How do you feel today?

[Seareach]

Well, we have our first female Prime Minister. I guess that's an incredible thing...but I don't like the way it happened.

[lorin]

Did you ever feel like your life is taking its own course, like you are losing control of the paths you take?

I had an interview yesterday. I don't think I got the job and there is a part of me that is relieved. It was a huge job, Commissioner of Juvenile Detention for NYC. When did I become a warden? When did people look at my resume and say " Hey. wouldnt that woman be great running detention centers for 20,000 offenders? I have a degree in creative writing, all I've ever wanted is to write. Each day I feel like a tiny part of my creative force dies a bit more. But I went to the interview. It was a 40 percent pay raise so I went, knowing that if I get this job my life will have to revolve around that job. That it would be another step in the wrong direction. But I need the money, I need to 'maintain'...........

And then another thing. I went out on a date this weekend. After 6 months 'on the hunt' who did I finally go out with? A DIVORCE LAWYER!! No actually a divorced DIVORCE LAWYER. A bitter angry divorce lawyer
. Life is strange, isn't it? I look for the frustrated artist and i find the frustrated divorce lawyer.

At least my father will be happy, I finally dated a Jewish man. He can die happy.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Wow, Lorin. Thats quite an interview to go on. Stay away from the bitter guys.

Sea, maybe you should just all go to one of your local animal rescue shelters as a family and pick out a dog or puppy together. Either that or go steal Yang back.

I think this schedule has me a bit depressed. I close the store on weekends and all my friends work monday through friday jobs so I hung out briefly last week on monday with Chris and the bees but not enough. This sucks. I got stopped at the Bart station by transit cops tonight and I thought they were going to give me shit about not having a helmet but they were just curious about the ezip. Very nice guys. I assured them that I read all the rules and regulations before I bought it so that I would be sure it was ok and that I knew the drills. They jokingly gave me a BART bike rules quiz which I passed with 100% accuracy. They were appreciative and impressed. Now I am home and tired and some jackass keeps lighting firecrackers off just outside my window. Ugh.

[StevieG]

lorin, I think I relate somwhat. I always had high ambitions for a musical profession. My father in particular was very focussed on science-based professions, and I wasn't a strong person back then. So I gave away my dream to go into an area that didn't inspire me - and although it probably pays more than what my first choice would have been, I still feel a pang of regret for not following my passion.

Sigh.

On a positive note, my beloved Aussie football (soccer) players did themselves proud by fighting back from a 4-0 defeat to Germany, to come back and draw with Ghana 1-1, and beat Serbia 2-1. (I guess I've been neglecting the rest of the Watch, as I'm a soccer tragic...)

[Cagliostro]

lorin, I think I relate somwhat. I always had high ambitions for a musical profession. My father in particular was very focussed on science-based professions, and I wasn't a strong person back then. So I gave away my dream to go into an area that didn't inspire me - and although it probably pays more than what my first choice would have been, I still feel a pang of regret for not following my passion.

This is almost exactly my story as well. My dad was a science guy, and while he didn't try pushing me into science (although he pushed a "safe" well-paying job), I went into computers that I had an aptitude for but doesn't really inspire me. In fact, I went into computers after I came up with an idea for a videogame (that I still think would be fairly good, although I see other game adopt bits and pieces of it from time to time). The videogame industry is hard to crack into, and I was trying to work on doing it myself for a while, but I couldn't make heads or tails of C++ which is what I thought I'd eventually use to code the game. I was great at C and Visual Basic, but I grew especially weary of programming. Which sucks because I was pretty good at it. Now I deal with hardware, and I still am not quite sure how I ended up here. Especially in helpdesk, because I hate dealing with people and I especially hate talking on the phone. I guess because I like troubleshooting.

But like you, I especially regret not getting into something a bit more creative and fun. And musical. Why didn't I try out for more bands after the one I was in broke up? Why haven't I learned an instrument to be able to do so? Or why didn't I pursue radio a bit more after leaving the dj job? Why didn't I make more time for something that would thrill me? Oh, yeah, I was chasing girls at the time, and spent my focus on that. Silly me.

[aliantha]

My parents, too, were big on making sure I had a career I could make money with. "Have something to fall back on " is the way my mom described it.

As a parent of 20-somethings, I can appreciate that advice now -- the 'rents just didn't me moving back in with them.

Altho that's not strictly true, either. I think they would have been ecstatic if I'd stayed at home 'til I got married, then moved next door to them. Urk.

[Holsety]

My parents, too, were big on making sure I had a career I could make money with. "Have something to fall back on " is the way my mom described it.

As a parent of 20-somethings, I can appreciate that advice now -- the 'rents just didn't me moving back in with them.

Altho that's not strictly true, either. I think they would have been ecstatic if I'd stayed at home 'til I got married, then moved next door to them. Urk.

It feels like I'm on that path right now, but in the foreseeable future I'm not going to end up married. It might be nice to see what dating is like but I'm not really sure how to chase after that particular activity.

My mom seems to want grandkids but it's hard to tell with her. My dad, who knows what he wants? He's a nice guy so he doesn't say too much about his long term desires for my life (even though we have a close relationship). That's not to say he's supportive in a very obvious way, often shows his support by making jokes instead of more typical ways of showing it.

I'm afraid that being overly dependent on my parents will put me in a situation where, if they pass away, I won't have any stability in my life any longer. I do have friends and other family but I don't really have a relationship where I can depend on those people to the point that I depend on my parents right now.

[Avatar]

Well, we have our first female Prime Minister. I guess that's an incredible thing...but I don't like the way it happened.

Come talk about it in the 'Tank.

I'm afraid that being overly dependent on my parents will put me in a situation where, if they pass away, I won't have any stability in my life any longer. I do have friends and other family but I don't really have a relationship where I can depend on those people to the point that I depend on my parents right now.

Get out on your own, as soon as you can. That way, you can practise while they're still around to help out if you really need them. (Uh, I didn't mean that as cynically as it might have appeared. )

--A

[Holsety]

I'm afraid that being overly dependent on my parents will put me in a situation where, if they pass away, I won't have any stability in my life any longer. I do have friends and other family but I don't really have a relationship where I can depend on those people to the point that I depend on my parents right now.

Get out on your own, as soon as you can. That way, you can practise while they're still around to help out if you really need them. (Uh, I didn't mean that as cynically as it might have appeared. )

--A

Ya, well I'm trying to be independent one step at a time. For instance, I've got this job on a telephone hotline and AFAIK I'm actually going to get paid for the hours I'm putting in at some point.

Similarly, I don't buzz around on the internet unless it's the only way I can think of to keep myself active while waiting for the next call to come in.

EDIT-I've got lunch in 3 minutes!

[Holsety]

I just finished my lunch break. While I was eating lunch, this guy came in and said "hi". I responded by asking "how are you doing?". He didn't say anything back however. Hasn't everyone learned by now that you're supposed to say something like "good" or "bad" in response to stuff like that?

I promise to try not to use this topic as a blog.

[aliantha]

No no, it's okay, Holsety! GenDisc needs the posts!

I'll echo what Av said about getting out on your own. And don't be put off by one jerk you happen to work with. Think about an activity you might be interested in trying, then google to see if there's a club/meetup group/something for it near where you live. Then go to a meeting. At the very least, it's a night out of the house.

[Savor Dam]

Did you ever feel like your life is taking its own course, like you are losing control of the paths you take?

Only constantly...

As for the interview, I really don't think you would like that job. It is 180 degrees from where you should be going. You need to get away from the city, away from getting progressively deeper into the infrastructure for dealing with urban society's fallout. Look for more positions like the small town City Manager job that didn't quite work out. Maybe next time!

And then another thing. I went out on a date this weekend. After 6 months 'on the hunt' who did I finally go out with? A DIVORCE LAWYER!! No actually a divorced DIVORCE LAWYER. A bitter angry divorce lawyer
. Life is strange, isn't it? I look for the frustrated artist and i find the frustrated divorce lawyer.

At least my father will be happy, I finally dated a Jewish man. He can die happy.

A bitter angry Jewish lawyer. Oy! Jewish is good, but the rest... Run, lorin, run the other way as fast as you can.

He's a nice man, a good catch
I promise you'll be happy, and even if you're not
There's more to life than that...don't ask me what!"

[aliantha]

I wouldn't marry a divorce lawyer on a bet. Imagine how awful it would be if you broke up. Yeesh.

I'm ticked at Walgreens Mail Order. I sent them three new prescriptions and filled out the order form, clearly indicating that I had a new, permanent address. Guess what they did? Yup, sent the prescriptions to the old address. I got a person on the phone tonight to confirm it. Thought it was weird that I hadn't gotten the order yet... She's going to send a tide-me-over prescription to my not-so-local brick-and-mortar Walgreens (since I moved back into CVS territory, there's no longer a convenient Walgreens down the street), and overnight replacements to me. But the overnight order won't go out 'til tomorrow, and I'm sure they're not going to spring for Saturday delivery, which means I won't get the stuff 'til Monday. Sigh...

[Cameraman Jenn]

I had an interesting day. I got up early so I could stop in my old store and finally show off my wheels to Sorus. I also had to mail a package so I did that while I was there and caught up on Jacob's love life. I had several moments of "I told you so. Repeat after me, when in doubt, ask Jenn and do exactly as she says." He actually did repeat that twice and admit that I was oh so right. HAHAHHAAHA! I then headed to work and since I have had the scooter I've been very noticeable to the station agents on BART. First off, you have to bring the bike through the handicapped gate right next to the agent kiosk and two I am pretty conspicuous with my bright pink backpack and my bright green scooter and my bright red hair. I'm even on a first name basis with a few and we will get into the details of that later. The day was busy, freight was a nightmare, I was assigned two sections of endcaps to revamp and barely got them done. When I finished I had to move a bunch of stuff to what is called "topstock." Basically over every section we have these ginormous cabinets above that overstock goes into. I was topstocking in the section that Lu was working and so we were chatting and he was again telling me how much he liked working with me and how Jacob was ranting about how awesome I am. I told him he didn't have to kiss my ass for me to like him. He thought he offended me so apologized and I was laughing. I told him, "Just do your job and we will get along just fine." Then he was giving me the skinny on the who's out to get who and who I really really need to watch my back around. I told him thanks but I kinda already figured it out for myself. He told me that not backing down wasn't always a good thing in this store and I told him point blank, "I'm not gonna play games, if I think I am right I will discuss it and I don't care whom I have to discuss it with." I also told him that I'm not afraid of anyone in the store and that I can handle the job and politics but that I appreciated that he had my back. Lu heard my customer service argument with my fellow manager from days previous and was worried, however, he did not hear the store manager's announcement every day around three when she leaves about customer service being our number one priority. Just a side note, I did NOT say anything to her about the argument, someone else told the tale and I know they did because she told me thanks for taking the initiative and handling the situation and not being shy about speaking my mind to the staff in the moment. Later on I "walked" Lu's aisles to check his end of night recovery and I found several things wrong and called him on it and he kept saying, "You're tough." and I laughed and said, "Told you I was tough." I also found a safety issue that he overlooked and called him on it and he said, "Safety is NOT my department." and I said, "Au Contraire, it's all of our responsibility and since you just said that guess what? You are now officially on my team 4 safety committee." He responded with, "For REAL?" and I said yes. Then I told him that tomorrow we were going to walk the store together and he was going to point out any safety issues we found as a test of his knowledge of company policy on safety. I assured him that anything he missed that I caught would be discussed privately but at the end he was gonna have to get on the walkie and give a list of violations and solutions to the rest of the staff. He again said, "For REAL?" and I said, "Yes, I told you I am tough but fair. Do you think I am being unfair?" and he said, "No." I then explained that the best way to get everyone involved was to actually get everyone involved and to make it fun and we would go over that before he had to get on the walkie. He was cool with it. Anyway, we finished up the night and all headed home.

On my trip home, I exchanged evening greetings with Janelle at MacArthur station and got on a train. Janelle and I met when I thought she was yelling at me for jumping the stiles but it turned out she was actually yelling at someone jumping the stile just behind me. I actually went up to the kiosk and said, "I wasn't jumping the stile, I swiped my translink, you can check my card." She laughed and said, "Honey, I wasn't yelling at you, I know you doing the right thing. I was yelling at the jumper behind you." I responded with, "Im sorry, I thought you were looking at me." and she said, "I was for a second but not when I yelled, my bad." So we laughed and that was that. Then, when I got to Civic Center station, my station agent buddy, Ron, informed me that there would be a posting for station agent coming up in the next few weeks but that BART only takes the first 500 apps so I need to look as often as possible and then filled me in on the details of where to look and the pay and so forth. I am totally down with that. He and I met the first night I rode the ezip. He asked about it and we chatted for a while and the conversation went from the bike to why I was commuting and a brief recent job history etc. He's been holding the gates open for me ever since.

And that's probably enough blathering. I'm gonna go watch something mindless and then go to sleep. Hugs to everyone.

P.S. I just went to set my cell alarm and charge my phone and realized I left my damn phone at work. Ugh.

[StevieG]

This is almost exactly my story as well. My dad was a science guy, and while he didn't try pushing me into science (although he pushed a "safe" well-paying job), I went into computers that I had an aptitude for but doesn't really inspire me. In fact, I went into computers after I came up with an idea for a videogame (that I still think would be fairly good, although I see other game adopt bits and pieces of it from time to time). The videogame industry is hard to crack into, and I was trying to work on doing it myself for a while, but I couldn't make heads or tails of C++ which is what I thought I'd eventually use to code the game. I was great at C and Visual Basic, but I grew especially weary of programming. Which sucks because I was pretty good at it. Now I deal with hardware, and I still am not quite sure how I ended up here. Especially in helpdesk, because I hate dealing with people and I especially hate talking on the phone. I guess because I like troubleshooting.

But like you, I especially regret not getting into something a bit more creative and fun. And musical. Why didn't I try out for more bands after the one I was in broke up? Why haven't I learned an instrument to be able to do so? Or why didn't I pursue radio a bit more after leaving the dj job? Why didn't I make more time for something that would thrill me? Oh, yeah, I was chasing girls at the time, and spent my focus on that. Silly me.

Thanks for sharing Cag, I knew I liked you Incidentally, I currently do a bit of C# programming, but I've never tackled C++.

[Cagliostro]

StevieG, is C# easier then?

Jenn - I SOOOOOOOOOOOO want you to be my boss. I am currently working for a boss with no spine. I'm one of few here that actually believe you should get paid for doing work. The rest constantly dodge calls, show up several hours late for work, yet still put down that they have been working those hours, don't put in tickets, don't send equipment that the stores need despite telling them that they will, and basically do as little as they can. It's like a competition around here to see who can be the laziest. I'm especially fed up, and have mentioned to the boss the problems time and time again. And he has been able to see it. Because I believe in doing a good job, I'm the one who constantly answers the phone.
Well, he's taken a two week vacation. The day before he left, we had a meeting where he stated that he does not believe in punishment. It has been hell.

[aliantha]

I don't believe in punishment, either, Cag, but I do believe in suffering the consequences for one's actions. The consequences for the workplace behavior you describe should be an immediate sacking. Your supervisor is an idiot.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I can't stand it when people slack to the point it hurts our sales and image. When you work retail, everything you do reflects on the team as a whole so we just need to do our damn jobs. It's not all that hard actually. I see a lot of things that could go from working hard to working efficiently and make life easier in the long run. Take team 4 safety as an example. We are supposed to have weekly meetings. All you have to do is talk about safety with two other members of the staff then log it in the binder. What qualifies? I get on the walkie and say, "Put ladders away when you are done and make sure they are all marked employee use only." There are six people on the walkies at any given time. Meeting accomplished. The person who was in charge hasn't even set up the 2010 binder yet. It's so ridiculous. This store has failed on the T4S binder for six months in a row during audits. I don't understand why people have to make things into mountains when they are just molehills.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I got some weird news today. About three years ago my friend Bill disappeared. His car was found at his school but no trace of Bill. Bill was a manic depressive who had attempted suicide twice in the past but at this point in his life he was in a good place. He was loving school and doing extremely well, he was in a good healthy relationship and they had been living together for several months and everything seemed to be perfect. He was missing for just under a year when they found his body way out in the woods and up a mountain in rural oregon. This is bizarre because Bill was quite overweight and the thought of him hiking all the way out there on his own just didn't sit right but the police couldn't find enough evidence to rule it either foul play or suicide. I had two years to come to terms with his death. Then Heatherly calls me today to tell me that the officer on the case called her to let her know that Bill's old boss is being indicted with three counts of murder including Bill. Apparently she was involved in serious crime and killed people to cover it up. I am overwhelmingly relieved that he didn't kill himself but at the same time I am now sad all over again because he shouldn't have died. I am also angry at that woman for what she did. I hope they throw the book at her. I'm even angry that they don't have capital punishment in Oregon. She's looking at life without parole but still. I don't want my parents and friends up in Oregon, including Bill's family to have their tax money go to feeding and housing the evil slut who stole our loved one from us for her own selfish stupid unjustifiable reasons. It doesn't seem fair and maybe I am being harsh but that's how I feel.
Here's a link to an article about it.
www.statesmanjournal.com/article/201006 ... ta-student

I feel the need to share a very fond memory of Bill and it might help the way I am feeling right now. I went to the Oregon Country Fair with my Mom and it is a total hippie festival, much like a small burning man. We were wandering about and had gotten our faces painted and were headed to check out some of the musical acts. I was taking a picture of something and my Mom leans over and says, "Get a picture of that guy with the tattoos and nipple rings, the one smoking pot." I look to see who she's talking about and I see Bill. I yell, "Bill!" and my Mom says, "You know him?" as I start running towards him. We hugged and I introduced him to my Mom and he says a traditional "Nice to meet you" sort of greeting and then offers her a hit off his pipe. I was laughing and my Mom was like, "What the hell, Ok." and smoked pot with Bill. We then hung around a bit while wandering and took in a few performances before watching Bill perform a solo acoustic guitar and singing set on one of the performance stages then we all grabbed something to eat together. My Mom just loved him. I met Bill through Heatherly. Heatherly and Bill met in kindergarten and had been friends ever since. When Bill went missing he had both a siamese mix cat named Ripley and a pug named Biscuit. Heatherly took Ripley about three months after Bill went missing and Bill's boyfriend kept Biscuit. When Heatherly babysits Moose he loves playing with Ripley and they can often be found curled up together sleeping.

I do feel better venting. I know, I should get a damn blog and stop bugging you guys with all my crap but it just feels right venting here for some reason. Probably because I love you guys and you are all so awesome.

[lucimay]

that is some crappy shit right there jenn. (yes CRAPPY SHIT )

i'm sorry you and heatherly lost your pal.
i know this is small consolation but he yet lives while you have little bits of him with you.

hugs