Honest job post

WPC Plant Shit Supervisor

While most jobs involve a fairly large amount of shit, this is the first one I've seen that comes right out and puts it in the name.

the cold, yes, that one

I have "the cold" again. I fought with this thing all god damned Fall it feels like and finally, while I was totally unemployed with no interviews or even good looking jobs to apply to, I was not sick with it.

Now, this week, I have two interviews. One is a job that I really really (really) want. And last week, I got "the cold" again. Today, I woke up 3 hours before my first interview (at the job I don't really really want but can't afford not to interview for) drenched in sweat and feeling like someone filed all around the insides of my trachea and pharynx. "The cold" is not your typically stuffy head blurg thing, it's unique in that it is, more than anything else, quite painful. I can hide a fairly large amount of pain for short times, however, the cold - since it is a cold - includes sniffles and gurgles and coughing. This makes it harder to hide. My instinct when sick is to not go out, thus there is no need to hide anything. But man, I NEED a job.

Since developing a few chronic health problems, I find that I have a sort of smoldering resentment for people who bring their nasty cold out in public for all of us to share in. Sure, some of them might be in a crappy position - no sick time or some other compelling reason (like desperately needed job interviews) to be out and about showering the populace with noxious bacteria, mycoplasms, or viruses. But I know there are people out there who just get up and go with their cold for really no good reason whatsoever. Explicitly, I doubt they give a second thought to it. Implicitly, I suspect these people are waiting to get an award for perfect attendance.

E.g., yesterday, I was at the public library checking out a new (for me) book. There were quite a few people there including a woman with two kids. The woman wrapped up at the check out desk and after standing around looking blank for a few seconds, the kids started to move on to follow her to the exit. The boy paused though then turned to face the rest of us waiting in line and let loose several big coughs at us.

Not only did he fail to cover his mouth, I saw that there was no evidence at all of even a half hearted attempt to appear to cover it. You know, the slightly raised arm or hand that doesn't make it to the face but that comes up nearly reflexively in someone who was at least taught manners. When I see this shit, it's all I can do to not say something. The only thing that stops me is that I am well aware of the weird social approach we as a society have to illness and sick behavior and I know that in this context, I'd be the nutjob who is "paranoid" about germs while they'd be the normal people who don't let being sick stop or even slow them down enough to cover their fucking mouths.

I emailed my first interviewer this morning to let him know I had the cold, tell him I was still interested in interviewing today, but offered to reschedule if he didn't want to share in my cold. This is not a move I was happy to be making (as I said above, I know my views on public health and cold sharing are minority at best) but truly, I cannot go sit in what will probably be a small room with someone for what will probably be at least 45 minutes and quite likely share this wretched thing with him. Sure, odds are he's one of the masses of idiots who march around sick waiting for the perfect attendance medal. But what if he's HIV positive or otherwise immunocompromised? What if he has a spouse, kid, or parent he cares for who is on chemotherapy? What if like me, he just had some really important things to do this week, things that could affect his life in a very significant way?

vocabulary

New word, courtesy of my fella

Luddsite \ˈlə-ˌsīt\ - noun. A website which seems to be designed by and for technologically disinclined individuals.

Usage. "The Luddite Reader continues to track luddite films, books, and music, along with news and luddish content links, at its luddsite"

(the source of this quote has a link to the luddsite which directs, rather appropriately, to a page full o'spam.)

unsettled

And disquieted. This is how I feel.

It's not a particularly intense feeling, but it is nonetheless compelling, like a sound you can hear but not well enough to identify either its origin or cause.

thunder and lightning and snow

That was yesterday. It was only one roll of thunder and one flash of lightening at the height of the storm, but for those of you who have not experienced the snow thunderstorm, let me tell you, it's a bit creepy. I think we had a winter with thunder snowstorms a few years ago, after a very stormy Fall (possibly this was the same year as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita). Come to think of it, this might be why it disturbed me so much last night.

My usual seasonal mix of antipathy and apathy has struck, finally. I had been dodging it while I was working but now that I'm home and my days are much less structured (alternating between hours long job searching, speed reading, and futzing around with the occasional photoshop or cooking project), I find I haven't got as many places or tasks in which to hide from the "Hap-happiest season of all".

A___ and I did get a tree (courtesy of cjblue, thanks!). It's an artificial tree, which suits me fine since our place is a bit small this year for a real one (baseboard heating and real trees in a crowded apartment are a combo I'd like to avoid). But very soon after getting it - before we got a chance to get it out of the box - A____ hurt his arm. The injury meant strict no lifting limits for most of the past week. Today, now that his arm has been feeling better for a whole 24 hours, he's off to dig out the cars, after which we maybe will do the furniture shuffling that is necessary to even get started with the tree. Snow shoveling is a less enjoyable but necessary use for the newly and barely recovered limb. The problem is, although A___ seems to think he'll be fine, I am not convinced his arm is recovered enough to do either let alone both.

The situation is a familiar one for me, although I am hardly ever on this side of it. I'm usually the one deciding how to use my own small physical exertion allowances. I am happy the joint upon which the choice to do this or that (or both) hinges is not mine for once, however I am sorry for A_____ because I know how much it sucks to have a limited physical resource with which to (even attempt to) satisfy wants AND needs.

In the more here and now, practical side of things, I am really hoping A____ doesn't reinjure his arm shoveling. There's a shit load of snow out there.

In part because I want my place to be nice and less depressing and in part because I'd be overcome with guilt if I sat on my ass doing nothing while A___ busted his ass (and shouolder) shoveling, my job for today is to clean up a bit inside, move and carry the light shit for setting up the tree. While I find my rational side is quite motivated by wanting to feel like an equal partner here and while I'd like very much for my home to be pretty and calming, I am finding it very difficult to muster up that spark I need to get up and going.

This is why at these times, I've learned not to wait for a spark of insipration. If I did that, I'd be waiting a long god damned time. If those totally shitty years between 16 and 22 taught me anything, it's that I am not going to get a burst of energy which I can ride into a spirited and friendly chore-doing frenzy. Nope. At times like this, to get my apathetic, soggy, weary self up and moving, I find it's better to think of it as something that needs to be done, like a job. That is, there's plenty of disinteresting shit out there that I would do simply because it offered me a paycheck. And so this particular bit of disinteresting shit is something I will do because I believe that later on me, me who will not be in such a crappy mood, will appreciate having a clean apartment with something pretty to look at.

happy cat

Oh my cat is happy. He has a new canned food. Nature's Variety Instinct Lamb, Rabbit, and Venison formula. He digs all of them, and so far all of them are kind to his gut. Pending lab results from his next vet appointment or a turn on the gut symptoms, I think we have a winner.

Two

I've applied to two jobs since Friday. One is about 12 miles away (through Hartford, blech) and is in insurance (because that is what you have in Hartford) and one is 3.5 miles away and is in academic support (advising).

Can you guess which one I am hoping I get?

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

that time of year

Just waiting for the "Two A holes Sell a Senate Seat" skit.

searching

On with the job search. My temp position has ended, both blessing and curse. Really it's more of a curse but with a bright side. The bright side is of course that the people I worked for/with were the sort who can't get the hell out of their own way. K-cop and her buddy, Queen B (with all that B stands for) were chronic thorns in my side. They were each causes and embodiments of much that was wrong culturally with that office, however I can't say the "big boss lady" didn't hold some responsibility in the mess that was the office climate and overall philosophy of "let's just assume everything will go according to plan". I don't get that mentality. It doesn't fit with my own experiences in any domain and I can't imagine running an office like that. Sure, sometimes you can't cover all the bases. It might be impractical or impossible. Time constraints, personnel allocation, and budget may conspire against preparing for possible outcomes. And some shit is just straight up unpredictable. However, at this past job I witnessed some seriously blatant head in the sand, grossly shortsighted behaviors which left me simply stunned and left everyone scrambling when the shit inevitably hit the fan.

And so I am somewhat happy to be done there. I am very unhappy to be unemployed though. Another day on the internet, surfing the job boards and updating my online resumes and candidate info sites (think PeopleSoft but worse). I just rewrote a cover letter, my entire resume, and revised my work experiences on this god awful hosting site called Taleo. Holy crap that thing was a pain in the ass....speaking of the link between poor business culture poor business practice, it seems Taleo sucks in ways beyond my limited job seeking perspective.

While I am off and in need of projects, I've decided to look for cat food alternatives for my cat Max. Max has IBD, probably some food intolerances. For some time now, he's been on a limited ingredient/novel protein diet. We had him on Hill's prescription diet D/D, rabbit, venison, and duck. He tends to eat only one kind, then after some time, he refuses it and we need to switch to a different flavor. A few years ago now, he stopped eating the D/D altogether so at the advice of our vet, we switched him to Royal Canin's limited ingredient/novel protein diet. He ate that happily for a while and with less good (but still not horrible) digestive results than with the Hill's. Then he started getting bad in terms of digestive symptoms (as a friend calls it, "Pandora's Cat Box") and also constitutional symptoms. We took him to the vet and he had some funny blood chemistry values. So back to Hill's, which he ate as if it were new and which agreed with him better. But now he's refusing the Hill's again to the point where he's losing weight. He's hungry, he wants food, but not that food apparently.

We have been punting with just feeding him meats he can eat "au jus", mostly consisting of shredded pork with water and fish oil since he has a demonstrable intolerance to chicken, turkey, and beef. But this is not going to give him the nutrients he needs, moveover, he's still losing weight. I took some time on Monday and Tuesday to research cat food that meets the following criteria:
Has no chicken, turkey, or beef
Has no glutten/wheat or corn products

The first we tried was California Natural salmon and sweet potato. This was a bit of a risk since I suspect the cat doesn't do well with salmon. However, it wasn't clear if his past salmon problems were a result of salmon alone, salmon in combination, or were simply due to some other product in the salmon based food he'd eaten in the past. Yeah, well, turns out that salmon is apparently a definite part of the problem. So no more of that. This morning we are on to Nature's Variety Instinct for cats. The one I've selected is Lamb. It's in no way a limited ingredient formula, nor does it have a single source of protein, however it has none of the items I know or strongly suspect Max to have an intolerance to.

So far, he's had most of a can and not pooped it all out. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

thanks

Thanksgiving. I ate too much, not just turkey and sweet potato puff and mashed potatoes and apple almond stuffing but also pies, more pies, birthday cake, and french toast casserole the next day. This practice continued for most of the weekend. Ah...food, I love you but my gut does not. The price started this morning with a wicked stomach ache which has continued all damned day.



Food and my gut aside, it was overall pretty nice. Family stuff, but this is a constant so we can factor it out for now. A___ and I went to Provincetown on Cape Cod (MA) to spend it with my brother and my sister.

The traffic didn't suck too much and it was a good day for a drive. A___ had never been to the Cape. PTown is on the very tip of Cape Cod and getting to it kind of screws with your sense of direction (if you have one). So although you're on the east coast, you can watch the sun set over the water on account of having spiraled around to face the mainland. It's a nice place to visit in the off season - a bit chilly but still not outright cold and quiet in that nearly spooky but mostly contemplative way.








So I am thankful for having had nice long weekend before my last week at The Job. I hope you all (those of you in the U.S.) had a nice holiday.

tgiw

I used to work the weekend evening shift on a (largely elective) inpatient surgical unit at a small community hospital. My shifts were much like work was this week. Very, very quiet. I was one of four employees in yesterday, the rest took it off. It's a school, classes aren't in session, etc. If the job is to primarily serve the students, then there isn't much to do. However, if the job is primarily to wrassle with payroll and think of creative ways to solve the "where DID that person's paycheck go?" problems and write brief yet informative memos about it, then there's ALWAYS something to do at big F.U.

Today, I will be one of three. I'm sure to get lots of memo writing done.

grey tuesday

It's raining and gross out and I'm sick - a hard to drag myself out of bed kind of day. So here's some humor. Enjoy.

It's Thursday

Today is officially "Don't take shit too seriously" day. It is for me at least. I was hoping to try this earlier in the week, but the hormonal storm that is my period on progesterone made it impossible to take anything at a level lower than very, very seriously.

My arms hurt, my job is ending, one of the few people I like at work has been told to stop talking to me (long story, I'll write later when I actually know more about it), the holidays are coming, I dislike christmas on a less bad year but this year I think I'm really going to want to drop kick some lawn ornament Santas. I can feel all this stress over things which are largely out of my control building in me. And so today I've resolved to try to let shit go, and what can't be let go, I'm going to try to laugh off. I don't have to take the job too seriously because now that I know there's no way in hell I'm going perm because they have a bias against temps, my work consists of not fucking things up too much. This is liberating if approached correctly. E.g., most if not all of my problems with K-cop result not simply from her being her but from me being me too. I want to assume that people have logical reasons for doing shit. When I discover evidence that they don't, it just blows my mind so completely. Moreover, when I believed that there was even an eensty chance of this job being permanent or longer term temp (or of these people being good connections to find another job), I cared more about not following K-cop's effed up reasoning.

The big problem with this kind of reaction is that I have the anti-poker face. I can't keep the look of what I imagine is shock tinged with outrage and/or disgust and/or contempt off it. This does not help matters because even idiots like K-cop can read that level and type of emotion when it's displayed right there at eye level.

So if K-cop is in my face with her moronic crap today, rather than start down this path to horror at the largely unexamined self serving idiocy, I'm just going to laugh at her.

To get me started on not taking shit too seriously day, I thought I'd share this video.

revenge of the lazy

Been scorned? Dumped, duped, hurt, or treated in a way that made you sob not just from the hurt or harm but the utter injustice? Then you've probably had a revenge fantasy. (Not necessarily an endorsement of the entire content, here's a free online article from the American Journal of Psychology on (compulsive) revenge fantasies in psychotherapy)

The kind that is most compelling for me is the idea that I will get a front row seat to the object of my vengeance's trauma at the hands of fate. I think this appeals most to me for several reasons.
1. Low investment for me.
2. Low risk of me getting caught or hurt in the process or of me causing hurt to someone else who doesn't deserve it.
3. The feeling of cosmic justice that comes from it. Whether you chalk it up to a higher power, fate, furies, or simply the great wheel spinning its way back around, the sense that - yes sometimes the asshole gets what's coming to him is (for me) life affirming in some small way. The article I linked to above calls this "pride at being on the side of some spiritual primal justice".

Is it small to feel that way though? Maybe sometimes, if what was done to you was a small or slight offense. But what about when it wasn't?

I have absorbed the socialization that it is petty and mean to experience a happy warm feeling of knowing someone who hurt you is hurt. I know this because I do have that momentary flash of something like guilt when I enjoyed, say, hearing that a faculty member was getting divorced*. When I heard about his divorce, I smiled. Then I thought "gosh, am I a shitty person for enjoying this? Maybe I shouldn't be enjoying it" I tabled the guilt and got on with enjoying it more or less quietly and have continued to warm myself by the glow of the thought now and then when I encounter this man directly or indirectly, and remember that he so casually invalidated so much suffering I had gone through, however Bubblewench recently held a contest which has provoked me to return to the issue.

The responses could be thought of as a continuum which runs from the episodic little schadenfreude moments to revenge fantasy to actual revenge acts. I'm not sure they are all of a piece emotionally or societally, but culturally, my experience is that we (especially women) are taught that all of the above are bad because nice ladies don't do or feel things like that. Underlying that message is reasoning along the lines of nice ladies don't get intentionally hurt, raped, hit, or oppressed, so if this did happen to you, it's probably your own fault and you've got no one to blame but yourself so stop "playing the victim card"/"grinding an axe"/"holding a grudge", etc.

I vehemently disagree with that reasoning. Also, I take issue with the notion that all feelings of vengefulness are all bad, although I do so cautiously. I do believe that consuming vengeance is not healthy for the person who is consumed. What's more, for me personally, the thought of my moving from a revenge fantasy to actually committing a deliberate, premeditated, and for lack of a better term, large vengeful act makes me feel a bit discomforted (I'm not talking about not holding the elevator or stuff on that level). Is my feeling due to internalized cultural norm, fear of getting caught, or does this really go against my principles and morals? Now that I put it out there, I have to say I think it's mostly pragmatics for me. Either that or just serious laziness.

With most things, I weigh cost with product, or risk of cost with promise of product. I could be high minded and say the gain is restoring the balance, taking down a villian, etc. Sometimes my desires for vengeance are born at least partly of this but it would be absurdly arrogant to say that is the entirety of my motivation. Truly, the (desired) product is also in no small part that feeling I described in (3) above. That a bad guy didn't get to make me feel bad or hurt me without getting hurt him or herself. And to be certain of that, I'd either have to do something really expressly bad to this person or I'd have to do some serious homework and legwork to calculate a specific torment which would, to anyone else, not be a big deal (best example: My brother says when our father is old and in a nursing home, he will be sure to drop by at least once a week and force the man to watch Three's Company reruns for hours on end). The former is likely to violate my morals, and the latter is, well, work. It's time and energy and possibly cost I could spend on something else that might make me feel good without being about this asshole. With most cases where someone's gotten a chunk of me, if I take the time to think about it, I find I don't want to give that person MORE of me. Plotting is time, and so even if I have the desire to wreak vengeance on someone in a wily and well executed way, I peeter out as time passes and I realize I'm letting this asshole take up more of me and my time.

But if I stumble across an opportunity which is not a lot of effort, isn't horrible, and has a pretty good chance of making that person's life difficult even for a minute without screwing someone else over in the doing, I am quite likely to jump right in and do it. Low cost, low risk (to me and to unimplicated bystanders), high probability of result.

* This was a faculty member who just one year previous, while I was recovering from a second surgery for endometriosis, had trashed me to other grad students for what he saw as my lollygagging my way through a PhD program. Lollygagging is not what I'd call getting divorced, needing 2 surgeries for extrapelvic endometriosis, having undertreated neurolyme for a year before a month of PICC IV antibiotics (the placement of which line was a disaster and a half), developing what looks to be an autoimmune disease and all that comes with it, "breaking up" with my toxic parents, and dealing with a dear family member who has life threatening substance and medical problems.

wambulance

I do not want to go to work today.

classless

K-Cop and I were working on a request for facilities yesterday. She asked me to come in while she did it, I guess because she forgot the short but detailed email I sent about the request (the one that said I had tried to log in to do the order myself but the system denied my account...the joys of temping). I mentioned this and she responded "Oh that's right. Well, if you do it with me then you'll know how to do it next time". I didn't bother untangling that little logic knot she had thrown out. I said "Ok" and sat down in a chair in her office.

Since I was involved, when she stopped (and she did, often) while writing what turned out to be about two sentences worth of instructions (i.e. "please do X to Y in manner Z such that Q will result. Thank you."), I offered wording. Toward the end she was at a loss as to how to conclude. "Do you think they'll understand?" she asked. "Yeah. But we could write something like 'Please call if further details or more information is needed'." She typed "Please call if any questions", quipping to me as she wrote it "Ha, it's not like anyone THERE is going to really READ it anyhow!" And then she laughed really hard and loud, and she laughed alone, which gave her statement an extra creepy and awkward effect.

Now, you should know this comes on the heels of her telling me that these folks are very nice and very accommodating, complete with a little vignette about how one guy went out of his way to do this and that, etc. on this one order. So to me, these sound like people who would take the time to read something. To me, it also sounds like K-Cop believes they are the kind of people who take the time. Then this leaves the source of her mirth, or at least the basis of her jest, to be the likelihood of someone in facilities READING, or at least READING at the level where they'd distinguish between our phrasings. Maybe she thought it comically likely that the facilities staff member would get to the embedded clause and lose all of their minimal intellectual function.

I don't know for sure that this was what she thought, but it or something like it seemed most plausible to me based on the context, the office culture, and what I know about her (K-Cop has a thing about grammar and punctuation (which she has fused together in her mind to be the same, a practice which is a serious pet peeve of mine) and makes vocal judgments about the intellect of people who commit cardinal "grammar" sins like misusing commas and...and well, I could go on but the point is that I fucking hate when someone gets all high and mighty about that shit, especially someone who doesn't know the difference between grammar, diction, usage, and punctuation).

What pisses me off is that she assumes I share her classist attitude because I have degrees. No, I'm not reaching there. She's remarked on it.

November 12, 2008

Today is the first day that same sex couples can marry in Connecticut. In October, the Connecticut supreme court heard a case arguing that same sex civil unions (which had been legal) did not bestow the same rights and privileges as marriage. It's sort of the "separate but equal" thing.

And speaking of separate but equal, I was sincerely unhappy with what I heard in the news about black support for the same sex marriage ban in California. It wasn't that long ago that our laws used marriage restrictions as a means to further a racist agenda. It's not at all nice to see that people have managed to convince themselves that while bigotry on the basis of race is wrong, bigotry on the basis of sexual preference (and sex) is apparently fine, possibly even thought of as justified in the minds of over half of California, Arizona, and Florida voters*.

I don't like the state of Connecticut but I gotta say, today I'm quite happy to live here.

* And Arkansas, where voters passed "a...measure banning unmarried couples from adopting or serving as foster parents."

plain ol'idiot

(from Palin blames Bush policies for GOP defeat, AP November 10, 2008)
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, amid speculation she'll run for president in four years, blamed Bush administration policies for the defeat last week of the GOP ticket and prayed she wouldn't miss "an open door" for her next political opportunity.

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door," Palin said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.

drunk idiots

Cops have tough time finding sober driver for boy
Associated Press, November 10, 2008
SCHERERVILLE, Ind. – Indiana state police said that after a mother was arrested for drunken driving, the three relatives who came to pick up her 1-year-old son also had all been drinking.
...
The boy's father arrived later to pick him up, but officers determined he was intoxicated and also arrested him on a drunken driving charge.

Police said the boy's grandparents then arrived. Both of them also had been drinking, state police said, but the grandmother who was driving was not over the legal limit, so officers escorted them home with the child.

inihibit

I'm not blogging too much these days. First it was from lack of time. Now that I've finally slipped into a groove with work, it's pain. My hands and forearms are SO damned sore. Did I do something to make this happen? This is the first thing I wonder and it's actually more about self empowerment than not in that if I did it, I can undo it. At least this is how my not very explicit reasoning goes with things like this.

"Things like this" is the uneloquent term for a lengthening list of physical ailments. To say that it brings me down to add a new sometimes disabling habit of my body to the list of sometimes (or always) disabling habits of my body is the understatement of all understatements. Here's the latest impact. While this pain was at its peaks (there were several), I could not hold a book to read let alone type or push a pen to express myself in writing. I have been literate and writing for so long that this feels like taking away my air.

Ah crap. As with so many other difficult things in my life, I find anger is safer. Yeah, how's that? When you can't fall apart, anger is safer than desolation because anger can impel you to action where as the more sorrowful feelings don't (usually). So who am I pissed off at? I'm going to go with the insurance company for canceling my refill of pain medication in the middle of the very badly needed refill this weekend. I berated the pharmacy staff into giving me three free pills (see, anger is useful) but now I have to call my GYN doctor to have him do the authorization and he's going to be like "?" because who the hell is he to comment on the GI stuff that makes this particular pain med necessary? In my idealistic view of things, he could and therefore SHOULD be able to comment on it what with him being a fucking MD and all, but I know better than to expect this. The division of labor in the practice of medicine has the effect of treating the patient as if s/he were a set of disembodied parts, thus my gynecologist won't comment on the need for me to take a selective COX2 inhibitor rather than the old school NSAIDs because there's nothing about my lady junk that makes this necessary.

Ok, so I can add pissed off at my doctors to the list of how I'm going to deal with these feelings. But that was a freebie. I'm pissed off at my doctors any time I have to stop and think for more than three minutes about them or certain intersections of my health and my support.

Shit, time to go to work.