bitterfig

I’ve got to be at the doctor at 9:00 a.m. (about an hour and ten minutes) for my second round of blood tests.  I’m a little nervous, not because I mind having blood drawn or am too worried about the results but because they’re testing fasting levels so I couldn’t have breakfast and the last time I had blood drawn when I hadn’t eaten I sort of passed out. 

Of course that was three or four years ago and I was about 10 pounds lighter so hopefully I’ll be okay today. 

 

I felt very poorly over the weekend and ended up calling in to work on both Saturday and Sunday.   I did go in Monday.  I had a morning shift and it’s so much easier to just get up and go to work.  Yesterday however I wasn’t scheduled to come in until 2:00 p.m. and by 11:00 a.m. I was back in bed and after I ate at noon I was having really bad chills so I ended up calling in again though in retrospective I think I probably could have made it through my shift if I’d pushed myself.  I feel bad about how much work I’m missing—6 days since I got back from New York.  I feel like I’m being too easy on myself and using the fact that I’m having these health problems as an excuse not to work.  Yet I really feel like a zombie most of the time. 

 

I told my parents what was going on.  Their reaction was mixed.  My mother has offered to help me out financially for which I am grateful (I’m not getting paid for the work I’m missing).  She’s also convinced that a) I have diabetes and b) I’d be fine if I’d just have a hard candy whenever my blood sugar gets low.  Logic and consistency was never Mum’s strong suite.  My father was pretty upset and sort of yelled at me because I’ve been dragging my eating disorder out for 15 years and for not really having anyone to look out for me (“you’ve been in Chicago for 5 years and you don’t know anybody-- what kind of a way is that to live?”).  I know it’s his way of being concerned but in all honesty it just makes me feel bad about myself. 

 

I can leave for my appointment in a few minutes.  God I’m hungry.  I usually eat breakfast as soon as I get up. 

I ended up calling in to work yesterday and today which is pretty sad considering that I’ve only been back from vacation for two days.  I sort of knew I was going to do it yesterday.  When I saw the schedule on Sunday I really felt like there was no way I could go in for the All Store Meeting from 6:30 to 8:00 a.m. and then work a 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. shift.  Then today I was tired (I slept most of the morning) and having weird chills and didn’t want to deal with working. 

 

Exactly what is it I find work so difficult?  First there’s the sheer tediousness factor which I think everyone feels.  I of course add to that a whole level of various stresses—worries that I’ll displease a customer, that I’ll break one of the numerous rules, that I haven’t responded properly to a question, that I’m a failure, that I’m stupid, unfriendly, ugly and an all around miserable excuse for a human being.  Then there’s the level of physical discomfort and pain.  My legs and feet hurt from standing.  I grind my teeth when I’m anxious so I usually have a sore jaw and a low level headache that’s made worse by all the background noise and music.  Something with the air conditioning makes my sinuses feel very raw, almost peeled.  When I don’t eat properly I don’t really get hungry per say but I do get very, very tired and it’s an effort stay focused.  Of course when I do eat I feel really, really cold for the next hour. 

 

I’m sure it’s all psychosomatic or brought on myself.  I guess the question is why should I find my life so overwhelming that deliberately shut down like this?  Maybe because I’m unhappy with where I am and I know I can’t go back to living in my parent’s attic which means I’ll have to find something else to do, something new and different and unfamiliar the mere thought of which makes me want to give up already, curl up and disappear. 

 Yesterday was my first day back to work after the vacation.  I was on express and my second customer didn’t think the bottle of sake he was buying was ringing up at the right price.  I paged the Specialty Department a couple of times but no one answered so the customer took off to check the price himself leaving me at the register with his half rung up order and a long line of annoyed people. 

 

I have to get out of there, I really do.

 

Here’s my brilliant idea, a deadline.  Yesterday was the 20^th of July which means that in two months, the 20^th of September, it will be my second anniversary working at the market.  Except I’m not going to have a second anniversary, I’m going to be gone.   Ideally I’ll have another job by then but if not I’ll just make a leap of faith and be uninsured and live off my savings or my mutual fund or my parents until I find something. 

 

Of course I may just be thinking this way because I have a 6:30 a.m. All Store Team Meeting to look forward to tomorrow morning and because I still feel like crap from my lovely vacation (details on that later).  I figure I’ll try actually eating at maintenance level for someone my size with no skimping on food to balance out the calories in alcoholic beverages and see if my job seems quite so unbearable then (I’ll also be in much better condition to attempt job hunting). 

Tomorrow I fly to New York and despite my considerable trepidation I am rather looking forward to having some time off.  Between work, and my burgeoning (and occasionally bludgeoning) efforts to increase my social interaction I’ve been pretty busy lately and am getting pretty worn out. 

 

During the past couple of days I put in two late nights, staying out until 1:00 and 1:30 a.m.   Monday night I hung out with Tycho after work.  He’s going to be out of town for a couple weeks and I’d really wanted to see him again before he left.  On Wednesday I ended up spending a couple of hours at an impromptu party of Whole Foods employees on the roof of the parking garage.  I didn’t drink anything because I was driving and also exhausted from work and mainly because by the time you get to be 36 years old getting drunk on the roof of a parking garage has severely limited appeal however I talked to a couple people I know by sight from around the store but have never really had a conversation with, sort of expanded my horizons a bit. 

 

The reason for the impromptu Wednesday night party in the parking garage roof was that everyone needed to do some serious decompression after a particularly hellish day at work.  I work at the Lakeview Whole Foods and that afternoon the Lincoln Park Whole Foods which is a couple of miles away was closed down on account of health code violations.  Or as the tenants used to say when I worked in the property management office “Mices!”   

 

The closing of the Lincoln Park Store resulted in an inundation of customers from that store (which sort of baffled me—I don’t mean to question the loyalty of our customers but I’d go to the nearby Trader Joes or Stanley’s Produce Market or even Jewel or Dominiques which are on the way before I’d haul all the way from the Lincoln Park store to Lakeview store in rush hour traffic) and a frenzy of panic cleaning least our store too be inspected and found wanting.  I lucked out on the cleaning end as I’m in a department that does not actually handle food.  “Deep-cleaning” the registers only took about half an hour longer than the usual closing routine however people in other departments like Prepared Foods and Seafood were running an hour and a half to two hours over the usual time they finish. 

 

Lincoln Park finally re-opened on Saturday afternoon but Friday was extra busy with a lot of indignation over the closing.  “What an embarrassment,” one customer sniped.  I had a hard time not snipping back, “It’s not an embarrassment for me.  I don’t work there and I don’t shop there.”  Also, I know enough about agriculture and pre-modern hygiene and food production that I really can’t be shocked to realize that there are such things as rodents and pests.  There always have been and there always will be until food is grown and prepared in sterile labs. 

 

In addition to all this other stuff, I’ve been doing a lot of biking- in the last week I only used my car three out of seven days which I’m quite proud of.  Still, I have to be careful not to over do it.  Fatigue from too much riding on restricted calories was definitely one of the factors that contributed to my accident last summer. 

 

On Thursday, my last day off, and again yesterday when I was working a closing shift I ended up spending most of my free time during the day sleeping.  I have today off as well which is good. It’ll give me time to pack and take my cat over to my sister’s house where he’ll be staying during my visit (he actually lived there for a couple years but I doubt his little cat brain remembers that far back).  After I get the kitty squared away I’d like to do some cleaning.  I don’t vacuum as often as I should because he hates it.  Nor do I sweep as often as I ought because he tends to get in the way of the broom.

 

On Wednesday evening I met up with my Tycho Brahe, a supervisor at work who I like quite a bit, and we had a couple of drinks (two which is probably going to be my official limit from now on) and talked for quite a while. 

 

He has a girlfriend so it was strictly a friendly, hanging-out type thing (though I do find him rather adorable).  We’d planned on discussing books, movies and graphic novels.  He seems to know a lot about McSweeney’s writers and Wes Anderson movies and more comedic stuff that I tend to enjoy when I read it or see it but don’t seek out on my own because I tend to be drawn to darker, fantastic material.  However we ended up talking much more about the personal background and family history. 

 

Talking to other people in depth always astounds me, there’s always so much more there than I would have ever imaged.  It’s probably something I should do more often because I really am genuinely interested.  It’s almost like everyone has certain major themes in their lives.  With Tycho, some are very different than mine but others are almost eerily similar.   I think it’s too easy for me to forget that other people have internal lives and to assume that they don’t struggle because unlike me they don’t walk around bleeding.

 

Tycho’s going to be leaving Whole Foods soon.  He’s going to graduate school for literature in the fall, and he also really encouraged me to get the hell out as well because really, I could probably do a lot better. 

 

I know he’s right.   I sort of know what I have to do but I’ve been putting it off because it requires me to move beyond my comfort zone by dealing with people in interview situations, maybe traveling to unknown neighborhoods and risking rejection.  It also requires I refocus energy and spend less time on both things I enjoy but use to insulate myself from reality (reading manga, watching DVD’s, blogging and my fan fiction writing) and things I do compulsively (obsessing over what I eat, worrying about grocery shopping, and downloading music files I end up never listening to). 

 

One thing that might motivate me a little is that a lot of people I like are leaving the Market.  In addition to Tycho, another supervisor I really (and wish I’d made more of an effort to get to know) just put in her notice.  Also in September it’ll be two years that I’ve worked there, which is longer than I ever intended.  This might be a good time to start thinking seriously about moving on. 

 

If only the economy didn’t suck so badly right now...

I had my six month job dialogue at work on Tuesday. 

 

I’d filled out the paperwork for it at the end of May when I was feeling pretty down in general and also before I resolved to stop relentlessly putting myself down  and I have to say I really wish I had been able to re-do it.  Everything I wrote was so negative it was almost embarrassing going over it with the Assistant Team Leader.  When I wrote it up I thought it was a realistic appraisal of my abilities but it totally wasn’t because I completely omitted everything I do right.  I’m not a superstar sort of cashier but I’m competent, I’m efficient and I prioritize doing the job which is a pretty big deal when most of the people you work with are 20-something slackers more interested in where their going after work than in keeping lines moving and helping out co-workers.  Also my numbers are really good—I’m fast on the register, I move a lot of customers through my line and I balance my till consistently.  Also I really do care about the store and the people I work with and I’ve made a lot of effort to stand up for them and make their concerns known.  I have my weak areas—I’m not outgoing, I don’t have a lot of energy, I’m occasionally moody, and my attendance has been poor over the past six months due to my mental heath problems—but I don’t suck nearly as much as my self-evaluation made out. 

 

I managed to convey some of this verbally during the job dialogue and luckily the supervisor I ended up doing it with was someone who knew me and knows how I work so she cut me a lot of slack.  I’m really glad it wasn’t with the Team Leader who’s only been there two months and would have had have to more or less take my word for things.  I also talked to her a bit about the previous Team Leader leaving in April, something I still harbor a certain amount of guilt and mixed feelings about.  She assured me that while my letter had helped bring things to a head, there had been problems for a long time and that my letter had really gone a long way towards giving the team back its voice.  That was really reassuring to hear.  It’s very hard for me to let go of guilt—something else I need to work on. 

 

I got a twenty-five cent raise, which adds up to a little less than $2 per shift before taxes but every little bit helps and I think it was a good learning experience.  It really showed me how false my views of myself (and reality in general) can be get when I’m depressed and when I’m focusing strictly on the negative. 

A couple interesting things from the past few days.

 

I apparently have an admirer.  A few days ago when I was in the nearby park a gentleman I recognized from the low-income housing residence on my block came up, introduced himself and told me I was “cute as hell.”  Then he asked me if I had a boyfriend to which I promptly answered yes.  Now I feel a little bit paranoid every time I go out.  I guess I do have deep seated issues with men, especially men who have those little teardrop tattoos that I think I once read somewhere tend to indicate involvement in a gang or a history of incarceration.

 

Work on Friday was harsh.  I had not one but two customers ANGRY with me.  Well, they weren’t really angry at me personally but I got to be on the receiving end of their generalized frustrations with Whole Foods and the public aid respectively.  First a woman came through my line and started yelling at me because the store didn’t carry plastic bags anymore and saying that Whole Foods was arrogant and that they were disrespecting her.  There are channels to deal with customer complaints and I am not one of them.  I suggested she speak to Customer Service, fill out a customer complaint form, e-mail Corporate Headquarters, etc. etc. She refused to do any of these unless Whole Foods was willing to pay her to be a consultant and continued on her tirade.  At which point the other customers in line started yelling at her to shut up and stop holding them up. 

 

Somehow this got resolved… I don’t even remember how.  I think she finally just got sick of me and went to yell at Customer Service.  About 20 minutes later a gentleman came through the line with a bottle of soda.  Seemed like a nice safe transaction but it ended up being a complicated mess because he was paying with a Link card (Electronic Food Stamps) and apparently the soda couldn’t be purchased this way.  Which seemed very weird because I’d always thought any food item except alcohol was okay but apparently the state had recently updated their list of what can be bought with Food Stamps but in the meantime there was much tension.  I was accused of doing something weird on my end to prevent the transaction from going through and the poor unfortunate co-worker I called over to help me figure out what was wrong was accused of playing games.  Finally he too went off to the Customer Service Desk.  No matter how difficult my job gets I am infinitely thankful that I am not a supervisor and therefore unqualified to work at the Customer Service Desk. 

 

Interestingly, despite all the ill-will and hostility aimed in my direction I didn’t get really upset or start crying or anything.  Maybe my new medication is starting to kick in.

Good news and bad news.

My little brother Jackson and his wife are in Chicago. While Jackson has had to do lawyer things for most of his stay here he has tomorrow evening free and I was able to change shifts so I could have it off so I’ll be able to see them. We’re probably going to be meeting at my sister’s. I haven’t see Jackson and his wife since August and I don’t think my sister, brother and I have been together for a couple of years so I’m really looking forward to it.

The bad news is that I got an e-mail from Biff yesterday and his Uncle, who owns the business Biff runs, has finally given him go-ahead to hire a full time assistant. This is good for him because since he manages over 200 properties he really needs someone to help him. However it is bad for me because it means he won’t need me to come in once a week and pay bills anymore which means I won’t be getting that extra $80 a week I’ve been making.

I’m pretty sure I can mange without it but it means no extras—no impulse buying of manga or DVD and I’ll have to be more careful about buying groceries, no splurging on exotic and overpriced things I see at the market that look ever so interesting.

And I have non-financial reasons for wishing I could have kept the job. I had really been excited about being around when Biff and his partner’s baby came in June. I’m sure I’ll see the baby and everything but it’s not the same as being around for hours a day. Of course it’s not as if the baby would be down in the office all the time…

Maybe this will help nudge me towards finding a job that pays enough that I don’t have to work 6 days a week to support myself and buy the occasional used DVD from ebay. I am finally feeling better after my very difficult winter though I don’t know if I’m quite at the point where I can imagine anyone hiring me. Also I feel like I need to take a serious look at what I want to do. My career strategy in the past has always been to take whatever job will have me but the other day I was reading one of those stupid articles on yahoo or MSN called “Tips to Find Your Dream Job” or something and the first tip was “Define your dream job”. I’ve never really looked at it from the angle of “what do I want to do every day?” (or maybe in my case “What would I be less miserable doing every day?”).

Today was Earth Day, the deadline for all Whole Foods Markets to eliminate plastic bags. The store where I work actually finished up our stock of plastic and has been all paper for about a week. It hasn’t been the easiest transition. Not all customers are happy about the change and I don’t think there’s anyone on the front end who wouldn’t happily bitch slap the next person to ask “What will I use to clean up after my dog?” Stuff like that is expected and pretty minor. The major problem came when we didn’t have enough full sized paper bags—I guess the order had been made when we still had plastic. For most of yesterday we had to bag all orders in little paper bags. This of course required twice as many bags per order as it would have with the bigger bags which probably ruled out any environmental good done by not using plastic. Chaos.

My own personal observance of Earth Day I decided to focus on one wasteful habit of mine, bringing my lunch to work each day in a plastic bag I throw away and using plastic forks and spoons from the deli to eat it with. Starting today I used one of my older recycled plastic totes and brought silverware from home. Also I’m going to try to ride my bike for shorter trips instead of driving. I don’t know if I’m going to ride to work like I did sometimes last year. I really feel nervous about some of the intersections on the way (most of all the Damon/ Diversey/ Clybourn intersection where I had my accident last year but also the place where Logan Blvd. crosses Elston—a couple of new businesses have gone up at the corner in addition to a very busy Target and I really don’t want to ride through it). Final thing I want to do for Earth Day is find out once and for all what is up with recycling (or lack thereof) in my neighborhood. The City of Chicago blue bins aren’t here yet and you can’t get blue recycling bags from the old program in stores any more. I don’t even know if the city is still taking blue bags to be recycled anymore or if they’re just treating them as trash. I haven’t recycled in a couple months but I just haven’t been focused enough to sort things out.

I have a lot of stuff that I need to update about.

Last Friday I had my mental health evaluation at the clinic in Pilsen. They gave me a referral to a psychiatrist but that appointment isn’t until 04/24/08. The same day I had the evaluation I completely crashed out. I missed work (thankfully it’s covered under a medical leave of absence so I won’t incur any points) and was practically catatonic for the rest of the day. For the next couple day I was well enough to go to work but like a zombie barely functioning.

I don’t know what it way-- I tend to have a lot of problems of this kind in the spring when the weather goes back and forth or it might have been stress from everything that’s been going on at work lately plus the evaluation—but it really wasn’t a very convenient time for a crack-up given that the employee forum was scheduled for Tuesday morning and was set to arrive for a visit on Thursday.

Thankfully after a generally horrible weekend by Monday I felt semi-human again and I was able to participate in the forum on Tuesday morning which I think went well. It sounds like there are going to be some positive changes and that Store Leadership will be more involved with the Front End. Also team member input is going to be taken into account when the new Front End Team Leader is hired which is very important.

Overall I feel pretty positive about the forum. There was a good turn-out even though it was at 6:00 a.m. in the morning which tells Store Leadership that people are concerned and that they want change.

I have to say, my personality quirks were on full display at this meeting.

I have a very extravagant streak and I’ve always loved throwing parties and playing hostress so I ended up bringing breakfast—Dunkin Donuts coffee, munchkins, organic half and half and soy creamer, fruit, scones, and mini muffins for 40 people. A bit over the top and a bit over my budget. Luckily one of the Store Leaders offered to reimburse me for part of it.

My other bit of weirdness was that I felt the need to call on my full power for the meeting, so despite getting up at 4:30 a.m. I managed to deck myself out in full make-up and fishnet stocking (because the legs are an often untapped source of power). It’s funny, I guess I see my sexuality not as something that’s really a part of my daily life but as something I evoke at those times when I need to call in the heavy artillery (“So you wanna have some fun? Well break out the big guns” as the L7 song goes).

Yesterday when I was talking to one of the store higher-ups about what was going on with the forum he asked me an interesting question-- Why did I feel I felt that I needed to go through the whole process of writing a letter and gather signatures? If I had seen problems, why hadn’t come directly to Store Leadership with my concerns?

This question really made me think about the way I view structures of authority. Quite simply I don’t have a lot of faith in them. I don’t trust the system, even when I know the people who it is made up of. I don’t believe that they care about my well being or that they will protect me or look out for my best interest.

Looking at my personal history, it’s fairly easy to see where I get this mistrustful attitude—it can be traced back to the bullying and abuse I experienced as a child and the fact that neither my parents nor teachers did anything about it. When I complained about what was happening to me it was seen as something that was my fault. It was up to me to change. If I was being picked on for being fat, I should lose weight. If I was mocked for my shyness and awkwardness I needed to be more outgoing and friendly.

When I was in sixth grade I had my first serious depressive episode. The symptoms were fairly obvious. I gained about sixty pounds, cried frequently; spoke rarely, lost interest in everything. The only memory I have of anyone noticing was my teacher telling me sarcastically to “have a good cry, go down the river.”

I’m only 36 years old but when I compare things in my childhood to the way my niece and nephew are being raised it seems like it was another era, a harsh, brutal, primitive time where things like peer abuse and mental illness could be ignored by those in authority.

I think most children grow up believing that their parents and teachers will help them and look out for them. I grew up believing they wouldn’t, that they didn’t care, that I wasn’t worth their notice. As a result I have always felt cut off and on my own. If I have a problem I see it as my problem. I don’t ask for help because I don’t believe it will be given.

Unfortunately, this point of view was reinforced later in my life. When I was living in Upstate New York working for the county government one of the social workers in the office where I was secretary was viciously mean to me on a regular basis. It was a pattern with her. The secretary before me had actually left because of the way the social worker mistreated her. The office supervisor knew what was going on but her way of dealing with the problem was to advise me to wait it out as the social worker was going to be moving on to another job eventually.

Most of my life, I’ve gotten the message to put up and shut up and I’ve taken that message to heart. I didn’t go directly to Store Leadership because at this point in my life, I honestly can’t think of a time when a system has ever worked in my favor. The idea that what I had to say, just me personally, would count for anything never occurred to me.

That seems like sort of a sad statement. I’ve really internalized the idea that I lack value and power and I want to change that. I want to feel like I’m worth something, like I deserve to be happy and well treated. Yet even writing those words makes me cringe. I feel like it’s wanting too much, feeling entitled to something I don’t deserve.

There have been some major developments with the situation at work over the past few days.

 

On Saturday I started hearing rumors that Lott, the head of the Front End, had resigned.  By Easter morning this was officially confirmed. 

 

It came as quite a shock.  I’d always been rather fond of Lott.  He was the one who hired me and for that I will always be grateful to him.  While I wasn’t always pleased with the way he treated others I personally had never had any conflicts with him.    

 

When I wrote my letter I tried very hard to stress that things could be improved and that existing problems could be worked out for the better.  It was never my intention to see anyone lose their job. 

 

However after talking to several people over the last two days I realize that things were much bigger than my letter.  Apparently there had been other complaints and issues regarding Lott’s leadership.

 

A forum to discuss problems on the Front End and what can be done to improve conditions has been scheduled for the next All Store Team Meeting during the first week of April.  I’m pretty excited about this.  One of the things that motivated me to write the letter was that the ideas and concerns of my co-workers were being silenced and dismissed.  This sort of a forum is very much what I’d hoped to achieve when I wrote the letter and I’m hoping it can do some real good. 

 

Ajax, the guy who worked with me getting the letter signed, and I have sort of been operating as unofficial spokespeople of the Front End and as such we’ve been working to try and make this forum as open as possible.  We’ve gotten our Team Member advocate involved and also asked that the Paid Time Off and Benefits Coordinator act as a disinterested mediator and help to run the meeting instead of just having it be run by Front End leadership.  Again however, this is bigger than us and bigger than my letter.  It’s really in the hands of my co-workers now.  I think I’ve done everything in my power to see that they have a safe place where their voices can be heard and their input taken seriously.

Thursday it was sunny and forty degrees and it seemed very much like spring was on the way but this morning everything is blanketed in snow. 

 

Things are moving along with my little workplace insurrection.  The letter I wrote has been signed by about 20 Front End Team Members.  It’s also been read by some members of store leadership who my co-conspirator and I met with them for quite a while on Monday.  They’re talking about putting together some kind of a forum to address the issues and figure out solutions. 

 

I’ve been off work for the past two days but I talked to my co-conspirator yesterday and got an update.  I’m back to work today and it may be rough.  The letter addresses the dismissiveness, lack of accountability and atmosphere of intimidation created by Front End Team Leadership and apparently they have become aware of what’s going on so there may be some kind of a reaction from them—it could be anything from hurt feelings to outright hostility to complete denial—I’ll have to take it as it comes. 

 

Whatever happens I’m glad I did this.  Even though this situation has created a lot of stress for me it’s worth it to have actually done something.  I’ve also gotten a great deal of positive support from my co-workers.  So much so that I feel sort of like Jayne Cobb in the “Jayneville” episode of Firefly.  For those of you not familiar with the series, Jayne is a mercenary and a thief who returns to a planet where he’d bungled a robbery several years to discover that he’s become a hero.  To escape the authorities, he’d had to unload his loot over an impoverished settlement and the locals have re-named the place Jayneville, erected a statue to him and sing folk songs in his honor. 

 

I feel sort of like that. Like I've blundered my way into a position of leadership and respect.  Not that anyone is singing folk songs about me, but they seem to think I did something extraordinary by writing a three page letter which seems odd to me as writing is basically something I enjoy and do with a certain amount of ease.  I can’t say it’s not work but it’s a kind of work that I love doing as opposed to the kinds of work I have to do.

 

I'll be observing the strike against Live Journal and only posting on my Insane Journal accounts. I haven't been gotten involved in the most recent LJ controversies the way I was in last years forays. I think I've just burned out and of course at the moment my activist type energy is concentrated in fermenting revolution at my workplace.

Which brings us to the following anecdote- Latin can be dangerous.

I talked to my parents on the phone and they were interested in seeing The Letter so I said I'd e-mail it to them. Because The Letter deals with accountability and the misuse of power, I have it saved on my computer as a file titled "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes," or “Who Watches the Watchmen”. This was actually the quote I chose to go beside my picture in my senior yearbook in High School so it’s sort of an in-joke with me, a shout out to the fat, outspoken and very brave young woman I used to be. So The Letter is titled "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.” Also saved on my hard-drive a There Will Be Blood Daniel Plainview/Eli Sunday slash fic featuring delirium tremors, rough, scripture quoting, naughty Daddy role-play and rough, dubiously consensual hate!sex. This file is entitled “Quid Pro Quo.”

So I see a title that starts with Q and has a bunch of words I don’t really understand and click to attach it.

Needless to say, I came this close to e-mailing my parents the slash story by accident.

That would have been very, very awkward.

I’ve finished writing The Letter and a copy is currently in the hands of my co-conspirator who is gathering up signatures.  I’m kind of a nervous wreck about the whole thing though in all honesty I’m sure that if it wasn’t this, it would be something else and at least this might yield some positive results, if not for me for future generations of Whole Foods cashiers. 

 

Maybe because I’m so apprehensions about The Letter I’ve just found it very difficult to deal with ordinary stuff the past couple days.  Yesterday I just felt ill for the first couple hours I was at work and today I almost got reduced to tears by a customer who lectured me for not handling her apples reverently enough. 

 

“They’ll bruise,” she says.  “They’re very expensive.” 

 

What about my feelings?  Don’t you think they bruise?   Aren’t my feelings worth more than $1.99 a pound?  Can’t you see I’m a delicate fucking flower? 

 

Unfortunately, I seem to be dealing with things by reverting to one of my older bad habits.

( possible triggers and stuff might not want to know )

Well, I knew the time change was coming I just didn’t think it was coming so soon.

I was scheduled for an opening shift at the market today but I didn’t realize I needed to set my clock back so I ended up getting to work half an hour late. That’s another half a point for me (and about 8 other people). It would have been nice if they’d put up signs or something a couple days ago or yesterday. They did put one up this morning saying “Don’t punch in early because of the time change”. Grrrr.

Speaking of work (and grrrr) …

I’ve been unhappy for several months with the attitude of the main supervisors on the Front End and this discontent sort of reached the boiling point on Tuesday’s All Store Team Meeting when they pretty much dismissed and silenced one of my co-workers who was trying to raise a valid point that they didn’t want to talk about. I was too much of a coward to verbally come to his defense, but during the rest of meeting I drafted out a letter to Store Management about how the Front End Team Leaders basically suck and make everyone hate their job (though I put it much more diplomatically than that).

I sat on this letter for a couple of days and today approached a guy I work with who’s been there 5 years and also has a lot of concerns about the state Front End is in right. I told him about the letter and we figured out the main places where Team Leadership is really failing us. This evening I pounded out a second draft of the letter and e-mailed it to him. Once we get it in shape we’re going to get other people on the Front End to sign it and eventually send it to the Store Management and Regional.

So if I lose my job in a few days you’ll know why.

Actually I don’t think they can fire you for something like this and if they can I’m pretty sure they have to give you unemployment (sigh, I just had to pay Illinois Unemployment $170 which they say they overpaid me. They were saying they overpaid me $2000 in January, but when I contested it the balance went down to $170. I probably should have contested it again but when I got the bill I was just glad I could actually afford it without wiping out my savings so I decided just to pay the damned thing.)

I’ve been doing okay recently. I’m working 7 days a week but I’m starting to dig myself out of the financial hole caused by my illness in January and February. I’m also writing again which is a good sign, it means my head is getting back together. I think it really helps that spring is coming (despite recent frigid weather here in Chicago). There’s more day light and it’s really been helping. I have high hopes for the time change which is coming up soon. My difficulties really started back in November when we fell back so maybe springing forward will get me back to some semblance of functioning (I suppose I am and have been functioning, but it’s been darned difficult and I haven’t been able to go much beyond the basics of reporting to work, buying groceries and playing my bills in a couple of months).

Last week I talked with the insurance/paid time off coordinator at the Market and he’d contacted my doctor (with my permission) and been able to arrange things so my absences in January and February will be covered under medical leave and won’t be counted against me under the points system. Also any other depression induced illnesses that cause me to miss work are covered which means that I’ll be down to only half a point out of a possible six by the end of March.

This is a huge relief though I any sense of gratitude I might have for the Market is sort of tarnished by the fact that just a few days after I got my reprieve one of my co-workers, a single mother dependent on public transportation (which is fairly unreliable) was fired for absences and tardiness under the points system. She was a really good worker, much better than me and most of the front end staff agrees that it really sucks that she was fired. Really, really sucks. So yeah, I’m keeping my job but not exactly feeling the love.

It’s taken me a while to find a place I could afford but yesterday I set up an appointment for evaluation at the Pilsen-Little Village Community Mental Health Center.  It’s funded by the state so they do sliding scale fees for people such as myself who don’t have insurance coverage for mental health. 

I think this is a step in the right direction, but it’s only a first step.  They couldn’t get me an appointment until March 28 so I have a couple more weeks of being depressed to get through.  And of course I have to go through the evaluation process before I can actually see anyone qualified to mess around with my medication. 

In general however I’m feeling a bit better.  Yesterday I got through the first day with the new register system at work and it wasn’t too bad.  It’s different and will take a while to get used to but no one got mad at me for being too slow which I was afraid would happen.  I really lucked out as far as scheduling.  Tuesday nights are always fairly slow so it was probably the best time to get used to the new system. 

Given that it has not been so terribly long since my complete physical and mental collapse I probably haven’t been taking the best care of myself the past couple days.  Sunday and Monday my schedule was as follows—Wake up at 6:30 a.m. and be to Biff’s office by 7:30 or quarter of eight.  Work there till noon, go home and get in a fifty minute workout before heading to work at the market till closing.  Yesterday I didn’t work at Biff’s at all but I had a long shift at the market and I ended up being so tired I didn’t work out.  I tell myself that this is okay.  Most people do not workout everyday.  My sister-in-law works out four or five days a week and it doesn’t seem to have affected her ability to run marathons so I’m going to try not to worry about it too much. 

Today was my day off but I had to go for training at the North Halsted store (which is actually only a couple of blocks away from my home store).  We’re getting new registers put in next week and had to learn the basics.  It wasn’t too bad though I always get a little rattled when faced with any kind of new method of doing something I’m used to doing a certain way.  Still, I think I can handle it.  It’ll be tough going at first, I’ll actually have to concentrate to do things I’m used to doing automatically but after a few days the new way will be automatic and I think it’ll actually be easier to do a lot of things and save time during cash up. 

It was cool to finally see the North Halsted store.  It opened in July but I’d never been there before.  It has more room than the Lakeview store where I regularly work and seemed fairly quite and slow paced.  Of course the thing that appeals to me the most about this particular branch of Whole Foods is that it’s located smack dab in the heart of teh gay.  It’s in the same building as the Howard Brown GLBT Health Center and Biff tells me it’s a very popular cruising spot.* I spent the training scanning the aisles for lesbilious ladies but it seemed like most of the shoppers were women with kids, not unlike at the Lakeview store. 

Of course having children in tow doesn’t automatically rule someone out as gay—I’ve mentioned Biff and his partner Jorge are going to have a baby.  A sonogram was done on the 15^th and they know for sure now it’s going to be a little boy!  Very exciting.  I’m going to start campaigning for Biff to name him after a Dr. Who character.  Not that I’ve ever watched Dr. Who mind you but Biff has a Dr. Who obsession that goes back about 25 years so I think it would be cool for him to name the baby after a Dr. Who character. 

I’m sure this is the sort of thing only a safely single, non-parent would think.  I’m still a little disappointed that my brother-in-law prevailed on my sister not to name my niece Calliope after her favorite Days of Our Lives character from the 80’s. 

After the training I went to Brown Elephant, the thrift store run by the Howard Brown Health Center which is right across the street from the North Halsted Whole Foods.  I bought a knitted pink hoodie which miraculously fit me despite being a small (no matter how thin I get I will never be a small person) and an armload of books.  I got copies of Slow River by Nicola Griffith and the poems of William Butler Yeats to replace the one I left at my parents in Upstate New York,  as well as a couple anthologies of erotica to help me with my writing, an oversized Spanish language comic book adaptation of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, a book on Goddesses by comic book artist and historian Trina Robbins,  Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forester, The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit (which I’ve long wanted to read) and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (which somehow I’ve never read). 

 

*It should be noted that Biff and his husband have been together since the mid 90’s so he probably has about as much clue as I do about popular cruising spots.

Back to work today.  It wasn’t too bad.  I didn’t pass out or anything.  After work I had to do an hour long training on customer service.  I was very well behaved and refrained from making a great many snarky comments.   We’re going to start doing “team huddles” every day.  How I look forward to that. 

Because I was better on Wednesday but still not working and I needed to get out of the apartment and away from the kitty I went to the movies.  There were three films I wanted to see at Landmark Century Cinema—No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Juno.  For mental health reasons I decided I’d better keep it light and went to see Juno.  I actually liked it quite a bit even though it’s so beloved I was prepared to despise it.  The entire cast was from television shows which I found momentarily disconcerting.  I know its acting but it still takes me a minute to get myself into the proper frame of mind to accept Sydney Bristow as a young wife desperate for a baby and Vern Schillinger as a dotting dad.  Faces bring with them certain associations.

I’m fairly sure Juno bears about zero resemblance to the actual life of the average pregnant sixteen-year-old since the world its set in a sort of a Wes Anderson terrarium where everything is cute and kitschy and everyone is quirky and clever.   I’m also pretty sure Juno was a lot more fun to watch than the life of the average pregnant sixteen-year-old (which to my thinking would probably be a high anxiety nightmare— I was shall we say volatile at that age, not unlike napalm).  There really wasn’t even any conflict, you sort of knew everything was going to work out and be okay so it was actually a really good film for me to be watching given my stress level lately. 

Still, amidst the sarcasm and whimsy where were some moments of hard insight.  Unlike a lot of films it actually acknowledged that there are different social classes and that they sort of live on different planets.  Mark and Vanessa, the couple that is planning to adopt Juno’s baby, live in a posh but generic suburban McMansion that’s worlds away from the more working class existence of Juno and her parents.  In this dream house, Mark has a single room which he devotes to his abandoned dreams of being in a rock band.  He’s still enough of a kid that he seems more interested in convincing Juno that he’s cool than in being a father.  And in some ways I can’t blame him.  Vanessa seems so uptight and controlling, the way they live so of personality I couldn’t help sympathizing with Mark’s dissatisfaction with his way of life even though it was meant to be seen as immaturity.  I actually thought Vanessa’s character was one of the greatest weaknesses of the film.  She seems like a brittle perfectionist who doesn’t really have any wit or imagination.  It’s stressed again and again that she desperately wants a baby but given the very superficial view we get of her it seems like she could only want a baby because that’s what successful people have, offspring as a sort of accessory.  We see a brief glimpse of her playing with a friend’s child at a mall but a brief glimpse doesn’t make a rounded character.  Mark, even with his considerable flaws felt much more fully realized. 

Book-wise I’ve started reading Anne Bishop’s Daughter of the Blood which is the first volume in The Black Jewels Trilogy.  It’s a dark fantasy series and since I’ve only just started it I’m struggling to figure out the world its set in which is matriarchal and has a complicated hierarchical system based on family and the shades of mystic jewels and also how magic works in this world.