Happy Valentine's Day - No Hater's Allowed

Happy Valentine's Day!!



I know that many, many people really hate Valentine's Day. I can understand why people dislike this holiday for various reasons; I, however, will always celebrate Valentine's Day happily. It serves it's purpose by bringing up my spirits during an otherwise long, cold time of year. I have celebrated some Valentine's alone and been a little depressed. It's great if you have someone to spend the day with, just the two of you. But if you don't, I think it can be just as nice to celebrate with family or friends. This year I am making a dinner party for Mike and I and my younger brother Sam is here with us so he's going to eat with us. My sister may be with us as well if she ends up getting home soon enough. I kind of hope she doesn't make it because she puts me on edge. I never know when she's gonna freak out and start swearing at people. And if her boyfriend is with her I'll be really disappointed. He really grates on my nerves. His voice annoys me as much, if not more than, that aaaahnt, aaahnt alarm clock buzzer sound. And I hate that sound.

Anyway, it is now hours after I originally began this post. Shortly after beginning, as usual, my computer was usurped by Mike so he can play his Mafia Wars (I hate Mafia Wars). And I've been cooking and baking all day now for my Valentine's Day Family Feast. We're having currant scones and sugar cookies that my Mom made for us before she left for VA with my other brother. That's a whole other story involving a KKK affiliated police officer and a sawed-off muzzle loader. That will have be a tale for a different holiday. Perhaps President's Day. That would be more fitting anyhow.

Let's end this rant with a favorite topic of mine: Food, of course. Keep in mind that I am aware that the combination of food is bizarre. It's because today's feast began in my mind as a tea party. But a combination of events and circumstances has led me to combine tea with dinner. So we have a sort of mish mash of desserts and tea cake type items, mixed with a hearty winter dinner. Besides what my Mom made, we're having lamb stew, chicken salad tea sandwiches, Madeleine's, deviled eggs, and strawberries with whipped cream. I'm really bummed because I tried to make eclairs and I really, really screwed them up. I love, love, love chocolate eclairs. I may try again later tonight. If I'm up for it.

Anyway, I hope everyone has an alright, at least, night. No moping allowed. I hate that!

Corporate Greedsters....I hope you choke on your money

I know I complain a lot. I know it's because I did a really bad job of making good choices when I was younger so now I'm paying for it with a life that amounts to barely scraping by and hating most of what I have to do every day. I love being alive when I can enjoy the good things in life, like food, comfort, friendship, animal companionship, and outdoor adventure. And now that I know what I should have done to create the life I wish I had, I'm trying to do that stuff now, but it's harder as you get older to finish school because you still have to pay rent and eat and all that stuff. So I see all these years stretched out before me where not that much changes and I'm still just stuck.

I'm in a really bad mood right now. I'm having female issues and there's no bathroom in the stupid shacks they make us work from - well, there's a bathroom in the back shack but not in the front. So when you have to go to the bathroom, you have to walk about a half a mile to get there. There is also no reliable heat and hardly any insulation so it gets really cold. Then you turn on the heat which blows really hot air right on your head and back until it feels like you're being roasted alive, so you turn the heat off and get cold sweats. Or you can sit with the heat on and the window open until someone comes by and bugs out about wasted energy.

I wish I could have a job that consisted of standing up for what's right in this world. I wish I could feel like I had some way or ability to change all the fucked up shit in this world. Or at least feel like I was trying to change things. Working at a fucking trucking company, I feel like I'm just exacerbating certain issues like poor fuel economy, high food prices, and pollution. Not to mention, by working at a company like this and not standing up for my rights it's as if I'm condoning the way they treat their workers. And not just us security guards, everyone in the whole warehouse except those at the very top get treated like they are no different than a truck wheel or a power jack.

My boss told me last week that he could "force" me to work mandatory overtime on Christmas week. I'm not scheduled to work Christmas. My family lives three hours away, I've already made holiday plans - unless he's going to tie me to the fuckin' chair and puppet my hands across the friggin keyboard - nobody FORCES me to do anything. Nobody but myself can force myself. Is it 1772? Am I a slave? An indentured servant? NO, NO, and NO!!! So Force? I don't think so. I, on the other hand, can force you to fire me and then I can force you to pay me unemployment while I sit at home and half assed pretend to look for a job while I really sit around and watch movies and smoke up all day long. I can force HIM to work Christmas when I call from Boston on the morning of and say I am not going to make it. More money, more responsibility. If no one takes the overtime, it's his responsibility to work the shift, he's the supervisor, I didn't take the f'n job. He's the one who decided to okay someone vacation time over the holiday before making sure it could be covered. Fuck him. This job is not worth it. I only see my family on the holidays. I look forward to it so much. Not to mention my mom is highly emotionally unstable and I am NOT telling her I'm not coming after I already told her I was. This is not a career for me. I can get a ten dollar an hour job anywhere. Sure, I like working alone most of the time - but I'm sure I can find something else where I'm alone a lot only during the daytime, and no holidays. I'm thinking of volunteering at a local humane society until I get my feet in the door, and then maybe when a paid worker quits I could get a job there. I would love, love, love to work with animals. I prefer animals to people more than I should admit.
Fuck, I could work at a gas station and it would be a lot less grief than this. When you don't love what you do, and when a job is not a career, and the pay is shit - it's probably not a good idea to attempt to leverage me with threats. Is he f'n crazy? Then he tells me because I don't have kids I should work the holiday. Can you say "Sue your pants off, asshole?" That's a lifestyle choice I have made consciously. The planet is overpopulated with kids whose parents suck at raising them and I'm going to be punished for opting against adding to the problem? Why not just say all gay people have to work holidays since they shouldn't have kids anyway? Why stop there? What about old people - make them work, they're useless anyway, right, corporate greedsters? Isn't there some sort of organization I can report this place to?

At least OSHA would probably have an issue with no bathroom available to us out front, heat that breaks all the time when we have to go out in the rain and snow. No hazard pay for working nights, outside in inclement weather. We never get safety bonuses like the rest of the warehouse. We have to work alone, in the dark with strange men coming from all over the country. I'm sorry, but I don't think it's asking too much to be compensated for all the risk we encounter. I also don't think it's out of line to want to work in a place which provides the basic necessities like bathrooms and heat. Right in our handbook and on signs all over the facility they claim to provide a safe, healthy, comfortable, and productive working environment. I don't feel safe, it's certainly NOT healthy, absolutely the opposite of comfortable - all of which lessens productivity.

On top of all this, they threaten to fire you if you look into unions activity at all. Human Resources works for the company, not the employee so how, really, am I supposed to feel protected by them? What recourse do I have? Is quitting or getting myself fired the only way?
I know it's not but I just don't know where to begin or if it's even a battle I want to fight. One shitty job is not so different from another shitty job while all I'm trying to do is work my way to the other side of shitty jobs and shitty life altogether. I've aways been a proponent of surrounding oneself with people you want to be like. I really, really don't want to EVER be like any of these people. I do not want to be a corporate slave drone all my life and I won't.