Words fail me

I'm so disappointed with the way things went at work today, I can't even wrap my mind around it. I gave my list of things that I was hearing and seeing at work with the new "boss" to HR yesterday. She promised to get back to me before the end of the day. Well... she came in after I did and left before I did, so she never did get back to me.

Today when I came in to work, I was dragged into a "little meeting" with J&J and HR. J1 let me know that it's not my place to tell Joyce what her job is, nor how she should do it. I should support her because she needs me to. The problem is... and I think this might be the key to it... J2 (the pseudoboss) does not listen. I told her that when I let her know about a problem, I don't want to hear 50 excuses as to why that problem is not taken care of, or why it exists in the first place - I only want to hear "thanks, I'll take care of it". I think she might have almost understood what I was talking about.

However, I'm still keeping an eye out for other jobs. I sent out one resume/cover letter for a job listed in the paper. I haven't heard back, but it's only been 2 days.

I'm not going to jump without something better to jump to, though. I'm still at the point where I can be picky about my next job. Things aren't that bad. I suppose. I just feel very disrespected and dismissed. I'm extremely disappointed with today's "meeting". I acted as I thought was right. I only regret that I forgot that HR works for the company and not for the employees. Oops. Won't make that mistake again.

Anyway. Bedtime.

In my family... we don't say "bipolar", we say "moody".

I come from a long line of moody people. Shall we say.

I've been scraping bottom for a couple weeks now and I finally seem to have rebounded to a manic high. Which can be as scary as the lows, because at least during the lows I manage to keep a solid grip on who I am and what I'm doing here. Here, as in "on the planet Earth". The manic highs seem to have an eerie dissociative property to them. However, I'm going to combat them this time by going to the mall, mailing my Karlyn's birthday present (only a week late!!), and spending more money. Yay!

Thank god there's only 9 days left in this month. I don't think I could survive many more. And still, I'm revving here... by brain chemistry is fun-ky. Funky. But I'm okay with that. Today.

Make a fricking decision!!! Okay. Let me just say that I appreciate working with different personality types and alternative thinkers and whatnot through my school stuff. What I do not appreciate is working with people who cannot make a single stupid decision without second and third and fourth guessing themselves. As soon as I think we've reached a consensus -- about where and when to meet for our group work -- I'll get another email or voice mail saying, "oh, well, or we could do this instead - let me know!" And then, I get a listing of 4 different phone numbers where she might be when I get a chance to try to track her down. Does she not understand how this is driving me crazy?? Does she have so little faith in herself or does she just drink too much coffee. No - she drinks lattes. Must be dairy poisoning.

I know she understands that she's pissing me off, but she doesn't understand why. Like last time we met, she had left me a voicemail message saying that since no one had emailed her back that night about our meeting (we had agreed on a time and place at the last class) she was so tired that she would assume that we were not meeting. When did I get this message? At 1:30am after I got home from work. We were to meet at 9am. Tired? Tired? Fuck, woman. I'll show you tired. So when she wasn't there at 9:10, we called her at home. Fortunately, she showed 5 minutes later. Tired as I was, I suppose I was less than gracious and/or coherent. So later that night she sent me an "apology" email -- the kind where she writes that she's sorry but does it in such a way that shows that she thinks I'm the one who's being unreasonable. Yeah. Classic passive-agressive Junior High.

Got a problem. Tell me about it. I'm a good listener, but I won't hold your hand. I expect that sort of behavior from children and teenagers. Once you make it to your mid-late twenties, I expect a certain level of maturity. Which is probably my first problem, eh? How many 40 year olds do I work with who haven't mastered those basic abilities? You just don't want to know.

Maybe I should change the name of this page to "Kate Rants and Raves". Ah well. I'm in a better mood just for writing it down. And that's why I put this thing together in the first place. Ciao!

How close is too close? I'm always suspicious of people who are too dependent on one other person for everything. I suppose that's related to my basic mistrust of human beings (feeling cynical today, bear with me). Friendships or "relationships" that are the primary focus in a person's life just seem like set-ups for imminent disappointment. I mean, who can sustain that kind of one-on-one devotion to another person? I can't imagine. I don't care how compatible two people are, one person cannot fulfill every need of another. People are far too complex for that to work.

What guides my thoughts in this direction? Two male friends of mine -- roommates who have lived together for a year now -- are in a sort of "breakup" situation. After being constant companions, cooking for each other, providing intelligent conversation and musical accompaniment, one has begun to branch out his interests... interests involving women. The other has admitted that he feels a jealousy and sense of abandonment. As a clarification, the guys are "just" friends - no real sexual element to the friendship. I'm reminded of my relationship with my college roommate. She and I were thrown together by chance freshman year and chose to stick together for the rest of the time. We spent nearly all of our free time together, talking long into the night, sharing books and music and opinions. This until well into our sophomore year. Then, I started an outside relationship with a member of the opposite sex. And worse, I left for a term abroad, leaving her with a stranger for a roommate. When I returned, things had changed -- I wasn't sure how to fix them, and honestly, I didn't notice for a while, because I was tied up with boys and exploring that shtuff...hmmm. Anyway, I have to wonder if she felt betrayed by that defection of mine -- ending our days of close companionship by introducing an outside element. I don't know for sure. I've never really asked. Maybe I don't feel like I have that right anymore.

There's always a sense of loss to a major change in a relationship - whether a traditional sort of breakup, or "just" an alteration to a close friendship. I certainly don't have any solutions.

On a brighter note, I did do some writing work today -- put down some world-building on the rules of magic for my book which will need to be rewritten. I've decided that the whole thing will probably benefit from a total rewrite versus my just opening the existing files and making alterations. With the cut and paste option, it's hard not to abuse it.

Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Yes, the English translation of a Spanish movie, but also my state of mind. Actually, I think I'm on the upswing again -- the breakdown came yesterday morning in the HR office at work. To my credit, I did manage to get one complete sentence out before bursting into tears. Ah well - I made my needs known and I'm getting results, even if it did come about in a totally undignified manner.

I have decided that I don't have enough brain power left over after writing papers for class and writing here and writing at work... or at least not enough writing power... so I bought a small sketch diary and will take out my creative urges in doodling. I need to be doing *something* creative or I will lose what remains of my mind.

And now, I will turn my creativity to dreaming all night. Or at least until 6:10am when my alarm will go off.