Bad Dreams and Not So Good Days

I find there is little more frustrating than going to bed early, falling asleep and then waking up not much later and being unable to sleep.

That happened to me last night. I went to bed early instead of staying up late to read too much of my current book, the third in George R.R. Martin’s, Game of Thrones series. Then I fell asleep. Less than an hour later I woke up and spent the rest of the night having on-and-off nightmares.

The nightmares were a direct result of my day at work. It wasn’t a good day. One of my consultants hadn’t shown up to work since Wednesday. We tried to reach him and couldn’t. Finally, our branch administrator called the hotel where he was temporarily living and had them check his room. It turned out that he’d passed away several days before.

I feel bad for him. For one thing, it took a few days for anyone to notice he was missing and then, when they did, it was his employer rather than family. Secondly, how sad to die in a hotel room, far away from home. The police are investigating to find out if it was a natural death or self-inflicted but, either way, it’s a sad thing.

It was an unsettling day at work to say the least. My vivid imagination has a horrible habit of picturing things and wondering how often that happens in hotel rooms. It also didn’t help that another consultant that we’ve just hired is going to be temporarily locating to the same town and thus, staying in the hotel. We’ve asked the hotel not to tell our new consultant what happened. My guess is that they won’t. It’s probably not good publicity for a hotel to have someone die.

It’s an unpleasant thought, isn’t it? The hotel said they were calling in a special company to sanitize and thoroughly clean the room. Yet, the twisted part of me can’t help wondering if the next person to stay in that room will have any idea. I’m guessing not. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

So, combined with my sadness regarding the death of our employee, I was also trying to quash these rather dark thoughts as I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, our subconscious is pretty hard to control so I didn’t do very well.

As a result, I woke up groggy and fuzzy-headed. That’s no way to begin a day. A worse way to begin a day is to find out you have to fire someone.

I don’t like firing people, even when they deserve it. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. I have the power to find people jobs and to take them away. In this case, it was a lady who’d only been working for us for three months. She had been having some issues already. Then, she didn’t show up to work on Monday and no one could reach her. It became my job to try to get hold of her.

I was a little paranoid by this time. Monday was the day we found out about our deceased consultant so, later that day, when you have another consultant who can’t be tracked down, you can’t help but wonder if she, too, might have passed away and no one had found her.
Fortunately, she was fine. She had just had some extremely personal crisis that she couldn’t discuss. She had forgotten her phone so she couldn’t let anyone know she wasn’t going to work.

I think if this had been a one-off occurrence, she would still have a job. However, it wasn’t the first time and so I was told to let her go.

It’s a hard thing to let someone know they won’t be returning to work again. In this case, she wasn’t surprised but she was still upset. She cried. I hate when they cry. I tend to be overly sympathetic by nature, anyway. This is why they tease me in the office for liking the ‘gutter puppies’- the down-and-out people who haven’t been able to find a job and need something, anything to pay the bills. I just feel sorry for them. I’m a firm believer in that if someone is willing to work and wants to work, they should be allowed to work. There’s far too many people out there who don’t want to work and don’t do so and expect to live on ‘free money’ from the government. I like to help people.

So, this is why I don’t like it when they cry. It makes me feel guilty even when I have nothing to really feel guilty about. I don’t think anyone truly likes being the bearer of bad news and I’m no exception.

I’m hoping that tomorrow, I won’t have anyone die nor do I have to fire anyone. I am meeting with a candidate as a favour to his dad who is another candidate. The son was released from jail last year and has been trying to get back on his feet. His dad wants me to see if we can help him. I might be able to but it’s hard to find jobs for people with felonies on their records. Did I mention I tend to be over-sympathetic. Some people might call me a sucker. I probably am.

Still, tonight, I’m hoping to sleep without nightmares and tomorrow, I’m hoping for a better day. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ll keep you posted.

Happy Wednesday!