I hate stupid fucking birthday bullshit at work. Yay you managed not to die for a whole year, whatever. No, I’m not traipsing around the city at lunchtime looking for a cake because you, dear manager, forgot to order one for our boss. Frankly, I’ll bet she doesn’t care, as she was already bragging yesterday about some ice cream cake she’s getting at home, along with her favorite dinner.
This is why I keep my birthday off social media and take it off from work. Leave me the fuck alone about it. All the me, me, me, me, look at me I’m still alive, me, me, blah blah blah whatever, I have work to to.
We live just a few miles from one of the largest railyards in the Western United States. In the 1970s a weapons train full of ordnance for the Vietnam War exploded there, destroying houses for miles around. The city still runs a test siren at noon on the first Friday of every month.
You know, I’m tired of memes and comments that say you’re weak or admitting the other person is right or winning because you block them on Facebook.
That’s like saying you’re weak for leaving an abusive relationship, kicking a bad friend to the curb or for not standing and engaging every crazy fuck standing outside the post office who wants to argue with you about space aliens.
Are you weak for not engaging every salesman or missionary who knocks on your door? Are they “winning” because you close the door in their face? Are telemarketers winning because you hang up on them? :dubious:
No, fuck that nonsense. I get to choose who I want to engage and who I don’t. I get to decide who appears on my facebook page just the same as I get to choose who walks in my front door, or who I have lunch with.
Single. Turns out that if you’re in a poly relationship, she doesn’t really want that, and the person she adds to the relationship is also not really polyamorous, and is way, way hotter than you, things might not end well.
My local government, formed by four separate parties whose main item in common is that they hate a fifth party bigger than any of them, has in its infinite wisdom decide that those of us who want to be listed as International Operators (a step that’s required in order to be able to invoice abroad) have to justify it.
“See my ‘reports on which were my clients for more than 5K€’ for the last ten years”, a report that we have to file with the Treasure yearly. The same Treasury which adds us to the IO Registry. More than half my billing is to foreign companies. Bloody assholes. Why so much talk of “internationalizing businesses”, when actually the second item they have in common is that they all hate businesses? And the third item, that they think with their groins.
I had a CEO who used any inconceivable excuse to have cake. At least once a week we had a party with sheet cake. We once celebrated the birthday of a deceased local politician (a long-time donor) with sheet cake. He died years ago.
Most sheet cakes are so mediocre. Please, after I’m gone, and you’re celebrating that once a year… spring for a real cake.
German Chocolate, Black Forest, Carrot, whatever the majority wants (and no, Margie from Accounts Receivable, “pretty much everyone” doesn’t want gluten-free).
I think the worst parts are the reflexes. Like, how you just naturally climb back into bed with her when you want to go to sleep. Or how you just automatically go hug her, or call her honey. She’s still here a day or two, and last night, after getting a liiiittle overzealous on the gin and tonic, I apparently just hugged her and tried to kiss her and climbed into our big, shared bed with her. It’s just the natural thing to do, and I was too plastered to remember to think for a moment.
(Also too plastered to hear my alarm - I got to work an hour and a half late.)
I wonder how long it’s going to be before I get past looking to see if she’s home after I get home from work. She’s moving out tomorrow.
Remember that it is just a reflex. You aren’t weak or trying to get her back or anything other than following muscle memory.
But habits do change, eventually. I’m sorry, but this is gonna suck for a while. Then it will get a little better. And there will be cool little things sprinkled in the suckiness if you look for them.
[in my case, I can eat tunafish any time I want without Pop-of-Andrew bitching about the smell. Because Pop-of-Andrew decided he didn’t want to be married to me anymore]
Eventually, it will all be different. And because you have people who care about you, the different will be good, too.
IT: “So, overly…I see you’re on paid time off all week next week. Think you can make just one meeting Monday?”
Me: “Nope, sorry - my mom is having surgery that day and I’m just not going to be available.”
IT: “Well, surgery is usually a wait around kind of thing isn’t it? So you should have time to make a meeting, right? When is the surgery? I’ll just schedule something while she’s in surgery so you can step out.”
Me: “No, I’m NOT making myself available.”
IT: “Well, if you don’t meet with us on Monday, you’re really putting IT behind schedule.”
Me: “Sorry to hear that, but no.”
5 minutes later, a meeting comes out. For Monday.
What the fuck is wrong with people? Yeah, I will probably have a lot of waiting around, but goddammit, that doesn’t mean I’ll be in the right frame of mind to make decisions on a $3 million project. And I probably won’t be able to pay attention to you anyway. So, please go fuck yourself, IT. And no matter how much you try, I will not feel a shred of guilt for taking care of a sick parent over helping you meet your timelines.
Back in 1986, pre-internet or cellphone, I was the only one who did my job and had no backup, which continued all the way until I walked out in 1992.
But I went to England for a week.
“Can we have the phone number for the hotel you’ll be staying at?”
“No.”
Several years later;
“I’ve noticed that you take one sick day a month. I think you’re misusing your sick time and you need to stop or I’ll give you a warning for it.”
“Ok, you know I have no backup, right? I take one day a month as a mental health day. I always ensure to do it on a day when I have no meetings and no deadlines. But if this is a problem for you, I’ll stop doing it and take a two week vacation next summer. Please be sure to have someone who can take over for me, because I’ll be out of contact the whole time. Does that work better for you?”
Suddenly there were zero problems with me calling in whenever I damned well felt like it.
Is everyone in this town high or drunk when they are driving??!! Running stop signs, speeding in residential areas, riding my bumper while texting/ chatting on the phone/ combing your hair/blocking intersections etc.etc.
Geez, nearly three hours. Double post for me, I guess.
I got one of those robotic telemarketer calls today. The kind where the friendly voice pretends they have a bad connection, and they have to ask if you can hear them. Then she launches into the spiel where she claims that you stayed in one of her company’s hotels recently, and they’d like to offer you a FREE trip to someplace exotic (usually out of the country, as if normal, not-rich people who don’t have the money to go jetting off at a moment’s notice are likely to have a passport :dubious: ).
Anyway, the weird part is this: kaylasmom on the phone with her friend in Missouri when the call came in. And we don’t have an answering machine, so it shouldn’t have started talking and interrupting my afternoon nap even if she HADN’T been on the phone.
Was it out Echo? I shouted for Alexa to STOP a few times, but there was no interruption to the message. The robot kept asking me if I could hear her. I go out of bed and walked around to kaylasmom’s side to check out her nightstand.
HER FRIKKIN’ LIFE ALERT BASE STATION WAS PICKING UP THE CALL! I hit the CANCEL button and then the HELP button, so I could alert the dispatch center to the problem. It seems that because the system is wireless and doesn’t require a working phone jack with a dial tone, this type of incident can happen, but they have the means to block such calls when a client has reported one (kaylasmom tells me that she has gotten these calls before, when I haven’t been home).
Life Alert tells me that they fixed the problem, and it shouldn’t recur, but why the hell do they not make “blocking telemarketer wireless calls” the default on ALL of their equipment?
Also why can’t I make “blocking telemarketer wireless calls” a setting on my cellphone?
