zeptember

This week has marked a turn for the worse for my current employment.

I’ve been late every day this week due to traffic, for starters.
This in itself is not good, because the new policy that went into effect last month states that if one is tardy more than three times in a 90 day period, one may be fired.

YES, if one is TARDY.

As in WTF, IS THIS GRADE SCHOOL?

I’ve been a ball of anxiety, heartburn and stress as a result, and I’ve been near tears twice this week. I call my manager from the road to give her status and tell her I’m really trying. I get to work and take a screenshot of the traffic report (www.511.org) to prove my case. I have become seriously depressed this week.

Then, yesterday I got an email stating that I had an appointment with the new assistant to the CEO - he wanted to interview me for the new department they’re forming up - the one I aced the typing test for.
I went to the appointment but the door was closed. So I waited.
And waited.

And waited.

After about 15 minutes of this, I went back to my desk and started taking calls again. The director of Support came up to me to apologize and told me to go back to the dude’s office in 15 minutes. The director walked into my lovely fart cloud as I was on the phone with a customer to tell me this news. Way to go towards my department change…
So I walk back over to the head cheese’s office and on the way, I see the director. He tells me sorry, wait again, and we walked back to the other building again.

I never got another email or invite to be interviewed for the rest of yesterday or today. So I guess that’s off, now…

Today during the one-on-one meeting with my manager (which has been changing dates repeatedly over the past month, first it’s every Friday, then every Monday, now every Thursday), she informed me that the director of support is going to fire me next time I’m late and he doesn’t care about my excuses or screenshots of traffic reports to prove my case.

Today for example I was on time until I got to the flat stretch before the toll gates, then it came to a screeching halt because of a five car pileup at the toll gates. They CLOSED the whole road down. It took me an hour to get through the flats and cross the bridge to work, when usually, my entire trip only takes about an hour in the morning. And there’s no place to turn around on the flats. It’s a one-way highway straight to the toll gates, and one is walled in on all sides by three lanes of traffic. But the big bossman director dude doesn’t care.

Then my manager dropped a bomb. She is moving to another team, and told me that whomever they hire as the replacement manager is likely to get rid of me first thing based upon this week’s attendance. I was made at this point to sign a form stating I understood that my tardiness may be the firing of me next time it occurs.

And then, the kick in the stomach - the punch in the nose - we discussed which is more likely to get me fired - my health condition or the tardies. I pointed out that as of next month, I’ll reach the “three incidents of PTO in a 90 day period” rule. My boss waved her hand and said not to worry, by October I’ll be okay because I’ll have accrued a couple more PTO days.

I said yes but October makes it incident number four. My boss said basically that it DOESN’T - that the three incidents will be July-August-September. And then in October I’ll get the PTO days, so it goes August-September-October, and so on.

I don’t follow this, because doesn’t that mean by November then I’ll be let go? She says nawww, in October it will be September-October-November….she says I’ll never be at risk for being fired because I’ll always have some PTO ahead of me.

I think she’s off her nut.

Now, hear me out while I do the math so to speak. I know it’s a moot point but it’s the point of the matter and I tend to get a wild hair up my ass over such things…

In September, I use up the last PTO day and my Birthday day off work because george is slated to arrive for my birthday because he hates me so.

In October, I get four more PTO days. I will use up to two PTO days in October, and up to two PTO days in November. I do not get any further PTO days until January. This means I will be fired by December for exceeding the PTO allowance, because remember, not only is it “three incidents of PTO in a rolling 90 day period”, but it’s also “unless the PTO is exhausted, at which case you’re still fired.”

So.

If I am not fired for being tardy, I will certainly be fired before Christmas due to george.

Going back to the fucking tardiness…my boss asked if I could start coming in a bit earlier to allow for a buffer. I told her that last week I left my home at 6:45am and got to work at 7:35am as a result. This week however, leaving work anywhere from 6:45am to 7am (my usual departure time) has NOT helped because this has been an exceptionally bad traffic week. She asked if I check traffic before leaving the house. I told her it hasn’t mattered if I do or not because I’m still stuck on that same stretch of road and accidents happen ON THE WAY TO WORK, so there’s no guaging that sort of thing!

I wanted to choke her at this point. But I realise she’s only asking these questions because she has to. She’s actually fought to keep me on this long.
So since she told me a secret (that she’s moving to a new department), I todl her a secret. I told her that due to the constant harrassment over my illness and now with the tardies, I’m a ball of anxiety and I’ll actually be very relieved when they let me go.

She gasped and asked if I’m looking for another job. I told her hell no - I need a friggin BREAK after this is over. I told her it’s a shame that management has to be so pigheaded. She frowned and nodded, and said she really thought she could change things, and that’s part of the reason why she’s moving to a new department, now.

My thought? Way to go on giving up on us, bosslady.

*sigh*

Only one more day to go, and then I have a three day weekend for Labor Day.

I can just picture them trying to tell me tomorrow that I HAVE to come in on Monday to work because they don’t have enough volunteers to staff the day.

If they do that, I’m walking off the job immediately. I’ve already briefed my man about this, so he’s prepared.

On a side note, you’ll be ecstatic to know that despite all of this job anxiety, I have NOT had a drop of alcohol in a week. As a matter of fact, if I have it correctly, it’s been TWO weeks since I’ve had any booze, unless I drank last Thursday, which is our usual “pissup nite”. I can’t recall that far back, however. My memory is always pretty bad (this is why I keep a journal dontchaknow).

However, I’ve noticed that I’ve started eating and drinking stuff with corn syrup in it again. So I have to stop that. And I’ve been trying to cut down on the muscle relaxers, too. Only had one this week. But tonight I’m sorry to say calls for another muscle relaxer. My back is really locked up.

My man rocks the house - it was too hot to cook food for dinner (we’ve had three days of heat wave this week), so he ordered Chinese delivery. Now I have leftovers - that means lunch is prepared for tomorrow. Yay!

I’ve also been catsitting all week for a friend - I think I mentioned this in an earlier post. This takes an hour away from my evenings, so that’s fueled my depression. The thing is, I like taking care of my friends’ pets. I enjoy going over there and I have made them my little purr puddles. It’s the fact that I’m always looking towards the rest of the evening and what still needs to be done for work the next morning. It’s this job. The job is in the way. I hate it. I hate that place. I can’t wait to be out.

And STILL, through ALL OF THIS, I’m STILL in the top ten job performers.

I kill me, I really do.

Yesterday’s company meeting came and went without incident. I didn’t get to go to the company meeting because most of Support had to stay back to cover the phones. Perhaps that’s why we were all called to special session the day before?

I had a cow-orker ask me at one point yesterday whether I’d applied to the internal position that was posted for an email support-only team. I told him yes. He then asked how I did on the typing test. I told him 85wpm. This is the second cow-orker to ask me how I did on the typing test. He got huffy with my reply and scoffed repeatedly, “85wpm?!!? 85?!?”… he refused to tell me how he did, so I added, “I heard a rumour that the baseline is 50wpm. That didn’t help his attitude at all, which tells me he, like my other cow-orker, failed the test. He asked how I’d ever get to type so fast. I told him it came from years of being an IRC fiend, nothing more. He calmed a bit, and joked that he should hit up IRC more often.

That’s it for work yesterday.
I came home, attended to cat-sitting duties for a friend, washed dishes, and watched a shitty documentary about the life of David Livingstone - my sixth cousin by marriage on my father’s side.
The documentary was so crappily put together that now I won’t watch ANY of the rest of the documentaries in that series.

I have a book called David Livingstone: His Life and Letters, which I stole from the library many years ago because it was so good and I thought I’d never find the book again.
I’ll just re-read that, instead.

Time to get ready for work…

So yesterday afternoon at work, several of us received an email stating that in a couple of hours, there’d be some kind of private meeting and it was mandatory attendance.
But we also had a team meeting scheduled. So right after the team meeting, we were literally rushed and herded to the private meeting. This meeting took place in the building we used to work in, which still houses the HR department.

We assembled and sorta looked around at each other - we were a mix of the design team, the sales team and the tech support team. No HR people present. Then the director of support and the new guy who works over him came into the room.

The announcement went basically like this:

“We’re really excited to share this news with you all today. We called you all here to tell you FIRST, and we’d appreciate it if you kept this to yourself until the big company meeting tomorrow. The really big news is ….
We’re opening a Colorado office!”

Now, imagine the room full of us.

*crickets*

They called us off the phones and into this meeting ….. FOR THAT???!?!?!

Ok, well, I’ll let you know who got fired at today’s company meeting, cuz you know that’s next. Why they had to brief us one day before, … I’ve no idea. I personally can’t wait to be let go.

Woke up Friday morning and I was fine. Went outside and checked on my man’s car - it was fine, too.
Went to work - no pain or and very little bleeding. Was able to work the entire day on a bit of a happier note.

I was also called to take a typing test on Friday, which tells me A) they received my resume for the new in-house position and B) they want me to be a part of that team.

I aced the typing test as I expected I would. I can type 85wpm.

I spent Friday evening cleaning house a bit and hanging out with my man. FINALLY, some relaxation and cuddle time!

Spent Saturday again with my man, out and about, shopping and such. At one point he turned to me and said he really enjoys going shopping with me. He also said that before dating me, he NEVER went to froofy bath stores to get fancy soaps! I told him neither did I before we hooked up!!! It’s a new development over the time we’ve been together, and I blame a few of my girlfriends, as well as my sister.
I started off shopping in such stores for gifts for them, and ended up liking the soaps and bath salts, myself! Who knew I’d ever be this girly.

After we shopped, we went to a friend’s house to hang for a bit - we haven’t seen them in months now, so it was good to catch up again.

Capped off the night with sushi with yet another friend, then came home, watched a documentary about The Cure, and went to bed.

This morning, I’m up bright and early to pick up keys to another friend’s house to watch their cats while they’re at BurningMan, and then I’m off to pick up sherpa at the train station so we can go bicycling - my first bicycle ride in many months.

Hm, BurningMan. I’ve never been to it. I’ve been hearing about it since 1996, when my friend Evil showed a bunch of us some alternative magazine article on the event when we all still lived in Michigan. I declared it a buncha steenking hippies and said I’d never go.

When I moved to California in 1997, I found out over the next several years that A LOT of the goths out here go to and love BurningMan.

WEIRD.

I still declare it a bunch of steenking hippies, but I do admit a moderate amount of curiosity because so many of my California friends and aquaintances love the event.

Eh, maybe one day I’ll check it out. It’s not anywhere near the same BurningMan that it was 10 years ago. But if a friend invites me to go a few years from now, I might.

“A few years”?

Yeah… cuz next year and the year after will be kinda busy for me….

At work today my boss pulled me aside and:

1. wanted to know what my surgeon had said on Friday, and wanted to let me know that she’ll need me to let the CEO’s new right-hand-man know about my health condition in a bid to try to work something out to keep me
2. wanted to let me know that she was disappointed to not see my resume for an internal job that’s opening up - for the email-support-only team. The internal job offering closed yesterday.

I told her:

1. There’s nothing more my surgeon can do since hormones didn’t work, and sure, no problem, I’ll tell Mr. Guy all about my condition, no problem.
2. Sorry, but I’ve been BEDRIDDEN ALL WEEK. Submitting a resume was the last thing on my mind.

Hell, I don’t even want to be at that company anymore. I purposefully didn’t submit my fucking resume. As it was, my boss told me she’ll “break convention” and take my resume, even though HR closed the offering internally. Rather than admit to her that I don’t want to stick around, I handed my resume to her.

I started off the day without george, but after lunch he returned. I had cramps and hot flashes and wondered if I should go home. But I stuck it out because if I would have taken yet another day, it’d be one more nail in the coffin of my employment there, sooner than expected. Why not take it? I dunno. Stubborn, I guess. Or stupid retarded.

I got home and there was a message on the machine - it was the doctor’s office saying they WON’T write me a note excusing me for three days of work this week - that now I have to come in for an appointment before they’ll give me any note at all.

Fucking lovely. Well there’s the final nail in the coffin. If I can’t get an appointment for this Saturday, then I don’t have a note, and if I don’t have a note, then each day off work counts as one incident each and I’m as good as fired. I’ve got one incident on record from last month already. I have a total of three. After three they can fire me.

Tonight my man took me out to a low-key dinner. I drove so he could have a drink, because his job is now talking job cuts.
We got home and two men were loitering near his car, and upon seeing us approach, they moved quickly away from the car, hopping a fence into the backyard right next to his car, which happens to be our next-door neighbour’s backyard.
One guy disappeared - I think into the house - and the other guy took a seat against the back of the house, sitting very still in the dark. He was wearing a light-coloured hoodie, with hood up. I stared right at him as we took a short-cut up the driveway at the back of the neighbour’s house, and we entered the gate to our own backyard.
My man expressed worry for his car when we got into the house. I told him I’d rather have a broken window on the car than a broken man, and that was that - he didn’t leave the house to go looking for trouble.

Blah. Talk about giving me flashbacks to growing up in and around Detroit.

I can’t handle all this stress. My forehead is broken out again fresh this week with over a dozen zits, and my left thumb looks like leprosy again - eczema from stress or diet or both. I told my man I not only want to quit my job, I don’t want to take another job. And he can’t afford to take care of me. I asked him, if he got laid-off work today, could he make rent and bills next month?

No, he can’t.

And he thinks he can support me if I lose my job?!?!?

This is the American Way, folks. People constantly counting on that next paycheck, never saving any money for emergencies - using all their income on toys and food and other frivolties.

Meanwhile, the local filth who already have nothing left to lose go about stealing and breaking whatever we hardworking people DO have left.

“If I can’t have nice things, nobody can.” That’s the mantra back in the neighbourhood I grew up in.

I want out of all of this shit.