Oh holy hot damn

I need a good old fashioned vent, and here it goes...

The people that I work for hate their employees. Theoretically, my company is ranked high by the people who rank things, on employee training, and best places for women to work. However, the management team in my particular office must have broken give a damns, because they really don't give a damn about their employees.

Example 1. Recently, a team member of ours died. Her funeral services were today. The right thing to do is to offer the afternoon off to whoever feels compelled to attend the services and pay their respects. She was a valued colleague. I didn't know her very well, but I liked her well enough, and I would have appreciated the opportunity to show my respects. However, only a small minority of people were told the details of the services, even after we were all promised the information would be distributed as soon as it was determined.

Example 2. Her supervisor was supposed to work the late shift today, and in order for her to attend the funeral, she needed another supervisor to cover her shift. She first asked her good friends, all of whom said no, because it would cut into their happy hour time. Only my supervisor stepped up to help, even though it would mean that he would be late to his second job. He is a stand up guy, and did the right thing to his own personal expence. Her so called friends refused to step up.

Example 3. There is a "friends and family" group, and if you aren't in it, you get handed a heavier hand, and stricter standards. I am not in it. Because of that, my internet usage is monitored more closely, my smoke breaks are timed, my reading material is restricted. Yet the members of the friends and family club are welcome to spend all fucking day on facebook and myspace, and can be away from their desks as many times as they feel necessary, and nobody in upper management lifts a finger to discipline them.

Granted, I have a couple of perks that no one else has -- I'm the only one who can write my own schedule and take four weeks off to go to Africa. As long as I can prove it's required for school, I get what I need. I also have a doctor's note which allows me FMLA status, and I can call in sick without punishment.

But are these unique perks really worth the infantilism that I get put through on a daily basis. My daily life hasn't been this structured since grade school. I am not treated like the mature, college educated, almost law school grad that I am. I am treated like a petulant child who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar one too many times.

I am just not cut out for customer service work -- placating to someone else's definition of "good" customer service. I am not cut out to pee only at certain times of the day. Thank God this job is not my end all career. Thank God I was made for more noble work than this. Because I'm at the end of my fucking rope.

~~ The professionally frustrated Wig

The Voca People

Hilarious!

A crazily structured childhood leads to a far too rigid adulthood

I'm trying to find a new home for my cat, Otter, and a friend at work asked me about her name. So I explained that, growing up, my sister and I invented guidelines for naming our pets (our parents were very pro-pet, and we had a ton growing up). Cats were named after other animals (Jack-Rabbit, Sparrow, Monkey, Otter), dogs are named after Old Testament Prophets (Malachi, Obediah, Amos), birds are given fairy tale names (Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel), reptiles are given red-neck names (Buddy, Leroy, Rodeo, Bubba), and small caged mammals are named after foods (I had a Guinea pig names S'mores). These rules have pretty much stuck, through adulthood.

Well, at 8 in the morning, my friend at work was flabbergasted that kids would go through the trouble of making up rules for naming their pets. I started asking around, and it turns out that it is a fairly unheard of practice. And, being sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated, and way too stressed out to have any perspective at all, I have to ask myself, "Am I living my life with too much structure, unwilling to bend the rules, even the ones that I place on myself?" When I was a kid, it never occurred to me to break the rules. I've never done drugs, and the only law I break is the speed limit. I try to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend, a good student, and a good person. But I also suffer from stress migraines when I don't live up to the level of excellence others have come to expect from me, because that the expectation that I've had for myself for such a long time. And when I call in sick, debilitated by said migraines, I feel betrayed that my body won't let me do what I know I should be doing.

Maybe I'm just too tired to attempt such a deep self-analysis... I need coffee.

I can't watch movies anymore...

It's the day before Easter, and one of the network channels is airing The Ten Commandments like they do every year. And for the first time in a while, I decided to sit down and watch it. And you know what? I started to think that Moses made the wrong decision...

If Moses had decided not to explore the life of the slave, and to remain in the palace, he would probably have become pharoah, and from the throne of Egypt, he would have been able to do far more for the Hebrews than from amongst their ranks... As pharoah, he would have been able to free them, provide reparations, spread the wealth, etc...

But that would have been efforts of an Egyptian Pharoah, bestowing grace on Hebrew slaves. It would not have been the work of God... Without Moses' "Let My People Go" campaign, we would not have had the 10 plagues, or the 10 comandments. The Hebrews would have been in power in Egypt, and kingdom of Israel would have never come into being... David and Solomon would not have come, and from David's line came Jesus Christ. So, while in the short run, Moses' decision to stand with his family seems futile, in the short run, it laid the way for the forgiveness of all our sins.

So, really, law school has screwed up the way I watch movies, because the human rights advocate me always thinks of the fastest way to solve the problem... The fastest way to ease the suffering of the poor and forgotten... And since I'm not God, I don't have the power of all-knowing wisdom and I don't have the blueprints to the meaning of life.

The 'conflicted' Wig

Wills and Estates

Just in case you all wanted to know what it's like for me in class...

Migraine Pain

Ouch! These need to stop!!!!! I hate them I hate them I hate them....

~~ The Wig, tortured by her own brain

Oh Holy Hell

So the way that I was going to be able to afford this trip and pay for law school and pay my monthly expenses, all at the same time was that I had two jobs. Not so much anymore. You see, I was fired from my weekend job (which, I suppose, is better than being fired from my full-time job). However, my paychecks from my weekend job were being matched, penny for penny, by my father, and all going to pay my tuition. Therefore, my paychecks from my full time job could be used for things like gasoline and plane tickets to Nairobi. Now, my paychecks from my full time job need to go to pay tuition, and I no longer get matching funds from my father, which means that there is a high probability that I will not be able to afford this trip.

This is going to add more fuel to my father's list of reasons why I shouldn't go to Africa.

Dammit! Why did I have to pick this year to give up smoking for Lent? Cuz, right now would be a really good time for a cigarrette.

The slightly less employed Wig