This isn’t evidence that she lacks human feelings. You see her 15 hours a week – her boredom with the job and co-workers doesn’t mean the other 90% of her life isn’t full and satisfying. So she’s not living her life to meet your approval. Neither are most of the rest of us.
It’s one thing to not understand someone’s behavior, it’s quite another to question their humanity because you don’t approve.
[QUOTE=Crafter_Man]
Suffice to say, these people are not like you and me. They don’t have goals, and they don’t know how to take responsibility for their actions. They can’t be helped.
[/QUOTE]
I guess this is what makes me so sad - it’s futile.
Perhaps this shouldn’t bother me. After all, I still have goals and wants, and I still don’t have children. I’m not the one stuck with her life. But it’s the principle of the thing!
[QUOTE=Lamia]
Gosh, I can’t imagine why this woman wouldn’t be confiding all her hopes and dreams to a coworker who thinks she’s a subhuman pod person and can’t stand to be around her.
[/QUOTE]
She’s not confiding in me. We’re a small work group, and she spends a large part of her work day talking about herself.
[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
It’s one thing to not understand someone’s behavior, it’s quite another to question their humanity because you don’t approve.
[/QUOTE]
I questioned her humanity long before she got pregnant. On a good day, I feel like I’m talking to a 'bot; on a bad day, I feel like I’m dealing with the DMV when I have to work with her.
My work group is mostly kids about 22. They’re great kids, too - they take pride in their work and show initiative and care about keeping things running smoothly. She stands out because she doesn’t.
Oh, it’s because you’re so principled that you’ve decided your acquaintance is a disgusting subhuman.
Yes, that’s what I said. You have decided that she has no feelings, goals, or dreams, but why the hell would she confide in you about these things? You are not her friend, you’re someone she sees at work for 15 hours a week, and she has perhaps picked up on your contempt for her. Yet although you say you can’t stand her company and don’t even think of her as human, you’re inexplicably obsessed with the details of her life. There’s one person in this situation who sounds really screwed up to me, and it’s not the pregnant lady.
I think it’s disgusting, or at least very immature, to expect a baby to provide for her needs (either financial or emotional). I think her expectations are setting her up for disappointment and the child(ren) up for failure.
I have first-hand experience of parents expecting children to meet their needs. It’s not fair.
And I didn’t always have contempt for her - I gave her the benefit of the doubt for a long time. I don’t need to know much about people to work with them. She earned my contempt long before she got pregnant, all by her workplace behavior. I wouldn’t know anything about her personal life if she hadn’t brought it into the workplace.
I haven’t heard of this in years, but, yes, “Welfare Moms” equated +1 baby with + $232/mo in public assistance.
You rarely got to be a “welfare mom” by excelling in either math or economics.
And thinking +1 baby = +1 rope to “hold onto your man”.
These are the people Republicans love to point out when demanding “47% of the population are not worth my time”.
I’m sure this is part of it. Just today, I heard her complaining about him going away for two weeks. So much for the rope…
(She may not confide in me, but I hear her talking to other people. That’s what she does. All shift long.)
It’s funny you say that, because just a few posts back you said she was subhuman because she doesn’t have emotions or wants. Now you’re saying she’s disgusting because she wants children, which you assume is to fulfill her emotional needs. I suppose you don’t need a consistent reason to condemn another person as a “pod” with no humanity.
This woman’s reproductive choices are not your business. You do not need to make sense of them. You do not need to spend your free time thinking about them. That you are fixating on this woman’s personal life and telling yourself that she isn’t really a human is frankly pretty disturbing.
Reproductive choices eventually become everyone’s business. Babies don’t stay cute little babies forever. Eventually they grow up and join society. Don’t you care whether they’re helped along by people with sound judgment?
And her situation would be a lot easier not to think about if she weren’t always talking about it in the workplace. Couldn’t she talk about movies or music or something besides her steady stream of mememememememememememe? My other coworkers manage. Or she could talk about work.
It would certainly be awful if that child grew up to be the sort of person who’d invent reasons to self-righteously condemn others as subhuman “pods”. Thankfully, it will be in the care of a woman whose worst sins appear to be not having much money and being a boring conversationalist.
You know who else has an annoying coworker? Everyone. Most of us find ways to deal with it that don’t involve declaring these people Untermenschen who shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce.
OleOneEye, I don’t think you understand why people are so offended by what you are saying. It’s one thing to call someone stupid, or annoying, or evil, or whatever. But you are calling her subhuman, and you don’t seem to be using the term in an ironic or hyperbolic state. Declaring people subhuman has terrible connotations: the human/not human line is a big, bold demarcation that we use to define things like murder and cannibalism. To declare that someone isn’t really human is to suggest that they don’t have rights, that they aren’t entitled to equal protection under the law, that they exist outside the normal imperatives for how we treat each other. Dehumanization of the “other” has been responsible, over and over again, for the worst of human atrocities, on both the macro and micro scale.
I don’t think you mean all or any of that when you say she’s “not human”. But that is what “not human” means, so I would suggest you find some descriptor that does mean what you are trying to say. It’s like you have mono and keep calling it flu, and when people say “but that’s not flu” you keep saying “But I am really, really sick”. That may well be, but it’s not flu. It’s something different. You co-worker may be stupid and annoying, but unless you think she’s actually not human (as in, if you killed her it wouldn’t really be murder), call her something else, or make it clear you’re being deliberately hyperbolic.
OOE, I dont know what the additional monetary compensation is for having 1 v 2 dependents on Public Aid, but I can sympathize with your frustration.
My sister has an “assistant” at her irk who does nothing but what yours does: wait for the end of the day by playing on the phone, read magazines and blahblahblah to my sister all day long. And pop out baby after baby even tho DH is unemployed. No sense of money management or common sense from what Im told.
Maybe they learn that if they are passive and lazy that others will do it for them and not expect anything from them.
PS - my sister’s “assistant” was hired by their former boss who hired “ASSistant” solely on her bra size apparently. Government job = cant be fired unless its something documented and egregious.
And having no work ethic. Working with her sucked long before she got pregnant. We have good workers who could be getting more hours, another good worker who could be promoted into her spot, and good seasonal workers who could be hired on, but for her taking up a spot on our team. :mad:
Between her and the child(ren)'s father, who will only look for work playing video games, I have no idea where the child(ren) will learn a work ethic.
Jeepers, I’m not sure why people are getting so upset about this. It’s not like I called for her to be taken out back and shot. I just don’t think there’s anyone there.
My coworkers all have interests and goals. They may be modest goals like moving out of mom and dad’s house, but they’re looking forward to something. Not this girl. I’ve heard her say she needed a baby, but I’ve never heard her say she wanted a baby. Or anything else for that matter. She presents herself as someone that things happen to, rather than someone who gets something in mind and makes it happen.
Not sure why this had to turn into a semantics debate. Sheesh.
No, you just said this woman is not actually a human but rather a disgusting “pod” with no feelings. If that was meant to convey your abiding respect for her basic humanity and right to live freely then I have to say you’re not very good at communicating.
(Bolding mine.)
You’re the one who decided your coworker is subhuman because she used the word “need” instead of “want” to describe her desire to have a child. I don’t see where you have any room to complain that others are judging you based on your extremely offensive way of expressing yourself.
I think you’re upset way out of proportion to anything I’ve said.
It’s demoralizing spending time around someone who’s indifferent to outcomes. I’m not sure how much clearer I can put it.
And don’t put words in my mouth - I never said anything about her rights. She has the legal right to have a baby every nine months. Doesn’t make it a good idea.
And “need” -vs- “want” is not a semantic difference. She expected a baby to provide for her needs, whether emotional or financial. That’s a tall order for a little baby.
You speak truth, OleOneEye. They walk among us, these puppets. They are hollow ones. They drain our life and in exchange they bring us nothing but noise and the stench of scorched popcorn. If any thin spark of consciousness exists at all within their feeble skulls, it is doubtful that they experience anything but suffering and rut.
Is it truly a sin to end such creatures, OleOneEye?
Look inside of yourself. Idle complaint accomplishes little. You know what you must do.
:rolleyes:
Or you could get some headphones.
It’s certainly interesting that this is the distinction you consider important, and not “human” vs. “not human”.
It’s also interesting how you keep flip-flopping between condemning this woman as a subhuman “pod” because she has no feelings, wants, or goals, and condemning her for being too emotionally needy for deciding to have a baby. You’re determined to look down on this woman, and it’s kind of pathetic that you came here looking for us to validate your contempt for her.