When does it really start being you?

I've been contemplating this for awhile now - and I'm going to make every attempt not to make this a bitter, angry, rant. I said I wouldn't do that anymore and I want it to stay that way. That said, a person can only take so much nonsense until they just either 1) give up 2) break completely.

I'd personally rather not be in either camp - I think I'm better than that, however, it's hard when judgements against you are so personal.

I've held a lot of jobs. It's not because I'm someone who can't hold a job, or gets bored and leaves. It's generally a matter of circumstance: company changed management and therefore ideals and company structure, it was only temporary to begin with (see: internships, seasonal - summer work), I moved, I moved again, company was bought out.

Then this started to happen:
bar tending - mismanagement led to frustration, led to anger about job, led to me leaving

el banko - management ceased allowing me to make decisions about my career, led to frustration, led to anger, led to being stuck in a position I didn't want, led to endless talks about under performing - led to more frustration - led to me leaving.

Now this.

Sure it's only a part time gig - but sometimes those part time gigs are what allows you to buy that pint of Ben and Jerry's you could otherwise afford. Or what lets you take your puppy to the vet that you otherwise couldn't do. Sometimes a part time job is a very big deal when considering your check book.

But when do you throw in the towel? When has it become more YOU and less THEM? How do you know the difference?

A few weeks ago I was told some pretty horrific things by my manager. It was completely inappropriate and extremely unprofessional. Was it true? I don't know. I felt completely betrayed, confused and hurt. I essentially went through all the symptoms of loss. I was given a week to think about it.

Upon my return it felt like going into battle. Who was against me? How would I know? What was true and who could I trust? I had, and still have, apparently, no idea. I did, I thought, at least make an effort to keep certain attitudes in check, continue to be friendly with co-workers and members, and generally do my job and keep my mouth shut.

Still not good enough - once again I found myself in an office - door closed - face to face with my manager. Was it handled better? Sure... but there were the accusations again. Nothing had improved. Nobody wants to work with me and if they weren't telling me before it's because they are "chicken shit". I'm on a tight leash and one misstep would be my complete down fall. "It's only a matter of time."

So I'm being set up to fail? No...

How is that not being set up to fail? Waiting for someone to make their next "mistake"? How is it not expecting complete and total failure when it's your word (which at this point might as well be coming from that guy sentenced to prison for crimes against humanity) against all these mysterious people who want to bring you down?

When did what I have to say stop mattering and more importantly why?

"You've changed, you're not the same person you were a year ago." "You aren't the person we hired" "Maybe you're just a harder person now"

I don't think any of this validates what are apparently, non-stop co-worker complaints. Who are these people that have so much time on their hands that they can sit down with the manager of their part-time job and complain about someone they work with for 2-3 hours at a time? Do I have people I could complain about? Sure. I don't have that kind of time, nor do I care.

I've never been in the interest of gunning for someone to be fired. Clearly some people are.

But now, after three jobs of complete frustration and road-blocks, do I just accept that it IS me after all? Or do I chalk it up to bad situations, bad decisions, bad times, and put it all behind me?

It's easy to start being paranoid when nothing you've done for the last two years has been good enough. How is that even possible? How have I spent my whole life to this point striving to succeed, and doing just that, to just...not. How have I taken an active interest in helping others succeed only to have the "others" allegedly turn on me?

Nothing is making sense.

Perhaps it's time to cut my losses and move on - completely close that chapter in my life and just breath that sign of relief and terror. Relief that it's finally over...and terror that's IT'S OVER.

I'm not a quitter - and it takes a LOT to drive me to that decision. Usually it's because I'm determined to prove everyone wrong. There are no easy answers, and there probably will never be an ideal time to make that decision. Those things rarely align.

I think ultimately, once those people have made up their minds to bring you down, no matter how strong you are, and no matter how hard you fight against it, sometimes it's not enough. Is it right? No. Is it moral? No. How do you know when enough is enough? When do you chalk all this up to coincidence and a bad two year span, write the final chapter and call it a day?

I have a lot of anger right now, so if this post spontaneously combusts I'm sorry

Two things - both of them were included in two separate posts on one of my favorite pop-culture blogs Mama Pop. The site and the writers aren't the problem by any means, its the stories. Well, I should say our American pop-culture is the problem. What I'm trying to say is, I eventually would have heard about either one of these at a later time from a different source and been as equally upset, it just so happens that Mama Pop got there first.

So the first was this story about the infamous Speidi. I don't care about the story so much - I mean really? How worked up can you really get if Speidi wants to go back on a reality TV show that they initially got mad at because it was "too hard". I'm not even sure why they cared, the fame-whores that they are.

No, the problem was this: remember back in college (I say college because that's when you were paying to go to class so really it was your dime you were wasting by being a big slacker)when you'd go to class everyday because, like me, you hated reading actual books, and really, why waste your time when your professor was just going to cover exactly what you needed to know to pass the class in a lecture.

Anyway - you'd show up, and maybe like, half the rest of the class would be there. So first 5 times or so, that this would happen, the professor would waste a good 20 minutes ranting about how the other half of the class wasn't showing up and they were just wasting their own money by doing this and how were they going to pass if they weren't there to hear the lecture - but he/she was ranting to the people who were there. So way to waste even more time...time that we are paying for you to be teaching.

That's the problem with the Speidi article. It talks, briefly, about them going back to the show and then continues on about how we all waste so much time talking about these people, whom we don't even care about, thereby giving them even more press and just continuing to feed the fire.

This happens All. The. Time. So just stop! Or...if you can't stop...then just say what you need to say about their current project/mishap/appearance, and move on. Cease wasting time telling us how you can't believe you're wasting time talking about it in the fist place, because now? You're wasting my time...doubly so because now you've made me mad and I'm blogging about it and thereby wasting other peoples' time...my GOD let's just stop the insanity already!

Secondly was this article which is basally something about Oprah and KFC's new grilled chicken and a bunch of people who were supposed to get these free grilled chicken meals, but KFC ran out? And then they told the people well we'll give you IOU's and a free Pepsi, but you need to mail in the old coupon so we can send you a new coupon. You'll get the new coupon in a few weeks though, so hold tight ok?

Apparently this angered, like, everyone, not so much because KFC ran out of the free food at the time, but because, apparently running out of food, and then offering a free soda when it came time to redeem the new coupon, was completely unacceptable. Additionally these people were completely outraged by KFC's attempt to reconcile the problem because they shouldn't have had to pay for the postage, and paper and whatever else to get this new coupon.

Yeah - so now they are SUING KFC over this FREE MEAL. SUING. What??

Ok, listen up you redneck, gift-horse in the mouth looking hillbillies. I was in the hospital for over a month last year because my doctor's kept almost killing me. I now I have a hideous foot long scar and have developed an auto-immune disease.

Rightfully, I should be able to sue the crap out of my doctors and the hospital, who misdiagnosed my burst appendix, not once but three times . Most people die shortly after their appendix bursts, but I can't, because I don't have the money necessary to get a lawsuit off the ground.

Yet these people, who apparently are in "desperate need" of some free KFC have enough money to get a class-action suit off the ground over FREE FOOD. FREE FOOD from KFC. Have I mentioned it was FREE??

I'm just wondering exactly what is wrong with this country? This country that continually fills me with rage over these idiots who inhabit it.

If you've never seen the movie Idiocracy, you might want to go rent it like, now. That movie? That is where the future is headed, so you might want to prepare yourselves. I'm just sayin.

I'm sorry but my soapbox was getting dusty....

This should probably be two separate posts but I’m just going to go ahead and combine them so I can get maximum rant-age and so that I don’t end up with two whiney posts in a row because the limited amount of people who do read this would probably stop. I can’t have that! My apologies in advance - stick with me if you can. Remember - these are just my humble opinions but lucky for me I have a venue in which to bring it to the world. Kinda scary eh?

Up first is the – Hey! Stop referring to your kid’s age in months for the love of the little baby jeebus! He’s FIVE!

Ok usually it’s not that bad, but I feel that once your child has reached one year of age, then you need to stop with the months. First of all – I do not feel like I should have to do math in my head and get a brain-strain trying to figure out how the hell old your kid is. Just tell me. It’ll be easier for everyone.

Second – how do you expect your kid to respond to the “how old are you?” question. You want them to answer in months too? Personally I’ve yet to hear that happen but I’m sure its not beyond the realm of possibilities.

Third - I have yet to see one card that says something like "Happy Birthday - You're 24 months!" Nope. Doesn't happen. The cards start at "Happy First Birthday" and go from there. See? Even the greeting card companies that are all about the benjamins don't want to acknowledge your kid in month age.

I’ve polled other, actual parents, on this and pretty much everyone I know feels the same way. This makes me feel like I have a valid point and would kindly ask that all parents with children over the age of 12 months knock if off already. I’m not sure if you’re doing this to be annoying, to further solidify your status as “yuppies”, or because you feel like we need an exact count of just how old your kid is.

Maybe you just can’t believe they are growing up so fast and talking about it in months makes it seem like it’s not happening, because referring to your kid as “years old” is just “too real” for you. Well suck it up buttercup. Everyone else thinks you sound dumb.

The second (and last) issue (thank God right?) – and this will probably get me hate mail. I don’t care. I worked in collections for two years I used to get death threats on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. Do your worst.

I read about this on another blogger’s site. Typically I like what she has to say and I sympathize with her family and their struggles as they have dealt with childhood cancer. I can’t even imagine what this would be like. That’s not the issue.

The issue is that apparently – and Katie Couric is in on this too – today’s children are all delicate and fragile flowers that we need to protect from the “big bad ugly real world”

**Shakes head** I’m just not sure how much longer we can continue to encourage a society in which it’s ok to stick your head in the sand. WAKE UP! If you didn’t notice – the sticking your head in the sand philosophy? Is EXACTLY how we ended up where we are.

Sure – historically speaking, it was time for the economy to be on the down side of a bell curve, but I don’t know that it necessarily would have had to be THIS BAD had people been paying a little bit of attention.

So here’s what Miss Couric (and this blogger) are all up in arms about: In this tough economy everyone is facing hardships (duh) some are worse off than others (right, got that too) health care is expensive and in some cases non-existent (yes I recognize that I am lucky to have affordable health care – yay me!) but the children are suffering!

Um – ok first of all, I cannot even imagine what it would be like to choose between stuff like feeding my kids and getting them medical attention. I agree that that situation is truly horrible. I also can’t imagine suddenly being homeless with or without kids. Again. Horrible. None of this is what bothered me.

What was upsetting was a statement along the lines of “the kids can’t handle all this pressure and stress and anxiety”. Really?? The kids??? Why? Because they can’t get as many video games as they used to? Because maybe mom and dad had to cut the 2,000 channel cable down to basic?? Because the parents surely aren’t under stress and anxiety and pressure. Because they don’t feel the weight of a thousand worlds on their shoulders while trying to make the best of it for themselves and their kids.

Also? Have you even met your grandparents, or, if you’re old enough, your parents?? It’s called the Great Depression people. There were thousands of people lined up for soup. They lived in cardboard shanty towns. Guess what? They also had kids! These kids might have been your grandparents or parents!!

Basically, my first reaction to this situation was – yes, it is hard, but guess what? We have so many more resources then they did back in the 30’s and 40’s. I just don’t feel like people should be using this economic crisis as yet another excuse for future bad behavior on the part of their children. I pretty much guarantee you that once a whole new crop criminals springs up the media will be all “Well you know back in ’09 (2009 that is!) his family’s house was foreclosed on and they had to downsize to an apartment and sell his Xbox. Oh the horrors”

**Ahem** I’m just going to go and push my soapbox back to the closet for awhile.