Thursday, May 13, 2010

Stress Counselor?

My place of employment is giving it's employees an incentive hundred bucks if we participate in a health/preventative program. If you at all understand me, you know that for a hundred bucks I'm willing to do pretty much anything. So, of course, I signed up.

To start, you take a questionnaire, enter in all sorts of information you're probably lying about because you have no idea (BMI? cholesterol levels? triglycerides?) and all sorts of personal questions that you have to answer using only the A, B, C or D options they give you (which they've cleverly devised to not *actually* fit any real life situation so that no single person can truly answer the question by choosing either A, B, C or D.)

Once you've taken the fabulous questionnaire, you are given your "risk factors." What, from the very in depth questionnaire, they have determined to be your future cause of illness/death/disablement.

From these risk factors, you choose programs to participate in in order to achieve your final goal of... ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS! or, I suppose they want me to think the ultimate goal is not dying of whatever disease, but really, I'm going to die eventually. And yeah, they're probably going to have to pay the insurance when I go. I just want my hundred bucks.

My number one risk factor? Killing the Energizer Bunny. I think what I read between the lines was "having stupid parents is a risk factor for children." So educating me, as a parent, means big points on my hundred buck scale. And as I am actually concerned about the Energizer Bunny, I chose this program. It was 6 weeks, on-line, a bunch of articles, a quiz or two that you could change your answers to after they gave you the right ones, no big deal.

Next risk factor: stress. Apparently I am stressed out. I momentarily thought to adamantly deny this while throwing a fit regarding said retarded questionnaire, then realized this might simply increase my stress level to the point that they were right. And THAT would be terrible. Almost as terrible as the Unsupportive Louse being right.

So I choose to enroll in the stress counseling instead. Three 15 minute phone calls is all it is. No biggie, I can manage.

My first phone call with my brand-spanking new stress counselor, Annie, goes something like this:

"What's one major thing that's been stressing you out recently?"

"Well, my husband was writing his thesis and was gone 16 hours a day and stressed out himself, so that was huge."

"Oh! What degree was he working toward?"

"A PhD in Immunology."

"You said you're in science too, didn't you?"

"Yep."

"But you don't have an advanced degree?"

"Nope."

"Have you ever thought about getting one?"

"I've thought about it occasionally."

"I'm sure you know it can change the way you're regarded in the field, increase your respect, as well as your pay."

"Yep."

"If it's something you're considering, you should go for it, you're still young!" A slight pause. "You know, I just read an article that found that graduate students have less sex than geriatrics."


Wait a second... have I been having less sex than OLD PEOPLE for the last SIX years?

Wait a MINUTE... isn't this supposed to be stress counseling??

3 comments:

  1. LOL. Her questions stressed me out! I'd trade her in for a new one.

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  2. Mmmmm? Nice how you started with doing anything for $100 and ended with geriatric sex. :)

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  3. Your stress counselor might otherwise have recommended a new occupation; I'm betting you could have lots of sex and make way more than $100.

    Just sayin'.

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