Midweek Update

I'm here.

Honestly.

I haven't given up on my blog.

I haven't done anything cataclysmically stupid.

Nothing is wrong.

Nothing is even particularly NOTICEABLE.

I'm just....busy.





But.

If you happen to be watching some news feed from Chicago some day soon...

And if you were to see something there, about a tech support coordinator who just spontaneously snapped one day, and who consequently beat the holy, living, self-satisfied, complacent FUCK out of one of her co-workers, and who subsequently went home, where she was found sitting in front of the TV, eating a bowl of Breyer's Heath Bar ice cream, and when asked "why did you do it?" proceeded to list a litany of personal and professional affronts ranging back for four and a half years and ending with the seemingly-innocent question "Do you remember what you were supposed to do this morning?"...



Well, peeps, that will be me. The blood-soaked lump of incoherent protoplasm--that will be Noreen.



Yes, I know it's sick and horrible to imagine such things. I'll never do it. But that fantasy represents one of my few sources of comfort in the workplace.



And I swear, if she asks me ONE MORE question to imply that I'm not doing my job..... The above-mentioned query, for example, which she asked instead of asking "What happened to that computer you were going to set up?"--because phrasing it THAT way would have given me the chance to answer "I was working on OTHER things for your program, which were more urgent because the consultant who needed them done was coming in at 8, and the computer I was going to set up would take ten minutes and that person wouldn't even be HERE til 9..." Whereas HER phrasing only allowed me to answer "um, not at the moment." (You tell me--how much do YOU remember at 8 AM, five minutes after walking in the door? Don't you need a few minutes to put down your bag, close out of "LIFE" mode and get yourself back into "WORK" mode?)



And then, later, as I'm setting up the computer, she's HOVERING over me--asking me fifteen-hundred questions. "Do we need that wire? Why are there two plugs over here? Whose computer is plugged into THAT port? Why aren't they plugged in over THERE? Why does this computer look different?"



Finally I said "Noreen? I can take it from here. But I appreciate your help."



(Hey, only HALF of it was a lie.)



I am seriously, sincerely beginning to despise my job.



And then I came home, and LJ and I had what was probably the closest thing to an "argument" we've ever had.



See, my car days are Mondays and Fridays. That's how we worked it out. Well, he told me Monday that he actually needs the car Friday, and said if he could have it Friday, I could take it Thursday. Unfortunately, we ran out of Pepsi last night, and I know him well enough to know that he'll never remember to stop at the store if I ask him; and we needed a few other things besides. So last night, before I went to bed, I stuck a note on the alarm panel--our household mailbox!--asking him if I could have the car. (Please note the syntax there: I asked. I did not tell. This will become important.)



He leaves the keys on the table, and I leave him sleeping. But then he calls me at work today--very curt, very obviously unhappy. "Call me when you get home." Pulling out of the Home Depot lot, I call him to see if he needs anything at the store. Half an hour later, as I'm walking out of the store (Western and Belmont)--guess who wants to know how long before I get home? I tell him 20 minutes. I get to Jackson and Central Park, fifteen minutes later--phone rings, guess who??



I finally get home, get the groceries in--he did help, to give him credit--but then the first words out of his mouth: "I'm gone..."



"You know," I said, as he walked out the door, "it's perfectly all right for you to TELL me if it's gonna fuck up your plans when I take the car..."



"Yeah, but you KNOW that already!" he replies. "I shouldn't even have to say nothin'." And leaves, with me mumbling after him.



Five minutes later, he calls. It's a half-apology, or maybe a two-thirds apology...and very telling. "I mean, it ain't like I can just tell you 'no, I need the car'--what am I supposed to do??"



"Well actually," I told him, "you really CAN say exactly that! I mean, I'm not tryin' to fuck up your plans...I just don't know from day to day how bad you need the car. So if you really DO need it, just SAY that."



What this tells me: he's not accustomed to women ASKING for something--he expects that we're TELLING him, even if there's a question mark at the end of the sentence. He's accustomed to manipulative women who expect him to read their minds and get pissed if they don't get what they want, 100% of the time.



If I can manage to convince him that I'm not one of those women--always ready to pounce and be angry over every little thing he does or says--and if he can convince me that he's not a lying, cheating, backstabbing user like CR was, I think we might actually be happy.



I wish I could say the same for my job. I really think I need to get the hell up out of there....there's really no way it can improve. The hierarchy is so solidified, so set in its ways, and it refuses to accept any meaningful effort at reform. And no one will force it to change its ways--too many people high-up who are friends with those above them.



Nepotism just sucks--especially from the outside.