I am not making this up....

So, I've been stressed lately. A different kind of stress - it's very physical: my neck, shoulders, head all hurting, sick to my stomach kind of stress. Not the kind that having a day to eat ice cream and a hot bath will fix. But the kind that hangs over you, the kind that makes you not want to look at people because they might see it.

I decided yesterday I needed to take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) here that offers free counseling through an outside venue. I whip out my benefits packet and call the 800 line. The line picks up and says - I quote:

"Hello lover...". Huh, surely I dialed wrong.

I call back, this time with one of the part time secretaries in my office & speaker phone so she can make sure I'm dialing right.

"Hello lover....my girlfriends and I can talk to you in a group or we can talk all alone...one on one". At this point Gayle and I are completely dumbfounded. They printed the wrong number to the COUNSELOR in the BENEFITS PACKET and I was connected with phone sex line!!!!!

Now, the cherry on top of this already delicious sundae of nonsense: when I finally get the correct phone number from human resources, the EAP secretary says "Claude doesn't have anything available, I'll put you through to his voice mail".

Gee. Thanks.

Of course this story has quickly become legend among my faculty colleagues here because I know my thresholds and that I needed help, but many people don't know their stress levels and at the point they sought help from the EAP they might have already had a gun or God knows what.

Just a couple of years ago one of our employees left his desk after an argument with his wife, got a gun, shot her lover and her. Killed her lover and she's been in rough condition hardly able to walk since then.

What if he had thought before he did that "I should call the EAP." and got the phone sex line?


P.S. I'm seeing the counselor tomorrow at 12 so hopefully I'll have a cheerier post later this week.