I have been sick the past week, coughing and hacking away at everything and everyone. At first I was really worried for the baby, I think I was getting more stressed over what I'm doing to him rather than how I felt. For the first four days, I tried my best not to take any medication, toughing it out with gallons of OJ and water. After that, I couldn't take it anymore, and was getting worried about the effect of my all-night coughing to the baby that I took the over-the-counter medications that were considered safe: Tylenol Cough and Sore Throat and Robitussin DM (not together).

Due to this, I missed two days of work last week. This Thanksgiving week, our company is supposed to be shut down for the whole week, but some people in our department were "asked" to come in to finish our Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) internal audits. Is anybody else going through the pain of SOX? This has got to be the most useless, time-wasting crap process ever brought about by man. A friend of mine who has recently attended a graduation where the guest speaker was Senator Oxley said that in his speech, Sen. Oxley admitted that they realize this law wastes takes a lot of time and money and has caused some smaller companies to go bankrupt. One thing's for sure, neither Sarbanes nor Oxley would win any popularity award anytime soon.

So here I am, still coughing continuously, performing inane tests and audits for processes I have no involvement with. I just look at the bright side that I'm saving my vacation days, which will be especially useful when I go on maternity leave.

Speaking of bright sides, one external auditor I just met this week started to visit my office regularly. In the beginning he was asking for legitimate requirements but by the end of the first day he was teasing me a lot by asking for impossible things, getting my business card for every visit and chatting about movies and TV, while he's curt and strictly professional with others. Even my co-worker asked me pointblank "Why is the auditor flirting with you?" I said I don't know, maybe he likes pregnant women. My co-worker then peered at me and then said "Wait, he doesn't know you're pregnant!" I said that was silly for I look and feel like a whale. The next time he visited, I got out of my chair and faced him with my belly. Sure enough, he had this shocked expression on his face - he didn't know! I told my co-worker later on and we had a good laugh over this.

Vangie Fuhrman got cold on 11.22.2005 1:42 PM. |