If you follow my Facebook, you know that yesterday was a bad day for me.  There was no drama or real reason for me to be such a train wreck. I just woke-up feeling lousy, got overwhelmed with manual labor (rolling-up 48 super laminated posters and sending them out to our 11 AEs), had rude customers on my phone that was blowing-up all freaking day, and got my nose brutally and cattily rubbed into a mistake I made. Throw in the worse PMS I’ve had since high school, and that was my day. I had to take three kitten breaks to survive. A kitten break is when I go to the start page of my g-mail account, watch my funny cat photo generator, and constantly hit the back button to make a kitten slide show. If I’m brain dead enough, I can do this for at least 20 minutes. I even made a collage for you. Look:

I take being an old cat lady to the computer age.

Anyways, I came home, took a hot bath, drank wine, ate dinner, took a nap, and got all caught-up on Hannah Montana Forever. After that, I watched a National Geographic documentary on Stress. It was horribly interesting. This neurobiology dude  studies baboons in Africa because they develop a distinct hierarchy, as humans do in most job settings, especially an office-based one. He would test hormone levels in the blood of  all the monkeys. Stress is originally a survival mechanism, increasing adrenaline and other similar hormones. This temporarily shuts-off unnecessary bodily functions and enhances the basics, like running and hearing and seeing and fighting. This is how lions kill zebras and zebras sometimes escape their predators. Once the stressful moment is over, the body returns to normal. Well, with humans, and baboons in their social hierarchy, this is not the case.

Baboons at the highest point of the hierarchy had healthier arteries, more dopamine in their brains and less adrenaline and other stress-related chemicals in their blood. They were happier and healthier monkeys. The lowest level, however, carried fat in the belly, had more debris in the arteries, lacked dopamine and had high levels of stress hormones. People function the same way, and lower level, stressed-to-the-max individuals are more likely to have heart attacks, mental disease, cold and flu viruses and an overall shortened lifespan. In the end of the movie, there was a plague of Tuberculosis because the baboons found a stash of infected food waste, and the dominant males all died. The monkeys developed a new society that was less aggressive and involved more grooming and playtime. The solution? They didn’t give one, but I don’t expect the office to change into a Barney and Friends society of giggles and sharing, so I probably just need to get out before I have a stroke.

No wonder I felt like crap yesterday, and I’m sicker and crazier since I took this job. I went from being a manager to the lowest of the hierarchy. I’m the bottom baboon, with not just one superior dumping on me, but most of them. I make serious efforts to not let the job get to me, but some days it can’t be helped. Ugh. I actually started to cry yesterday. Lame. On a different but still related note, I have wonderful blood pressure. I don’t know how I managed this, since for the last year I’ve never been a stress mess due to drama, but my doctor said my blood pressure was “beautiful.”

Anyways, I managed to complete my fridge song…barely. It’s not my best, and though I was feeling it on Thursday when I started, by Friday afternoon, I just wanted to finish it and go on a kitten break.

Rich Girl
Based on Gwen Stefani’s Rich Girl

Na na na na na na! Na na na na na na!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na!

Na na na na na na! Na na na na na na!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na!

If I was a rich girl,
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na!
See, I’d have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl.
No fridge would contest me, distress me.
My cash flow would never ever end, cuz I’d have all the money in the world,
if I was a wealthy girl…

Think what that money would bring,
I shan’t clean a thing!
Beans, nor sardines nor baked goods,
Mexicano take-out. Frown!
For now, if you could and would,
Go to the fridge, and then you’d,
Take your food first-class to a fancy fridge outside this town!

All the riches! Maybe I won’t clean a thing!
All the riches! Crazy! I can have a lazy fling!
All the riches! Maybe I won’t clean a thing!
Oh, please don’t spill that gravy.
That mess will get nasty and mold. Eeew! I know!

Yes, Ma’am, we’ll tidy that-up, Miss Prentice.
Oh please do not pick that up!
You climbed all the way from the bottom to the top,
and you ain’t cleaning nothing fo us!

If I was a rich girl,
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na!
See, I’d have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl.
No fridge would contest me, distress me.
My cash flow would never ever end, cuz I’d have all the money in the world,
if I was a wealthy girl…

Na na na na na na! Na na na na na na!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na!

Na na na na na na! Na na na na na na!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na!