Some days are like that

[cjsmith]

Happy Hour in the office today is nachos and beer. In terms of progress, my day so far has pretty much been like yesterday, and things aren't exactly speeding up while I listen to everybody else party. Did I mention that the music is loud?

I realize I have really turned into a whiner lately. I do not like being a whiner. There must be things I can do to improve this situation. So far, I can think of three dramatic changes I might be able to make, any one of which would help in the short term:
1) Get off this diet
2) Get off this project
3) Find a job at a less food-oriented company, or at least one that isn't militantly carbohydrate-only

Maybe other things would help too. It is now my job to think of them.

But damn, it sure would be nice to be like everybody else once in a while. I took years to accept the fact that I would never again be fully able-bodied. I thought I was done with this "suck it up, everyone around you can enjoy things you will never enjoy again, get used to it and learn to shut up" kind of mental adjustment crap. Now I have the relentless tyranny of food in addition to being a gimp.

Some days just suck.

And now I need to think of ways I could make life suck less.

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Before you say it, yes you shouldn't HAVE to do this, but if there's someone in your office who normally organizes snacky things and parties, you could make up a list of stuff you CAN have, organized by store. (E.G., Trader Joe's _______, Whole Foods _______, Safeway ______, etc.)

That would make it easier for office food. Or at least remove excuses like "We didn't know what was OK to get you."

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Yes. This.

That will help. Some people may want to help, but not know how. This makes it much easier for them to help in an actually helpful way.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I need to do more "research" (shopping, cookbook-reading, what-have-you) on which snacky things, if any, aren't carb-based. I dropped into a Walgreen's this morning looking for snacks, and they carried exactly two things I could (and would) eat: my Lindt 85% chocolate, and hardboiled eggs. No new things for my list there. But I know there have to be some.

[eichin.livejournal.com]

As we've gotten larger and actually keep a list of whose turn it is to get lunch for office lunch days, we've just asked people to add restrictions to the page - not that the whole thing needs to meet all of the restrictions, just that you include something reasonable for all of the options. Off the top of my head, the list has included: no shrimp, vegetarian, "vegan but don't even try, I'll bring my own", no beans, no raw fish... so when someone gets boloco wraps, there are veggie ones, and there are rice-and-meat-only ones (or even better, we're big enough to get the qdoba hot-bar, where they show up with build-it-yourself tacos for N); when there's sushi, there's katsu as well. Sometimes people screw up (well, not with the shrimp one, that's actually a fatal allergy, not a "mere" preference) but most of the time it works, and everyone makes an effort. Simply communicating about it does seem to have made a difference, socially (I'm sure it's partly because we're big enough that as long as *some* people are being receptive and encouraging, the others will take the hint.)

Works for us, anyway, though we're starting to get big enough that it's getting more complicated (last time I needed several people to help me carry food the two blocks back from Mary's :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

We have quite a few vegetarians, including the one company founder, so we're good on that score. One early employee can't eat various kinds of beans (I think it's some kind of kinase deficiency, maybe?) but beans are generally easy to avoid in American culture. She'd have a lot more trouble in India, where cross-contamination of just about any dish could put her in the hospital. Sadly, that's what I'm like here. I am avoiding just about any dish! :-) For example, I'm not at all sure I could eat *anything* Mary's makes. Almost all spicy dishes are heavily sweetened "under the hood", and of course noodles and rice and pancakes and ravs are all out, and that leaves... I don't know what.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes, I should do that. Heck, I should have those lists MYSELF; so far, what I know I can have is mostly raw ingredients that need to be cooked. That isn't enough knowledge to offer to a person planning happy hour.