My shattered glass house
I haven't written in this thing for a while, and it's not because I have nothing to say. It's because all the comments I have about my life lately are negative and self-deprecating and depressing and I don't want to think about any of it. But I can't stop thinking about it because, like it or not, I inhabit this body and the life it leads. I'm stuck in this skin and this brain and there's not a damn thing I can do about it but keep on breathing and moving and letting my heart pump blood into my extremities. Ah, life. What a macabre burden. At this time I have 3 major grievances, in particular order:
GRIEVANCE #1: Luna is sick. He got his microcalcification in the bladder thing again and, although I got into a car and headed to JFK to try to take him home to Utah and his vet, we didn't make it there. You see, I talked to an emergency vet receptionist who told me that flying with him might make his bladder explode and he would die. Air pressure can be a killer if you can't pee, I guess. So I had the car turned around and headed for an emergency vet on 5th Avenue. Why? Because the illustrious address led me to believe that they would take great care of my most precious friend. They did, but for a 5th Avenue NYC price. I walked him out of there 4 days later after 2 operations and a $3700 bill which required me to take out a loan to pay. Yes, my next 14 months will lived while paying that stack of cash off to avoid interest hitting me in the ass like a tsunami. To make matters worse, he got an infection in his incision on Monday and I had to make YET ANOTHER trip to the vet. They hooked him up to fluids and kept him overnight. Yesterday when I picked him up I stacked $550 onto my tab. For those of you who are bad at math (I know I am) that's a grand total of $4200, not to mention the follow-up appointment I have on Monday to remove his stitches and the general vet appointment I'm required to make to get his food schedule regulated. Can anyone say AHHHHHHH!!!!???? I can. Oh, and I do. I haven't slept in a week and a half and my best friend is suffering and my human friends are feeling as though I've forgotten about them because every spare moment I have I spend with Luna. I figure I've spent thousands of dollars and lost years of my life from stress for my kitty, I might as well enjoy his company. I can't help but think of the things I'm missing out on, though. Which leads me to...
GRIEVANCE #2: I was supposed to leave for Paris last Sunday. I had my ticket, my hotel and a friend with which to ramble the streets. By all fair accounts, I should be sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Montmartre sipping vin rouge with my Snowflake and listening to a street performer's rendition of "La Vie En Rose" while my NYC stresses flow out of my ears and disappear into the Parisian sky. Where am I instead? I'm sitting at this fucking computer behind this fucking desk. Exactly where I've been for a year. PARIS, you were so close I could taste you. Now I have no idea when I'll get back to you. Most people get at least one vacation in a year, even if they are workaholics. I am by no means a workaholic, but I haven't had a week off since Christmas. It makes me want to cry...or vomit. I'll admit that Luna was much more important than this trip, and that Paris will always be there while Luna won't, and that I'm glad things happened this way rather than losing him, but DAMN. Why must I have chosen martyrdom over Paris or kitty death? What in the world did I do that I must be punished like this? I've worked my ass of and I fucking deserved this, godammit! I'm pissed and I'm sad and I want I want I want. I just want. I want out of this hole and this office and...this leads me to,
GRIEVANCE #3: I've said it before and I have no doubt that I'll say it again, but I hate my job with a fierceness that has enough power to propel me across the ocean to Paris upon my own volition. On Friday, the day I should have been leaving for Boston to prepare for my Paris departure, my boss called me into his office. Mind you, this was also after a week of worry about my cat and sleep deprivation. He said that I was too young to be expected to do the job they ask me to do (funny, I've been doing it for a year). He said they were hiring a person above me who I WOULD NEVER be above and I COULD NEVER "push" my work onto them. His words. Recently my assistant of 6 months quit with 8 hours notice and my temp agency sent me the most useless girl to replace her. I tried for 3 weeks to teach her how to send a FedEx to no avail. After giving her a chance I called them and told them to send someone else. My new assistant rocks, I must say, but at the time of this conversation I had only been working with her for a week. We have also hired 4 new people in the last 2 months who, for some reason, think of me as their personal slave. How, I ask, could I have pushed my work onto others when my recent useless assistant couldn't even send a package without a tutorial and the assistant before her was required to do little to nothing since there were fewer people and it was the slow summer season? Who in the world could I have pushed my work onto? I wish he'd tell me so I could take advantage of that imaginary work nymph in the future.
He then went on to tell me I was incapable of doing the simplest thing because I couldn't even make correct travel reservations. This comment was due to the fact that, earlier in the week, I had called and set up a flight for him and the travel service sent the wrong info. out because I guess the flight we had requested was magically unavailable once they ticketed it. They sent it to him and he hit the roof. He blamed me, even though I honestly had nothing to do with it. In a year this has never happened before. So I guess that when our travel agency makes one mistake in a year and he finds out about it that somehow makes me incompetent. That sounds fair, doesn't it? Honestly, I have to say that him hiring someone else to work directly with him makes me happy, because that means I won't have to deal with him any more, but... I asked him if my hours would change with the addition of this new person. He said yes, that I would work from 9 to 6. I now work from 8 to 4. That's an extra hour. I asked if I would get more money since I would be working more hours and also because I will have worked here for a year in October. He looked at me as though I was a leper and flat-out said no.
The next thing he told me was that I have a horrible work ethic (I've taken one sick day all year and this comes from the man who took EVERY Friday off ALL SUMMER LONG to go with his family to the Hamptons). He told me I needed to learn how to prioritize and that I had to work faster (keep in mind that I'm an indentured servant for 9 Park Avenue princesses and it would take 5 people to keep up with just changing their travel reservations, which they do AT LEAST twice a day. Add that up and it comes down to me spending 6 hours a day on the phone with the travel agent). We are currently expanding our office and the New York Historical Society put a hold on our plans because they went against the covenants of the building. Then, once our architect had resolved this issue and the work began, the builders found tiles with asbestos in them. This put another halt in the plans and there are still no workers next door. We are currently paying for empty space on one of the most expensive streets in the world. The rent is $20,000 a month (wow, that's a lot of trips to the vet!). The reason I'm writing this boring information is to lead up to the next thing my boss said. He told me that I was doing a poor job in managing the building going on next door and that he needed me to start following up and anticipating these things because I (I!) have wasted a lot of the company's money. Maybe his new assistant will be clairvoyant, because obviously that's what he wants and needs. I hope for her sake that she is, because her new boss is a first-grade asshole. He ended the conversation by saying that none of this was really my fault, that they didn't expect much of me, and that if he had been in charge he wouldn't have hired me in the first place. Makes a gal feel all warm and fuzzy to hear such nice things said about her on the day she's supposed to leave for Paris.
Since that day he's been openly hostile toward me in front of anyone who happens to be around and he is effectively teaching the newbies in the office that it's totally appropriate to treat me like shit. Oh, and believe me, they're taking him up on it. In short, I might have hated my job before but now I'm sincerely considering taking a shotgun to work and seeing how well I can aim the thing. Or I could bring in a box of cockroaches and set them loose in their desk drawers. Or I could put strychnine in their coffee. Or I could take all those confidential documents worth millions and publish them on the internet. Or, here's an idea, I could quit. But wait! I owe the vet $4200 payable in monthly installments! Ain't life grand? Makes one want to step off the subway platform while the train is coming, let me tell you. But I have a cat to take care of, so no worries about my safety. At least not at this particular juncture. I have, however, made an appointment with a head hunter who thinks she can place me within the month. Only a month and I'll be free! The only thing I told her I cared about was that I make as much as I'm making now and that I thoroughly enjoy the people I work with. I don't care about the industry, I'm just tired of everyone dumping on me all the time.
Okay, okay! I'll stop my bitching. I have to say, though, that even though writing all those things got me all worked up, I feel better now. I feel like I've released these things into the world and that I can move on from them. I built this glass house and I watched the nymphs of misfortune take their hammers to its foundation, but that doesn't mean that I can't build another. So, in the midst of all these shards, I bid all these dark feelings adieu.
GRIEVANCE #1: Luna is sick. He got his microcalcification in the bladder thing again and, although I got into a car and headed to JFK to try to take him home to Utah and his vet, we didn't make it there. You see, I talked to an emergency vet receptionist who told me that flying with him might make his bladder explode and he would die. Air pressure can be a killer if you can't pee, I guess. So I had the car turned around and headed for an emergency vet on 5th Avenue. Why? Because the illustrious address led me to believe that they would take great care of my most precious friend. They did, but for a 5th Avenue NYC price. I walked him out of there 4 days later after 2 operations and a $3700 bill which required me to take out a loan to pay. Yes, my next 14 months will lived while paying that stack of cash off to avoid interest hitting me in the ass like a tsunami. To make matters worse, he got an infection in his incision on Monday and I had to make YET ANOTHER trip to the vet. They hooked him up to fluids and kept him overnight. Yesterday when I picked him up I stacked $550 onto my tab. For those of you who are bad at math (I know I am) that's a grand total of $4200, not to mention the follow-up appointment I have on Monday to remove his stitches and the general vet appointment I'm required to make to get his food schedule regulated. Can anyone say AHHHHHHH!!!!???? I can. Oh, and I do. I haven't slept in a week and a half and my best friend is suffering and my human friends are feeling as though I've forgotten about them because every spare moment I have I spend with Luna. I figure I've spent thousands of dollars and lost years of my life from stress for my kitty, I might as well enjoy his company. I can't help but think of the things I'm missing out on, though. Which leads me to...
GRIEVANCE #2: I was supposed to leave for Paris last Sunday. I had my ticket, my hotel and a friend with which to ramble the streets. By all fair accounts, I should be sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Montmartre sipping vin rouge with my Snowflake and listening to a street performer's rendition of "La Vie En Rose" while my NYC stresses flow out of my ears and disappear into the Parisian sky. Where am I instead? I'm sitting at this fucking computer behind this fucking desk. Exactly where I've been for a year. PARIS, you were so close I could taste you. Now I have no idea when I'll get back to you. Most people get at least one vacation in a year, even if they are workaholics. I am by no means a workaholic, but I haven't had a week off since Christmas. It makes me want to cry...or vomit. I'll admit that Luna was much more important than this trip, and that Paris will always be there while Luna won't, and that I'm glad things happened this way rather than losing him, but DAMN. Why must I have chosen martyrdom over Paris or kitty death? What in the world did I do that I must be punished like this? I've worked my ass of and I fucking deserved this, godammit! I'm pissed and I'm sad and I want I want I want. I just want. I want out of this hole and this office and...this leads me to,
GRIEVANCE #3: I've said it before and I have no doubt that I'll say it again, but I hate my job with a fierceness that has enough power to propel me across the ocean to Paris upon my own volition. On Friday, the day I should have been leaving for Boston to prepare for my Paris departure, my boss called me into his office. Mind you, this was also after a week of worry about my cat and sleep deprivation. He said that I was too young to be expected to do the job they ask me to do (funny, I've been doing it for a year). He said they were hiring a person above me who I WOULD NEVER be above and I COULD NEVER "push" my work onto them. His words. Recently my assistant of 6 months quit with 8 hours notice and my temp agency sent me the most useless girl to replace her. I tried for 3 weeks to teach her how to send a FedEx to no avail. After giving her a chance I called them and told them to send someone else. My new assistant rocks, I must say, but at the time of this conversation I had only been working with her for a week. We have also hired 4 new people in the last 2 months who, for some reason, think of me as their personal slave. How, I ask, could I have pushed my work onto others when my recent useless assistant couldn't even send a package without a tutorial and the assistant before her was required to do little to nothing since there were fewer people and it was the slow summer season? Who in the world could I have pushed my work onto? I wish he'd tell me so I could take advantage of that imaginary work nymph in the future.
He then went on to tell me I was incapable of doing the simplest thing because I couldn't even make correct travel reservations. This comment was due to the fact that, earlier in the week, I had called and set up a flight for him and the travel service sent the wrong info. out because I guess the flight we had requested was magically unavailable once they ticketed it. They sent it to him and he hit the roof. He blamed me, even though I honestly had nothing to do with it. In a year this has never happened before. So I guess that when our travel agency makes one mistake in a year and he finds out about it that somehow makes me incompetent. That sounds fair, doesn't it? Honestly, I have to say that him hiring someone else to work directly with him makes me happy, because that means I won't have to deal with him any more, but... I asked him if my hours would change with the addition of this new person. He said yes, that I would work from 9 to 6. I now work from 8 to 4. That's an extra hour. I asked if I would get more money since I would be working more hours and also because I will have worked here for a year in October. He looked at me as though I was a leper and flat-out said no.
The next thing he told me was that I have a horrible work ethic (I've taken one sick day all year and this comes from the man who took EVERY Friday off ALL SUMMER LONG to go with his family to the Hamptons). He told me I needed to learn how to prioritize and that I had to work faster (keep in mind that I'm an indentured servant for 9 Park Avenue princesses and it would take 5 people to keep up with just changing their travel reservations, which they do AT LEAST twice a day. Add that up and it comes down to me spending 6 hours a day on the phone with the travel agent). We are currently expanding our office and the New York Historical Society put a hold on our plans because they went against the covenants of the building. Then, once our architect had resolved this issue and the work began, the builders found tiles with asbestos in them. This put another halt in the plans and there are still no workers next door. We are currently paying for empty space on one of the most expensive streets in the world. The rent is $20,000 a month (wow, that's a lot of trips to the vet!). The reason I'm writing this boring information is to lead up to the next thing my boss said. He told me that I was doing a poor job in managing the building going on next door and that he needed me to start following up and anticipating these things because I (I!) have wasted a lot of the company's money. Maybe his new assistant will be clairvoyant, because obviously that's what he wants and needs. I hope for her sake that she is, because her new boss is a first-grade asshole. He ended the conversation by saying that none of this was really my fault, that they didn't expect much of me, and that if he had been in charge he wouldn't have hired me in the first place. Makes a gal feel all warm and fuzzy to hear such nice things said about her on the day she's supposed to leave for Paris.
Since that day he's been openly hostile toward me in front of anyone who happens to be around and he is effectively teaching the newbies in the office that it's totally appropriate to treat me like shit. Oh, and believe me, they're taking him up on it. In short, I might have hated my job before but now I'm sincerely considering taking a shotgun to work and seeing how well I can aim the thing. Or I could bring in a box of cockroaches and set them loose in their desk drawers. Or I could put strychnine in their coffee. Or I could take all those confidential documents worth millions and publish them on the internet. Or, here's an idea, I could quit. But wait! I owe the vet $4200 payable in monthly installments! Ain't life grand? Makes one want to step off the subway platform while the train is coming, let me tell you. But I have a cat to take care of, so no worries about my safety. At least not at this particular juncture. I have, however, made an appointment with a head hunter who thinks she can place me within the month. Only a month and I'll be free! The only thing I told her I cared about was that I make as much as I'm making now and that I thoroughly enjoy the people I work with. I don't care about the industry, I'm just tired of everyone dumping on me all the time.
Okay, okay! I'll stop my bitching. I have to say, though, that even though writing all those things got me all worked up, I feel better now. I feel like I've released these things into the world and that I can move on from them. I built this glass house and I watched the nymphs of misfortune take their hammers to its foundation, but that doesn't mean that I can't build another. So, in the midst of all these shards, I bid all these dark feelings adieu.