Instant Message THIS!
I really hate instant messaging. I am hooked to my computer and any new fangled gadget out there designed to make my life "easier" or "improve" my efficiency. I would hate to see what life would be like if my laptop were not here to make me more efficient. Anyway...I hate instant messaging. Although it is nice when you have someone as equally committed to your online meeting it is utterly frustrating when you come across the random fool that thinks that you can be placed on hold for FOREVER while he/she goes and prepares dinner. Instant messaging makes it 10 times easier to extend a conversation far past its limits until it not only become tiresome for the initiating party but for the person on the other end trying to keep up.
Take for example this one fool. I am online (MSN) for the first time in a long time, most of my people are AOL buddies. And I come across his name and he is online. I am all excited and the conversation starts off with a bang! "HEY how are you??? I missed you! How have you been?" and then nothing. I ask "What is up with you" and it has been 5 minutes and counting. I am sure he is somewhere hovering over a toilet bowl picking his nose. It is like having someone get up and walk away from you in the middle of a kiss. You are left like ....wahhhh?
And now his status is AWAY! He had time to say that he was away and not enough to say "Okay I am fine!" It just don't make no damned sense. I am so arrgh at this point that I can't imagine why I even bother anymore. I am just going to sign off and say to hell with the whole thing. That is the end of that, I knew there was a good reason why I did not bother signing on anymore.
Dating or something like it!
So I have joined an online dating network. I know, I know, but crawl out of the stigma for a second and listen to this. I got on match.com and am doing okay for myself. I got several winks since adding my picture.
But I feel like the pickings on these websites are as small as those in Newark! I mean you have to ask yourself after you read someone's profile - what is wrong with you? Like if you are out there trying to hook up with someone online then there must be something wrong with you. I know what is wrong with me, the dating pool in am wading in is filthy and so murky I don't know a shark from a goldfish.
Most of the men that have "winked" at me are 33-37 years old - there goes that dating my dad feeling again. But I was looking at their profiles and a lot of them seem like nice guys. I was really impressed with what a lot of them had to say about themselves. But in real life, outside of cyberspace if any of these guys were to approach me I would tell them "beat it pops". What makes the same approach "ok" online. I guess when you sign up online you are admitting that there is a ounce of desperation in your search for true love, and once that is out there in the air you forgive the 30-something and the between-jobs profiles. But this is just not part of the acceptable quota in the real world. I find myself being faltered when a man "winks" at me for am mere fact that he found me attractive. If a man literally winked at me on the street for the same reason I would be offended. What is the difference? The same man with two kids, living in his mother's house and working part time is of a better quality if he talks to me online?
I have tried to keep my standards the same since entering the match.com scene. I have to admit it is nice talking to complete strangers and finding common ground and the safety net of a username is better than running into him on the street and trading cell numbers.
On a brighter note I got asked out yesterday. I am not to excited though the last lawyer to ask me out was a jerk and I am not about to fall into the trap again. So I have been given the option of making the first step. I was looking at his business card and he works in New York - what is wrong with him. He is a 30-something and single, money maker with a funny bone and he is in New York so where are all the women that should be clamoring down his door? I am being asked to squeeze that piece of fruit that has been on the shelf for 20 years again. What to do?
Monday Blues
I am living for the weekend now. Everything I do is devoted to making it through the week and to the weekend. Friday night when all my responsibilities of the week are no longer on my back. No more letters to write, paper to file, problems to understand, breakdown and solve. I dread Mondays and seeing that although tomorrow is a holiday and I don't have it off I am still dreading the week, because for me it is still 5 days long.
There are too many days in the week. And although I just came off of vacation I think I should be entitled to yet another, with benefits soon. Like in the next month or so. I am not sure what to think of this new job situation, I have mixed feeling about my new employer, I would not have lunch with her, accept a ride home from her, go to an event with her or even introduce my family or friends to her. She is not representative of the people that I would like to have in my life and even if she were a passing acquaintance I would still steer clear of her. It is not like I dislike her, I just don't find in anyway to be a meaningful asset to my life.
I have found her to be increasingly negative of everyone and everything. I understand that in her profession it pays to be tough and direct but she applies this to everything and it does not work for me. I have been thrown into a field that I am not familiar with. I have been asked to evolve, adapt and absorb things that have no direct meaning to my life. It is like trying to learn Chinese for a new movie coming out. Outside of the movie theatre, the fact that you know Chinese can't be applied anywhere. I don't have the zeal to learn or to please her. I don't think she has any faith that I can learn, not is there any encouragement, should I just cut my loses. I have started looking for a new job. I know when I am just not wanted! Needed is another story, some people deserve to be by themselves.
Pet Peeves
I have had to really evaluate what is important in my life. The things and people that I am willing to tolerate within reason. I have compared my life (yes, compared) to those around me and everyone I know is reasonably happy with the way things are going with them. I am the only person that has griped over the past year and a half about my employment situation and the state of my love/sex life. I am taking time to write down those things that are just on my I-can't-stand list. I know that there will be many times during my life when I just will just have to grin and bear this kind of treatment but for now I am content placing it on my list.
My peeves:
- People who insist on spitting in public. The kind of people who snort snot to the back of their throats, hack and spit onto the sidewalk or out of their car windows.
- Really fat people who stuff themselves with junk food and claim three minutes later that they have not eaten all day.
- The sound of someone (other than myself) urinating.
- The babble of restless children on the bus at 8:30am or 6:30pm.
- People who use the bathroom with the door open! Yecch
- People who don't say Goodbye at the end of a telephone conversation, but just hang up.
- Finding no ice in the ice tray after coming home from a long day at work.
- The smell of steamed broccoli.
- Being unable to find a good man in my neighbor hood. Then again the standards of what a good man is in my neck of the woods is far off my standard.
- Watching someone pick their nose (I mean really dig for treasure) and touch something that everyone else must handle and have to hold my tongue...how do you confront someone so nasty???
- Denying myself the right to obey my urges to bitch slap the people to piss me off during the day.
- Walking through the cloud of cigarette smoke that always surrounds the entrance to any office building.
- Dealing with people who ask you to purchase things for them but never offer a repayment plan!
Short and Sweet
I officially hate my new job!
There I said it, now it is time to find a solution to my current problem. I have only been there two weeks and I knew from day one that I would not like it but I really need a new solution, although the obvious would be to find a new job I think that with my current schedule, interviewing for a new position someplace else is not an option that I can readily explore.
How can I survive or escape my new torture chamber?
Help!
Sole Survivor!
I think it strange when the human mind finds itself in a desperate situation desperate measures have the appeal of salvation.
I jumped, literally jumped, like the last desperate passenger onboard the Titanic, from the horrors of my last job. I leaped and did not ask questions about the possibility of rescue, shark infested waters or rip tides.
So here I am, on a raft which as it turns out, is nothing more than a canoe with no oars, simply floating. No propulsion, no direction, and seemingly no hope. I am at my wits end and I can only guess at what the underlying reason behind my lack of options. I do believe that jumping ship was the best decision that I could have made, any longer a wait would have led unnessary frustration on my part. I could not have made a better decision but I did not know what kind of waters I was getting into, so therein lies my mistake and current problems.
I spoke to one of my old co-workers the other day, she called me up out of the blue just to talk and I was really surprised to hear from her. She had left the same agency I did and had moved onto something that was so much bigger and better than I could have imagined. Everyone was so jealous of her when she left including me. But there she was in this “mega” job making loads of cash and the prospects of going back to school to complete her masters in the horizon. And in one brief moment on the phone I find out that it is all gone. She was talking and she was telling me how happy she was now that and she needs my help in getting her resume out there and I am like “wait, did you leave so-and-so?” She confirms my speculations and I am floored. She wasn’t there a month and she already left. She was my reason for leaving my last job, well she was my encouragement. When I found out that she had left all that I could think is why, and what about me and my new canoe?
She left because the company she went to was even more disorganized than the one she had left. Neither place was to her liking so she left. Without unemployment, without a new job to move to, and she is “happy”. I know that not everyone’s situation is the same and she could have had money in the bank and fully able to take this time off from working but it just set my mind to thinking about my own choices. I had stayed at my last job because it was what other people wanted. They thought I belonged and so I thought I should make a bad situation work. But how can I make a shoe fit that is three sizes to small. I spent 12 months trying to wedge my foot into the narrowminded assumptions and expectations of others. And although I knew in my heart of hearts that is not what I wanted I just had to make it work, cause it was my job to make it work.
It was only when I decided that I was going to leave that I realized that I could walk away and not feel badly about any of it. I could say “kiss my ass” and turn my back, cause there will always be someone else right behing me trying to fill those shoes. But now that I have found this job, I am getting similar reminders that this isn’t the right shoe either, that I may not be at the right shoe store, I may not even be in the right mall. I am just feeling my way through this restless oblivion and trying to pay bills at the same time. Maybe I will learn a few things along the way but in the end, especially if this turns out to be anything like my last job, I may just have to say that it was not worth it. I can’t believe that I am here again, it is not as bad it could be a lot worse but I sure wish it were a whole lot better.
I am doing all this on the company dime of course. There is no better inspiration than an insight reflection of my life. It us 10am in the morning and my employer is out for this part of the day and I am taking advantage of the quiet. The phone has only rung twice since I sat down and hour ago. I wish I were at home with my buddy-boy-friend under the covers right now and watching cartoons.
I was writing this on the bus and it occurred to me (and watch out now this is going to get pretty profound) I can’t work for women ever again. I don’t think I have ever met a female employer that I latched on to immediately or had a really good relationship with in the end. I think that as black females (I am speaking as a black woman) in the corporate or business world suffer with the worst case of crab-in-a-barrel syndrome I have ever seen. They are not happy with being a black female success story. There is a desire to be the only black female with an epic success story to tell. I was at a party the other day and I was blessed to be in the presences of black women and men from different professional fields that all came together to discuss the educational system in Newark and the surrounding urban communities and celebrate the past years accomplishments in getting some parties to cooperate. But in the midst of all the festivities a group gathered in front of the fireplace for a deer discussion, abandoning the football game and music to talk about some of their observations. I ventured over after I noticed that many of the people that were once in front of the television had migrated.
When I walked into the room the center of attention was a middle-aged black woman with dreads and acrylics (a contradiction of sorts) and she was talking at length about some of the things that she had noticed at one particular school, and what she had done to solve the problem. Although her storytelling had the group riveted there was something lacking. The focus not only shifted off of the problems and how can we fix it method that the group was focused on, it now became solely about her feats as supermom in the public school system. She stood up, drink in hand and went on and on for about 15 minutes and was all watched and listened. The problem with her story was that it was written and directed by her, starring her and co-starring herself. There were no other characters save for the few nameless individuals that she defeated continuously on behalf of her defenseless children. Every few minutes someone would attempt to get a few words in edgewise and would be batted away while she continued on and on with her story. She was a successful black woman who equated all of urban Newark’s woes to the “system”, the “man” and some grand design that is meant to keep black people down. I am neither for nor am I against that theory. It is just hard to envision an entire race of people conspiring and collaborating to keep me from going to school, getting a job and being happy. Sometimes I think we are own worst enemy.
I have so much more to add but there is just not enough time. Have a good day at work everyone.
TO BE CONTINUED
Dead Broke
This has to be the worst part of taking any new job. If you don't plan it correctly, the time and space between paychecks can seem endless. I am on my second week without a paycheck and I am broke.
The kind of broke that drives you to stand in front of the cupboard and contemplate eating that can of beets left over from the food drive last year. Or to peer desperately into the refridgerator and second guess the expiration date on the milk cartoon.
The other day I hand vienna sausages and rice.
Yes, I said it, PUBLICLY. SAUSAGES AND RICE!!! And I would do it again...probably tonight. I can't wait for that first paycheck...I will be the life saver and still after I completely pay off all the debt that I have accumulated in the past two weeks I will have to eat crackers and butter for the next two weeks. I guess it will be worth it in the end.
Lost Boys
My Buddy-Boy-Friend is out of town this week. He is vacationing in the Caribbean with his brothers. I am soo lost. Other than those obvious reasons why I would miss him so much, I am just lost. There is no anchor, I don't know what to do when my day goes bad cause there is no one to call and set me straight. I have resorted to calling his cell and leaving voice messages. I know it sounds desperate but I feel so much better when I do that. I have only resorted to doing it once since he left on Monday. He even called from the island on his cell despite the roaming charges, by far on of the sweetest things that I have seen him do so far.
I can't wait for him to come home.
My New Job!
So I started my new job and I had to give a few days so that I could really get a feeel for my new employer, the environment and give myself time to read those red flags and see if I want to stay (it is a little late for that I know but I had to do something before I killed the people at my other job).
So, the vote is in and I think I am going to stay. She is a black woman (and despite all of my other experiences with black women in the workplace) I have decided that this one is different (or I hope so). It has been hectic, hectic at my job but I feel refreshed when I am done and I look back and all my tasks for the day are completed. The best part about the whole transition is that the annoying twitch on the left side of my face is gone.
I have intentionally refused to contact any person from my previous job. I think that is part of the I-got-the-hell-out attitude that I am cultivating. They had the nerve to call me yesterday, I don't even want to guess what the problem is now, and I am like if you don't know where something is then you should just start from scratch. Do you know I did not even get and exit interview...I just labeled everything with a smooth surface and left. I could careless. But they called. What do people think, I left, literally picked up all my shit and head for the door in the manner that left a lot of people like, "She left? When?" Now they are like I don't know where these files are - hahahaha, not my problem.
I think the part that I would most change about my job is the communte. I still have to contend with the people on the #13 bus. Those scary individuals and their children...the spawn of the earth, that infest the bus everyday, hacking and coughing their way to the back seat. Arrrgh! I don't know which is worst, trying to figure out how many medical afflections currently manifesting themselves in and on the people around me or knowing that the pole that I am clinging to for dear life, as the bus driver lurches us from stop to stop, is probably harvesting half of those germs. I don't know how I do it.
I can't wait to find me a cheap car and wear and mess out of it on the highway.
I like my new job but then a year ago I said the same thing about my last job and you saw the state I was in a couple months ago and that is just the stuff I could publish.
Blogger's Remorse!
It is so hard to write for the world to see about the people in my life, you know I come to the computer and I am angry and I want to talk about all the stuff that pisses me off about my housemates and their unnamed boyfriends, or about my buddy-boy-friend or about my co-workers (God that is one that I really have to restrain myself on) but I can't you. I am sure there are countless other bloggers out there that want to share but can't. Even with some of the stuff that I do let out of the bag I experience "blogger's remorse". Even when I am talking abotu people that I know but I just see them often enough to have formed some kind of intelligent opinion of them.
Okay, so this is the latest, I was commuting to work this morning an I happened to run into my neighbor, he is really a nice guy but I am live in the apartment directly above me and so whenever he and his girl have an argument I am there of most of it. Literally a fly on the wall. So I run into him this morning and he is all smiles for me and I am like, in my head of course, "damn, she f**ked you up on Saturday", and I smile and ask him really general stuff. But I know all this stuff about his personal life, and seeing that I have no life I don't know what kind of leverage he has on me. So, I am standing at the bus stop looking at him trying to seem like I know nothing, but there is so much stuff.
I think that is really weird how people perceive themselves and the way they are actually seen by other people. I was at a retirement party for one of my favorite professors at Rutgers University, she was also my advisor during my stay. She looked at me and basically told me that all my roommates thought I was a bitch my first year. Here I was thinking all this time that I was being persecuted and I was the bitch...that isn't the way the story goes but, it was just something that I was not aware of. I even have high school "acquaintances" that say that I was a bitch. Perception!
Anyway, the latest news:
I was over at my ex-boyfriend's house yesterday just hanging out with him and the new girlfriend and another chick we both know and we were talking about another "friend" of the group. Although we had never spoken about her together, when the conversation settled on her, her roommate was the first one to blurt out that she did not like her. I was shocked but it was the general concensus from everyone in the group. She is a sweet person but she just does not have a clue when it comes to living up to her responsibilities. Like she left to go to Africa and has been gone for a whole month but did not settle her bills before she left. She went all the way to Africa and left her roommate in the dark when PSE&G shut the lights and heat off on her. We were like DAMN! That is FOUL! But what can you do, you just walk away from the whole thing and shake your head.
My Own World
While thousands of Americans were out last night partying and drinking themselves into oblivion I was in my apartment rocking my 4 month old nephew asleep. I was planning to text message all of my friends with my New Year's wishes and the other yada yada and in the middle of bottle feeding and diaper changing I looked up and the clock read 12:14am. I completely missed it. I felt a little disappointed. I guess I will always have next year. If I could I would have skipped 2004, it was just filled with the worst kind of heartbreak and frustration, with the exception of the news of my sister's pregnancy in January, my graduation in May, and my nephew's arrival in September. I really need to start fresh, thank god for the new year.
My nephew, the baby, is by far the coolest person I know. He smile for no apparent reason, even the simpliest sounds and movements make him smile. Of course he cries but the reasons are always obvious.
I start my new job in two days and I am excited. Not that I will not miss the highly motivated and organized team at my other job (can you hear the sarcasm dripping). You know that scene in Shawshank Redemption where Tim Robbins emerges at the end of the prison sewer pipe and is standing in the rain. That is what is was like getting out of my last job. Don't ask me why I stayed, the point is - I am not there anymore. I will be sure to keep you posted on my new job.
