sad professor fakeout

So I have this three-day temp gig at an office, assembling name badges for an upcoming convention*, which is fine, I need money and I'm certainly not above doing basically anything (except child care. I don't even know what children are), but I googled the company over lunch today, and it turns out they're basically the oil lobby. 'Working toward beneficial and reasonable legislation', sure. There's a bunch of framed pieces on the wall in their waiting area, and they're all state Acts with a pen that the governor used to sign said Act and a photo of grinning people with the governor. There are a couple with Scott Walker, and one of those is basically a repeal of previous environmental controls and regulations. Because that's awesome. On the one hand, I feel gross just being there? But on the other, I will totally take their money. (I made sure to bring my Oceana water bottle, and I have not removed the rainbow Bernie pin from my jacket. It's the little things.)

*My life has become creepily cyclical. This time two years ago, I had a three-day temp gig putting tiny stabby safety pins on 'PARTICIPANT' ribbons, and was planning on taking a class over the summer. This year, three days assembling name badges and taking two classes** this summer. If I end up stuffing envelopes or something with pins for three days in spring 2018, someone just take me out back and shoot me.

**English 2 and Basic Algebra (again) (if they'll do the override and let me freaking enroll).

A couple weeks ago, both Elissa and her boss Sarah told me that the higher-ups (who have no idea what actually happens at the clinics) had been considering asking me to stay longer at this job, past the end of March, but no one actually asked me if I wanted to or not, so I told Elissa my last day would be March 31. Last week Friday HR Kathy (the one who has it in for Sarah and who I'm pretty sure was the person who said "don't hire that Elizabeth") called me, and asked me if I was willing to stay through the end of May. I said no, and I would like my last day to be March 31. There was a small pause, as though HR Kathy was having a little panic, and then what could she do but say that was fine? Because I was giving notice well before the two-week point, and as a temp I could get up and walk out anytime I want? (so there)

The only thing that makes me feel better about this pile of crap is that literally everyone in the clinics (Elissa, the interpreters, the nurses, the clinic managers, the front desk people, the mental health counselors, EVERYONE) and a few people at the Admin building think it's a pile of crap as well. I told Elissa what HR Kathy had said and what I had said, and Elissa said good for you. And I told Dental Jean and she said "The end of MAY?? That's ridiculous!" And I told IT Jill what HR Kathy had said and she was like "I hope you said no!" And IT Jill told Admin Ada what HR Kathy had said and Admin Ada was like "I hope she said no!" So that's gratifying.

Apparently Elissa had a run-in with Finance Jo (one of the clueless higher-ups), who asked her if she was "concerned about the future of [my] position", and Elissa was like "to be honest, nope." Because they're taking supervision of the position away from her after I'm gone (HR Kathy also said to Sarah "she should be glad she's not getting a $2/hr pay cut"), so as far as she's concerned it's not her problem. Finance Jo also made noises about Elissa's feedback about the position and any concerns she might have are just so helpful, and that would be great except CLEARLY they pay no attention to any feedback they may get from anyone at the clinics (or even Sarah, Director of Medical), otherwise I would actually have a job. Finance Jo said they were thinking about hiring an admin assistant for Medical and another for Dental, which is pretty much the dumbest idea ever (because both clinics have a Medical department and a Dental department and it would be like having two me's traveling between locations instead of just one me) and shows that they have no fucking clue what goes on at the clinics. What they need to do is hire an admin assistant for each clinic. But it's not my problem either. Elissa said she just wants to kick back, do her own actual job, and watch them flail wildly when they realize no one knows how to do my job except me, and that they succeeded in screwing me over.

So yeah. This is all true. And frustrating, and just STUPID. I have no idea what the people at the top have planned, whether they're actually going to get off their butts and hire someone instead of just pissing about, or if they're going to get another temp (which, the first one [me] wasn't good enough, what makes them think a different temp will be better?), or if they're going to shove all the job responsibilities at someone who already works here (which, if they do that, I hope everyone refuses).

BUT, I am going back to school this summer! Which is AWESOME. And the classes I need to take (English 2 and Basic Algebra [yeah, again, I got a D the first time, I'm not proud]) only have one section each and they're in the middle of the day so part time work and student loans, here I come. Yaaay. I mean, I'll still need a job for April and May so hopefully my temp agency can find something short term. Part of me thinks I should have accepted and stayed through May, but most of me says nope. They don't want to hire me, but they want to keep me on doing the same job for way less money than I'm worth, yes, that's awesome and ethical and fits right in with their mission of yknow MAKING PEOPLE'S LIVES BETTER. Being used is a shitty feeling; I don't recommend it.

[I wrote most of this this morning at work, so here's a nice way to end it: Elissa and I are inviting everyone out for after work beer and hang outs at Ale Asylum on my last day. Which is cool, I'm looking forward to that. Also this song is nice and loud and smashy and I'm feeling it right now.]

Today much better than previous days. In some ways. Today stupid and boring in other ways.

Today I spent sitting at my desk waiting for the afternoon when I could leave and have lunch and then go to the Apple Store with all the broken iPods. So this morning was boring as fuck. I had literally zero things to do. Luckily at Clinic A I sit back in a corner and there's a half-wall between my computer monitor and Everyone Else so no one can see I'm reading Wikipedia unless they actually stick their head around.

Massive success at the Apple Store! Jen at the Madison Apple Store, you were amazing and hella friendly and cute and I very much enjoyed the hour I spent ficing things with you. Yay. Five iPods are fixed, and the remaining six just need the iOS updated, which I can do next week. HOORAY. Of course I won't be done with them; there's plenty more that need attention (the ones that the interpreters have, and dental, and Clinic B. Oy).

Set up the iPods once I got back to work which was fun. I like playing with things. :D

Backstory: Last week, Maria at Clinic B had asked me to do a Panera order for a very nice lady's going-away farewell breakfast thing, so I ordered bagels and pastries and whatever for about 80 people (according to Jenni, whose job I am doing after she got a different job. Jenni had been admin assistant for Clinics A and B for SIX YEARS, so I figured she'd know). It seemed like a crapton of bagels and pastries and whatever, so I asked my supervisor Elissa if it looked good. She checked off on it, so I ordered it, and earlier this week Maria came back complaining that it hadn't been enough. So Maria chewed me out via Elissa, and Elissa was like "that is NOT Elizabeth's fault, don't blame her for doing what we told her" and she related all this to me today, and she was all "I just feel PROTECTIVE of you, you're new, you don't know everyone, it's not fair! If anyone yells at you, YOU TELL ME." Which gave me warm fuzzies. And then Ivania (one of the interpreters) said "Yeah, you tell me too." Which is an actual threat, I think. Ivania would actually rip a new one. I'm glad she likes me.

So that was funny.

And it's been raining all afternoon/evening, which I approve of (and we need it too), and I've read this week's Isthmus, and I've had dinner (for certain values of dinner), and I've been emailing with Lissie about Middle English and 'inutile' Old English manuscripts and the Tremulous Hand of Worcester all day, which has made me very happy. Tonight I need to do some French on duolingo because I blew my awesome streak goddamn it. This weekend is laundry tomorrow, and TJ's because APT on Sunday (we're seeing O Streetcar), and possibly the shoe store and maybe a new yarn store? (Nelle's car works a lot better than mine does.)

(I am trying SO HARD to find things to talk about in these stupid posts but I really want to get back into this journaling bs because it's easy to document your life on twitter but extremely difficult to reference it again.)

So let's talk about last Wednesday.

First thing when I got into work at Clinic A, I was asked to help configure the videoconference between three sites. No big, I've done this before, but apparently one site couldn't call in for some reason. I had no idea why, and of course M (the woman I'm helping) didn't either. We fiddled around with it for a while, and finally I'm like "why don't I just set up a brand new call" so I did, but by the time I finished it, the people at the site who hadn't been able to call in DROVE HERE. they're only a mile up the road, BUT STILL. It makes me/us look incompetent, and I'M NOT, THANKS, sometimes tech is just a jerk.

Next up, all the ipods that were still working stopped working. (I have been given the project of 'making the ipods work' because apparently no one knows enough to UPDATE THE GODDAMN APPS AND iOS on their own and it's been a couple months of a fucking cascade of failures, it's been awesome.) So I told C (the interpreters supervisor) that I'm going to the Apple Store on Friday and I'll take them all with me. Meanwhile, they use them as pagers (the medical staff sends a message when they need a Spanish interpreter), and they're weren't getting the messages and it's kind of a big problem.

I went back to the conference room to take down the collapsible wall, and I broke it. So I sneaked back to E's (my supervisor) desk and whispered "I broke the wall" and she came and helped me fix it. E is wonderful.

I needed to check the printers for a thing and I had no idea where any of them are. It's not a huge clinic, but still. NO IDEA.

And then the manager of dental scolded me via email via E because the other day she saw a doctor restocking something in the break room. le gasp. She was all "Elizabeth clearly isn't stocking the break room in the morning, she is bad bad bad." I am at Clinic A on Monday Wednesday Fridays, and at Clinic B Tuesdays Thursdays. Manager of dental saw this on a Tuesday. OBVIOUSLY I cannot stock a break room when I AM NOT THERE. Sigh. With E's blessing, I am going to keep on as I have been and eff that lady. That's not the only thing she's douchey about either. Whatever.

The afternoon settled down, but then a dental lab tech ran in later and flailed about being completely out of the little ziplock sandwich bags they use in the lab. I was like 'maybe you should have thought of this before you HAD NONE?' which I didn't say out loud, but hopefully implied. Also it was a pain because I had already sent the inventory order. (The next day I would try to courier a box from Clinic B but I missed the courier because I suck.)

And then at about 3:45, creeping out the window of the interpreter room on the second floor, we all witnessed some total hosebeast of a woman hit a kid on his bike. She didn't actually hit the kid, but she totally mangled the front wheel of his bike. She got out of the car, basically made sure the kid wasn't grievously injured, said something to him that we gathered was something like "you're fine, it's not worth exchanging info," and she got back in her car and fucked off. It was too far away to catch the plate, and we were all just like WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS THE WORST THING I'VE EVER SEEN. And the kid is down on the street, and he just throws his bike on the ground and holds his head and is obviously freaking out, and then he just ran away up the street and left the bike there. So I'm like "Should I call the nonemergency number?" and everyone's like "YES" so I did, told a bored cop all about it, and maybe ten minutes later, we actually saw a cop show up and check it out. I ran downstairs and outside to try to catch her, but she got a call and drove off before I could. So I took pictures of the bike with the clinic sign to prove it was there (this is South Park Street, that bike did not last the night). That was super sad and shitty and we all felt awful for this poor kid.

(THEN ON THURSDAY, I almost broke the conference room collapsible wall at Clinic B. Like, that's dedication. I didn't actually break it, but it was close. I am talented.)

(THEN ON FRIDAY, I was basically turned away at the Apple Store for bringing in twelve ipods. Apparently it's one device per appointment slot, which they don't really advertise on the scheduling website. Some of them are more fucked than others, and I have another appointment this Friday. Sigh.)

(AND THEN TODAY, I took a huge package to the UPS Store, and of course I don't have a company credit card [I use E's for ordering stuff] so I thought "I'll just pay for it myself and get reimbursed." I had a little eyebrow-raise moment when they told me how much it was [$50+] but I was like "no big." Yeah, MISTAKE. I had tried calling E twice before I went, but she didn't pick up, so I called her after I got back and she was all "oh Elizabeth, you shouldn't have done that." So apparently I shouldn't have done that. And now I'm all worried; not just that I won't get reimbursed, but that I Have Done Something Wrong and they're going to Be Displeased About It and I don't really like Getting Yelled At and I really actually like working at this place and I'd like to keep doing it? SIGH MORE.)

i just sort of want to barf my feelings all over the internet? ugh. but at this exact moment i'm having Actual Feelings and no, that's not for sharing.

...

ok. i'm ok now.

so! i got a temp job at an insurance company in early july, but i don't have it anymore because they're sending all the work to manila. because that's the american way. /simpsons.

still at school, though only doing two classes this semester: french 2 and western world literature. the latter is MY MOTHERFUCKING JAM JFC. we have yet to read beowulf but it's coming, and so far we have read a bunch of greek stuff and gilgamesh and bits of the old testament. i wrote a paper which i am really not proud of but the instructor was like "write about something you found interesting" so i went on a feminist rant and in his feedback he was like "this is all true" and i slammed my head against the wall a few times. why can't i ever come up with an actual original idea.

so anyway. nelle and i just watched vids and had alcohol and talked about stuff that i never talk about unless i have a fuckton of alcohol for like five hours so i am seriously drunk (drunk enough to ask twitter for makeup advice) and now my face is all tingly so i'm going to bed.

i was about to say-- two posts in one month?? what is this world coming to? but the other one is my yulegoat letter so that doesn't count. ANYWAY.

some backstory: my boss is awful. she's a raging hosebeast to everyone and i don't know why she still has a job there. so i want to quit, and get a job at a place that will let me have a more flexible schedule so i can take more classes. captel it is! (which is a lot like what i did at relay but with less typing and more talking like a robot.)

potential job stuff: i heard back from captel yesterday-- first they said "we looked at your resume and we'd like you to fill out an app" and i was like "um i don't think i sent you a resume, but i sent you the app yesterday, was that not what you got?" and they were like "oh yeah there it is in the inbox ok we'll look at that." and then they called me a while later and said "we want to get you in for an interview, and here are when our training sessions are, which is better for you?" they're morning and evening, which would be fine except for that pesky school thing. which is why i want this fucking job in the first place. their morning session starts half an hour before my writing class is done, and their evening class overlaps with earth sci and orchestra. which i told them, and they were like "yeah whatever try again later i guess bye." so maybe if they'll let me go to the morning or evening sessions instead of making me pick one, maybe i can do the FOUR WEEK training over exam week and winter break.

actual job stuff: also holy crap every single thing i've made, every document, every spreadsheet, all the mailing labels and scans, every bit of reorganization i've done for this horrible department is totally gone. completely. last friday someone opened an email with a virus, and left it open all afternoon. and now our networked drive has been eaten, A through partially C. and guess which folder condo stuff is in. there's a regular backup, but it failed so everything we salvaged is from MAY. which is when i started here. which means that everything i've done is GONE.

but now i'm basically stuck here in this toxic fucking environment until the end of the semester. which, ok, i had thought of, but i didn't want to have to actually go through with it because it really is toxic. boss DOESN'T ACTUALLY BELIEVE ME when i say i've done something. for example! one of the owners at one of the condos revised the condo docs and sent it to me in one enormous pdf, so i asked him to split it into sections. he did because he's nice, and i uploaded them to their website. yesterday afternoon, after i had clocked out for lunch and was actually holding my bowl and fork in my hand, heading to the kitchen where my lunch was beeping in the microwave, she asked if i had actually uploaded the split pdfs to the website. and when i explained to her that not only had i done it but maybe you should try a hard refresh on the page and here's how, she just looks at me like i'm a total fucking idiot and why should she even listen to me at all. but taking time out of my lunch is totally fine! after she said some weeks ago that i shouldn't have to take phone calls at lunch. (note: the files are fine, the guy who sent them just left the cover page on the first section so it looked like the whole document and she just hadn't scrolled down beyond the cover page, and she wants me to "change them." because it's so easy to just edit a pdf.) i'm just so fucking tired of dealing with her-- she's either snotty, or impatient, or ranty, or she totally ignores my presence. maybe i should become an asshole too; it might help. i was so looking forward to giving my notice this week. but it'll be late november at the earliest.

(and i was supposed to have a three-month review in early september? obviously that never happened. and i don't WANT a review now because she'll just say why do we even employ her still and i'll say seriously, why am i staying and it'll be like an old west shootout: can she quit before she's fired? and i remember being so excited about this job in may. sigh.)

and today i was recreating everything, basically rebuilding all the things i had made in the last six months, and apparently i wasn't doing it in the exact order she wanted me to be doing it, and so she had another good yell at me in the last 15 minutes of the day. i am SO FUCKING DONE. i have fucking had it with her need to control every single thing and that despite the part where she can't ever be bothered to show me how to do anything. like. WHAT THE FUCK DOES SHE EXPECT. i am beyond ready to burn some bridges here. i don't know how much longer i can deal with her bullshit.

(i'm just going to ignore the fact that i haven't posted a thing since may, ok? good. mostly i am posting because i promised amy. not that she's posted. :PPPP)

it has been a long fucking week let me tell you all about it shall i.

so i don't know about other places, but in madison, a whole crapton of downtown apartment leases expire on august 14th, and start up again on august 15th, which leaves all these dumb college kids homeless for a night. on the other hand, when are the landlords supposed to clean? who knows. i would fix this situation but i don't see how.

so on wednesday and thursday, it was all hands on deck. i got to sit in the lobby and collect keys from people moving out and hand out paperwork to people moving in. i got to talk to lots of cool kids and delightful people and it was actually rather awesome. (there was a girl wearing a shirt with the knights who say NI on it, and she admired my incredible hulk water bottle. we totally bonded. and there was another girl with the pearl jam stickman tattooed on her ankle, and i had to tell her it was awesome.) i got to talk about doctor who and pacific rim with nerdy coworker, and the company provided sandwiches and chips and pop (for the tenants but also for us), and when we closed up for the night, they brought out the beer and we sat around and drank and unwound a bit. it was pretty great. i can say that though; i wasn't one of the poor bastards who ran around cleaning apartments for two days. apparently some of them were Actual Hazardous Conditions (like the woman who'd been dumping her cat poo in a rubbermaid container on her porch and then letting it get rained and snowed on which resulted in a container full of biowaste sludge, and the guy who'd been squatting in someone's attic and had jugs full of pee up there dear god i wish i was kidding). but mostly they were good, i heard.

so yeah, i guess it was ok. but they were ten or eleven hour days, so i am tired. i think everyone is feeling a little f r a g i l e today. especially those who partook of the jello shots last night. i do not understand jello shots as a concept, so i had the nice beer and then left at six because i was exhausted from the constant high level of noise all day (the lobby is huge and all hard surfaces so there's a lot of echo and it's hard for me to hear).

i am tired. and of course beth my boss only had to do a few post-move-out walkthroughs on wednesday and so doesn't understand why i'm so wiped. and also doesn't seem to get that NO I WAS NOT DOING MY REGULAR WORK THESE PAST COUPLE DAYS DID YOU NOT NOTICE I WAS SITTING UP FRONT FOR TWO DAYS YES I STILL HAVE A FEW THINGS I HAVEN'T DONE YET so would you just fucking chill the fuck out please and stop giving me that fucking face? but she left at like 1:30 so whatever.

ugh this job, i don't know. i like beth most of the time, and i like everyone else all the time, but i actively dislike condos. but i don't want to unemployed forever again. and i finally get health insurance in september, more than a year since i had it last. and i like being close enough to bike (once i form the balls to ride in traffic). and pandora. i really like listening to pandora all day. so i don't know what i want, basically.

this weekend nelle is down in chicago with pretty much everyone else i know in this town, and dad is in canada, so... yeah. free laundry at dad's, maybe some knitting because i haven't in forever, and i don't know what else.

M from my temp agency called like twenty minutes ago to tell me that "you won't need to go back to [gig] after the holidays; it wasn't a good fit."

so i've been let go. apparently. i have mixed feelings about this. it was nice to be employed? obviously? but god that job sucked. it was repetitive as hell, and nothing ever got DONE, like it was the same crap every single day, there was no sense of accomplishment, like "yay that's done, now what's next?" and when there was (like i could count on three fingers and have some left over for the times it happened), it was really nice. i like feeling like i've DONE SOMETHING. but mostly what the job was was changing adresses and phone numbers for people, and changing their doctors when they wanted that, and the requests just came in ALL DAY LONG. it was just so frustrating.

but what baffles me is the "it wasn't a good fit" part. like, they couldn't have worked that out in OCTOBER? i just. i don't get it. i want to know who temp agency M has been talking to. i doubt it was my old supervisor E (who i'm pretty sure resigned not by her choice and whose last day was the 14th), and i doubt it was my new supervisor LJ who has only been my new supervisor since E left and has barely talked with me at all. honestly, i bet it was R. who made it clear she didn't like me, and was apparently still buddies with M, and tattled on me a couple months back.

so yeah. anyway. M called me back and said she'd have my few personal items (a mug and a box of tea) for me to pick up at the temp agency, and could i come get them and bring the keycard. so i will. and have a happy fucking xmas, won't you?

encountered a bit of transphobia (trans*phobia? christ i don't know, i'm sorry) today at work. couldn't really sit there and say nothing. everyone who's met me knows i'm pretty shit at actually saying things out loud with words, but i think it went sort of ok? the co-worker who actually talks to me agreed with me. the co-worker who ignores me, ignored me. but yknow.

the situation came up and people were being all "other people can do what they want but omg if MY husband did that i'd be in therapy for YEARS", which ok, i can't really argue with that, but i had to say something, and of course now i can't remember what exactly i said but it was something to the effect of "jesus it's sort of a crazy issue for everyone involved, like imagine if you were born with guybits and it just felt wrong your whole life." or something. and i'm pretty sure i said something about it not being a choice, like being gay.

[i work at a local HMO and thus actual details are confidential.]

obviously i am not looking for pats on the back; it just really bothered me at the time and it's still sort of bothering me, and if i did anything horribly wrong i hope someone would tell me. (ok i am patting myself on the back a little bit, but mostly for doing anything approaching confrontation at all. because i do not deal well with confrontation.)