It's Over Already?

It's amazing how quickly time passes when I am not at work. Ten days just whooshed by and here I am preparing to go back to work tomorrow and face a shit-storm. Here's how it went down: the boy and I decided to go camping. We gathered our gear, bought the food and booze, rented a car, and off we went. I told everyone in my office that I would not be able to respond to any messages until we returned. Right in the middle of the trip, I get a message telling me that one of our clients did not renew their contract and would be pulling out November 9. This was not a surprise, and I was more than a little shocked to hear that the office was upset about it. These are the same clients who, for the past year or so, have not paid my company for services rendered above and beyond the scope of the contract. People in my office have been complaining that they are working for nothing, even though they still get their paycheques, and now they claim to be upset at losing the client that wasn't generating any income for the company? Maybe it's me, but I just don't see what the problem is. Not having their shit to deal with means we can focus on our clients that do pay.

More than that though, is why on earth my office thought it was a good idea to call me while on vacation to tell me this. I am, quite frankly, very surprised that I was informed while on vacation. The whole office knew that I needed time away from this shit, so why did they call me and tell me? Because they are women, that's why. It doesn't matter that I have never taken more than an extended weekend off in the past four years I have worked there. What matters is that I wasn't there and they had to deal with the shit themselves instead of shucking it onto me. So they did the next best thing: attempted to ruin my vacation. What they didn't count on though, was my bitchiness surfacing before my compassion.

It's not that I don't care about the lost client; I do. I understand that this is more of a morale issue than a dollars and cents issue and that losing a client makes your employees wary. Despite that, I ignored the call. I sent a quick message letting the office know I got their email and shut off my phone. Then we went to the beach and frolicked in the water because we were on vacation. Remember? VACATION. Geez.

My vacation was amazing, despite the obvious attempts of my office-mates to ruin it. I didn't set my alarm at all and was not woken up once by texts or facebook messages. Tomorrow, though, I go back to work. I am not looking forward to it because I am not in the right place anymore. I need a change, I need something different and although I have a plan, I know it won't be a quick and easy process. Losing this client has shown me that the company I work for might not be the best fit for me, simply because there were a few key things that could have been done to prevent them from leaving. Things that my boss should have seen and acted on and didn't. Because of that, I can safely assume that she was prepared to let this client go but wanted them to sever ties. Kind of like making your boy- or girlfriend hate you so they break up with you because you are too chicken to say the words. Not the kind of behaviour I expected from my boss, someone I used to look up to.

I am more than a little disappointed with the way this whole thing was handled. Then again, it isn't my company and I have no say in the way it is run. That being said, I certainly do not need to stay in a environment where situations such as this arise.

So Very Close

There are a lot of things that bother me. People who throw their trash on the floor of buses and subways, people who don't give their seats to a wretchedly old man/woman, and people who take their strollers on the bus first thing in the morning during rush hour. (*fist raised, shaking in anger) I think that perhaps one of the things that fills me completely and utterly with rage each time I am confronted by it is when people who are normally smart act dumb to either get out of doing something or to avoid being caught doing something they know they shouldn't have done.

I am sitting here at work trying to get shit done so I can finally go on VACATION (which I haven't done in about 3 years, fuckholes) and I am doing all I can not to punch people out. Not only did the boss' son waltz in, to check up on everybody because he is a piece of trash, but he stopped by my desk to 'have a quick chat'. I hate this guy. Seriously. He is like every other white, privileged piece of shit that watches 'Jersey Shores'. Ugh. So he wants to chat. To me. Knowing how busy I am because he knows that I am going on vacation, he starts to ask me questions about where I am going and who I am going with. After a minute or so of no response from me, he reminds me that his mom pays me. I snap my head around and say,'That's right, fuckface, YOUR MOM pays me. Now, either make yourself useful and get me a coffee or get the fuck out of my face and let me work so YOUR MOM can continue to pay your tuition.' He left without getting me coffee. Sigh. I really wanted a coffee, too.

Now, I have a bit of a temper and usually I can keep it under control. Today however, I was not in the mood to play nice with this guy because he's a waste of carbon. I have had enough of people trying to tell me what to do and make me feel bad for questioning their motives. Enough is enough. He stared at me, open-mouthed, with a look of 'you can't say things like that to me. My mom employs you'. Guess what? I can and I will because when you stand so very close behind me while I am trying to work, it's both invasive and creepy. And I am pretty sure your mom would not like that, considering that she is an advocate for women's rights. Imagine how she'd feel, knowing her prized son is actually a douche-bag who likes to try and cow women. He's done that to a few women in the office already and I refuse to put up with that shit. I have enough creepy shit in my life without dealing with that shit at work too.

I have had enough of people. This vacation cannot come soon enough.

Really? You Actually Believe That?

I am able to do something very strange and weird. It's called 'have a conversation and not necessarily have to make sure the other person agrees with me at all times'. Because I lack the gene responsible for making sure everyone around me agrees with me 100%, I don't usually get into conversations with people simply because of the level of frustration I experience.

While at work, I overheard a snippet of conversation and before I even opened my mouth I knew this would only end in tears. One of my co-workers was having difficulty with her email. For some reason, it wasn't loading and instead of doing the normal troubleshooting suggestion (restart), she decided to fly into the IT guy's office and yell at him. Because clearly, it's his fault. To his credit, he sat there and took the stream of verbal abuse and when it was done, he asked her if she had restarted her computer. That set her off even more, as essentially she feels she shouldn't have to restart; her email should just magically boot up all the time no matter how old and outdated our system is.

She came into my office afterwards, just to bitch and complain. After she vented, I asked her if she knew how old the system was. She didn't and when I told her, her response was, 'So what? It's not my problem the owners can't put more money into upgrading. How are we supposed to do our jobs when we don't have the correct tools?'

Good point. I agreed and said that despite that fact, I thought her anger was misdirected and that if she felt that strongly she should take it up with the boss and not the IT guy. He does the best he can with what he has.

You know when you point out something to someone and you think that they understand because they nod their head and move away without saying anything but then it turns out later that they actually disagree with what you said but didn't want to say because then that would cause a CONFLICT and everyone knows that CONFLICTS cannot be resolved by talking.

I found out a little later on purely by accident that she didn't agree. I walked into her area and she was trashing me to my co-workers. I waited until she was finished and then cleared my throat. When she turned around, I said to her that if she didn't agree with me that was fine but that I would have respected her a lot more had she just told me then. I waited to give her an opportunity to say something and when she didn't, I said that she was probably so quiet right now because her mouth only works when the person she should be talking to is not in the room.

Looking back, I probably should not have said that; however, I am really tired of the amount of backstabbing there is in my office. What do you expect from a group of women though? Solidarity? Friendship? Hell, no. These bitches are all out for one thing: making others look bad so they look good because they cannot do their jobs. Although we are all supposed to be supporting one another, that simply does not happen. It's another case of women being competitive in a situation that does not merit that type of suspicion.

I don't know how many times I have said that I have no desire to repeat the high school experience in my professional life. Unfortunately because I work in an office I am at the mercy of other people. I either need a serious vacation or a change of employment. I realize that similar situations will arise no matter where I work but honestly there has to be something better than this. I am tired of back-stabbing bullshit.

My Aching Head

Part of the trouble is that I think too much. I am constantly over-analyzing and comparing, cross-checking and extracting. Why all the fuss? Girls. I just don't understand girls.

At the risk of sounding like a teenage boy lamenting to his friends about the lack of action from his girlfriend, let me explain. Last night I was privileged to spend a few hours with a woman I don't really know very well. On a whim, I invited her over for dinner and few other friends over for movies and cocktails afterwards. She and I talked about the various things we'd each been through and seen; a sort of comparison of our accumulated scars, so to speak. There were startling similarities between our two lives which I found quite interesting. Even though we had had vastly different upbringings, attended completely opposite schools and made choices based on those two things, we had also had similar experiences with girls. As in, they suck and should be sterilized at birth. And by sterilizing I mean mouths sewn shut so they can't spew their trash-talk.

If I look hard enough and drink enough red bull and espresso, I could probably tie every major upheaval in my life back to a girl. I know for a fact that my last major emotional breakdown was directly tied to the actions of a girl. (Why am I using 'girl' when I should be using 'woman'? Because these females are not mature enough to warrant the correct term. They are still locked in grade 10, fighting to hold onto their tenuous position as 'best-looking girl in the school' or 'weirdest chick in grade 11' or whatever they think they had back then. Even though school ended many years ago, these people cannot seem to let go of certain things and accept that the world moves forward, not sideways, and pretty soon they will be in their twilight years and wonder where the time went.) Sounds crazy I know, but it's true. I know of a few others in my situation who feel the same way. People who latch onto things you are passionate about and then run with it when they see how much attention they get. It's the same shit all over again.

In my case, I was betrayed by someone who is not even on my radar anymore. Am I upset still? Hell yes. What she did to me was terrible and if I had my way I would beat the shit out of her, nurse her back to health, then beat the shit out of her again. The things she did are not easily forgotten nor are they in the realm of things a person can do to me that I can forgive. Because I am a woman and not a girl, I realize that she has her own situation that she is dealing with. She is inside her own misery that she made for herself and nothing I could ever do to her could be worse. So, I leave her to it.

Talking with other women, I am realizing more and more that girls grew up as I did: bullied by the 'pretty girls' and made to feel like a piece of shit because we read comics instead of Sweet Valley High books. It's a small group, granted, and I think that's because women are taught at an early age to try and fit in no matter the cost to their souls. Now that I am older and better positioned to defend myself, I find that the game has changed. I understand that this was bound to happen; no one can stay stagnant for too long because society pulls you along, kicking and screaming, regardless of where you want to be. I accept the truth that sometimes people just suck and I can't take it personally but I just can't figure out why girls want to hurt me so much.

Pain is part of life. I get that. What I don't get is the amount of 'we-are-all-sisters' bullshit that women throw around and then in the next breath they are fucking their best friend's husband behind her back. What exactly is that anyway? What does that show about our supposed female-solidarity?

I'l tell you what it means. It means that every woman is on her own until she can find like-minded others to surround her. That process can take years and the worst part is that even after years of being friends with someone, they can still turn on you quick as an asp. You just never know. And that, not global-warming, not food shortages, that specific truth fills me with despair every time I contemplate it. Not because of the amount of pain that it holds for me personally, but because of the fact that I can trust no woman ever again with anything close to my heart. This is the time of my life where I am supposed to have this all figured out; I am supposed to have a close circle of girlfriends that I can count on and while there are a couple of women that I hold dear, I am still wary. And that fucking sucks.

Deal of a Lifetime

I have just made the biggest deal of my life with the most important person in my life. . . myself. Yes, I realize how incredibly narcissistic this is and for now I am embracing it. You see, I have spent far too much time taking care of the people around me and not enough time taking care of myself. I have spent a couple of months cutting back on the amount of time spent on others and have rediscovered certain things about myself. In the process, I have lost almost 20 pounds, am sleeping better, and can run 5 miles again. (That's approximately 8 k for those who care. Not even close to what I was running before; however, a very good start.)

In the past few months I have had serious bouts of self-doubt to the point where I nearly quit my job. It's become more bearable since I decided to do things for myself and let others fend off their own demons. Not saying I am not there for my friends; I am just not fixing things for them anymore. It's one thing to have a chat with someone and listen to their worries and quite another to have the burden of making things work out for them placed squarely on your shoulders. I am not saying that I had no other option but to take on this role. What I am saying is that now I understand that it's not my place to fix things for other people. I am responsible for my own life and my own choices and I need to let other people make their mistakes as they will.

That sounds really grown-up, doesn't it? It's very hard for me to sit back and watch while others flounder. I want nothing more than to step up and take over and make things a-okay but I can't. I have responsibilities to myself that include going to the gym and writing in my spare time. I can make time for the gym but I am still having a hard time figuring out where I can squeeze in a few extra hours for writing. Maybe I will need to get up early? Maybe take my laptop to work and write over my lunch hour? I don't know when it will happen but I do know that eventually it will happen.

Right??

I Need to STFU

I realize that the recent events of the G20 have left certain questions unanswered about the way the situation was handled. I get that some people were wrongfully detained and treated less than stellar by the police. I also understand that many people who protested sincerely believed in what they were protesting for and for that, I applaud them. What I do not applaud and will not stand for is the fact that I have been told countless time to shut the fuck up and not to have an opinion because I. . . wasn't there.

That's right. Because I stayed the hell out of the downtown core due to the high probability of dischord, I have been told on more than one occasion that I cannot possibly have an opinion because I was not physically there and did not witness the 'horror' that our beloved police forces inflicted upon the 'innocent' protestors. I am not in any way condoning those who were wrongly accused/charged/detained at all; what I am upset about is the fact that the decision to hold the G20 in Toronto was made by politicians and not the police. Why are we blaming the cops for doing their jobs and following orders? Why aren't we questioning Stephen Harper and his government?

When I raised those questions to those who believe that the police acted wrongly (even though they were clearly under orders), I was met with stony glares: Don't confuse us with facts. I have no trouble with discussing this with rational people who will listen to me and then discuss why they feel differently. I had an hour-long conversation last night with my brother and while we did not see things the same way, we had a great discussion. We took turns talking and listening and pointing out contradictions in each other's arguments. It was, dare I say, an adult way of dealing with such a volatile situation.

I changed my facebook status to say that I was protesting the protestors protesting the police. That netted me angry comments, insults, and an order for me to shut my mouth because I was clearly under the influence of the media. Think about this: if I were listening to the media as suggested, would I not be on their side? The media is out for cop-blood, any way it can get it. My position of 'blame the ones who made the decision, not the ones who followed orders' is both logical and acceptable. Telling me to shut the fuck up because I do not agree with you is neither logical nor acceptable.

One person in particular is trying my patience with her repeated attempts to draw me into an all-out war on facebook. She has sent me multiple emails with various videos attached and has demanded that I watch all of it. To be honest, I don't care about protestors or what they were protesting. My beef is the assigning of blame to an undeserving group. Whether or not the whole thing was planned is not my concern: people being intolerant of others' opinions is my concern.

For me, the G20 has once again proven that people are sheep and will believe the hype no matter what it is or how ridiculous it sounds. The fact that no one is allowing for alternate opinions proves to me that people are not trying to understand the bigger picture here; they just want to be right. And they will beat the shit out of anyone who tells them differently.

Regina Bound!

Is it wrong that I cannot say that word without giggling to myself? Probably. I am leaving tonight to go to Regina (teehee) for a work conference and I am not looking forward to it. Not only does it take me away from my boy, I have to share a room with a co-worker. I am not sure exactly how this will go down: she and I have different duties during the conference and I fear we may tread on each other in the morning. She thinks that it will be fine and that we can accomodate each other's schedules but I know better. I have seen what happens when she does not get her way at work and I am dreading the first instance where she may be forced to compromise with me.

On a lighter note, there is a fantastic comic bookstore just around the corner from the hotel where I am staying. I have already made arrangements to leave the conference tomorrow afternoon to check it out. At the very least, I will be able to pick up my comics for this week. I missed getting them earlier and I don't think I can wait until next week to buy them.

I really have the best boyfriend of all time. He did the laundry last night so I didn't have to stress out at all over what to pack and it all fit nicely into the suitcase he gave me. He even packed my toiletries for me. I haven't even left yet and I already miss him. Boo. Monday night can't come soon enough.