First and foremost I must state that I have the memory capacity of about a goldfish. Hence why I forgot that I was the proud possessor of a blog that no one fucking reads. No great loss there I supposed.
Now, for a bit of a catch up since that last very anger filled post about my cessation of employment from my last job.
I'm in the United States Navy. Hoo-motherfucking-ya! I swore in November of last year, graduated boot camp in January, and I'm currently in school for the job I'll be doing for the next few years. I'm not going in to much detail about what I do simply because I want to maintain a level anonymity. So far, I love what I'm doing. I think it worth leaving it at that, a necessary detail required to understand the perspective in which I write.
Now this is Memorial Day weekend. I haven't been in for even a year so I have very little to weigh on in terms of sacrifice and to do so would be a complete demonstration of my ignorance on the subject. I did, however, read about the comments Chris Hayes made on MSNBC and I feel I can weigh in on those without too much of my inexperience showing. After reading the excerpt of his statement, I don't feel in anyway that his statements were designed to be disrespectful to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. Quickly, I read, were people calling him "un-American" but I think those people forget what it means to be an American, to be a patriot. Patriotism isn't single minded devotion, yes-manning to every decision and proclamation made by one's government. To insist utter, unalterable agreement is to insist on totalitarianism. There is nothing un-patriotic about an opinion. Perhaps one of the most patriotic actions an American can take is to express their views about the actions and attitudes of their government. The freedom to do so is one of the cornerstones this country was built on and what people have died to protect. A dialog must be maintained in this country about the decisions the government makes for this country to progress. Mr. Hayes statements weren't, in my opinion, so much about the loss of life but rather the morality of the decision by the government that brought those individuals to that location where the ultimate price was paid. The morality of war must always be questioned. Personally, I may not always agree but I will obey the orders given to me because it is my job and duty to do so, to put aside my own views for the sake of the mission. Perhaps this is a bit of cognitive dissonance, a double minded nature that only makes sense to me but I can lay my head down at night peacefully. So it goes.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Before We Truly Begin
It would be relevant to bring to bear all that has transpired up to this point, this moment I sit typing, thinking that even if these words go unnoticed it is to my own best interest to get them out. The memories of these events stir in me a varied number of intense emotions and so at some point, my writing may fall out and cease to be, at the very least, a vague attempt at something worth reading.
I am 22, unemployed and not in school.
I'm not unintelligent. I have the scores and grades that claim otherwise along with a great self assurance to the fact. Perhaps I am yet another picture of my generation: capable but under achieving. If I am an under achiever it is only a recent condition.
I spent the last year and a half of my high school dual-enrolling at the community college and graduated with a GPA somewhere around 3.75. I left the autumn after I graduated for college at The Florida State University, as many people my age, with the naive understanding that if I go to college and get a degree (in what?) I will then get a job (doing what?) and then I will be a middle class American like my parents. That's what we were told, sat in the computer room of our high school as the guest speaker showed us websites for scholarships and colleges. Stay out of trouble in high school and make good grades and college will pay for itself. Get a bachelors degree and then you can get a job. Anybody paying any attention to the economic climate of the past few years knows that is far cry from the present situation.
Am I angry? No... disappointed. I am disappointed and with no one to blame... except bankers and republicans.
I spent 2 years at FSU, Florida's Bright Futures program covering 75% of my tuition and my parents footing the rest of the bill. The financial collapse came in 2008, early 2009 my parents told me they didn't have anymore savings and paying for my education was becoming something they wouldn't be able to do for much longer. After 2 months of searching I got a job waitressing. FSU announced that due to budget cuts from the Florida legislature, my department (Anthropology) would be one of the departs set to close. The department fought and protested this closure but the decision was made after the end of spring semester to close the department. I was fortunate enough to work for a restaurant chain that was entirely corporately owned and so I transferred jobs, moved in with a guy I thought I was going to marry, and moved to Gainesville to attend UF to continue studying anthropology.
It was a complete and total disaster. I look back, 3 years down the road from that and can see clearly the choices that were in front of me, now knowing the best choice was not the one I made. But the only person that can blame me is myself. What can I say? I was living with 3 other girls and had spent the whole year fighting with 1, the other decided to go home for the summer and not pay her share of the bills, and the other I got along really well with but not enough to not want to move out. Plus I had met a guy and things went really fast and we were engaged but he lived 2 hours away in Gainesville and I really wanted to be close to him and blah blah blah not thinking.
The relationship ended so I adopted a dog and that was an upgrade. School was expensive. I worked 30+ hours a week and my hours got cut in half for slow season. I was paying for a two person apartment buy myself. The dog got sick. I hadn't made hardly any friends in Gainesville. I hated UF. My parents, who were still trying to chip in for expenses were at their limit and with taking only 2 classes a semester this college thing was going to take forever.
I don't like college. I don't like the format, the teaching, the so called learning, the test taking. I don't understand why I have to spend so much money to have some pompous ass preach at me for 50 minute sessions so that I can consume information and regurgitate it back to them on a test. That's not learning. That's not thinking. That's memorizing and I can memorize shit for free, thank you very much.
I saw a study the other day about how the bell curve has disappeared in the college setting, most students are making A's. I made straight A's in college with the exception of one class. I made a B and most people didn't pass the class so I have no qualms with a B.
I am in some way tooting my own horn, trying to ensure any one who reads this that, in spite of my situation, I'm not unintelligent. It's so important to my sense self to be regarded as at least somewhat smart. I always say on the topic that I am not a super model. I'm not a social butterfly or popular person but I am smart and of all these things I'd rather be smart because there is no goddamn cure for stupid.
I wasn't sure what to do. The notion that getting a degree will be a meaningless endeavor was creeping up on me, drifting just beyond sight, somewhere in the back of my mind, close enough to be thought, glanced at but not the harsh and heavy reality that it has come to be today. I thought perhaps I should invest my time and money in marketable skill: IT. I've always been good at, always considered it a hobby. Negotiations with the parents ensued, I moved home, tail between my legs, and started tech school. Once again, I was able to transfer jobs.
That was a year ago. I'm done with my classes and a few certifications.
I always took my job very seriously. Everything I do and attempt, I give my best effort and I succeeded there for as much as someone who refuse to get on her knees and suck proverbial cock of her bosses. It used to be ass kissing. The economy of yesterday it was ass kissing that got a person ahead but now it's cock sucking because the employer knows that you need this job, that finding other jobs are almost impossible, that they can treat you however they wish, say to you whatever they wish and you will stand there and take it like the little bitch you are because you need this job. And I refuse. I will not be disrespected.
That doesn't mean that I haven't taken my fair share of shit, far from it. That's how restaurants are. You will take a lot of shit... but somewhere there's a difference. The branch of the restaurant I came from did things by the books. I succeeded there because I did things by the books but the place I came to here is run by sleazy crooks that half ass the work to make the numbers look better and I will say something when things are not done as they should be, manager or no, do your fucking job the way you are supposed to because it's all about the guest and the way you're doing things are not only cheapening their experience but putting them at risk.
I'll never forget the day I was restocking the milk cooler and found 2 day old milk that looked like it had been served that morning. I did, as I was supposed to, place the cartons of milk off to the side for the store to get credit from the company they buy milk from and also bring the issue to the attention of a manager. Food poisoning's a bitch and if someone's been put at risk, the manager should at the very least know and hopefully make sure that whomever is do that side-work another day is making sure expired milk isn't being served. He looked at me like I was retarded, shrugged his shoulders, and threw up his hands, clearly wondering why in hell I would bother him with this information. At that point, I knew I was in hell. Anal-retentive and fully knowing every inch and detail of my job as it is to be done but in a constant struggle against not only the foremen of this roach-infested shit hole but seemingly the building in of itself.
I had never seen some many bugs in a restaurant in my life and I was going to be a ball buster about it but I could deal with it. I could deal with not getting the best shifts and sections because I constantly pissed off the managers between not taking their shit (or as they called it a bad attitude) and calling them out when the work isn't getting done the way it's supposed to(also called a bad attitude). At the end of the day, my guests loved me and my attention to detail and willingness to do anything within my power to make them happy and that's what's really important. The tips.
There were always rumors of tip stealing, another thing I hadn't conceived of before working at this store. This was the 3rd store I had worked at by now and the idea of a co-worker stealing the money from off your table was unheard of in both the stores I had been in previously.
My last table left me a great tip, the table I had at the moment were very friendly, very pleased and that'll be a good tip too. My hands were full, I'll come back around, finish cleaning up the table in a minute. My next round in the dining room, my last table is almost complete clean and the tip is gone. Really? I mean, really? Are you serious? My current table saw the other server take the money, they reported it to the manager, and the manager will file it with loss prevention.
"Well, they couldn't give us her name or anything. So there isn't much we can do."
I gave my manager that look of "you can't be serious..."
This wasn't time this woman had crossed me either. She tried stealing tables from me but I put a very swift end to it and made it very clear that under no uncertain terms was I going to put up with that and that retribution will be much much worse. Go ahead, take the little one top that just got sat but your next four top will be mine. I was never a vicious server until this restaurant.
I'm walking by my previous table the same morning I was told that, essentially, the company doesn't give a rats ass that this server's been trying to steal my tables and stealing my money only to discover another tip gone missing. Really? Are you serious? I ask the server who has the table now if she's seen anything, my polite way of asking if she took my tip and I know she's not lying when she says no. I ask a server in the section near-by, same response. I ask the guest now seated at the table. They mutter at me about so and so and so and so. I go ask so and so and so and so. Nothing. Loud restaurant, lot of people on the floor. I'll go double check to make sure I didn't mishear. The next thing I know is the bubba fucking redneck without a pot to piss in or two brains cells to rub together to make a coherent thought has jumped all in my shit and yelling about how he wants to see a manager and he's a customer and he doesn't give a shit about my money.
It was like the sound of a shotgun firing in the back of my mind. I choke out through my anger "I work hard for my money," and walk away.
"Go sit down!" Texas-asshole-manager-that-doesn't-care-about-food-poisoning-or-gets-laid-enough shouts me into the chair in the office. I begin my side of the story but am quickly shot down with "I don't want to hear a word out of you until I've spoken!" Sleazy-hires-only-cute-college-girls-so-he-can-hit-on-them GM walks in behind him and I'm told about how I supposedly accused the guy of stealing and slammed my tray down and the women with him used to be waitresses and they would never steal from another waitress. Let me point out that I work with waitresses that steal from other waitresses so that's a meaningless statement to me and I wasn't even accusing of stealing. "You obviously aren't over someone stealing your money and you're just costing yourself more money because you obviously can't work today so we're cutting you from the floor. When you get your attitude together, you can come back on," says sleazy manager. My question is, but I don't say it, whether or not they want me to face the wall with my hands behind my back too while I'm in time out. I sat silently for the most of my lecture, they don't believe my end of story. No of course not, I mean it's not I come to work on time every day, do my job the way I'm supposed to. It's not like I spent the past two years without any official reprimand or complaint filed against me by a guest. It's not like my guest love me or compliment me on a regular basis. Nope. I'm just a shitty server that just can't manage this brainless, meaningless job. So I left. I quit. I can only describe it as the straw that broke the camel's back. I refuse to be so thoroughly disrespected. I didn't do anything wrong and I will always stand by that. I can't control the actions of another person nor anticipate their every response.
There is no doubt that I have way too much pride. As I've said before, I've taken a lot shit and just dealt with it. I've had plenty of bubba-rednecks from bubba-fuck Florida without a pot to piss in or two brain cells to rub together to make a coherent thought treat me like I'm the dumbest mother-fucker that ever existed because they didn't read the menu and don't understand that I'm not some kind of food wizard that grant their every wish and desire. I've dealt with plenty of managers, and they're all the fucking same, that try and make me feel like the most worthless piece of human shit and this the only job I could ever hope to get and I just get on my knees and suck it and be grateful for this job because at some point in some not so distant past they had some unfulfilled, disgruntled self-hating manager do the exact same thing to them. I'm not going to put up with it. I'll be poor first.
I have two resolutions in life: metal and not taking any shit.
I am 22, unemployed and not in school.
I'm not unintelligent. I have the scores and grades that claim otherwise along with a great self assurance to the fact. Perhaps I am yet another picture of my generation: capable but under achieving. If I am an under achiever it is only a recent condition.
I spent the last year and a half of my high school dual-enrolling at the community college and graduated with a GPA somewhere around 3.75. I left the autumn after I graduated for college at The Florida State University, as many people my age, with the naive understanding that if I go to college and get a degree (in what?) I will then get a job (doing what?) and then I will be a middle class American like my parents. That's what we were told, sat in the computer room of our high school as the guest speaker showed us websites for scholarships and colleges. Stay out of trouble in high school and make good grades and college will pay for itself. Get a bachelors degree and then you can get a job. Anybody paying any attention to the economic climate of the past few years knows that is far cry from the present situation.
Am I angry? No... disappointed. I am disappointed and with no one to blame... except bankers and republicans.
I spent 2 years at FSU, Florida's Bright Futures program covering 75% of my tuition and my parents footing the rest of the bill. The financial collapse came in 2008, early 2009 my parents told me they didn't have anymore savings and paying for my education was becoming something they wouldn't be able to do for much longer. After 2 months of searching I got a job waitressing. FSU announced that due to budget cuts from the Florida legislature, my department (Anthropology) would be one of the departs set to close. The department fought and protested this closure but the decision was made after the end of spring semester to close the department. I was fortunate enough to work for a restaurant chain that was entirely corporately owned and so I transferred jobs, moved in with a guy I thought I was going to marry, and moved to Gainesville to attend UF to continue studying anthropology.
It was a complete and total disaster. I look back, 3 years down the road from that and can see clearly the choices that were in front of me, now knowing the best choice was not the one I made. But the only person that can blame me is myself. What can I say? I was living with 3 other girls and had spent the whole year fighting with 1, the other decided to go home for the summer and not pay her share of the bills, and the other I got along really well with but not enough to not want to move out. Plus I had met a guy and things went really fast and we were engaged but he lived 2 hours away in Gainesville and I really wanted to be close to him and blah blah blah not thinking.
The relationship ended so I adopted a dog and that was an upgrade. School was expensive. I worked 30+ hours a week and my hours got cut in half for slow season. I was paying for a two person apartment buy myself. The dog got sick. I hadn't made hardly any friends in Gainesville. I hated UF. My parents, who were still trying to chip in for expenses were at their limit and with taking only 2 classes a semester this college thing was going to take forever.
I don't like college. I don't like the format, the teaching, the so called learning, the test taking. I don't understand why I have to spend so much money to have some pompous ass preach at me for 50 minute sessions so that I can consume information and regurgitate it back to them on a test. That's not learning. That's not thinking. That's memorizing and I can memorize shit for free, thank you very much.
I saw a study the other day about how the bell curve has disappeared in the college setting, most students are making A's. I made straight A's in college with the exception of one class. I made a B and most people didn't pass the class so I have no qualms with a B.
I am in some way tooting my own horn, trying to ensure any one who reads this that, in spite of my situation, I'm not unintelligent. It's so important to my sense self to be regarded as at least somewhat smart. I always say on the topic that I am not a super model. I'm not a social butterfly or popular person but I am smart and of all these things I'd rather be smart because there is no goddamn cure for stupid.
I wasn't sure what to do. The notion that getting a degree will be a meaningless endeavor was creeping up on me, drifting just beyond sight, somewhere in the back of my mind, close enough to be thought, glanced at but not the harsh and heavy reality that it has come to be today. I thought perhaps I should invest my time and money in marketable skill: IT. I've always been good at, always considered it a hobby. Negotiations with the parents ensued, I moved home, tail between my legs, and started tech school. Once again, I was able to transfer jobs.
That was a year ago. I'm done with my classes and a few certifications.
I always took my job very seriously. Everything I do and attempt, I give my best effort and I succeeded there for as much as someone who refuse to get on her knees and suck proverbial cock of her bosses. It used to be ass kissing. The economy of yesterday it was ass kissing that got a person ahead but now it's cock sucking because the employer knows that you need this job, that finding other jobs are almost impossible, that they can treat you however they wish, say to you whatever they wish and you will stand there and take it like the little bitch you are because you need this job. And I refuse. I will not be disrespected.
That doesn't mean that I haven't taken my fair share of shit, far from it. That's how restaurants are. You will take a lot of shit... but somewhere there's a difference. The branch of the restaurant I came from did things by the books. I succeeded there because I did things by the books but the place I came to here is run by sleazy crooks that half ass the work to make the numbers look better and I will say something when things are not done as they should be, manager or no, do your fucking job the way you are supposed to because it's all about the guest and the way you're doing things are not only cheapening their experience but putting them at risk.
I'll never forget the day I was restocking the milk cooler and found 2 day old milk that looked like it had been served that morning. I did, as I was supposed to, place the cartons of milk off to the side for the store to get credit from the company they buy milk from and also bring the issue to the attention of a manager. Food poisoning's a bitch and if someone's been put at risk, the manager should at the very least know and hopefully make sure that whomever is do that side-work another day is making sure expired milk isn't being served. He looked at me like I was retarded, shrugged his shoulders, and threw up his hands, clearly wondering why in hell I would bother him with this information. At that point, I knew I was in hell. Anal-retentive and fully knowing every inch and detail of my job as it is to be done but in a constant struggle against not only the foremen of this roach-infested shit hole but seemingly the building in of itself.
I had never seen some many bugs in a restaurant in my life and I was going to be a ball buster about it but I could deal with it. I could deal with not getting the best shifts and sections because I constantly pissed off the managers between not taking their shit (or as they called it a bad attitude) and calling them out when the work isn't getting done the way it's supposed to(also called a bad attitude). At the end of the day, my guests loved me and my attention to detail and willingness to do anything within my power to make them happy and that's what's really important. The tips.
There were always rumors of tip stealing, another thing I hadn't conceived of before working at this store. This was the 3rd store I had worked at by now and the idea of a co-worker stealing the money from off your table was unheard of in both the stores I had been in previously.
My last table left me a great tip, the table I had at the moment were very friendly, very pleased and that'll be a good tip too. My hands were full, I'll come back around, finish cleaning up the table in a minute. My next round in the dining room, my last table is almost complete clean and the tip is gone. Really? I mean, really? Are you serious? My current table saw the other server take the money, they reported it to the manager, and the manager will file it with loss prevention.
"Well, they couldn't give us her name or anything. So there isn't much we can do."
I gave my manager that look of "you can't be serious..."
This wasn't time this woman had crossed me either. She tried stealing tables from me but I put a very swift end to it and made it very clear that under no uncertain terms was I going to put up with that and that retribution will be much much worse. Go ahead, take the little one top that just got sat but your next four top will be mine. I was never a vicious server until this restaurant.
I'm walking by my previous table the same morning I was told that, essentially, the company doesn't give a rats ass that this server's been trying to steal my tables and stealing my money only to discover another tip gone missing. Really? Are you serious? I ask the server who has the table now if she's seen anything, my polite way of asking if she took my tip and I know she's not lying when she says no. I ask a server in the section near-by, same response. I ask the guest now seated at the table. They mutter at me about so and so and so and so. I go ask so and so and so and so. Nothing. Loud restaurant, lot of people on the floor. I'll go double check to make sure I didn't mishear. The next thing I know is the bubba fucking redneck without a pot to piss in or two brains cells to rub together to make a coherent thought has jumped all in my shit and yelling about how he wants to see a manager and he's a customer and he doesn't give a shit about my money.
It was like the sound of a shotgun firing in the back of my mind. I choke out through my anger "I work hard for my money," and walk away.
"Go sit down!" Texas-asshole-manager-that-doesn't-care-about-food-poisoning-or-gets-laid-enough shouts me into the chair in the office. I begin my side of the story but am quickly shot down with "I don't want to hear a word out of you until I've spoken!" Sleazy-hires-only-cute-college-girls-so-he-can-hit-on-them GM walks in behind him and I'm told about how I supposedly accused the guy of stealing and slammed my tray down and the women with him used to be waitresses and they would never steal from another waitress. Let me point out that I work with waitresses that steal from other waitresses so that's a meaningless statement to me and I wasn't even accusing of stealing. "You obviously aren't over someone stealing your money and you're just costing yourself more money because you obviously can't work today so we're cutting you from the floor. When you get your attitude together, you can come back on," says sleazy manager. My question is, but I don't say it, whether or not they want me to face the wall with my hands behind my back too while I'm in time out. I sat silently for the most of my lecture, they don't believe my end of story. No of course not, I mean it's not I come to work on time every day, do my job the way I'm supposed to. It's not like I spent the past two years without any official reprimand or complaint filed against me by a guest. It's not like my guest love me or compliment me on a regular basis. Nope. I'm just a shitty server that just can't manage this brainless, meaningless job. So I left. I quit. I can only describe it as the straw that broke the camel's back. I refuse to be so thoroughly disrespected. I didn't do anything wrong and I will always stand by that. I can't control the actions of another person nor anticipate their every response.
There is no doubt that I have way too much pride. As I've said before, I've taken a lot shit and just dealt with it. I've had plenty of bubba-rednecks from bubba-fuck Florida without a pot to piss in or two brain cells to rub together to make a coherent thought treat me like I'm the dumbest mother-fucker that ever existed because they didn't read the menu and don't understand that I'm not some kind of food wizard that grant their every wish and desire. I've dealt with plenty of managers, and they're all the fucking same, that try and make me feel like the most worthless piece of human shit and this the only job I could ever hope to get and I just get on my knees and suck it and be grateful for this job because at some point in some not so distant past they had some unfulfilled, disgruntled self-hating manager do the exact same thing to them. I'm not going to put up with it. I'll be poor first.
I have two resolutions in life: metal and not taking any shit.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Starting from the Middle
Thoughts when left alone are rumblings in the night, shadows lurking in the dark caverns in our minds, the intangible, swirling mixture of feelings, images, and fleeting memories. When spoken, they take on shape, body, and form thrust into the light no longer capable of retreating to their murky origins. From the irreversible moment of voice thoughts become subjected to reason and reality as we know it. When we give our thoughts life through expression we then posses the ability to compare them to our perception of truth and deem whether the thought was as true and justified as we thought it was while we merely thought it or whether it is a warped creature, unfit for our lives and reality.
I've often heard people say that "it's good to get it out." Though I often I find they are referring to an extreme emotion, often loss or grief. It's as if that moment of expression makes the feeling real to an individual, brings the reality of whatever harrowing event crashing down upon them and though painful as it may be, it is necessary in order for the individual to move past it. I find this true for thoughts in general though, not just expressions of agony, but the thoughts and feelings in our day to day lives. In some strange way when we say what we think and feel the experience takes on a life of its own, metamorphosing into an entity that we can then pull away from and evaluate as if it's its own person and no longer apart of us. A scientist and their lab rat. And from that point we can then determine whether or not what we just said, expressed, was complete and total bullshit or actually had some truth, some factual basis.
This event, this method, is perhaps the most true when used against self-pity. So often when we let slip that whisper of a thought, that tiny hint in word that we're feeling sorry for ourselves, does it kick back at us and, only after vocalizing our feeling, do we see exactly how very foolish we're being and only then are able to let go the tiny scorch on our heart, getting on with our life. It's a necessary and, when done in the presence of others as so often we do it, humiliating evil.
As much as I wish to continue, I have someone eagerly anticipating my presence and must depart. The only thing I have left to say for this post is that I am a very lucky person.
I've often heard people say that "it's good to get it out." Though I often I find they are referring to an extreme emotion, often loss or grief. It's as if that moment of expression makes the feeling real to an individual, brings the reality of whatever harrowing event crashing down upon them and though painful as it may be, it is necessary in order for the individual to move past it. I find this true for thoughts in general though, not just expressions of agony, but the thoughts and feelings in our day to day lives. In some strange way when we say what we think and feel the experience takes on a life of its own, metamorphosing into an entity that we can then pull away from and evaluate as if it's its own person and no longer apart of us. A scientist and their lab rat. And from that point we can then determine whether or not what we just said, expressed, was complete and total bullshit or actually had some truth, some factual basis.
This event, this method, is perhaps the most true when used against self-pity. So often when we let slip that whisper of a thought, that tiny hint in word that we're feeling sorry for ourselves, does it kick back at us and, only after vocalizing our feeling, do we see exactly how very foolish we're being and only then are able to let go the tiny scorch on our heart, getting on with our life. It's a necessary and, when done in the presence of others as so often we do it, humiliating evil.
As much as I wish to continue, I have someone eagerly anticipating my presence and must depart. The only thing I have left to say for this post is that I am a very lucky person.
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