Hail to the chimp! Um, I mean Chief!

Ok, I have a confession to make; I am a political junkie. I love politics! I love the debates! I love the glitz and glamour! It’s my reality show! It’s like watching the WWF, people pretend it’s real but it’s not.

The President is coming to town tomorrow to hold one of his “Town Meetings” to discuss his plan to reform Social Security. A lot of people have asking me (knowing that I have this policy monkey on my back) if I was going to see the President. My answer is no. First off, you have to buy tickets to see him and you can only buy tickets through a certain local republican representative (or the Chamber of Commerce, also a member of the republic) and only if you’re on the list! The White House has asked for a nice cross section of the GOP to sit in the “Town Meeting.” This includes young students, single mothers, people on social security, and you professionals under 30, all no doubt republicans. It is well known even before the President was re-elected that you had to sign a loyalty oath before entering the lion’s den. I’m sure things haven’t changed much since he took the throne again. I’m also surprised the President is coming to a town where unemployment is on the rise and a major corporation, who’s home base is Rochester, is about to lay off a large percent of their work force. I would think it would be a little uncomfortable talking to people about their retirement when they won’t have anything to retire from.

To be perfectly fair I’m not going to be with the Democrats who are on the other side of town protesting Social Security reform. Now, it’s my understanding if you’re going to protest it’s the objective for the person (or the issue) you’re protesting to see you. President Bush has a wide view of things but not that wide. Get your wimp asses to where the man is!

Fast forward- The President just finished his speech and I have to tell you he is great at being a man of the people. He is great at being plain spoken and speaking the language of the people. BUT, he is also great at scaring the pants off of the ignorant and slow witted. While talking about Social Security reform he gives you a choice, you don’t have to invest in personal accounts but we can’t guarantee you’re going to get what’s coming to you. Also, he filled the house, standing room only with not one person who opposed him. He had a retired grandmother and a Christian school teacher both of whom fell to his feet and praised him. No one questioned, no one had a conflicting opinion, and they all stood emotionless like good little drones. He was charismatic and the got a standing “O”. It was a well rehearsed and commanding performance. There were many leaders in history that had this kind of “staged” presence. A “captured” audience if you will.

By the way, golfer’s clap for Bush protesters who stopped cowering in the corner and moved their protest to the President’s speech. Now if we can just get them to take their thumbs out of their mouths.

Goin’ to the chapel and we’re gonna get married!

The BF and I are attending a wedding this weekend. Our neighbors are getting hitched after meeting two years ago at my birthday party. I was going to do a little sonnet on fate, hope and destiny but the bottom line is these to people that love each other very, very much warts and all. Did fate, destiny and the universe play a hand in all of this? Yes, to all of the above. I mean, come on! A 30 year old olive skinned, brunette Italian Catholic middle-school Teacher from Buffalo meets a 25 year old pasty white, blonde Dutch Reformed Presbyterian Information Technologist from New Zealand at a drunken, slightly paranoid gay cartoonist birthday party and you don’t think there were any outside forces involved!? HA! The fickle hands of fate’s fingerprints are all over this thing! But I believe whether they met then or now or twenty years from now, they still would have met because they belong together. Distance, age, religion, an over baring mother or the heavens themselves were going to keep them apart.

“Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from you.” ~ The Supremes

Here’s to you Paul and Anita! We give to you the hope of a long and happy life together. We love you both very much.

I JUST WANT TO BE ALONE!

In all my experience working in the corporate world I thought I seen every level of lunacy known to man. But I was wrong.

To give you a little history I work with 6 people on a B-shift testing various components of software and hardware. I see 5 of these people every night. Granted we work on different projects but we still see each other passing in the hall or working in the same lab. The last person I work with I have not seen for the better part of 2 weeks since I started B-shift. You’d think I would have run into him once or twice especially since we’re on the same project. But no this man has been a phantom to all of us. Management assumed he was helping out the other projects, since ours was in some down time. And we assumed he was doing some special testing assigned to him by management. Turns out he was doing neither. He had been hiding in one of the test areas for the PAST TWO WEEKS! You heard me! Here was his M.O., he would come in, grab some papers, muster up disgruntled look on his face, and scurry off to one of the testing rooms. No one would see him for the rest of the night and no one volunteered to go looking for him. There had been rumors floating around to what exactly he was doing in those rooms. And known of us wanted to be the one to catch him in the act of …let’s say…conducting self- reliant “HARDWARE” testing (*WINK*).

Now, I told you that story to tell you this one. Yesterday afternoon I went into work at my usual time anxiously counting down the minutes to when I could home. It was a typical day, I got my workload for the night and I set off to perform my assigned test suite. As I began, I noticed the ever-aloof co-worker nervously walking down the hall. I didn’t think anything of it because more than likely that would be the last time I would see him that night. About an hour goes by and in walks my team lead holding a small bundle of papers. She smiles and asks me if when I complete the work I was doing could I finish up the pile in her hand. Sure, no problem. As she turned to walk away I noticed the name of the stack of papers she just handed me. It was the name of my phantom co-worker! I was a bit confused because I had seen this guy slink by no more than an hour ago. So I asked my team leader why I was doing Captain Creepy’s work for him if he’s here. Hang onto to your chairs people, this is a doozy! The reason why I was doing his work was because he didn’t feel like being around people that night and wanted to be off by himself. Honestly, I didn’t know what to be upset at more. The fact that this jittery little FREAK, who has been hiding out for the last 2 weeks doing NOTHING, had the balls to ask that! Or the fact my “Team Leader” actually said it was OK! At that point I realized that we as a society had reached a turning point. We had reached a fork in the road of life and took the path straight to Pussy-ville! Now I had seen this on TV with the 2004 election, school not allowing students to play dodge ball because it’s too demeaning to children’s fragile egos (instead that play a game called “Circle of Friends” were they sit around and share their feelings) but now it was starting to effect my life!

There is a book out called One Nation Under Therapy by Christina Hoff Sommers & Sally Satel which discusses how we as a society are raising a generation of wusses! As I said before it talks about the “Circle of Friends” game, it also talks about how they are starting to take red pens (you know ones they use to mark up tests) out of the schools because the color red is too stressful for students. The color red is being replaced by lavender because it is not quite as aggressive. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!? Our nation has become a place where self-obsession, self-pity, dependency, and a belief that one is not responsible for one's actions are the norm. It’s time someone started stood up and started rolling over on these wimp-asses. You should get fired for doing a rotten job not get a promotion (or counseling.) People should be allowed to make jokes without worrying about who you’re going to offend. You should be able to discipline (discipline not beat) your child with worrying about Child Welfare knocking on your door. You should be allowed to be open and honest with people not be marked as a “negative thinker.” We need to stop the pussification of America before we become the whole world’s butt monkey.

I'm melting...melting!

Modern Day Slavery.

I drew the above ‘toon in 1997 but the message still applies in 2005. Even more so today for the fact that most of the American white collar work force is contract (or temporary) employees. I feel this is the 21st century’s version of slavery. Here is the basic setup; you are sold to an employer by the contract agency to work for no benefits, vacation, or even holidays. You work endless hours without a break. Sure there is over time but after taxes it hardly seems worth it. You work under a cloud of hope and uncertainty. On the one hand, you hope the employer likes your well enough to hire you as a full time employee. But on the other hand, your contract could end at a moments notice and you have bills to pay. At the same time your self esteem takes a nose dive because you can’t help but feel this way after a rejection of this proportion. You’re trapped and they know it.

Case in point, currently I work for a contract agency. Keep in mind I had just been laid off from my previous temporary job and this one came along no more than a week later. I was lured in by the promise of a long contract and a hefty paycheck. The experience has been anything short of frustrating and unprofessional since day one! My first encounter with this company was through one of their representatives who have all the brains of a piece of furniture. My appointment with her was scheduled for 8:30 am. She kept me waiting until 9:15 am and did not have most of the materials (or information) for me to start my new job. Like, where to go, what time to show up, what time to pick up my security badge, and who to contact once I get there. Hell, the woman couldn’t find a form she needed me to fill out that she created on her own hard drive! There are numerous other things I could say about this meeting but to put it in a nutshell, I did not have a warm fuzzy feeling about working for these people.

The first week passes and I await the arrival of my first paycheck. When I pull the paycheck out of its envelope I notice that it is a hand written check with no pay stub. Another thing that’s odd is it is not a check from my contract agency but another company I had never heard of. I immediately call my representative to see what the hell is going on! I get her voice mail. Figures! I refuse to cash the check until this matter is cleared up. Monday morning I receive a call, not from rep. at the agency but from another woman from the company that wrote me the check. By the way, she sounds just as bright as the first one…lucky me. This woman explained that me and two other temporary employees were, for the time being, under her company do to an un-merging of the two businesses. She went on to explain that we would be receiving hand written checks from her company until the matter was resolved. The whole situation sounded shady to me but like I said before I was trapped. Since it was a hand written check I asked the woman to send me a break down of taxes for my records. Which she did and I rolled with the situation I was in. What else could I do!?

Fast forward two weeks, to this past week when…are you ready for this? I didn’t get paid! Or at least I didn’t get a pay check. You heard me! Friday rolled around nothing! Saturday rolled around NOTHING! Needless to say I was fit to be tied! For all the stupidity, frustration, and deception I have endured in dealing with these monkeys now THIS happens! I was on the phone like a flash! I first called idiot who is supposed to send me my paycheck and left her a VERY stern message. Then I called the moron who got me into this mess and left her a polite yet FIRM message as well. I waited for one of them to call me back on Monday morning.

First thing Monday morning the phone rings. It was the checking writing mental giant calling to explain what happen and to apologize. Her basic explanation was this…..SHE FORGOT TO PAY US!!! I was stunned! I was almost speechless….almost. After she had told me that I proceeded to tactfully LET HER HAVE IT! I called the situation beyond ridiculous and incredibly frustrating. I also told her that if one more incident like this occurred I would move on to another agency. But I could tell it basically went in one ear and out the other because she knew I was trapped. And so did I.

I was telling this story to a friend of mine via e-mail in Boston; he came up with a fantastic idea! I should sub-contract someone to go to work for me. Pay someone $50 or $100 a week to go to work for me. This way I can stay at home and work on the career I want. Instead of taking a job I need and hate.

It has become a game of survival for the middle class. We keep fighting and hoping that one-day you’ll have stable employment, benefits, and maybe even a vacation. But with today’s economy nothing is guaranteed. So we dredge through the stupidity and put up with the crap because we have too. Hoping one day we will be released from the traps and set free.

I got nothin'

When all around you are losing their heads….

I had a panic attack last week. I couldn’t tell exactly when last week but it came on sometime early in the morning and didn’t end until around noon. I’m not usually prone to these attacks. As a matter of fact, I have had only one other recently and before that the last one was over 11 years ago. For those of you who have never experienced one imagine you’re drowning. You want to scream but you can’t. You want to run but you can’t. Panic sets in and your mind is racing so fast you can’t hold a cognitive thought in your head. You get sweats, you can’t understand what’s going on around you and it feels like everything around you is falling apart. While all of this is happening you have to dig deep and find some way to function because you have to get up, go to work, and function without outwardly fall to pieces. More people than you know feel like this every day. At least more people that I know.

As I said before I had only had one other episode recently and the last one before that was over 11 years ago. It was when I first graduated college and I had a job doing data entry. I would be sitting there inputting numbers and I would begin to sweat, shake, my heart and mind would start to race. What brought this on is more than likely the same thing that brought on these last couple of attacks is the past couple of weeks, fear. I’m afraid that this is it. Mostly I’m referring to my job or career. Currently, I have a job that pays well but is not even close to what I want to be doing. Every once in a while, you’re sitting there doing what you’re doing for work and you begin to look down that tunnel which is the rest of your life. You start to panic because for the moment you see no change and no options. You feel trapped and see no way out of your current situation. As much as you know this is not true the irrational fear has already taken over and it’s picking up speed. Luckily for me I have a way to let go of some of that anxiety. I can either write it or draw it out. I spilled out all of the thoughts running through my head onto paper and I began to feel better. Here is what I wrote.

“Why do I feel as if I’m losing control of everything? My life, my job, my relationship; it’s like my head has taken on a life of its own. Why do I feel this way? Nervous, anxious, paranoid, why? There is no logical basis for it. Confusion, shortness of breathes; why do I feel this way? It’s almost like a constant panic, but not. My hand writing seems hurried and off lately. I feel like I want to yell and scream, throw things and run away but I don’t know why. I’m scared. I’m afraid that this is it. Even though I want more but there is no more. But there has to be more! I know what I want but why am I afraid to work for it? Why am I so afraid? What is there to be afraid of? Fear. Someone once told me that I’m afraid to try because my talent makes up so much of me that if I fail, I won’t know who I am anymore. Then I will be trapped for all eternity.

I feel better now.”

Things are better now and I’m working on making my work situation better. It’s time to change it up! And the only one who can do that is me.

Now for some good news! We’re new uncles! Welcome Sierra Dawn!