Hey, ho, the wind and the rain--
I have to get out of this place - not just because prepress doesn't pay well enough for me to pay rent in a shabby old firetrap building with bad wiring and bad pipes on the poorer edge of town, and also afford a reliable used car, and six miles via Shanks' Mare over slippery rough roads is wearing me down - and not just because I am worried, increasingly, about the long-term (or even short-term) financial stability of the place, now that I have seen behind the wings (including some things that I probably shouldn't, by accident) but also because both my superiors have turned out to be frothing wingnuts who can't shut up now about how awful Democrats are and how much terror they are in for the nation since they have come to suspect that the Republicans just might lose. It's turning into a very hostile and uncomfortable workplace, altho' I have said nothing, not a word, about my personal politics, ever, risen to no bait, and either played deaf and ignored such conversations or changed the subject repeatedly. I expect at any moment to be demanded to say, and to be mocked and harrassed for it henceforth; it came very close this afternoon, as a customer was hassled, even.
--There is also skeezy, semi-deniable touching and invasion of personal space going on, increasingly, by my boss; yesterday was the third instance of inappropriate shoulder-rubbing after I started keeping track a couple weeks ago, noticing how much I was backing up when I talked to him, to the point where I was ending up in the other room sometimes during the course of a conversation, and how I was instinctively putting barriers between us as well due to his inability to keep his hand off me whenever he is standing behind or next to me - beyond any innocent attempt to get attention, and he doesn't do either to our much-larger male co-worker, so it isn't just a general problem with boundaries and other people - altho' of course as a "hyperfeminist" I am almost certainly interpreting an "innocent" touch as an attempt to feel if I am wearing a bra, or at least so the oh-so-chivalrous Dale Vree of New Oxford Review would have the world believe is the rule rather than the exception. (Has any male reader had the experience of being shoulder-palmed regularly by a straight male employer while trying to go over the day's workload or discuss a customer account, or having him move in to stand at a six-inch distance, smiling unctuously at you, no matter how much you back up, or both?) I resolved last night to speak to him and tell him this is not acceptable next time he does it, no matter what the consequences; I have been rehearsing "Would you not do that, it's making me very uncomfortable" speeches ever since. But I have to pay the rent, I have to eat, I have to feed my cat, and I know that my predecessor desperately wants the job back (if I had any place else to go I would call her and say "Yours, and welcome to it!" but I haven't) so it's not like I have much leverage, other than being really, really good at my job - which has never been enough to keep me from being laid off and replaced by younger, less-experienced victims of the system.
Sigh. --And it seemed so promising when I started, the boss nice rather than a Nice Guy™ as he has turned out to be, and my immediate superior a sane salt-of-the-earth moderate (would you expect a man who has expressed violent loathing of Bill O'Reilly, FOX News, the Union Leader, and political fearmongering - well, who would you expect him to have backed in this race? Surely not Rudy Giulani, at least!) But Craigslist and Monster provide no hope, nightly.
--There is also skeezy, semi-deniable touching and invasion of personal space going on, increasingly, by my boss; yesterday was the third instance of inappropriate shoulder-rubbing after I started keeping track a couple weeks ago, noticing how much I was backing up when I talked to him, to the point where I was ending up in the other room sometimes during the course of a conversation, and how I was instinctively putting barriers between us as well due to his inability to keep his hand off me whenever he is standing behind or next to me - beyond any innocent attempt to get attention, and he doesn't do either to our much-larger male co-worker, so it isn't just a general problem with boundaries and other people - altho' of course as a "hyperfeminist" I am almost certainly interpreting an "innocent" touch as an attempt to feel if I am wearing a bra, or at least so the oh-so-chivalrous Dale Vree of New Oxford Review would have the world believe is the rule rather than the exception. (Has any male reader had the experience of being shoulder-palmed regularly by a straight male employer while trying to go over the day's workload or discuss a customer account, or having him move in to stand at a six-inch distance, smiling unctuously at you, no matter how much you back up, or both?) I resolved last night to speak to him and tell him this is not acceptable next time he does it, no matter what the consequences; I have been rehearsing "Would you not do that, it's making me very uncomfortable" speeches ever since. But I have to pay the rent, I have to eat, I have to feed my cat, and I know that my predecessor desperately wants the job back (if I had any place else to go I would call her and say "Yours, and welcome to it!" but I haven't) so it's not like I have much leverage, other than being really, really good at my job - which has never been enough to keep me from being laid off and replaced by younger, less-experienced victims of the system.
Sigh. --And it seemed so promising when I started, the boss nice rather than a Nice Guy™ as he has turned out to be, and my immediate superior a sane salt-of-the-earth moderate (would you expect a man who has expressed violent loathing of Bill O'Reilly, FOX News, the Union Leader, and political fearmongering - well, who would you expect him to have backed in this race? Surely not Rudy Giulani, at least!) But Craigslist and Monster provide no hope, nightly.