I record this not out of a need to vent or the desire for sympathy, but as an exercise to remind myself not all days are so jam-packed with people like this. It's laugh or cry, and now, being tomorrow, this all seems sort of funny, which I've also got to remember.
1. My boss calls me, wants me to come in early. She's freaking out and I can't figure out exactly why. She keeps screeching "collated! it's got to be collated by 2:00!" She tells me when she'd ideally like me to be there; I glance at the clock and do the math - factoring in my commute, she's given me eight minutes' warning before I need to leave the house. I say yep, yep, sure, of course, hang up and take my sweet time. When I get to work I go ahead and lie on my timesheet because every time she calls me when I'm in my pajamas watching Dawson's Creek, I get paid a little extra. That's the rule. Just as I figured, it turns out to be about 10 minutes' worth of collation.
2. Steve the creepy bus driver asks me who I'm voting for and doesn't let me answer because he's so worked up about the election. He heard a rumor that Kerry didn't even earn those medals he threw over the fence. Bush rules! And the Jews, ha! If they're God's "chosen people" and all that, then how could the Holocaust have happened? HA HA HA HA HA I walk away.
3. standard assortment of demanding bratty children and their bratty parents. one notable winner, an adult, steps hard on my foot and favors me with a down-the-nose glance. I won't apologize but I will acknowledge you're there, servant. I'm ever so grateful.
4. We're visited by pre-inspection lady from state daycare licensing board. She's "pleased" that no one on staff is wearing jeans, which was a random fluke, and I wasn't aware I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to my job of PLAYING ON THE FLOOR WITH KIDS.
5. Our cleaning staff is made up of lovely, smiling Hispanics whose fractional English sadly does not include the word "dilute," so I haven't been able to suggest they clean the floors with anything other than straight bleach. They only go this hardcore once a week, but still, once a week I have to serve kids food and then teach them fractions in a room thick with eye-watering, faint-making fumes.
To deal with this, I have been propping the exterior doors open to get some airflow. The inspection lady tells me that this is illegal because of kids who might make a break for it. She says we should use Glade Plug-Ins instead. She recommends Gardenia.
5. My boss tells me whoops, she's an idiot and miscalculated the number of useless preschool-teacher training hours I need, and I've actually gone over. She doesn't actually mention that she's an idiot; she doesn't even apologize. Instead she chirps, Now you're overqualified! I'm kind of surprised she can pronounce that.
6. On the playground, after running around and becoming flushed, a seven-year old with luxurious golden curls says to me with chilling sincerity, I'm hot. Fan me.
7. The program which employs me shares parish buildings with several other organizations, one of which is the school basketball team. It is coached and supervised by various dads who are without exception jerks. Every day they try to muscle us out of our space early. Every day I tell them they cannot have the space until 6 pm. I have gone so far as to say, You can have the gym when the little hand is on the six and the big hand is on the twelve.
When I don't cave in (I never cave in) and give them the gym early, they punish me in a very retarded passive-aggressive way by allowing the basketball kids to run wild in the lobby. I have seen children jumping on our upholstered chairs, climbing on our tables, opening our desk drawers and dumping out the contents. I have seen them stealing our office supplies right in front of their coach, sometimes in front of their own fathers. Nobody seems to mind this behavior - certainly nobody ever stops it.
Except me. Yesterday I saw a boy, about nine years old, fooling around with the cleaning lady's mop bucket. He was playing with the squeezer and tipping the bucket back and forth, trying to splash filthy water on the newly-cleaned linoleum. Finally he hauled up the mop and splatted it on the floor. All this at arm's length from his father.
Well fuck that, so I ran out there and started screaming NO WAY NOT EVER, and scared the shit out of the kid. I went on for quite a while about how it's innapropriate to mess with other people's stuff and disrespectful of a nice lady who works very hard every day to make up messes made by UNGRATEFUL LITTLE KIDS LIKE YOU. I said that this behavior was wrong, even if your father is standing right there and doesn't seem to mind. DO YOU READ ME. He nodded real fast and I glared at the father, who was just starting to notice something had happened, and I glared at everybody else and stomped away.
8. my commute home took an hour. trucks tried to kill me. dinner blew. but then there were things i love, like logan, and tv. in that order, baby.
1. My boss calls me, wants me to come in early. She's freaking out and I can't figure out exactly why. She keeps screeching "collated! it's got to be collated by 2:00!" She tells me when she'd ideally like me to be there; I glance at the clock and do the math - factoring in my commute, she's given me eight minutes' warning before I need to leave the house. I say yep, yep, sure, of course, hang up and take my sweet time. When I get to work I go ahead and lie on my timesheet because every time she calls me when I'm in my pajamas watching Dawson's Creek, I get paid a little extra. That's the rule. Just as I figured, it turns out to be about 10 minutes' worth of collation.
2. Steve the creepy bus driver asks me who I'm voting for and doesn't let me answer because he's so worked up about the election. He heard a rumor that Kerry didn't even earn those medals he threw over the fence. Bush rules! And the Jews, ha! If they're God's "chosen people" and all that, then how could the Holocaust have happened? HA HA HA HA HA I walk away.
3. standard assortment of demanding bratty children and their bratty parents. one notable winner, an adult, steps hard on my foot and favors me with a down-the-nose glance. I won't apologize but I will acknowledge you're there, servant. I'm ever so grateful.
4. We're visited by pre-inspection lady from state daycare licensing board. She's "pleased" that no one on staff is wearing jeans, which was a random fluke, and I wasn't aware I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to my job of PLAYING ON THE FLOOR WITH KIDS.
5. Our cleaning staff is made up of lovely, smiling Hispanics whose fractional English sadly does not include the word "dilute," so I haven't been able to suggest they clean the floors with anything other than straight bleach. They only go this hardcore once a week, but still, once a week I have to serve kids food and then teach them fractions in a room thick with eye-watering, faint-making fumes.
To deal with this, I have been propping the exterior doors open to get some airflow. The inspection lady tells me that this is illegal because of kids who might make a break for it. She says we should use Glade Plug-Ins instead. She recommends Gardenia.
5. My boss tells me whoops, she's an idiot and miscalculated the number of useless preschool-teacher training hours I need, and I've actually gone over. She doesn't actually mention that she's an idiot; she doesn't even apologize. Instead she chirps, Now you're overqualified! I'm kind of surprised she can pronounce that.
6. On the playground, after running around and becoming flushed, a seven-year old with luxurious golden curls says to me with chilling sincerity, I'm hot. Fan me.
7. The program which employs me shares parish buildings with several other organizations, one of which is the school basketball team. It is coached and supervised by various dads who are without exception jerks. Every day they try to muscle us out of our space early. Every day I tell them they cannot have the space until 6 pm. I have gone so far as to say, You can have the gym when the little hand is on the six and the big hand is on the twelve.
When I don't cave in (I never cave in) and give them the gym early, they punish me in a very retarded passive-aggressive way by allowing the basketball kids to run wild in the lobby. I have seen children jumping on our upholstered chairs, climbing on our tables, opening our desk drawers and dumping out the contents. I have seen them stealing our office supplies right in front of their coach, sometimes in front of their own fathers. Nobody seems to mind this behavior - certainly nobody ever stops it.
Except me. Yesterday I saw a boy, about nine years old, fooling around with the cleaning lady's mop bucket. He was playing with the squeezer and tipping the bucket back and forth, trying to splash filthy water on the newly-cleaned linoleum. Finally he hauled up the mop and splatted it on the floor. All this at arm's length from his father.
Well fuck that, so I ran out there and started screaming NO WAY NOT EVER, and scared the shit out of the kid. I went on for quite a while about how it's innapropriate to mess with other people's stuff and disrespectful of a nice lady who works very hard every day to make up messes made by UNGRATEFUL LITTLE KIDS LIKE YOU. I said that this behavior was wrong, even if your father is standing right there and doesn't seem to mind. DO YOU READ ME. He nodded real fast and I glared at the father, who was just starting to notice something had happened, and I glared at everybody else and stomped away.
8. my commute home took an hour. trucks tried to kill me. dinner blew. but then there were things i love, like logan, and tv. in that order, baby.
