[State of the Jag] ARGH

[kittydesade]

Work

I feel like I'm going to throw up.

You. There. On the other end of my phone. I am not an idiot. I am not stupid. I am not mentally deficient, incompetent, lazy, or any of those other words you thought at me or called me. This is not ridiculous. This is life, and it's a damn sight better than a lot of people you don't care about have, including the person you're currently berating. Shut the fuck up.

What's that you say? You're upset because you don't have your antique-looking desk/overpriced teak box/garage thingy/shelf/box/screen? Grow up. Stop yelling at me about it, stop calling me names and insulting me, and grow the fuck up. Because you, sir or ma'am or whatever dubious humanoid creature you are, are not the center of the universe. You are not as important as you think you are. And not getting your desk/box/garage thingy is not the end of the world. It's not even the worst part of your day.

The worst part of your day is getting ripped to shreds by one person after another who doesn't have their precious little shiny toy. Who won't understand that yes, in fact, we are doing the best we can with what we have, and making allowances for the fact that the company you ordered from (which wasn't us a month ago) is getting your stuff to you as fast as possible. Or your refund. Or your stuff AND a refund, which, how the hell can you think that is fair? You pay money, you get stuff. You do not pay money, you do not get stuff. This is the way the world works. Unless you're on the barter system.

God, you people. You really don't care how you make the poor person on the other end of the line feel, do you? Whether it's me or the poor woman whose 32 year old daughter is dying of cancer 500 miles away from her, or the poor frazzled guy who just hit the phones a week ago and can't be, no, he can't be expected to remember everything about four catalogs and how they work, especially not when it took us at least three weeks to train, and he only got two and an informational packet. That had a bunch of innaccuracies and questions that weren't answered. I know, I looked.

You don't care, and I know because you told me that our inability to do our job was not your problem, and no it wouldn't be except the person you're chewing out IS NOT THE PERSON NOT DOING HER JOB. I'm damn well doing my job, I'm finding out all the information I can and after a certain point it just. Stops. There is nothing further I can do for you, sir, you're just going to have to be patient, something you could seriously stand to learn, and wait. Oh, it's not your problem either that two major catalogs just moved their warehouses 350 miles east? They shouldn't have done that? Fuck you too, sir. Fuck you very much with a whirling egg beater. Catalogs grow, expand, and move to bigger warehouses. I'm sure you'd be equally upset if they didn't expand and didn't offer the range of product or price you were looking for, or, gasp, shock, maybe jacked up their prices because the increased warehouse space they needed was more expensive where they were located instead of here, where we're located. In fact, I'm sure you'd be upset no matter what happened becacuse you strike me as the type of person who's just never happy. So fuck you.

God, you people. You make me sick. Literally, physically, sick. I feel like I"m going to throw up now. I was crying when I got off of work last week. In fact, I was crying in the shower this morning at the prospect of going back to that. Are you happy? Are you proud of yourself for making a grown woman cry? I hope you are.

You. Corporate. How dare you double our workload without a) doubling the work force or b) training us adequately? No, throwing an informational packet that doesn't answer some very important questions and isn't accurate anyway at us does not count. No, reading us the packet doesn't count either, if I could get all the information I needed from reading it I wouldn't be coming to my supervisor three, four, five times a day, would I? And now you're piling more work on us? In the past two months we've gone through two major changes, neither of which we've had adequate trainign for. Which makes more problems. which makes more work for everyone. Which means you make us work 6 and 7 days a week, and more hours a day than is, I think, legal, all because you want to save some fucking money. Well, we'll see how much money you save when you get massive call-out-sicks and god knows what else. I've already seen it starting today.

And YOU. Co-workers. Christ. Well, no, I'll cut you some slack, most of you, because you're as sick and tired of this as I am. God I need a drink.

But YOU. Co-worker who sits across from me. A) stop giving out 20 miinutes worth of legal advice and telling someone what they shoudl and shouldn't do about a lawsuit and, god, was that a CUSTODY BATTLE? You haven't even passed the fucking bar yet! You're not even out of law school! That can't be legal. B) SHUT THE FUCK UP. Stop bitching that YOU haven't gotten adequatley trained and YOU shouldn't have to be doing this. YOU AREN'T SPECIAL EITHER. None of us have gotten adequately trained and none of us should be doing this and we're all doing half the complaining that you are. Shut the fuck up and if you have to whine as you do your job, do it fucking more quietly like the rest of us. Stop coming over and hovering over my shoulder and asking me how you do this. Stop coming ovevr and hovering over my shoulder and STOP FUCKING TOUCHING ME. I DON'T KNOW YOU. Next time you touch my shoulder without my permission or invitation I will break your fucking hand.

Work. Stop sucking. Really.


Writing
You. You're supposed to be my boyfriend. I come home crying from work and start talking about how depressing rejection letters are, yes? That is not your cue to tell me that I should keep writing and pull out the novel that you didn't even get 1/3 of the way through. Here's a news flash: the fact that you didn't finish it, even though you finished a Dresden Files book and started another one and this all after you nagged me and bugged me and fought with me and whined why do you show everyone else your writing but you won't show me?

here's a clue: BECAUSE YOU WON'T FUCKING READ IT. I didn't need to know that. I didn't need to know that you couldn't make it through the novel. I really didn't need it because it reminds me that maybe three people made it through the novel and now I'm in this spiral of god-I-suck-at-writing and yes, that part isn't your fault, but YOU STARTED IT. Do not fucking tell me you're going to read my stories and then not read them. Especially do not tell me that I told you to stop because I KNOW I DIDN'T. I know damn well I dind't because we were going to compare notes when I was done re-reading and editing. And your notes stop about the last time you talked to me about it. Oh yes. Do not tell me you kept reading. I see notes on every other page for up to 70 or so pages and then they stop. The next pages aren't even creased or crinkled. You haven't touched them. That binder that I spent 35$ to print and collate and holepunch for you has been sitting in a place of honor between the couch and the fucking end table for three weeks. And that's probably only because you took it out of your backpack to make room for History's Most Evil People, which you got at Barnes and Noble for 10$. Fuck you too. Fuck you very much.

You. Agent. I knwo you have a lot of people to read, but if you have the time to handsign a note saying you're going to reject my proposal, you could take the two seconds extra to GET A NEW FUCKING PIECE OF PAPER. I did not appreciate your sending me back my own damn query letter with a simple "No thank you" scrawled across the top. What the fuck.

You. Self. Grow up. Half of this whole whingy no one ever reads my writing bullshit is because you never post a damn thing anywhere. You expect people to read and go ooh and ahh and pimp it and, let's face it, they're probably too lazy too. You know you're too lazy to. So grow the fuck up and do some goddamn self-promoting. You could use the practice. If you self-publish, guess what you'll be doing.

You. Well, no one in particular. God I hate writing sometimes. It's a solitary, painful, excruciatingly difficult thing to do and it fucking sucks, trying to do it when you've already been crying, wheezing, and throwing up for a week.



Everything Else
Yes, because when we come home from work upset and crying, the absolute first thing we want to do is go running in 104 degree heat (farenheit) with a smog alert and a heat index that's even higher. Because that was smart. You fucking moron. No wonder you were wheezing for three hours afterwards. I'm surprised you didn't faint in the middle of the road.

No, your life would not be better if you had and then gotten run over. Shut the fuck up.

Stomach flu does not help. Stomach flu does not help at all. Aching cramps and other things too disgusting to remember for 24 hours does not help, not when you're getting yelled at over the phone, not when you're burning your fingertips on your iron trying to sew. Not only for the Renne Faire now, but also because sewing is something that you can do and do well (or at least you think you can do well when you're not busy climbing into the Pit of Despair and closing the tree-door shut behind you) and when you're done you have something tangible to show for it. You have a baby blanket cloak you'll be able to put on and prance around in, a blouse, a bodice. If you ever get off your ass and finish them.

Blackouts do not help. Especially not when the blackout happens at 11.30 at night just as you're heading to bed, and then you have to sit up and babysit the sump pump. Because without electricity, the sump pump runs on battery power. And the last time it failed, the basement flooded and you lost a ton of books. Good books, too. You're just lucky oyu didn't lose anything that would cost you 200$ to replace. Like that George MacDonald book with the color plates. Where is that again? Away from the floodwaters, you hope.

Why are you talking about yoursel fin the second person? God knows.

What else doesn't help? Burned fingers. Bleeding mouth. And fingers. And thighs. Wrenching your knee. Little things that make a bad day increasingly worse. Finding out that the crazy person who was supposed to be in jail for burning his house down and blaming it on everyone else but himself, after he threatened to go after his now-ex wife, finding out that that person had his locale restrictions lifted and he'll be in town this coming weekend. Yes, this is the guy you were afraid would show up at the door with a shotgun. Where, for weeks afterwards, you were sitting up at night with your broadsword across your knees. Are we having fun yet?

Not only is he not in jail, when he should have been sentenced to 3-5 at least for, what was it, aggravated arson? Not only is he not in jail, he's getting married again. God help the woman. Or maybe she's just going to take a huge insurance policy out on him and bump him off. I could live with that. At least she wouldn't try to steal your or the boyfriend's identity.

What else doesn't help? Not going on a fun vacation and meeting lots of friends. Not going, even, to the goddamn Celtic Festival, either of them, because you have to work mandatory overtime. I could have been listening to fucking Homeland, you cocksuckers. Instead I have to listen to the dulcet tones of some shrill harpy calling me incompetent and stupid. No, those are tears of rage. Get the hell away from me before I rip your lungs out and eat them for steak.

WHat else doesn't help? Dogs barking at three in the morning when I'm trying to sleep. Nightmares about teeth falling out and shambling undead trying to eat me and I know that's just because I'm stressed but dear god, can't I even get a break in my dreams? Something like Mandy Patinkin, maybe? Or Terrence Mann. Or Julian Sands. Or David Bowie. Or, though I'd never be so lucky, Christian Bale. What else doesn't help? The boyfriend's brother going into (pre-planned, not emergency) surgery. On a Saturday when we have to work. What else doesn't help? PMS migraines. What else doesn't help? My laptop power cord dying. An email from the family wherein my grandfather is apparently contemplating his own mortality and, just, no. Not what I wanted to think about this week. Hearing the family property, all of it that we're not currently living in, may be sold off. Doesn't help. Smash, bang, there go a bunch of plans and hopes and dreams. On a week when I could have used them.

You know what doesn't help? Just about every other fucking thing that happened last week. I'm going to go throw up and cry now. Thursday, Friday, Saturday? Three more days of hopefully not hell but probably something approaching it. Three more days of getting yelled at over the phone by random people I don't know. Three more days of constantly finding something else that's going wrong that I can't do a damn thing about. And then a day of rest. And then three more days of work and then thank GOD I got in two vacation days before they started giving out mandatory overtime AGAIN. Sleep. There will be sleep. And probably more crying. And maybe some writng, or painting. And probably some sewing. And I want a do over on the last ten days, because oh, here I go, crying again. Or heaving. Or both. No, dammit, I was doing bet-- The rest of this paragraph will be cut for a truly excessive amount of whinge.

Right. Comfort food. Drinking the last beer. Forgot to pick any up today, fuck. Maybe tomorrow. If it's not so hot out that I'm soaked in sweat by the time I get home. which is a five minute drive from work. Comfort food. Beer. Comfort movies. Maybe A Chorus Line.