Thursday, September 06, 2007
So now I know who to blame
I am really looking forward to the Power to the Peaceful concert this weekend. I want to give out flyers and shop the tables and listen to lots of music. However, I can't be doing any dancing, and in fact, I don't know how long I'll be able to last there, because I have plantar fasciitis and I should be staying home and icing my feet that day. :/ So if you see someone there crying while they give out flyers, it could be me.
I just heard Michael Franti on the radio, and he said that one of the womyn from the Indigo Girls taught him to play the guitar. Now we know who to blame for some of his more recent folkier-type songs. He was such a good hip hop artist. I still enjoy his older, funkier songs. I'm not into the publicity that his folks do for him these last few years- they seem to be trying to paint him as some kind of a guru.
email me at haydees@gmail.com
I just heard Michael Franti on the radio, and he said that one of the womyn from the Indigo Girls taught him to play the guitar. Now we know who to blame for some of his more recent folkier-type songs. He was such a good hip hop artist. I still enjoy his older, funkier songs. I'm not into the publicity that his folks do for him these last few years- they seem to be trying to paint him as some kind of a guru.
email me at haydees@gmail.com
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Mon obsession du jour
Hi, today I was writing a news story for the website about fat activism. I started coming across all these websites that sell fat women's clothes. Then I found a website that sells "sexy plus size lingerie." The stuff looks ok, but you never know what quality you're getting when you are mail ordering. Plus, if I keep gaining and losing weight, there could be problems with things fitting. This is why I've never gotten any tattoos, cuz I don't know what'd happen with getting fatter and skinnier.
I talked with Dr. Inkio this evening, and he was like, you should check out Stormy Leather, since they are here in the Bay Area.
I also found a website that has activewear in plus sizes, including gym clothes. I will have to buy some of that stuff. It's so cheap that I think I can order two of some things (different sizes). They even have bike shorts!
I'm not super-into the fat woman identity thing. Like, in terms of fetishwear, I feel like I'd have to get one of those bras, and some halter-type things, and some tights, and then it's like, what? a corset? I used to have some PVC pants and some sexy boots. I also had a sexy dress or two. But the whole women's clothes thing is very uncomfortable. I had to dress "up" this week at work, and I had so much anxiety about it!! I was trying to wear a blouse and sweater I had gotten at Lane Bryant this winter. I forgot that both items are v-necks. Since no clothes ever fit me right, the blouse got all bunched-up around the neck. And that looked really bad under the sweater. Dammit! So I just wore the blouse. I felt really exposed- I never expose my chest! And it's so pale, compared to my face and neck. And I sometimes have acne...at least I didn't this week. Our interior designer/building mgr said I looked very nice. But it felt so uncomfortable!
So my question is, can I pull off fetishwear-- will I look "sexy?"
At least I'll have some clothes I can wear to parties. And if I ever have any partners to play with... somehow hunnybunch and I don't interact on that level. For some reason, I always end up with bottoms, and I'm really more of a bottom most of the time.
Things are better btw the two of us, btw. We have even been having "relations." Our four-year anniversary was this week!!
email me at haydees@gmail.com
I talked with Dr. Inkio this evening, and he was like, you should check out Stormy Leather, since they are here in the Bay Area.
I also found a website that has activewear in plus sizes, including gym clothes. I will have to buy some of that stuff. It's so cheap that I think I can order two of some things (different sizes). They even have bike shorts!
I'm not super-into the fat woman identity thing. Like, in terms of fetishwear, I feel like I'd have to get one of those bras, and some halter-type things, and some tights, and then it's like, what? a corset? I used to have some PVC pants and some sexy boots. I also had a sexy dress or two. But the whole women's clothes thing is very uncomfortable. I had to dress "up" this week at work, and I had so much anxiety about it!! I was trying to wear a blouse and sweater I had gotten at Lane Bryant this winter. I forgot that both items are v-necks. Since no clothes ever fit me right, the blouse got all bunched-up around the neck. And that looked really bad under the sweater. Dammit! So I just wore the blouse. I felt really exposed- I never expose my chest! And it's so pale, compared to my face and neck. And I sometimes have acne...at least I didn't this week. Our interior designer/building mgr said I looked very nice. But it felt so uncomfortable!
So my question is, can I pull off fetishwear-- will I look "sexy?"
At least I'll have some clothes I can wear to parties. And if I ever have any partners to play with... somehow hunnybunch and I don't interact on that level. For some reason, I always end up with bottoms, and I'm really more of a bottom most of the time.
Things are better btw the two of us, btw. We have even been having "relations." Our four-year anniversary was this week!!
email me at haydees@gmail.com
Friday, February 09, 2007
What to do when you find out your partner is attracted to psychos?
So my hunnybunch got a phone call last Saturday evening. I had been taking a nap, and at about 8, I was awoken by the sound of him talking on the phone. It turns out that his ex, "Nicole," killed herself. But it was all very unclear to him, because the person who told him was her sister, and she sounds just like Nicole. And I called her back and asked her to save Nicole's movies for hunny (she had studied filmmaking in college), and the sister was like, "you mean her films?!" - the way that a filmmaker would have corrected a layperson, you know? So that was really sketchy, and I had to get to a point in my thinking where I was like, well, even if she is alive, you will never see her again, cuz if she shows up at my door, I will be like, "stay the fuck away from him. You will never hurt him again," or something. He's been crying all week, and I keep saying that maybe he should talk with a therapist who can help him to pull everything about her together and put it into the right place or whatever. (read on) He's like, "but I've been talking to her ex, C, and to her mother." Both of them are crazy, so he is helping them more than they are helping him. Someone's got to help him.
Nicole had MS and depression and I think that she at least had borderline personality disorder, if not something else. Here's a bit of info about her: hunny met her in a bar. He was 23, she lied about her age (said she was like 22 and a college student) and was a 17 year-old in the foster care system (in some weird program where she lived in an apt. with another foster system teen in another town and managed to go to Berkeley High). So, when the kid tells you her real age, you turn around and run, because 1. sex with her is illegal, and especially: 2. liars suck -- right? Well, he didn't.
They stayed together for a few years, during which time she finished high school, convinced/made him go back to college, and got him into dressing in drag. Sometimes they would go to places like the Power Exchange and perform public sex acts (not necessarily togehter). At some point, she went to Europe as part of some arts program. She supposedly met some Count or something and he asked her to marry him or come back and travel with him or some shit. She didn't hear from him for 6 months or a year, and it turned out that he had been imprisoned due to pedophilia or something. She and hunny did things like go to art movies together.
At some point, she moved to New Mexico to go to college. I remember that he went to visit her once, and apparently that was because she was having her first MS episode (not diagnosable the first time, thus very scary for the patient), at like age 23 or 24. He came back with a really good haircut (that she "made" him get), and a denim jacket (hello, the 80's ended a while ago?! but he looks cute in it). She eventually finished school, after things like her house burning down, living with a crack addict, and living in homeless shelters.
He has told me some stories about her, like that the reason she and her sis were put into the foster care system when she was 12 was that they had stolen and crashed her mother's car. He once had a threesome with her and this dude M, who was her ex-bf, because she was bored one night and they drove an hour to where he lived. He told me last week that she and M had hooked up in a mental institution (she had tried to kill someone, he was despondent over an ex-gf) when she was like 13 and he was 17. She and her sister had done things like take a crowbar to the car of someone they thought was driving erratically. Her sister has like 3 kids, and apparently the sister didn't want her to meet them (scared). She once drove with an ex-bf who wouldn't give up on her on the windshield of her car. She dated women for a while, because she was sick of all the problems with men.
She came to visit once, I think 2.5 months before we got together. I remember that he, she, and L. had come over cuz there was some fiasco about their holiday party at R's. so I remember that I was like their 2nd choice for what to do that holiday night. L was in the other room on the phone with R, threatening to kill herself, and N. was in a horrible mood. I was making lentil soup, so I fed her some, and she calmed right down. He says that that night was when he realized that he wanted to go out with me. (I can be quite helpful to people who are having mental crises, as long as I am not having one at the time)
She and he stayed in touch over the years- usually she would need money, or at least money put on the phone card. Since her diagnosis and getting disability $, she seemed to be doing better, tho she did still have fucked up relationships, and awkward friendships with older men who always turned out to be attracted to her (duh!). She had started going to AA, on the advice of one of these older men, who, I was recently told, was a bartender. For a long time, hunny had been like, she's not an alcoholic, but maybe she was. For a person as messed up as her, AA is not the best place to meet stable people. That's what I said all along.
The last time she was in town, a few years ago, she had him drive her to Martinez, where she confronted her mother in some horrible ways-- she said a lot of awful (and some wrong, from what I recall) things. She told her mother that she would be leaving town with her father, who had been a drunk and a perv or something. She said that if she didn't call in 48 hours or a week or something, her mother should report her missing. Well, she didn't call, so her mother called the police. Nicole eventually got freaked out or pissed off or something by her dad and returned to her life in Santa Fe or wherever she was living at the time.
In the last few months, N started calling more. She would call at like 10 or 11 at night, and hunny would talk to her without complaining about how it was past his bedtime- she was sort of like his little sister at this point. One night she called and said that she needed money for a lawyer, because she and her bf had gotten charged with some $400 (?) felony theft in a Sam's Club parking lot. (We found out this week that she had called him to come pick her up there, then came running out of the store with a stolen keyboard.) She was in jail for like 4 days, and when she came out, the bf had a restraining order against her (?) and was living in her apt. (?). She tried to get a restraining order on him, and once asked hunny to snoop on the guy's bank and cell phone accounts. In what world is it ok to do that?
Apparently she recently told hunny things like, she was going to a church, she had bought a gun, and she had changed her name to "Violet." Apparently the whole name change thing was to try to distance herself from what had happened with the last boyfriend. [she also exhibited a weird pattern of trying to create a whole new life for herself, even if she could only live it part-time, from time to time.) So there was a woman who she would go out to tea with, and the woman didn't know anything about her real life (she only knew Violet). This kind of thing made it very hard for her relatives to find out anything about her last few months.] She had also said that she was going to kill herself to make the ex feel bad. The last time he talked to her, she had said that, then said that she heard a noise downstairs. She hung up, and he might have been the last person to talk to her.
She was found dead by her landlord 1-3 days after she shot herself in the heart in her bathtub. Gruesome, but easier to clean up, no?
Her mother had to be the one to go deal with her stuff-- if she was so estranged from her family, how is it that her mother and sister were notified when she died? I think hunny is really upset that he wasn't the one who was notified. I am concerned that on some level, he blames himself for not reading the signs of an impending suicide. I am more like, whatever, the world is better off, and she saved herself years of suffering.
Tonight, Nicole's ex-bf C called after 10:00. I was so mad, because hunny had been falling asleep on the couch, and he doesn't have the boundaries needed to be like, "sure, I'd like to talk with you, but please call at a more decent hour, such as before 9pm." He's the dude who had been on nicole's windshield. The three of them had also had a threesome at some point. The guy is married now, so in my mind at least, he should have moved on from Nicole a bit.
So at this point, I am just so over this whole thing. I was like, "tell him that you were sleeping, and that you'll talk with him another time!" And hunny tells the dude what I said (while I am doing things like hanging up his raincoat so it will dry in the air instead of mold on the carpet, and picking up his clothes so he doesn't trip over them), and they talk about how what I said reminds them of Nicole. I guess I could have said it nicer or something, but someone's got to have some cojones and take care of hunny, cuz he's not about to do it himself. We talked about this after he got off the phone, and in the end, I left the room crying. The last fucking thing I want is to be compared to Nicole, even if he says things like "but I loved her, and I love you!" he did actually say that. And I let him survive.
I do not want to be put into the same category as someone like that. At all. here's where the borderline comes in and I say things like, well, I will just walk away from this relationship. (1. I do n't want to be like her in any way, so if I am acting at all like her, I need to be removed from any situations that might make me act like her) and 2. I am so disgusted that he would have been with someone so... so evil, and then with me-- am I that bad a person? That creepy? That crazy?
And to hunny, "Grow a pair!"
email me at haydees@gmail.com
Nicole had MS and depression and I think that she at least had borderline personality disorder, if not something else. Here's a bit of info about her: hunny met her in a bar. He was 23, she lied about her age (said she was like 22 and a college student) and was a 17 year-old in the foster care system (in some weird program where she lived in an apt. with another foster system teen in another town and managed to go to Berkeley High). So, when the kid tells you her real age, you turn around and run, because 1. sex with her is illegal, and especially: 2. liars suck -- right? Well, he didn't.
They stayed together for a few years, during which time she finished high school, convinced/made him go back to college, and got him into dressing in drag. Sometimes they would go to places like the Power Exchange and perform public sex acts (not necessarily togehter). At some point, she went to Europe as part of some arts program. She supposedly met some Count or something and he asked her to marry him or come back and travel with him or some shit. She didn't hear from him for 6 months or a year, and it turned out that he had been imprisoned due to pedophilia or something. She and hunny did things like go to art movies together.
At some point, she moved to New Mexico to go to college. I remember that he went to visit her once, and apparently that was because she was having her first MS episode (not diagnosable the first time, thus very scary for the patient), at like age 23 or 24. He came back with a really good haircut (that she "made" him get), and a denim jacket (hello, the 80's ended a while ago?! but he looks cute in it). She eventually finished school, after things like her house burning down, living with a crack addict, and living in homeless shelters.
He has told me some stories about her, like that the reason she and her sis were put into the foster care system when she was 12 was that they had stolen and crashed her mother's car. He once had a threesome with her and this dude M, who was her ex-bf, because she was bored one night and they drove an hour to where he lived. He told me last week that she and M had hooked up in a mental institution (she had tried to kill someone, he was despondent over an ex-gf) when she was like 13 and he was 17. She and her sister had done things like take a crowbar to the car of someone they thought was driving erratically. Her sister has like 3 kids, and apparently the sister didn't want her to meet them (scared). She once drove with an ex-bf who wouldn't give up on her on the windshield of her car. She dated women for a while, because she was sick of all the problems with men.
She came to visit once, I think 2.5 months before we got together. I remember that he, she, and L. had come over cuz there was some fiasco about their holiday party at R's. so I remember that I was like their 2nd choice for what to do that holiday night. L was in the other room on the phone with R, threatening to kill herself, and N. was in a horrible mood. I was making lentil soup, so I fed her some, and she calmed right down. He says that that night was when he realized that he wanted to go out with me. (I can be quite helpful to people who are having mental crises, as long as I am not having one at the time)
She and he stayed in touch over the years- usually she would need money, or at least money put on the phone card. Since her diagnosis and getting disability $, she seemed to be doing better, tho she did still have fucked up relationships, and awkward friendships with older men who always turned out to be attracted to her (duh!). She had started going to AA, on the advice of one of these older men, who, I was recently told, was a bartender. For a long time, hunny had been like, she's not an alcoholic, but maybe she was. For a person as messed up as her, AA is not the best place to meet stable people. That's what I said all along.
The last time she was in town, a few years ago, she had him drive her to Martinez, where she confronted her mother in some horrible ways-- she said a lot of awful (and some wrong, from what I recall) things. She told her mother that she would be leaving town with her father, who had been a drunk and a perv or something. She said that if she didn't call in 48 hours or a week or something, her mother should report her missing. Well, she didn't call, so her mother called the police. Nicole eventually got freaked out or pissed off or something by her dad and returned to her life in Santa Fe or wherever she was living at the time.
In the last few months, N started calling more. She would call at like 10 or 11 at night, and hunny would talk to her without complaining about how it was past his bedtime- she was sort of like his little sister at this point. One night she called and said that she needed money for a lawyer, because she and her bf had gotten charged with some $400 (?) felony theft in a Sam's Club parking lot. (We found out this week that she had called him to come pick her up there, then came running out of the store with a stolen keyboard.) She was in jail for like 4 days, and when she came out, the bf had a restraining order against her (?) and was living in her apt. (?). She tried to get a restraining order on him, and once asked hunny to snoop on the guy's bank and cell phone accounts. In what world is it ok to do that?
Apparently she recently told hunny things like, she was going to a church, she had bought a gun, and she had changed her name to "Violet." Apparently the whole name change thing was to try to distance herself from what had happened with the last boyfriend. [she also exhibited a weird pattern of trying to create a whole new life for herself, even if she could only live it part-time, from time to time.) So there was a woman who she would go out to tea with, and the woman didn't know anything about her real life (she only knew Violet). This kind of thing made it very hard for her relatives to find out anything about her last few months.] She had also said that she was going to kill herself to make the ex feel bad. The last time he talked to her, she had said that, then said that she heard a noise downstairs. She hung up, and he might have been the last person to talk to her.
She was found dead by her landlord 1-3 days after she shot herself in the heart in her bathtub. Gruesome, but easier to clean up, no?
Her mother had to be the one to go deal with her stuff-- if she was so estranged from her family, how is it that her mother and sister were notified when she died? I think hunny is really upset that he wasn't the one who was notified. I am concerned that on some level, he blames himself for not reading the signs of an impending suicide. I am more like, whatever, the world is better off, and she saved herself years of suffering.
Tonight, Nicole's ex-bf C called after 10:00. I was so mad, because hunny had been falling asleep on the couch, and he doesn't have the boundaries needed to be like, "sure, I'd like to talk with you, but please call at a more decent hour, such as before 9pm." He's the dude who had been on nicole's windshield. The three of them had also had a threesome at some point. The guy is married now, so in my mind at least, he should have moved on from Nicole a bit.
So at this point, I am just so over this whole thing. I was like, "tell him that you were sleeping, and that you'll talk with him another time!" And hunny tells the dude what I said (while I am doing things like hanging up his raincoat so it will dry in the air instead of mold on the carpet, and picking up his clothes so he doesn't trip over them), and they talk about how what I said reminds them of Nicole. I guess I could have said it nicer or something, but someone's got to have some cojones and take care of hunny, cuz he's not about to do it himself. We talked about this after he got off the phone, and in the end, I left the room crying. The last fucking thing I want is to be compared to Nicole, even if he says things like "but I loved her, and I love you!" he did actually say that. And I let him survive.
I do not want to be put into the same category as someone like that. At all. here's where the borderline comes in and I say things like, well, I will just walk away from this relationship. (1. I do n't want to be like her in any way, so if I am acting at all like her, I need to be removed from any situations that might make me act like her) and 2. I am so disgusted that he would have been with someone so... so evil, and then with me-- am I that bad a person? That creepy? That crazy?
And to hunny, "Grow a pair!"
email me at haydees@gmail.com
Friday, February 02, 2007
Has it really been that long?
I went back to work the first week in December. It's been good to be making money, but bad to not have any time for anything. I work there 4 days a week (getting home just before 9:00) and then do my cleaning gigs on Fridays and every other Saturday. I don't have time to follow up with the doctor about the arthritis in my hands, or the numbness in my feet, or anything else. I still don't have therapy, and right now I am really feeling the need for it. I haven't had time or energy to go to the gym in weeks. I am losing weight, but that could be because of loss of muscle. I'm not sure. I keep up with a bit less household stuff- like, I never go foodshopping anymore, because I don't have time. I think I am cleaning about the same amount.
I saw my psychiatrist this week, and she said I should be following up on my physical problems with my "primary care"-type doctor. I wish that she would recognize that my PMS is worse than most people's- I wonder if I have PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, i think it's called).
Right now I am so freaked out with anxiety about the job that I don't even want to go back there. There are two people who are total jerks, and I just don't want to be around them. One rubbed me the wrong way from the first time I saw him at orientation. He's a louder, more impulsive version of me, but because he's a guy, it seems, and as he's an old friend of one of the owners, he's there to stay. Even if he picks arguments with the other owner's brother. He's the lowest-level manager. The other one, well, I thought he was ok, if a bit dumb, and even a bit attractive, when we first started. But he gets angry sometimes, and generally he's not very nice, and he will rat you out to the bosses for the least little thing. He's creepy, and I just don't feel comfortable (or safe) being around him. Also, I was right, he's not so bright, but he does try to act like he is-- pretty sad. I met him when we were both there for our interviews. I asked him what job he was applying for, and he told me the title. I asked him what that job was (ie, what it would entail), since that title has a certain meaning with a certain kind of organization. He told me-- and he was wrong. The job that he got is a totally different kind of job, and I think he is a bit resentful, and that that is possibly why he is such a prick. His not having gotten the job he wanted shouldn't be my problem!
This week, we got an email about a certain aspect of how we communicate amongst the staff - sounding positive when we do it. And I was like, huh. I figured it was about the first guy up above. Nope. It was about me. I got pulled aside a few hours later. Why didn't I ask what it was that I had allegedly said? I did say, when he didn't offer any examples, that maybe the way that I over-enunciate certain people's names sounds weird? (there are 3 people whose names sound similar, and if i don't over-enunciate, as happened yesterday, they can't tell whose name i am saying). Fuck this shit, it makes me feel like I can't do anything right. My hunny has said at times that I don't take criticism very well. Well, it's even worse when I feel that the criticism is misplaced. Misdirected. I don't want to be around that.
There is a third person who I work with closer than the two up above, and he left an anti-woman statement on my computer once when he was covering me during my lunch break. We have dealt with that, although I don't know what exactly they did as a long-term punishment for him.
There are other things that I don't like, like how there's no paid sick time off, and how people (including me) will just come into work sick even though we work with people who have compromised immune systems, and how there's no supervision at all in the area I work in (which is why the 2nd guy up above takes it on himself to rat people out all the time). The two reasons above are also partly why the 3rd guy was so frustrated on the day he wrote that bad thing... I also don't like how there are no female managers. And I hate to sound like a total egotist, but I am way underutilized there, and I don't like that. I got one idea development project once, and then I noticed that the 3rd guy was working on it this week without me. (I am an experienced organizer, and this was about an organizing campaign) And there's more, but I'm not going to go into it right now. Also, it's heartbreaking to hear people talk about gardening, the indoor kind, when I just can't do that, and I can't do outdoor gardening due to the need for a secure place to do it. One that's not used as a bathroom.
I wonder if I will feel much more positive about the whole thing on Monday or once I get my period. But I really think that it is best for me to just quit. It's too uncomfortable in too many ways. It's not a "good fit," and I want to leave before it gets worse.
The only 3 things that the job has going for it are that it pays, the kind of business that it is, and the employee discount.
But I don't like to be sitting around on a Friday night, having an anxiety attack worrying about what else i may or may not have done wrong- what new ways of getting into trouble will crop up this week?
I know that I should really get another job right away, but I need to deal with some of my health issues first.
email me at haydees@gmail.com
I saw my psychiatrist this week, and she said I should be following up on my physical problems with my "primary care"-type doctor. I wish that she would recognize that my PMS is worse than most people's- I wonder if I have PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, i think it's called).
Right now I am so freaked out with anxiety about the job that I don't even want to go back there. There are two people who are total jerks, and I just don't want to be around them. One rubbed me the wrong way from the first time I saw him at orientation. He's a louder, more impulsive version of me, but because he's a guy, it seems, and as he's an old friend of one of the owners, he's there to stay. Even if he picks arguments with the other owner's brother. He's the lowest-level manager. The other one, well, I thought he was ok, if a bit dumb, and even a bit attractive, when we first started. But he gets angry sometimes, and generally he's not very nice, and he will rat you out to the bosses for the least little thing. He's creepy, and I just don't feel comfortable (or safe) being around him. Also, I was right, he's not so bright, but he does try to act like he is-- pretty sad. I met him when we were both there for our interviews. I asked him what job he was applying for, and he told me the title. I asked him what that job was (ie, what it would entail), since that title has a certain meaning with a certain kind of organization. He told me-- and he was wrong. The job that he got is a totally different kind of job, and I think he is a bit resentful, and that that is possibly why he is such a prick. His not having gotten the job he wanted shouldn't be my problem!
This week, we got an email about a certain aspect of how we communicate amongst the staff - sounding positive when we do it. And I was like, huh. I figured it was about the first guy up above. Nope. It was about me. I got pulled aside a few hours later. Why didn't I ask what it was that I had allegedly said? I did say, when he didn't offer any examples, that maybe the way that I over-enunciate certain people's names sounds weird? (there are 3 people whose names sound similar, and if i don't over-enunciate, as happened yesterday, they can't tell whose name i am saying). Fuck this shit, it makes me feel like I can't do anything right. My hunny has said at times that I don't take criticism very well. Well, it's even worse when I feel that the criticism is misplaced. Misdirected. I don't want to be around that.
There is a third person who I work with closer than the two up above, and he left an anti-woman statement on my computer once when he was covering me during my lunch break. We have dealt with that, although I don't know what exactly they did as a long-term punishment for him.
There are other things that I don't like, like how there's no paid sick time off, and how people (including me) will just come into work sick even though we work with people who have compromised immune systems, and how there's no supervision at all in the area I work in (which is why the 2nd guy up above takes it on himself to rat people out all the time). The two reasons above are also partly why the 3rd guy was so frustrated on the day he wrote that bad thing... I also don't like how there are no female managers. And I hate to sound like a total egotist, but I am way underutilized there, and I don't like that. I got one idea development project once, and then I noticed that the 3rd guy was working on it this week without me. (I am an experienced organizer, and this was about an organizing campaign) And there's more, but I'm not going to go into it right now. Also, it's heartbreaking to hear people talk about gardening, the indoor kind, when I just can't do that, and I can't do outdoor gardening due to the need for a secure place to do it. One that's not used as a bathroom.
I wonder if I will feel much more positive about the whole thing on Monday or once I get my period. But I really think that it is best for me to just quit. It's too uncomfortable in too many ways. It's not a "good fit," and I want to leave before it gets worse.
The only 3 things that the job has going for it are that it pays, the kind of business that it is, and the employee discount.
But I don't like to be sitting around on a Friday night, having an anxiety attack worrying about what else i may or may not have done wrong- what new ways of getting into trouble will crop up this week?
I know that I should really get another job right away, but I need to deal with some of my health issues first.
email me at haydees@gmail.com
Thursday, November 30, 2006
About that job...
I checked my email today. I don't check this gmail account very often,because I used to not ever get any messages, ie, there were no readers. But there are people out there! Maybe I'm not alone... ;) Thanks, everyone who wrote. I tried to write back to you, hopefully i got to several of you.
Did I tell you about my alleged job? It started the first week in October. I worked two days, got the flu, and missed three days. When I called about coming back in, they laid me off. They said that they would pay me 20% until they hired me back. Two weeks ago they called, on Tuesday, at about 2:30 and said that it was really busy (people were lined up to get in there) and they needed me. Great, I thought, now I've got to do all these things to get ready to go back to work the next day. Then they called at 7:30 that same night, and CANCELLED. "Sorry, false alarm." What the... ?
Last Monday I got a call from a lower-level manager, inviting me to the office holiday party at a restaurant the next night. I felt like I couldn't say no, even though it is a pretty big insult to be "invited" the day before. I was a bit nervous about being able to eat the kind of food that they had, and it did turn out to be low on vegetarian protein content, but I dealt (I had pre-eaten at home). When we got there, the manager who had done the invitation calls said that one couple had "cancelled." They hadn't cancelled- they had gone out of town for two days. They hadn't even gotten the invitation!! What a jerk. And guess what, everyone who had a partner had brought them, but I hadn't known that we could bring our partners. Mine couldn't have stayed out that late, anyhow.
So then yesterday when I left the gym, I noticed a message that I am going back to work next week. That's good. This morning or last night, I got an email from work that I should send in my hours. We had the folks coming to work on our internet connection late this afternoon. At about 5:00, I realized that I hadn't sent in my hours (and I had already missed one commitment and was trying to run out the door to another), so I called to tell him that my net connection was down. The email had said to get the hours in by the end of today, and that they'd have checks tomorrow as a one-time thing. I guess a lot of people must have expressed worries about paying their rent.
So when I called him, he told me that they aren't paying me the 20% anymore because they can't afford it. (Note that there were 27 people at the dinner last week, at roughly $30 each, and that works out to a lot of money). I said, but noone ever told me that! He was like, I thought (we) had. I was in total shock. I was like, even though it wasn't enough to pay rent, it was still money (ie, I needed it). I forget what he said then. But I said, I guess I'll see you Monday.
I feel like my trust in them has been broken. We had an oral contract, and they had been paying me all that time and everything! For a month and a half. How can I trust them again? How can I trust them to actually pay me when I do work 30-35 hours per week there?! Good thing I still planned on working on the 5th and possibly 6th workday, at housecleaning, so I can save money (if I'm still working at the real job). But even if they don't pay, and all i have is cleaning, $80-150 per week doesn't get very far. I should have a social security application process update soon for this blog.
After the phone conversation, I cried for like an hour. It was PMS, plus this extreme disappointment. My boss is someone I've known since 1999, from activist meetings. AND I cleaned his house for 2 years, and took pictures at his wedding... Can I really trust a business that is run so poorly that they can't even communicate with me? A business that can't afford to pay me $350 per month or whatever if was, to wait for my job to start again? A workplace that can afford to have about 40% of the workers be managers? Did I mention that the only woman manager was fired a month after the place opened?! (let's blame the woman for all our problems! great!)
What do I do, do I try to find another job? Do I work there, and after a few months try to organize a union? Would people there really have solidarity with one another? Some people, including one person that i know of who is not a manager, took paycuts. As far as I know, I will be getting my full pay. You cannot imagine the shitfit I will throw if I get shafted in one way or another by these people. And you know it IS going to happen. I wish I could just have had an uneventful 2 years working there, save up $10,000, and move on. But it has all started so poorly that I can't see that happening.
PS- Turkey day was really awkward, i went to dinner at some old friends' house. a woman who was my good friend but stopped returning my phone calls 4 months ago was there. nice to rub some salt in old wounds. i mostly tried to ignore her, but she did say something like, "so you didn't move to the farm after all?" no duh! I figured that out in July-August, and she would have known if she had returned any of my phone calls back then.
email me at haydees@gmail.com
Did I tell you about my alleged job? It started the first week in October. I worked two days, got the flu, and missed three days. When I called about coming back in, they laid me off. They said that they would pay me 20% until they hired me back. Two weeks ago they called, on Tuesday, at about 2:30 and said that it was really busy (people were lined up to get in there) and they needed me. Great, I thought, now I've got to do all these things to get ready to go back to work the next day. Then they called at 7:30 that same night, and CANCELLED. "Sorry, false alarm." What the... ?
Last Monday I got a call from a lower-level manager, inviting me to the office holiday party at a restaurant the next night. I felt like I couldn't say no, even though it is a pretty big insult to be "invited" the day before. I was a bit nervous about being able to eat the kind of food that they had, and it did turn out to be low on vegetarian protein content, but I dealt (I had pre-eaten at home). When we got there, the manager who had done the invitation calls said that one couple had "cancelled." They hadn't cancelled- they had gone out of town for two days. They hadn't even gotten the invitation!! What a jerk. And guess what, everyone who had a partner had brought them, but I hadn't known that we could bring our partners. Mine couldn't have stayed out that late, anyhow.
So then yesterday when I left the gym, I noticed a message that I am going back to work next week. That's good. This morning or last night, I got an email from work that I should send in my hours. We had the folks coming to work on our internet connection late this afternoon. At about 5:00, I realized that I hadn't sent in my hours (and I had already missed one commitment and was trying to run out the door to another), so I called to tell him that my net connection was down. The email had said to get the hours in by the end of today, and that they'd have checks tomorrow as a one-time thing. I guess a lot of people must have expressed worries about paying their rent.
So when I called him, he told me that they aren't paying me the 20% anymore because they can't afford it. (Note that there were 27 people at the dinner last week, at roughly $30 each, and that works out to a lot of money). I said, but noone ever told me that! He was like, I thought (we) had. I was in total shock. I was like, even though it wasn't enough to pay rent, it was still money (ie, I needed it). I forget what he said then. But I said, I guess I'll see you Monday.
I feel like my trust in them has been broken. We had an oral contract, and they had been paying me all that time and everything! For a month and a half. How can I trust them again? How can I trust them to actually pay me when I do work 30-35 hours per week there?! Good thing I still planned on working on the 5th and possibly 6th workday, at housecleaning, so I can save money (if I'm still working at the real job). But even if they don't pay, and all i have is cleaning, $80-150 per week doesn't get very far. I should have a social security application process update soon for this blog.
After the phone conversation, I cried for like an hour. It was PMS, plus this extreme disappointment. My boss is someone I've known since 1999, from activist meetings. AND I cleaned his house for 2 years, and took pictures at his wedding... Can I really trust a business that is run so poorly that they can't even communicate with me? A business that can't afford to pay me $350 per month or whatever if was, to wait for my job to start again? A workplace that can afford to have about 40% of the workers be managers? Did I mention that the only woman manager was fired a month after the place opened?! (let's blame the woman for all our problems! great!)
What do I do, do I try to find another job? Do I work there, and after a few months try to organize a union? Would people there really have solidarity with one another? Some people, including one person that i know of who is not a manager, took paycuts. As far as I know, I will be getting my full pay. You cannot imagine the shitfit I will throw if I get shafted in one way or another by these people. And you know it IS going to happen. I wish I could just have had an uneventful 2 years working there, save up $10,000, and move on. But it has all started so poorly that I can't see that happening.
PS- Turkey day was really awkward, i went to dinner at some old friends' house. a woman who was my good friend but stopped returning my phone calls 4 months ago was there. nice to rub some salt in old wounds. i mostly tried to ignore her, but she did say something like, "so you didn't move to the farm after all?" no duh! I figured that out in July-August, and she would have known if she had returned any of my phone calls back then.
email me at haydees@gmail.com
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