Friday Night I'm Unemployed Brandy Buzz. Ask me anything.

[Aristus]

Not officially unemployed. I start my new job on Monday. But still: between employers.

Choices for tonight: A Bosom Caresser, Sex On The Beach, or a Screaming Multiple Orgasm.

I opted for a cocktail.

A stiff drink.

A Bosom Caresser it is. Brandy, Madeira, triple sec, and a dash of grenadine.

You probably can’t tell, but I’m relieved to be done with my old employer. Monday will be like coming home.

I love you all.

I can’t thank you enough or thank you properly for all the support you have shown me over the years. But I love you.

[cachukis]

1. Is the respite cleansing?

[Aristus]

5. Definitely.

[captain queeg]

2. Glad you're done. I got the feeling you were stressed out about trying to finish everything be fore you left

Glad for you that you made it out. Wash your hands of it and start out fresh at your new position.

[Aristus]

6. I will.

O Captain, my Captain.

[Deuxcents]

3. Very happy for this new chapter in your career. Much deserved

[debm55]

4. Are you having fun?

[Aristus]

8. Tremendous fun.

Having a drink and watching The Great British Baking Show. The program that got me through the horror of the Trump years.

The end and the beginning.

I’m ready to move on…

[Marthe48]

7. Now that you are idle for the weekend

Do you know if alcohol goes bad? My daughter gave her Dad a vintage Jim Beam 57 Chevy decanter, full of bourbon and sealed. We had it packed away, probably 10 years. Just recently, she gave me a bottle of amaretto and a partial bottle of gin, belonged to her inlaws, long gone, who were gracious hosts. If the alcohol is safe to drink, I'd like to try the gin. If I shouldn't drink it. I'll pour it over a grave Glad you got to this day. A lot like trying to swim through the surf from a shipwreck

[Aristus]

16. I don't think so.

Years ago, nearly twenty or so, I bought a bottle of slivovitz, Slavic plum brandy, thinking I would like it. I didn’t. The nearly full bottle sat on the shelf, untouched all that time, until just a few months ago, when I decided to use it as a mixer for cocktails calling for brandy.

The resulting drinks seemed perfectly fine, and I was finally able to use up the bottle. The time didn’t seem to have an adverse effect on the slivovitz.

Can’t say that will apply to all spirits, though.

[Mr.Bill]

9. Here to raise a toast of Jim Beam on the rocks

to you and your new job!

[niyad]

10. And we love you back. Enjoy this weekend of freedom.

Goddess knows you have earned it! May the weather cooperate with your wishes. Be of joyful heart.

Raising a glass of bubbly in your honour!

(on a separate note, I found a very nice substitute for Luxardo cherries, at a very nice price. Trader Joe's has Amarena cherries during the holidays, less than $5/very pretty jar.)

[Aristus]

12. Sounds lovely.

Champagne: good for every occasion, or just because.

[hay rick]

11. Congratulations.

There aren't many things that you can do for yourself that are better than reducing job stress. Toasting you with a double gulp of water. I'll have something stronger later in the weekend.

[Aristus]

13. Let me know what you pick.

For me, tomorrow, I’m thinking bourbon on the rocks.

[hay rick]

14. I'm thinking Drambuie on the rocks.

It gets better as it gets diluted and if I have an unwise amount (which doesn't happen much any more)- it's gentle in the morning.

[Wolf Frankula]

15. You like hard liquor.

Get some cognac. Some good French. Then with breakfast tomorrow, have a couple Campari and sodas.

Wolf

[Aristus]

20. Every once in a while, I'll get a good bottle of VSOP.

But mostly, I stick with cognac; Courvoisier. Smoothest cognac out there. I kind of hate the way The Ladies Man made a punchline out of the brand. Because it’s heavenly.

[Bundbuster]

17. How's the hangover today?

Fun the night before usually makes the "inconvenience" all worth it.

[Aristus]

21. Non-existent.

I usually start Friday nights with a couple of warm-up shots of vodka. But last week, Mrs. Aristus noticed that I was not entirely sober, so I toned it down this week.

[cilla4progress]

18. Sorry I'm late to the party!

Congrats, Aristius! I know you've wanted and looked forward to this for some time! Will be wonderful for the next chapter of your career to be rewarding, fulfilling, and humane to all!

🎉

[Aristus]

22. Always late but worth the wait!

[3catwoman3]

19. Here's a last day of work story you might enjoy.

Back in the early 1980’s, I spent 6 miserable months as the head nurse on the pediatric floor of a small, backward hospital in one of the mining towns in the upper peninsula of Michigan. My husband got stationed there at K I Sawyer Air Force base.

It was not at all what I wanted to do, but there were no NP jobs to be had anywhere. Antiquated procedures, those squeeze open metal chart backs with 7 separate pages - one for vitals, one for intake and output, one for weights, one for meds, one for nurses’ notes, one for doctors’ notes and one for doctors’ orders. Very inefficient. The nurses on the adult units still wore caps and gave up their chairs if a doctor came into the charting room/nurses’ station.

It was JCAH licensed for 8 beds, but they put 2 beds in each room so we had a a 16 patient census. How they go away with that legally, I never knew.

3 docs admitted to that unit. Only one was a pediatrician, and he was incompetent. The second one was an alcoholic OB-GYN who did a little pediatrics on the side, so to speak. His admissions were typically “for tumultuous home” situations - he’d gin up some bogus problem to admit a kid Friday thru Sunday so the parents could have a long weekend off. The third guy was a semi-retired doc who saw mostly adults and spent 6 months a year in Florida and would go back to work for the 6 months he spent in the UP. He would admit a kid, call in admission orders, call in changes of orders during the hospital stay, and then call in discharge orders ALL WITHOUT EVER COMING TO THE UNIT! All 3 of them horrified me.

I felt Iike I had stepped into a time tunnel.

A faculty position finally opened up a Northern Michigan University. I gave the hospital 6 weeks’ notice, which i thought was pretty generous. At 12:00 o’clock on my last day, they sent a nurse from one of the adult units to the pediatric unit so I could orient her to being head nurse. With only 3 hours left in my last work day, I thought to myself, “Watch how hard I try.” I didn’t try very hard.

Trying to do your best in a crappy, unsupportive work environment is really draining.

I’m so pleased for you that life on the job should be better in your new position. AND NO MORE ON CALL!!!!

[Aristus]

23. No more call would be wonderful all by itself.

Everything else, the salary bump, control over my schedule, and a productivity bonus, is icing on the cake.

Plus, the admins at my new job are all old friends whom I know very well. The Director of Clinical Medicine is my mentor, the PA who trained me and prepared me for the formal training course.

The CEO of the organization has been begging my wife for years to encourage me to come work for him. But I didn’t want to leave my homeless patients. Once I found out that my patients go there when I’m booked solid, and that I can see them again without being accused of poaching, I made the leap.

I can’t even begin to imagine how stressful that job must have been for you. I’m glad you got your own lifeboat out of there.

[3catwoman3]

24. The incompetent pediatrician was something else.

Hie idea of my job was for me to follow him around while he saw patients, and hand him the instrument case. I’d accompany him on the rounds because I couldn’t see any way out of it, but there was no way I was going to put the instruments in his hand. I’d put the case on the patient’s bed and then step back and put my hands behind my back. I justified accompanying him on rounds because he had a very heavy accent that I could tell most parents couldn’t understand and I could explain things to the puzzled parents after he left.

Here’s the real kicker. He frequently admitted kids for ear infections and put them on IV antibiotics. This made no sense to me. His typical reasoning was bogus - if a patient on oral antibiotics vomited a single time, his admitting rationale was “Patient not tolerating oral meds; needs IV. It is not unusual for a young child who is not feeling well to puke a time or two at the beginning of their illness. It usually doesn’t last.

One day, before he came in to make his rounds, I took the unit otoscope and looked at one patient’s ears, anticipating maybe I would see a major ear drum rupture and copious pus. The eardrums looked absolutely perfect. You could have put them in a textbook as an illustration of normal eardrums.

The mom was there, and asked how things looked. I knew I had to be really careful about what I said, seeing as I was not the doctor. So, after taking a moment to think, I said, “It looks like they’re responding to treatment.” I thought that was neutral and safe. A bit later, the doc came on his rounds. The mom asked the same question, and imagine my shock when this guy said, “Oh, looks much worse.”

My brain was shrieking, “Worse? Worse than what? How can you be worse than normal?” I didn’t know if he was flatout lying to the mom, or was he so incompetent he didn't’ know what normal eardrums looked Iike. Both possibilities were equally horrifying. I knew there was no point in saying anything to any higher ups as there was no way anyone there would have believed a nurse over a doctor. I never trusted the SOB for the rest of he time I was there.

[Aristus]

29. Jesus!

I know someone has to graduate last in his class. But how did that idiot graduate at all? Or even get accepted into school?

[3catwoman3]

31. He did not go to med school in the US.

[petronius]

25. Good choice, I also went for a Bosom Caresser!

However in my case, that's sitting here alone, shirtless, drinking wine, and absently tickling my man-boobs...

[OAITW r.2.0]

26. Is it still Friday night?

If so, the shrooms are working,

[Ocelot II]

27. I'm late but congratulations!

[cilla4progress]

28. What kind of faith -

confidence - do you have in America, Aristus?

[Aristus]

30. Well, we've weathered some pretty nasty shit in the past.

But it seems like for every two steps we take forward we take one or two backward. I mean, here we are in the 21st Century, and we still have millions of substandard humans in this country insisting that a black man only became President because of Affirmative Action, or he falsified his birth certificate, and so on.

We have people insisting drag queens are a menace to our children, but perverted cops, clergy, and coaches aren’t. Not to mention millions of guns and easy access to all of them. And that a blisteringly incompetent nepo baby who has failed at absolutely everything in his life, and had no history of, training in, or desire for public service was the best President ever.

That’s why Millennials and Gen Z-ers give me so much hope. They see through the right-wing dog and pony show that fools so many older people who should know better. They’re not buying the gilded turd the GOP keeps trying to sell them.

[Hekate]

32. Congratulations and may it be the best ever from now on