GTT: Job Rants
Published November 5, 2009 | 
This Girl Talk Thursday, we’re ranting about our jobs.
I’ve only worked one job that I absolutely hated from the moment I took it until the moment I quit:
GutterHelmet Sales Rep.
Yeah, GutterHelmet, that thingie that attaches to your gutters and keeps the leaves and sticks from getting in so your lazy ass doesn’t have to climb up a ladder and clean the debris out yourself. I applied for and accepted this job because I thought it would be more money, and I was excited about the idea of traveling for work.
In reality, since I worked in the Flint/Saginaw area of Michigan (aka America’s dirty anus), I was trying to sell fancy gutters to people who couldn’t afford the payments on the house I was trying to sell them upgrades for. In four weeks, I did not make a single sale, but neither did I walk into a single household with 1) a new / recent model car or 2) a pleasant-smelling interior or 3) someone who I genuinely believed could afford to purchase this upgrade. And I’m sorry, I don’t care whether I’m supposed to be a heartless salesperson or not, but I can’t morally justify selling someone a frivolity but representing it as a necessity. I can’t. That’s not who I am.
Every Monday at 9am, we had a sales meeting at the head office… on the other side of the state. This was about a two and a half hour drive — and I always had to work afterward — so I’d be on the road at 6:30am on Monday morning, drive to this meeting, drive back to my home area, and work from 2pm til 7pm.
I was driving a shitty little pick-up truck that belonged to my boyfriend’s father. It huffed and grumbled and rattled when I drove, and since it had neither a cover for the cab nor a second row of seats, the front seat was always crowded. You see, I had to buy a TV & VCR combo to lug around with me to every home for my sales demonstration, and of course I needed my portfolio, and lunch, and my purse, and in the winter a change of shoes and my heavy jacket. I had many customers comment on my vehicle’s sorry state of being. But I couldn’t afford to buy a new one.
Because I wasn’t making sales, they apprenticed me to a more experienced saleswoman. She was the first person I ever met who was on the Atkins diet, and this meant that for lunch she would eat meat and cheese curds which really? Gross. She was a sweet woman, really kind to me and all, but she confided in me one day as we drove up to one of my sales calls: “We shouldn’t be visiting these people. They can’t afford this stuff.”
And in all the time she was with me? You guessed it. Not a single sale. She couldn’t sell this stuff to these people either.
Eventually, I was fired because I didn’t fax them a copy of my social security card. I refused to fax it. I suppose this was something that somehow was too crucial for HR to wait for me to deliver it by hand at the weekly meeting three days later, because when I arrived at the meeting I was escorted to HR and kindly told I was being let go.
They totally lost money by hiring me.
I winked at my boss on the way out.
Sucka!
Angry
Published October 6, 2009 | I haven’t been blogging lately because I’ve been angry.
Angry at Chris. Maia. My family. Myself.
I’ve just felt so utterly low-spirited that coming here and writing about it seems stupid.
Every day — in fact, maybe even every hour — I find myself angry at Chris. It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t respond when he talks to me, because I’m afraid I’m going to say whatever bitchy thing is going through my head. I won’t say he’s perfect, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t deserve me being uber-bitch to him.
Every night, I’m angry at Maia. Ever since her goddamn nursing strike ended, getting her to sleep is miserable. We’re lucky if she’s in bed within an hour of starting her bedtime routine — which we’ve had to move back to 8pm because getting her to sleep anytime earlier than that is apparently impossible now. It’s frustrating. Then she’s up four or five times a night, nursing and refusing to lay back down. I don’t know what’s changed, I don’t know if it has something to do with the fact that Chris had to put her to bed without me around twice last week or that the fingers she self-soothes on are burnt (pic here) but now every time I lay her down in her crib she starts to cry. Eventually, I can rub her back and soothe her back to sleep, but that’s usually after she stands up and cries for me to hold her a few times.
Which, of course, means Chris can’t put her to sleep. He’s tried. He ends up just leaving her crying. He comes stomping out here: “Fuck it, she can learn to cry herself to sleep,” which of course is not an option, and I have to go in there, calm her down, and help her go to sleep.
I’m angry at my family, because they don’t live close enough to see my daughter growing up. It’s not their fault; it’s mine, I moved away. But here I am, here we are, alone. I’m angry at the goddamn USA for not being good enough for me to raise my daughter in, because if it were, there would be some chance of us moving there, closer to my family. It takes a village. IT TAKES A VILLAGE and I never understood the abiding truth of those words until I became a mother. I’m angry when I hear people rant and lie about Obama’s agenda, because he would take the shambles of the USA and make it into a country I could live in. I’m angry at the sensationalist pundits who have, since last November, nurtured and encouraged fear and fury in an uneducated, reactionary population.
And yet I’m angry at some “educated” people I follow on Twitter. I’m so fucking tired of all the self-righteous indignation going around. Every time these people declare their opinions and mock others who do not hold the same ones, I hover over the Unfollow button. Their crusades have become so meaningless to me because these people seem like caricatures in an editorial cartoon.
I’m mad at myself for feeling everything I do. As if life is really so horrible? I have a healthy, beautiful family. We’re keeping our heads above water financially. The next few years should really see life looking up for us, and yet I sit here and think about all the things that frustrate me. I hate our apartment. I have no education. I’m working retail. My fucking video camera still isn’t here after four and a half weeks. We’re uninvited to a wedding this weekend, one I didn’t even want to go to in the first place, because we can’t bring Maia.
I’m so tired of WAITING for things to get better. The last six years of my life have been about waiting. I feel like I’m wasting away. Whenever I tell Chris this, he says get out, go find clubs and groups to join, but he doesn’t seem to understand that I’m angry about the wasted years. I am usually more zen than this. I usually take a very “what will be will be” attitude, and consider the past to be a learning experience that has shaped who I am today.
The past.
Maria recently posted about her therapist asking about the most significant moment in her life.
I can think of two, and I’m not sure which is more powerful, which is more meaningful, and that indecisiveness infuriates me.
One: A man who had hurt me, intentionally and regularly over the course of four years, said “I love you” over the phone… and when I didn’t reply, asked “Don’t you love me?” I said “No, I don’t.” I knew that finally, after all those years, all the manipulation and all the mistakes, I had escaped him.
Two: Giving birth.
Shouldn’t bringing my daughter into this world be more significant?
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I was a victim. I hate typing those four words. I don’t feel liberated or empowered by claiming that title; I feel dirty, weak, and embarrassed. I’ve erased them and re-typed them more times than I can count, and every time, the little knot of nausea in my stomach has tightened.
Someday I’ll share my story. Not today.
Today, I am going to be angry.
Tomorrow, I will try not to be.
Crazy old lady babynaps Maia!
Published September 26, 2009 | I’m bothered by something.
This afternoon, we went out to a charity fundraiser at a bar that my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, my bff (Sommer) work at. I used to work there as well. One of the daytime regulars, a woman named Kay that I was never particularly close to as she’s rather stand-offish and kind of bitchy, came over to say hello and meet Maia.
Maia was holding a spear of broccoli she’d been nibbling, which Kay took away from her for no good reason other than that she wanted to know what the baby had in her hand — despite Sommer and I both protesting. This should have set off alarm bells in my head, but we were sitting in a kind of loud spot and I didn’t think much of it.
Then Kay took Maia out of my arms. I’m not one of those parents who freaks out about other people holding my baby, so despite the fact that I wasn’t really happy about it, I didn’t say anything. Kay was so happy: “Oh, I’ve watched you grow up on Facebook! You’re my first Facebook baby!” (My profile is private, my picture albums are friends only, and we’re not friends, so … clearly I’m missing something here) and I took the opportunity gobble down some nachos while my hands were free.
I turned around and KAY WAS GONE. WITH MY BABY. Wandering around the bar, introducing Maia to her friends. I knew the people she spoke with, so again, despite my unease, I didn’t go after her. Then Kay went onto the patio with Maia — it had been raining off and on all day, the air was cool, and Maia wasn’t wearing socks, a hat, or a jacket. But I could see them, and I really did not want to come across as overbearing, so I just watched them, feeling anxious. I got up once and made my way halfway across the bar to them, but went back to our table.
Five minutes later, Kay came back and Maia dove into my arms.
I am so bothered by this. Even though I didn’t want her to, and wasn’t comfortable with it at all, I let that woman hold and wander off with my baby. Why would I do that? It doesn’t make any damned sense. The nearest reason I can come up with is that I couldn’t figure out a real reason why Kay shouldn’t hold Maia, or wander around with her — other than it seems socially inappropriate. I mean, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t take the baby of someone I hadn’t spoken with in over two years and prance around a bar chatting with friends, showing off my casual acquaintance’s kid. I genuinely feel like she committed a total faux pas and I allowed it. But then I think the fault also lies with me; I should have said something. I should have gone after them. It would have been completely reasonable to say “I’d like to hold her” or “Please stay here with her” or a hundred other things.
I need to figure out what to say, and never let that happen again.
How to find a sponsor for BlogHer 2010 (or anything else)
Published July 31, 2009 | You want to go to BlogHer 2010.
I get it.
I’ve seen your tweets. I’ve read your blog posts. I know you want to go.
Your greatest desire seems to be finding a company or individual to sponsor your trip. In a way, I sympathize: I’d also like to be able to worry less about the impact going to NYC next August will have on my finances. That’s where our similarities end. You refer to yourself as being willing to “whore” yourself for a sponsorship. You’ve even worked out, already, more than a year before the event, an elaborate payment scheme for your “services”. You don’t seem to care who sponsors you. You just want someone’s money to help you out.
Am I wrong? Then maybe you should reconsider the message you are sending.
The blogging community — whether parenting, sports, tech, you name it — is incredibly gracious and giving. You can see the best in people when we pull together to provide support during times of hardship. In any corner of the blogging world, people don’t assist each other out of obligation. They assist one another because of a sense of empathy and understanding, because there is a common thread that weaves a pattern between you, me, and ten thousand other bloggers.
What is the thread that stretches between you and a sponsor? That the sponsor wants to connect with female bloggers, and you are one? You need to offer something stronger than that. There are thousands of “female bloggers”. Is it that the sponsor’s products are aimed at toddlers, and you have one? Again, you need something stronger than that. There are hundreds of female bloggers with toddlers. They could pay any one of them to hand out business cards and toss an ad up on her blog. What do YOU offer?
Chances are, if you are begging for a sponsorship, you don’t have a close relationship with anyone who could potentially sponsor you. So, at this point, you’re grasping at straws, hoping that someone out there will Google “who can I sponsor for BlogHer 2010?” and land on your blog post asking for them. I’d wager that ‘big name’ bloggers don’t need to ask for sponsorships, that they’re approached both by large companies whose representatives they’ve worked with before and small businesses whose owners are faithful commenters on their blogs. Both groups should be equally important to you, because they share one thing: they have an existing relationship with that blogger and are interested in what she has to say.
Have you ever received a PR pitch as a result of blogging? What made you decide to accept, or reject, that pitch? Do you say “yes” to everything that reaches your email inbox? If so, then you’re either receiving only pitches that are perfectly tailored to you, or you lack a sense of focus.
It’s the necessity, and the presence, of a sense of focus that makes you valuable. Consider yourself as the sponsor and these PR pitches as the sponsoree. When you receive a PR pitch, how do you determine whether it’s the right product for you? By reviewing something, whether positively or negatively, you are representing someone in the target audience of that product.
Take that to heart. You represent your sponsor.
Don’t try to sell yourself to whoever will buy. You are doing yourself, and any potential sponsor, a disservice. Is a sponsor really going to want to be represented by someone who will sell her loyalty to the first company that comes along? Is that the way you want to portray yourself?
I suggest that, if you want to be sponsored, you consider your existing relationships with companies first. Do you buy X brand of diapers exclusively? Have you posted about, tweeted, recommended, or reviewed them? Has a PR representative of that company contacted you before? Excellent. Contact that person again. Let them know you support their product, their marketing, and their philosophies. Provide links to posts or tweets where you have written about that product (and be genuine). Hell, provide a picture of your smiling, angelic baby wearing that diaper. If they respond positively, then bring up the fact that you would be willing to represent them at BlogHer 2010. Provide information about BlogHer and how your representation of this business will benefit them.
You are capable of more than putting an ad on your site and handing out business cards.
You are more valuable than a “whore”.
Prove it.
*********************
SwagHer ’09
Published July 27, 2009 | I was unable to attend BlogHer this year. In fact, I’ve never attended, but for the past two summers I’ve sat here grumbling to myself as my favourite BlogHers shared the anticipation of attending. I’ve read the “What I’m Wearing” posts, the “Who I Want To Meet” posts, and the “I’m SO Nervous But I’ll Be Okay” posts.
Not once have I seen a post about BlogHer titled “I Can’t Wait to Steal Swag“, “I’ll Elbow Your Baby In The Head“, “I Have No Shame“, or “I Need Crocs So Badly That I Must Threaten Someone“.
BlogHer is the conference for women bloggers. That means you, the attendants, are representing those of us who can’t be there. To all of you who are awesome, classy (or maybe not), thoughtful, wonderful, hilarious, inspiring, indignant, and representing Toronto in style — thank you, thank you, thank you. Reading your posts and tweets about BlogHer has left me feeling positive about attending next year. I’m sending e-hugs to you, because you are the powerful, earth-shaking community that I am a part of.
The rest of you? I am furious. I like useful free stuff as much as the next person, but I value relationships and basic human decency over a fucking PEN or a sample of LAUNDRY DETERGENT. And don’t give me bullshit “I’m down on my luck, we’re broke, I really needed that swag” blah blah blah. I don’t buy it, and I don’t for a second believe that a free copy of a magazine is going to make your life that much better.
Maybe some people out there think it’s okay to compromise their integrity for swag. Maybe some people out there think a $200 BlogHer ticket entitles them to shove their way through a crowd with nary a mind for anyone “in their way”.
You represented my friends who did not get to attend. You represented my sister. You represented me.
And you devalued us.
Fuck you.
Because it’s been a little while
Published April 25, 2009 | I haven’t complained about my apartment lately. So here, let me tell you about some things that have happened recently that have deeply pissed me off:
Back at the end of October, they started working on water-proofing the garage. It’s the end of April and they still haven’t finished; in fact, one entire floor of it is still unuseable. I was heading to the library and bringing Maia along with me, and someone was jackhammering the concrete ten feet away from our car. It surprised me to see someone working, since they’re out there maybe once every two weeks, and it surprised me even more when he stopped, looked up at me, smiled, and waved. I waved back with my free hand. And then he continued jackhammering. You know, as I brought my infant daughter to my car. My infant daughter that he saw me carrying. The one who has brand-new ears? Maybe delicate hearing? Yeah, thanks jerk-off.
Last week, I took Maia and the dogs out for a walk. It’s always a harrowing experience trying to control two chihuahuas on their leashes as well as push the carriage. In fact, most people like to say “Gosh, you have your hands full!” as I walk by them.
Well, as I push the carriage into the parking garage (it’s the only way to get into the building where there is only one stair, not multiple… handicap access is apparently not a concern) and to the door, I hear clicking behind me. I turn around and a guy is on his bicycle. I open the door, turn around and smile at him, “Go ahead, it’s going to take me a minute.”
The dogs are bouncing around, the baby is screaming, and getting the carriage through the door means negotiating a step, a narrow hallway, and a heavy door that slams shut quickly, without anyway to prop it open. I’ll be real, I was grateful to see someone because I anticipated them holding the door for me (like everyone everywhere does when someone is literally on your heel as you go through a door).
The guy passes me by without so much as a thank you, and I watch the door shut behind him. Any second now, he’s going to remember I’m here with my hands full, and turn around, and open the door for me, I think. But he doesn’t. The door would have slammed in my face if I hadn’t pushed the stroller forward at the last second to prop it open.
By the time I get into the building, I’m steaming. He wasn’t anywhere in the hallway, but the elevator door shut just as I rounded the corner. He would have gotten a big piece of my mind, if I’d caught him. What an asshole.
Not in hot water
Published March 21, 2009 | 
Last night around 9pm, Maia fell asleep. This is astonishing, as she usually boycotts anything resembling sleep or relaxation between the hours of 7 and 11pm — she demands attention and interrupts all prime-time programming that we might be interested in paying attention to (thank goodness for DVR!) Anyhow, I decided to take advantage of this and hop in the shower.
There was no hot water. No big deal, this happens sometimes, it is just one of our apartment’s little annoyances; I turned the knob all the way on hot and came out to check blogs and whatnot for five minutes. Checked the shower again, still no hot water. Waited another five minutes — still ice cold. So I called the landlady.
She said the hot water heater in the building had broken, but would not be fixed until the morning. So, no shower for me, no bath for Maia, and no doing dishes. Whatever, I can deal with this for a night.
Except now it’s almost 2pm and there’s still no hot water. What the fuck? How did we find the absolute shittiest apartment building in the entire city to live in?
More Apartment Living
Published February 12, 2009 | Just another little anecdote about what bunch of assholes inhabit this building:
Yesterday afternoon, my mother-in-law MJ comes over for the day. We assemble the bassinet (yay!) and the glider (YAY!), lay down the carpet (which actually looks really cute and is so soft), but skip on assembling the shelfing unit for now because it’ll be a lot of heavy work.
Around 8pm, MJ decides she’s going to head home — there are some heavy wind warnings flashing across the television and she wants to get back to where she’s staying before it gets too late. Chris walks her out to her car in the parking garage … and they return a few minutes later.
Now, see, my apartment has had construction on the parking lot going on since November 1st; the entire top floor is inaccessible and they’ve only recently opened up most of the middle floor again. This means that you never really know exactly where you’re going to park, because you never really know what spots are going to be open. On top of that, every time I’ve talked to the building landlady about guest parking (three times now!) she’s said “just park wherever, in the garage if the visitor lot is full”, which it almost always is. So MJ had parked in the garage in the nearest open spot to our car.
Well, the person who is assigned that spot was apparently so offended by this that she parked diagonally in front of MJ, blocking her in as well as three other people — including us. What the fuck? Her particular spot may not have been open at that moment, but there were plenty of others.
Chris gets ahold of the superintendent, who knows exactly whose car that is. And a few minutes later there’s a knock on our door — it’s the landlady, and here’s what she has to say:
The 63 year old woman whose car is blocking us all in has dropped a note into the office, saying that she knows she’s parked illegally but won’t be moving her car. Why? Because she tried to park in another spot but “scratched” her vehicle and decided that, after a day at work, it was too much hassle to continue trying to park in another spot and she might as well inconvenience four other people. So sorry that it happened this way, but that’s just the way it is.
Are you fucking kidding me?
The landlady, honest to God, was okay with this. She was apologetic that we were inconvenienced, but seemed perfectly accepting of the fact that this old bitch was not going to move her car. She asked if my MIL would be able to stay with us overnight.
I am 39 weeks pregnant. If I needed to go to the hospital, I wouldn’t be able to get out. If my husband were working this week and needed to leave at 4:30am, he wouldn’t be able to get out. BUT IT’S OKAY THAT SHE DOESN’T WANT TO MOVE HER CAR.
Anyhow, MJ just went down to leave and can’t, because the old bitch hasn’t moved her car despite saying she had to be at work at 7am. MJ found the superintendent and asked when the old bitch is moving — apparently not until 8:30am now. So, if that car isn’t out of the way at 8:30am, we’re calling the cops. Then, she can see what “inconvenience” means. I can’t believe what a fucking bunch of morons inhabit this apartment building.
I’ve had a crampy, uncomfortable, restless night. I’ll update with details later. Just had to get this off my chest now.
Fuck You Friday #2
Published January 23, 2009 | FUCK YOU CHIHUAHUAS.
I love you two so much that it almost hurts my brain, but you have no appreciation for me whatsoever. Don’t you realize I have more qualities than “rubs my belly”, “gives me food”, “opens door to let me outside”? I am a human being, I have many other capabilities and charms. For example, I still have my reproductive organs, which is more than I can say for one of you.
Like, let’s be real. I’ve seen you both eat puke and your own shit (at least, that’s what I’m assuming it was, because thinking of you eating another dog’s shit is somehow even more gross). I’ve seen the shreds of Kleenex strewn across my living room carpet in the morning because you decided you wanted to eat the boogers that used to be contained in them. I’ve come home from shopping only to find you guiltily eating the crotch of my underwear that you pulled through the holes of the laundry basket because I forgot to close the bedroom door. You lick each other’s ears and eyes and asses. YOU TWO ARE FUCKING DISGUSTING LITTLE CREATURES.
When I take you outside, one of you invariably barks and bounces, stiff-legged, through the snow and onto a neighbour’s patio. The other follows. Then I have to shoo you off her patio, and let me tell you, if you had any idea how huge, unbalanced, and awkward it is to try and move fast enough to control two chihuahuas that are like seven inches off the ground and I can’t even see over my stomach half the fucking time, you might be a little more respectful and stay off that bitch’s patio. Honestly, that’s all I ask. Romp anywhere else. Stay off people’s patios. I was surprised that, after she banged on her window when I was trying to shoo you off it at 12:30am, you didn’t bark at her. At least that’s a positive. You just got even more excited and ran in even more circles.
Oh, and let’s not even talk about how you get so interested in sniffing pee or romping through the snow that you end up ten yards away from me in drifts so deep that all I can see are the tips of your ears, then decide you’re too damned cold to continue moving, so you stand there whining pathetically while trying to stand on as few paws as possible. Guess who gets to break a path through the snow to rescue you because it breaks her heart to see you upset? That’s right, me.
THEN YOU SHIT ON MY FLOOR WHEN I BRING YOU BACK INSIDE.
Yeah, fuck you chihuahuas. You’ve got the good life and you don’t even appreciate it.
——-
Fuck You Fridays are the brainchild of Cristin over at Tiptoeing Through The Tulips. Drop by and see what’s gotten under her skin this week!
Fuck You Friday #1
Published January 16, 2009 | In solidarity with Cristin, and because I don’t really do any other memes so why not find one that plays into my innate bitchiness, here is the first (of many?) “Fuck You Friday” posts from me.
Fuck you, Apartment.
Fuck you for being so charming when we first came here.
Fuck you for seducing us with your big, bold balcony and being on the second floor so I know that firemen can rescue me if there’s a problem.
Fuck you for having some douchebag that scrawls “CLEAN UP YOUR DOG SHIT” on the doors to go outside. Who made them the poopie police?
Fuck you for all your issues that give me issues.
Fuck you for the garage construction project that’s been going on since October with no end in site, yet we’re still paying for parking even if our spot isn’t always ours.
Fuck you for the three washers that don’t have a reliable stream of hot water and the fact that sometimes your dryers take money off my card but won’t turn on.
Fuck you for not having any lights by the doors in the back where we take the dogs out. Do you know how many times I’ve fumbled with my keys while trying to open the door?
Furthermore, fuck you for there being no garbage cans outside for me to toss my baggies of dog poo in. Sometimes I throw my poo in the lobby trash can just out of spite because I hope it stinks in the morning when everyone is walking through. I especially hope the poopie police goes through the lobby on those mornings.