We survived Thanksgiving. I self-medicated with my friend Tanqueray.
Unfortunately for everyone, the highlight of the holiday was when both dogs (of Paris Hilton-esque toy variety, belonging to various family members) decided to pee on my feet in succession during the feast. First the shih-tzu (wearing a lace ruffled collar with sequin menorahs, I hasten to add) relieved herself on my toes. As it was near room-temperature and I was significantly impaired by the Tanqueray, I didn’t fully notice until I caught the miniature dachsund marking her territory (my feet) to cover up the scent of the other dog’s pee. Mildly impaired and covered in dog pee, I shuffled off to the liquor cabinet for another round.
Also, in a slightly impaired fit of totally embarrassing and ridiculous emotion, I cornered my mother-in-law, professing how incredibly lucky I was to have her and father-in-law. You know the feeling. You’ve done it. Is a family holiday the place? I’m not sure, but there I was a blubbering emotional mess droning on and on about how much I love my mother-in-law. And I do, I suppose. And the Tanqueray told me just how much.
The real festivities began, however, when we flew back home and drove – tired and hung over – to Fort Lauderdale to see my parents off on their ten-day cruise to the eastern Carribean, followed by a night in South Beach, Miami (more on South Beach another day, but suffice it to say DO THOSE PEOPLE EVER WEAR CLOTHING?!). I’ve always prided myself on being raised in a highly tolerant household, despite growing up in an area where the KKK had a tremendously strong foothold – a few nights each year, you could see, if you looked very hard, the burning crosses from my dad’s house in Pennsylvania, where the Klan would hold their semi-annual rituals. The only prejudices my parents hold tend to be generational and without malintent. My mother tends to take this to an entirely different level, and makes a concerted effort to ensure her friends are multi cultural. I don’t think she realizes it, but she has created her own rule of Affirmative Action. Whatever her slightly token-esque manifestations, I genuinely have always believed that her intentions are pure, and that I could bring home a man or woman of any race, religion or station in life and he or she would be welcomed.
During Friday night’s pre-cruise dinner, she commented on her eleventy-millionth attractive man. Eleventy millionth attractive black man, a fact that I hadn’t noticed until she busted out with,
“Wow. I just noticed that I only find African American men attractive.” She turned to my stepfather, “So what the hell am I doing with you? I have JUNGLE FEVER, for God’s sake.”
Of course this was said loudly. At dinner. Heaven help us. I can only hope it’s a remote sign of, erm, a misguided attempt at hipness? Was she thinking of Spike Lee? My mother has completely lost her mind.
*10,000 Maniacs.
November 28th, 2005
This is the last career-related post for a while, for I am officially unemployed.
*throws confetti*
So why am I still so fucking pissed off?
Let me explain. My boss was – well, is – someone I really really loved. He was the reason I came to work for the company. He hired me out of the agency I was working for as a consultant after two years of consulting for him, and we had a great relationship, by all accounts. He was kind, helpful and raucously funny and mind-bogglingly irreverent. I know the feeling was mutual, for he always seemed more comfortable with me in the room. He pushed me to go to after work events, I think not just because it was good for my career, but because he enjoyed my company, and I, his. Others always noted this as well, commenting he was never quite as much fun or as comfortable if I wasn’t there.
Professionally, well, I’m not confident in a great deal of areas of my life, but of one thing I am certain: I am extraordinarily competent, and in some areas, just plain extraordiinary, at what I do. If I ever faltered, it was simply out of extreme boredom – PR is not rocket science, lest you think I am cocky, for I am confident that the majority of you all, gentle readers, could do it easily too, and after eight years in the business, I could do it in my sleep. My point is, he also liked me professionally. It was hard not to. I worked at least a 70-hour week, on average.
He’s astonishingly gorgeous, a fact that I couldn’t really comprehend or feel, as it was a bit like having a handsome relative – sure, I guess, you can see it, but the very idea of actually going anywhere with it in your mind was just…GROSS. So, when hordes of squealing marketing bimbettes and cleavage-baring sales reps asked me if he was married, drool on their lips, I always had to answer, “Yes…God, do you really find him THAT attractive?” And then, of course, I would take him aside, and tell him all about their comments, snickering and laughing at his embarrassment and boyish charm, and chuckling harder when he would blush furiously and tell me to “shut up” from a clenched jaw, all the while fixing his hair and looking around for the inquirer du jour. Out of loyalty, I need to qualify that it was mere curiousity that made him glance, for he was a ridiculously devoted husband and father, a fact I also teased him about relentlessly.
His family came to my wedding. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with his wife and children. His wife emails me to remind me of his birthday every year, with a goofy email and a snarky comment to pass on to him. His daughter always felt better if I was on a business trip with him, since she knew me and could relate to where he was, and liked to talk to me on the phone when I was away with him. He called my husband “Flash,” although I don’t know why, and our two families met outside of the office more than once.
I knew it was him coming down the hallway by the way his knees cracked, and I could tell if, and just how much, he was pissed off by the way his temple wrinkled ever-so-slightly above his right eyebrow, when no one else would even guess. I knew if he liked someone instantly by the tone of his voice, and more often than not, I could finish his sentences, and he, mine. Four years, at least ten hours a day and you know someone better than you know some of your family.
My company was hard to work for, and at times, he wasn’t the best manager. I often felt that he was so caught up in his own safety and stress that he didn’t really have time or energy to properly take care of me. More than once, credit was given solely to him for projects I had actually managed myself or contributed to heavily – giving up weekends, nights and, well, lots of things – and he did not correct them. In fact, that fateful Thursday night that I decided to quit, that’s exactly what had happened, on an extraordinarily large and horrendously public scale. Perhaps I’m letting him off too easily, but I do believe it was a matter of his own survival, and not an intentional slight. It was a tough place to work, and after being brainwashed, I think some people kind of lost their sense of what’s right in the world. I hope everyone remembers when it’s all over.
When I gave notice, my reasons were personal, although I was candid about a few key sticking points that were universally unjust. He asked me to stay through Thanksgiving, a request I’d anticipated, knowing that a large project that I usually managed was coming up. I also knew that this project could easily slip to December (which, by the way, it already has), and that if I gave in now, I would be an indentured servant through the end of the year, if not longer. I refused, explaining in a strained, about-to-cry voice that I needed to get out and get on with my life, and that another minute on this health insurance was likely going to kill me (and this was before the Pawned Ovary incident). I could tell he was infuriated, for I believe there was a full two minutes of silence following my refusal. Do you have any idea how long two minutes of silence is on a strained phone call? After a polite goodbye, I emailed my simple resignation to make it official.
He hasn’t really talked to me since. I managed my transition in isolation. When news went out of my resignation, I was actually touched at the amount of people – people I felt I hardly knew or never noticed or cared what I did- who took the time to write emails and call me to tell me how sad they were to see me go. Mostly, I was touched at what they said about me, not what I did professionally. I felt like I actually did my job, not as an employee, but as a human being. It was a graceful and entirely unexpected form of gratification.
But he – the one person I expected the most from – still hasn’t really talked to me. Over my final two weeks, he canceled any opportunity to meet with me, and didn’t pick up the phone when I called – he’ll deny it, but the man has caller ID, and I know him well enough to know how often he uses it, after four years. My last day, he actually kept me waiting for the entire day for our final meeting, and when he finally let me know – over instant message no less, at 4:45 p.m. – he was back at his desk, it was only to inform me that he was unable to meet at all, and could we do it, perhaps over the weekend or Monday morning?
No. No, we can’t. I don’t work there anymore, and I’d given up my last after-hours phone call ages ago. I was on the phone with the vice president of marketing at the time, who was thanking me for everything – at least he had the grace to do so, unlike the person I was closest to. When I got the IM, my voice broke so badly and tears were streaming down my face so hard that the poor man got off the phone quickly, obviously disconcerted. Glad that his last, wholly incorrect impression of me was of a crying nutjob who is so sad to not be working at this company she could barely keep it together. Stable Mabel over here.
He finally called from a cell phone on his way home, and he “only had a minute.” My voice was so strained, and my fury and tears so apparent that it was pointless. I’m not even sure he apologized or thanked me. Instead, he inquired about who my replacement should be. I made a typical snide comment about a woman in the business we both knew and hated and laughed a hollow laugh. Like I fucking care. It ended with him pulling into his driveway and abruptly hanging up, with the promise we’d talk next week. I didn’t believe him, and told him so bluntly, “I don’t believe you.”
I hope he comes around. I like to think that ignoring me was because he felt responsible or, dare I say it, guilty for my departure. Sad that maybe he should have paid attention earlier and let them fuck me right up the ass while he stood by and watched, wearing a t-shirt that sai
d, “If you’re wondering who got those results, it was me! ME! Pay no attention to the overworked woman behind me!” Again, I hope and pray it wasn’t intentional, but it sure fucking pisses me off.
I had a conversation with a former colleague who recounted a story similar to mine, with a different perpetrator on the same management team, and she told me it took her a few weeks to get over the anger, humiliation and hurt -and I promise, she’s a mentally stable woman. It felt good to be validated.
I’m going to try to stop waiting for the apology that will likely never come. I don’t even feel comfortable giving him as a reference, for I have no idea what he’ll say, or if he’ll even care enough to call them back. I don’t believe in him anymore. What a waste.
God, I hope I can not be angry. It’s just a job.
*Today’s title brought to you by REM. Yesterday’s was Dave Matthews. Yes, yes, I know.
November 12th, 2005
Halloween was an interesting exercise ’round these parts. First of all, it was EIGHTY DEGREES outside. It was limp, not crisp. I wore shorts. Halloween is not meant for shorts.
It’s also the night I met Boob Neighbor’s daughter. Since all of the doors in our neighborhood are set far back from the street, trick or treat was set up in the driveway. Chairs plunked down, I noticed a rather rotund woman in a folding chair in Les’s driveway. Assuming she was his wife Rosemary, I perkily called out, “Hello! Haven’t seen you for a while!”
“We’ve never met, but I’ve seen you lots of times outside. You work from home for a technology company. You wear a green T-shirt to get the mail a lot.”
Um, okay. Cindy is Lou’s daughter and is rather hefty, with beady little eyes, gigantic glasses and a penchant for oversize turquoise t-shirts with images of airbrushed cats that have been Bedazzled into blinding white sparkles that radiate even in Halloween darkness. She’s 36, has never lived away from home and has not had a job since Clinton was in office. She covers her Pontiac Grand Am with a gigantic tarp every night, even though she keeps it in the garage, like Cameron’s dad in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Except it’s a Pontiac.
Originally from Rochester, while we were chatting, she recounted her family’s difficulty adjusting to living here. Not the brightest bulb, she lamented how dark it gets here in the evenings. As if daylight savings time is only in this state. Her real issue, however, was the lack of availability of the Italian sausages she knew and loved so well.
“The foods here. They’re multicultural, but there is far too much…MEXICAN. In fact, if you ask me, there are far too many Mexicans. In general. Everywhere. Hispanic this, taco that. TACOS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS A TACO STAND.”
And then, the crowning jewel, when she finally picked up on my stunned silence,
“OH MY GOD. You have brown eyes. YOU ARE MEXICAN, AREN’T YOU? I’m so sorry. I mean, no offense. It’s dark outside and I couldn’t see your nationality. Mexicans aren’t that bad. Just most of them. I’m sure you’re very nice.”
I didn’t correct her.
November 10th, 2005
First of all, thank you for all of your emails, notes and comments. I’m touched beyond words, and you’ve all made a HEYOOGE difference. Thank you.
Thank you.
Secondly, I went to the therapist. It was pretty much one gigantic relief to hear her say, “You don’t have to live like this. You’re making yourself sick and it WILL get better.”
Ahh, the ever-elusive validation.
And can I also mention that I quit my job? Yes, November 11th, I will be a free woman. They are extraordinarily upset and trying to make me feel guilty, but honestly, I can hardly contain my excitement, for it was the right thing to do for me. I slept THROUGH THE NIGHT last night for the first time since I moved here. Awoke to the alarm in a heavy, deep dream with drool on my pillow after a full eight – EIGHT! – hours. I don’t deserve such joy!
At any rate, one thing that pushed us over the edge for me to quit was the absolutely pathetic medical coverage the job offered. It was fine in Boston, but down here, I’m covered by a total of two doctors within a 50-mile radius. And not for lack of doctors here. So it was pretty sad that I couldn’t get coverage, and that for some reason, the insurance company thought it was okay that the only endocrinologist I could go to was 70 miles away and didn’t speak English, despite a pressing medical need. And what’s worse, I couldn’t get on Adam’s until I was no longer employed (something about open-enrollment timing bullshit).
Anyway, a while back I’d made an appointment for the gynecologist (whee!) for today, with someone in my PPO network. As I was driving to the appointment, I didn’t really think much of the somewhat-seedy neighborhood whizzing by the windows, as the area is undergoing gentrification (read: get rid of the poor people to make room for McMansions. Argh) of sorts that means you could be in the ‘hood one moment, passing by mansions the next. However, my apathy came to a grinding halt when I pulled up to the in-network gynecologist, which was situated snugly between a pawn shop, its “CASH FOR GOLD” sign blaring in all of its neon grandeur at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, and a Western Union station that boasted, “CHECKS CASHED TODAY. PAY UTILITY BILLS HERE!”
When I peeked into the “gynecologist,” I noticed that the interior resembled the bus station in Syracuse. Plastic chairs bolted to the ground (you know, in case patients want to steal them), screaming children and sickly looking mothers with tear-stained faces and clothes that hadn’t been washed since January. A man with fingernails longer than I’ve ever seen was trimming his cuticles with a penknife, with a look in his eye that told me that penknife had seen some action.
I fled. I just…RAN, visions of an ether-soaked cloth being pulled over my nostrils so my ovaries could be pawned for cash, urging me to pull away frantically, tires squealing. Thank God I’ll be on Blue Cross Blue Shield in a few weeks, instead of Bob’s Tackle Shop and Health Insurance.
It’s going to be okay.
*Today’s blog/song title brought to you by David Gray, also covered by Bonnie Raitt.
November 1st, 2005