Down in the mouth

I’m not one to toss the word 'hate' around in a frivolous manner. I strongly dislike a lot of things. I’m not fond of others. I would prefer almost anything else than to come right out and admit that there is anything I HATE.


Except for the dentist, of course.

In my estimation, a visit to the dentist ranks right up there with an appointment to get my hair cut or a fun-filled visit to my doctor to have a boil lanced. Naturally, a traumatic experience when I was a kid is what has led to this aversion. In the last fifteen years I can recall four occasions that have landed me in the torture chamber the dentist’s chair, and on three of those occasions I was in so much pain and distress that I went as a last resort. And then I resented the amount of money they charged to make me feel better.

This morning my husband is undergoing some pretty extensive dental surgery that will pretty much knock him out of commission for the next three or four days. As we got ready this morning, I could tell he was anxious about the whole thing. It’s rare for Scott to display signs of being nervous (unless I have something hot or sharp in my hand) about any situation, but I know he had a restless night of sleep, and I can kind of see it at work in him this morning. I’m hoping his dentist has a much steadier hand than either one of us today!

The Straight Dope claims that dentists, as well as other medical professionals, experience a much higher suicide rate than other professions. They are feared and hated and approached with a certain amount of apprehension and distrust by a great share of the general population. And by me. But, fortunately, not by my husband.

This week I’ve put together a movie list of the most painless dentistry I could find for your weekend entertainment. Well, painless for you, at least. The characters themselves might have another opinion altogether.

Have a happy and safe holiday weekend!

Ghost Town: When Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais), D.D.S. is discharged from the hospital after a routine procedure, he notices that he has a new ability: he can see dead people! Unfortunately, Bertram doesn’t want to see these spirits, and does his best to avoid them altogether. One ghost (Greg Kinnear) is very persistent, though, and has tasked Bertram with clearing his name with the wife (Tea Leoni) his sudden death left behind. This may be the toughest smile replacement this dentist will ever encounter. PG-13

Marathon Man: An inhuman Nazi war criminal (Laurence Olivier) demonstrates a flair for some extreme dentistry in his torture routines. His victim (Dustin Hoffman), however, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and will be happy to escape with his life. Rated R

Little Shop of Horrors: While Seymour (Rick Moranis) struggles with the ever-growing love triangle between him, the lovely Audrey and the man-eating plant named in her honor, a sadistic dentist (Steve Martin) finds his heart’s desire in a pain-loving patient (Bill Murray). Rated PG

Cast Away : FedEx executive Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) finds himself stranded on a deserted island when his plane goes down. In the Federal Express packages that have washed up on shore with him, he finds many items that serve as makeshift tools for the various tasks associated with his survival—including what it takes to eliminate the mother of all toothaches. Also stars Helen Hunt. Rated PG-13

Reign Over Me: Successful dentist Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) searches out Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), an old college friend. Alan discovers that his friend has been living a lonely, delusional life since losing his wife and daughter in the 9/11 attacks. At the sake of the private practice he has lost control of and the marriage he doesn’t feel a part of, Alan sets out to rescue his friend from his sadness. He reaches a point, though, where he has to determine who is actually worse off—his friend, or himself. Rated R

feathermaye's Friday five appears weekly (and sometimes on Saturdays!) at Fabulously 40 & Beyond

The Science of Dogs

On the National Geographic channel tonight, Scott and I watched a program about dogs and the science behind them.

The program explores the history of strict, controlled breeding of specific breeds of dog. In some cases, the dogs were bred to purify the genetic coding (much like computer code!). In other instances, the certain breeds of dogs are cross-bred with other breeds in an effort to combine strong, helpful traits such as sense of smell, speed, ease of learning, etc.

They demonstrated a small, hybrid breed of dogs that have the ability to identify 12 different chemicals used in making bombs. They had been bred for their size and sense of smell, and never failed a test. They were amazing!

However, the bloodlines have become so isolated that any recessive genetic flaws are much more pronounced. Like aggression (pit bulls) and nervous conditions (much like humans!). Skin conditions, tumors and deafness are all flaws that specific breeds are known for.

This coin definitely has two sides. Are they weighted evenly, in your opinion? As is often wondered about other practices like this, are the benefits worth the risks?

Take This Job And Shove It

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. ~Abraham Lincoln

Always be smarter than the people who hire you. ~Lena Horne

What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it. ~Mark Twain

I love my job; it's the work I hate. ~Everybody else

If you were to ask ten random adults what the most amount of dissatisfaction in their lives is caused by, nine of those adults would offer up their job as the main offender.* Between irate customers, untrustworthy co-workers and supervisors who can never be pleased, too many people in the American workforce simply don't stand a chance!

Earlier this week I blogged about how my own slew of bad jobs had affected me, and the feedback I received was amazing! I'm left to wonder how different life would be if we could all find a way to be happy in the daily grind.

And consider for a moment: Even if you yourself are not unhappy in your current job--perhaps the person working next to you is...

With movies, it is truly a case of art imitating life when it comes to stories involving people dissatisfied with their jobs. From fast food to government assassin, no career choice is sacred. It's often simply a matter of finding a way to deal with the day-to-day, or finding a way out.

Michael Clayton: New York corporate attorney Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is the firm's fix-it man--when something or someone gets too messy, Clayton gets the call to clean up the situation. And what does he get for his troubles? A blown-up car and a gambling debt he can never pay off. He more than hates his job (and who could blame him?), but just when he's ready to call it quits, he's presented with the biggest challenge of his professional life. Rated R

Fast Times At Ridgemont High: Brad (Judge Reinhold) Hamilton has got it all figured out. As a senior in high school, he's going to dump his faithful girlfriend so that he can experience more of the world, and ride the wave as fast food manager for as long as it will carry him. Unfortunately, his girlfriend beats him to the punch and a run-in with a cranky customer completely changes his plans. Also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates. Rated R

To Sir With Love: Even for the most-seasoned of teachers, London's East End high school would be considered a challenge. For Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier), an unemployed engineer, it proves to be the challenge of his life. The students are unruly and disrespectful and the other teachers are less than sympathetic to his plight. Mark is left with a decision: walk away and leave the kids to someone better suited to their needs, or dig deep and overcome his own fears of success. Rated PG

There Will Be Blood: Daniel Day Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, an early 20th century oil prospector whose only mission in life is to annihilate the competition at all costs. Even the job of his friend and partner proves to be a hard one when the man who is his friend and partner is killed doing his job. The man leaves behind a son, for whom Plainview becomes a father, and a competitor. Rated R

The Point of No Return: A drug-store robbery goes bad and the resulting police shoot-out kills all but one of the burglarizing junkies. The survivor (Bridget Fonda) is sentenced to death but refuses to go out alone. She leaves a trail of corpses behind her as she tries to avoid lethal injection, and gets kidnapped by the government, instead. It seems that her brutality and murderous instincts have caught the eyes of a secret agency of assassins, and she's been pegged as their new protoge. They promise her a brand new life, if she'll only do what they need her to do. Her job description is simple: Kill or be killed. Rated R

*I totally made that up, but it sounds good, huh?

**
feathermaye's Friday five is a weekly feature at Fabulously4o & Beyond

When Bad Jobs Happen To Good People

Have you ever discovered something about yourself that made so much sense, you were stunned to not have noticed it sooner?

It has become clear to me over the past six weeks or so that I have been suffering from anxiety. However, I never really equated what I was feeling or thinking with anxiety. I had no idea. It's only been since it started going away that I recognize it for what it is.

Mostly, my anxiety has been centered around my job. Even though I know what a good job I do, I have very little faith in supervisors and/or co-workers and their ability to credit me for what I do. Instead, I'm convinced that at every turn is a knife waiting to be plunged into my back.

This has made for an interesting life this past year, since our living room and our office/showroom back up to each other. On our day off, if we're hanging out in the living room, we can hear the office phone ring and the chiming of the showroom doors as they open and close. These sounds are faint, but since we hear them first-hand six days out of every week, they are unmistakable.

It wasn't at all unusual for me to hear the phone ring through the wall and immediately mute the television so I could try and hear what was going on. Or, if I'd heard the door chime and conversation take place, I would torture myself over what was being said, and by whom. I worried that maybe I'd left something undone, or done wrong. Or maybe my snotty little relief manager was out to get me and would set me up for something. These thoughts (and more) could swirl around my head all day long if we stayed home. If we went out, every ring of my cell phone would make my heart pound, dreading who was calling me.

Making it even worse, I suffered through most of this silently. I rarely announced my anxieties to Scott, who probably could have helped me identify them for what they were. Instead I held all this in, worried alone, and then breathed a shaky sigh of silent relief once the perceived crises had passed. It was an emotionally exhausting way to live.

While I recognize now that that my thoughts were unreasonable and bordering on paranoid, in the moments they seemed completely justified. I've been screwed over on a lot of jobs and have developed a defensive approach to working. I've had co-workers who have taken credit for work I've done; I've had clients/customers who were bitter and vengeful for any number of reasons; and I've had supervisors who were just supreme jerks and couldn't find a nice thing to say, even if their own life depended upon it.

The sort of anxiety I'd been experiencing has obviously been building over a period of time, and is only really clear to me now that it's no longer necessary for the survival of my paycheck. In my past three jobs (each very different in scope but very similar in situation) it was necessary for me to keep my guard up at all times in an effort to keep the record straight. Now that I don't need to, and have actually stopped doing it, I find I have more peace in my life and can enjoy my time both on and off the clock.

Oddly, it's been the medication I was prescribed for mild depression that has alleviated the anxiety I've been blindly suffering for who knows how long. My mind and emotions are clearer and more under my own control, and I actually look forward to my time away from work, rather than dread what might happen while I'm gone. I've even started several creative projects that are bringing me so much pleasure that I'm still keeping them a secret. I'm just not ready to open them up to the rest of the world yet!

I think it's an absolute shame that bad jobs, much like bad relationships, can change who we are. Naturally this isn't a change I willingly went through, and (other than the need to watch my own back) wasn't even something I recognized I was doing until I stopped doing it. It took coming out of the funk to identify just how funky I'd become.

Have you ever had a job situation that tore you down so much that you had to actually change the way you looked at and thought about other jobs? Did you recognize the change that needed to be made, or were you surprised into noticing it?