with honey. I don't like honey. Go figure. Who the hell doesn't like honey? What's not to love about hot tea?) I have yet to try licorice root, slippery elm or apple cider vinegar, so I have a few options left to try before taking a vow of silence...perhaps I'll have to learn how to talk from my diaphragm. The wife thinks it's funny, as she's a teacher and she talks all day long, just as all our teacher friends do. How they do it and still sound and feel normal, I do not know.

I will be trying the apple cider vinegar next, so stay tuned. I really don't want to give up ice cream and chocolate, so I'm willing to take on the vinegar. It has so many positive qualities that it deserves to be the next test subject. Since I am not consuming dairy after dinner, I'll have to start having ice cream for breakfast.

It's a sacrifice, but one must do what one must do. 

Visitors to the Addiverse: feel free to laugh at my furballs. Teachers: feel free to snicker. Trainees: be quiet and respect thy trainer. Self: try to talk at a quieter volume during training. Embrace the apple cider vinegar. Say no to the after dinner chocolate. Say yes to ice cream for breakfast. Furballs: I'm sorry but you must go. It is either you or me. The wife isn't gonna tolerate the two of us, so I chose you to hit the road....

...and, Unfriended friends of Facebook: You are required to make suggestions for my training issues or I won't accept your friend request. I have standards to maintain and furballs to lose. No suggestion = no friend of mine.

I'd say more but I'm embracing "silence is golden" when not at work. Besides, I never talk when I'm eating ice cream and it is breakfast time, so here's to my bowl of breakfast and golden silence.....

Pass the honey. It's golden. Maybe I'll like honey better if it's dribbled all over my ice cream....