The most offensive thing said in my boss's staff meeting today? That Asians shouldn't be allowed to get drivers licenses because "we shouldn't be giving licenses to anyone who can be blindfolded with a piece of floss."

going back to my crappy job tomorrow to hire and train my fifth new employee in four months (thanks boss for your crappy rules).

but it doesn't matter. i've got all the thunderstorms of fall. and there are exciting things happening around here.


also, the look on my mother-in-law's face when i told her i'm going to law school in a year and a half.

when i get off work at 2:45 on friday after a long week and as i'm walking out netflix emails to tell me parks and rec season 6 is now on netflix:

also, since when is this a pop up command on mobile?

"don't go green just to go green."

wise words from a director in our department today.

/sarcasm

annoyances about job interviews:

1. please don't ask me to tell you things that are on my resume or application. i took a lot of time to be thorough and tailor my application and cover letter specifically to you, and you should really be reviewing all of that before someone comes to interview. making someone feel like they have to cover everything on their resume in one interview or they don't have a chance makes your interview irrelevant.

2. i firmly believe it is better to hire the right person and train them than to hire someone who won't fit in/has a bad attitude/just is not a good employee but has all the experience. but you still need to ask some skill or job related interview questions, not just open ended ones about life and love and happiness. if you don't, you are basing your entire decision pretty much on whether or not you like me (nervous and under pressure), which i guess is your prerogative but really sucks for inteviewees. what am i supposed to do, try to demonstrate all of the relevant knowledge and skills when you ask if there's anything else i'd like to discuss?

3. how do you convince someone that you will do a kick ass job when you don't have a zillion experience? i feel like my age is really working against me.

me: "we really, really, really need to pay off the credit cards, like i can't take this anymore and it feels like nothing will ever get better."

*goes out and buys $30 of decorating craft supplies*

Starting on October 9th, I am going read my way through 50 Essays Guaranteed to Make You a Better Person. I don't really know anything about flavorwire, and I try not to take direction on how to be a better person from random internet dump sites, but I stumbled upon this and as I was looking at the essays and they are actually pretty hefty and come well recommended.

I'm going to be reading one essay a day, from one to 50, and that way I will finish my last essay on Thanksgiving Day. I originally wanted to do a 50 post series on my public blog (which sounds really pretentious when I write it out), doing a quick response to one a day, but a lot of the essays have adult themes and I just don't need that controversy shit during the holidays, so I'll be posting here instead. Most of the essays are pretty short and can be found online, and after a few dead hours at work, I've found a hard copy of all of them! There is just something about a hard copy.

One of my new year's resolutions was to read one scholarly article a day, and I have failed miserably aka pretty much haven't tried. So this will be like a mini resolution come true, and a good way to ease into hitting the books for law school.

when it's friday night and silver linings playbook is new on netflix

"are you happy working here? is there something in your relationship with me or your job that has you upset?"

this is what my boss asked me after he told me to close the door at the end of our one on one meeting. i was pretty surprised he was asking, but also not. i don't put on a fake smile for him anymore and i don't pretend to be stellar-amazeballs-happy with the shitty stuff that goes on. but having made peace with two and a half years of shitty situations, i looked him in the eyes and said, "no. everything is fine."

everything IS fine. i'm looking for a new job and my life is getting better. i know things are getting better because i have direction again, i can do my dishes and keep my kitchen clean, i am getting out of bed earlier, i've been to the gym and i've been eating at home, and my to do list is full of things that i'm actually excited about again. i have energy and i am excited to do things after work. for two years these things have been unthinkable and my life has been a mess, but finally, at least right now, things are going so well.

i could have told him everything. or even just started with one thing. maybe if i was planning on staying here i would have. but i don't need to be friends with him. i'm professional, i get all my work done, and i'm dependable. i have expressed my concerns and my opinions all along the way, and he not only lightly but frankly and in a very straight forward way dismissed them all--i don't owe him anything, and i don't think he deserves much else. who knows, maybe now he will take me seriously as a professional person, or listen to me when i speak up.

it was almost admirable and maybe in another world touching that he would ask me, but i honestly believe things never could have turned out differently and that he will never be less of a huge asshole. i knew it was a shallow inquiry when he finished the conversation by stating more than asking, throwing it in my face in his passive aggressive way, "oh okay, so my feelings are just completely unfounded then." like a statement to me that if i wasn't going to budge then he wasn't going to give a fuck.

sorry bro. i stopped caring about the pain you cause me a long time ago. and look how much better everything is getting because of that.

how is anyone a well-adjusted, at-peace lds person? two people in my office are having a congenial conversation about polygamy and smiling and laughing. i just really do not get it.

wrote some stuff and deleted it because i'm having a panic attack just THINKING about it.

1:30 am and not even kind if tired. How does this happen?

The more I read other people's blogs the more I want to blog, so hello. I also have this problem where when I discover the blog of someone I know I just read all of it. Like I read it for days and weeks and depending on how long they've been blogging and how slow life is, maybe read their entire blog. So that's creepy.

I have been in deep clean the apartment mode. My favorite part is that my office space is getting really awesome, and I'm really excited about it. And I am finally ready to send stuff to DI and get rid of vaguely sentimental crap that I've had for years for no reason. Which is huge, because then change will fill the space and I've needed change for two years.

My least favorite part is that I keep finding holes in the walls of our apartment where fittings go in. Like washer and sink pipe attachments and even places where molding should go. It's like the contractor just cut out a way too huge rough hole for it and never closed it. Is that normal? The number and variety of spiders we have seen around is unreal, and I'm convinced they come out of those holes. Plus I can't see at night since I'm not wearing my contacts (super crappy glasses and -10.00 prescription contacts aka blind) so I can't see spiders and I bet they are looking at me right. now. The other morning I was lucky enough to "see"(a blob) and suspect there was a black spider the size of a silver dollar scuttling around stuck in the tub when I was in the bathroom so I could put my contacts in and get rid of it.

Also I will go on record saying that I don't know what everyone really thinks but a good boob day is way better than a good hair day. Or maybe that's just me and this is tmi.

i'm starting to second guess myself and feel regret.

i'm still looking for a new job but university job offerings slow way down once school begins. i haven't found anything new to apply to in weeks. i really need a masters degree or specific experience to do anything more, or at least that is how i feel. it kills me to think that i won't find anything else until i have more schooling because that will be years and years from now.

what i am most bitter toward my boss about is how he has made me second guess myself. when i began working here i was so ambitious, so determined to do well and have a fantastic team. my reputation soared in a few short months. people i didn't even know on campus knew my name. the weirdest thing about it is that i was just doing my job. to me, a job isn't worth doing if you're not giving everything you've got. which is maybe why i'm so miserable, half assing things right now. then the set backs set in--everyone telling me to stop changing things or to go easier on my employees or to leave them alone altogether. i was gradually but very deliberately slowed down and held back by everyone around me. i became very depressed. work was a waking terror. and while things are very different and much calmer now (even if my relationship with my boss is worse), i have none of that fire. i work maybe one or two honest hours a day--all the work i'm given--and then i just hibernate and survive for the other six. every day. i don't feel like taking on any new projects or pushing things to improve or change because i was so beat down for it last time. and my boss let it all happen. looking back, i did everything right. i was right. and maybe i didn't have the management experience to know how to get everyone 100% on board, but that doesn't change the fact that i was right about policies and implementations and expectations and growth. i was dynamite. i was really wonderful at my job. and not only is that gone now, but i am afraid to make any kind of move unless i upset everyone around me, my boss chief among them. he tells me exactly how to do everything, even down to how and where i physically write things on my reports. he tells me exactly what to list, to highlight this and that, and then circle it all AND initial it to show i was really conscious of what i was doing. (which is bs. and stupid. and i hate that shit.)

i'm not saying i'm brilliant or anything because i'm just not, but i was incredibly hard working and genuinely excited about my job. now my focus is to convince someone else to hire me, and i am just full of doubt. what did i do that was really valuable? do i share my ambitions or hide them because they were all essentially failed projects?

the worst is that i can't be happy with what's going on now. i've been thinking a lot about happiness. i hate it when people say, "you can choose how you feel and you can choose your attitude," because i think that can get fake fast and lead you to convince yourself that your feelings aren't valid. but i think you can choose how you live your life and by doing that you are better able to meet the consequences, good or bad. i want to connect to the people around me. i want to have a connection with my employees and help them. but since there's no natural life or innovation in my job or theirs i don't want to seem contrived or push too hard or make things awkward. i want to come to work and not loathe everyone because of things they said or did once that contributed to my irrelevancy here. i really want to be fulfilled and improve my job and myself with it.

but i don't think my boss deserves good work or even a smile or a kind word, because all those things build up this illusion for and reassure him that everything is fine when it's not. and so much horrible shit has happened to me here. it's like if i try to make things okay and make peace and be industrious i will be saying that i've forgotten or didn't care or that everything that's happened to me here was okay, and it wasn't.

i want that peace and i want comfortable work relationships. more than anything, i want to work hard. but i feel like my boss just wants me to show up and be a robot and not say a word.

my mom and i don't talk about feminism. sometimes it is on the cusp of our conversation, or implied in something we say, but we never really talk about it.

i've been pretty worried about how my mom would take my decisions about my life and my family. we went to lunch together just the two of us and she said she was going to ask me "the dreaded question." it was around the time of kate kelly and i was imagining the worst. but what she wanted to know was if i wanted to have kids but felt like i couldn't/felt trapped/felt upset because i'm working full-time. i made a comment a while back around extended family--i was complaining about something and the punch line was that i needed to provide for my family. i think maybe i was talking about wishing i could quit my job but not being able to. i think it had her worried. but when i told her i was totally fine with it and not quite ready, she was relieved and happy for me.

that was all before i knew i wanted to go to law school. i told dh how worried i was about what my parents would say. they have said harsh words about other women in my family that have worked outside the home and put off having children. i wasn't planning on telling them for a long time, or even after i had applied and if i got in. but we were visiting them recently and even though my dad had gone to bed, the rest of us were sitting around in the living room, talking, waiting for one of my brothers to get home from work at 1:30am. my mom and i were sitting on the floor. we were all so sleepy and happy. my mom told us she was going to bed and to be good but she stayed sitting there. there was a quiet lull and that's when i was into the dim room, 'i'm going to apply to law school.'

'that is a wonderful idea. i am so proud of you. you would be so great at that,' my mom said. and the relief i felt was indescribable. dh was across the floor out of my mom's sight and he gave me a thumbs up under the coffee table.

later on the same trip we were talking about the grandkids that would someday come (my parents don't have any yet). my two brothers next in age are probably both getting married next summer, and we talk about it constantly. my mom was saying how excited she was to see my brothers with their kids and started listing off predictions-- for the youngest of us three, six daughters, since he is a rough and tumble no nonsense man. for my brother just younger than me, five boys, because he is so loving and would do great with a big family. i held my breath and i knew what was coming. i was scared. and for me, she said, "two sons."

i smiled and we both knew that she was, in a way, saying that she understood and accepted me. i can't think of anyone in our extended family or extended extended family that has two kids. we are a family of big families. but i knew then that my mom understood me and that everything was going to be ok, and no one would think poorly of me, when i was ready.

these small moments have been immeasurably healing and reassuring. i can't stop thinking today about how grateful i am for my mom and for our quiet understanding.

i've written and flat out deleted a couple blog posts today which i guess really defeats the point. but there is one thing from this week that i want to remember.

this weekend i found out one of my former employees that i have written a lot about on this blog, along with her husband who also worked for the same department, is getting divorced. they were married around the same time as dh and i but that has virtually no significance to me. this is a pair of people that hit my hate list hard and easily and often. this girl was seriously the bane of my existence for several months. our work drama flowed into my personal life and caused me a lot of problems and depression. and i took a lot of that out here.

when i learned about their divorce i was completely shocked. they lost a baby together and seemed to be really into each other, even if they had really different personalities. this guy had come and personally yelled at me about how i made his wife feel several times. he always seemed overbearing to me (when she was pregnant he would bring her bags of food and tell her what to eat when, except he wasn't really nice about it), but they at least seemed pretty fused together.

something i've been thinking a lot about lately is how when something bad happens to someone, people who never really liked them or were neutral toward them suddenly act like they were friends all along and like they care so much. maybe it makes me coldhearted, but i think this is incredibly fake and maybe part of what makes people in crisis feel even more alone and i don't want to be one of those people, so i'm not going to pretend like i'm torn up for this couple when i frankly didn't think they were really good a good match and i honestly didn't even think her husband was a good person.

but something in me is aching over this. some part of me is so sad. i don't know if it's because dh and i have had our troubles, like anyone, and seeing that a marriage can really be gone that quick was sobering. i don't know if i'm aching for the version of this girl that i once connected with. like, we really used to talk. she really, really listened to me when i needed it a few times. one day when she was newly married she asked me timidly how to brown meat. we were once really vulnerable with each other.

i very consciously put my supervisor relationships over my friendships at work. i work with peers and i'm not a lot of fun. this is first because of my personality and second because the last time i did that things just went so wrong. so this may not be entirely related, but this thing happens in my life where every friend i have ends up being my enemy. this wasn't always true in college (hello lovely ladies reading this) (although it did happen with SEVERAL close college friends) and isn't true now, frankly, because i haven't made new friends after my old ones left. i don't know if it's because i'm so introverted or because i'm lazy or what but i have a really difficult time building and keeping meaningful friendships. most of the time i don't care, or at least i think i don't. i'm a perfect loner and i love my space, but sometimes i also wish i had that talent to look at someone and see the good in them. to look at someone and embrace them completely even if if you sometimes disagree with them. i guess it's not even necessarily that i want a lot of friends because socializing is really terrifying and draining to me. i just wish i was softer, more open, more fun, more trustworthy. as i've come to accept being an introvert, i'm starting to worry that i am just going to have a friendship-less life.

i think there's a dissonance in my life between caring about individual voices and humanity and generosity and then just not being a likable person. does it matter if you're generous if you're not likable? i don't know why i'm depressed about their divorce or why this is all coming out at the same time. maybe it's just that i feel ironically close to their relationship because i watched it all happen and i was so sad a person i was getting along with disappeared right before my eyes.

like, how much more could this not be about me? but it is affecting me so much.

because i was recently division employee of the month, i was asked to fill out a form about myself so they could spotlight me in the newsletter.

my 'interesting thing' was that i had a boyfriend with pink hair in high school.

this is the only thing that didn't make it to print.

woke up feeling pretty good after being so sick yesterday. get ready and immediately feel like i am definitely going to barf. decide, for some ungodly reason, that going in to work is the right thing to do even though my job sucks a.

been at work for 30 seconds, haven't barfed yet, and one of my bosses calls me into his office. he wants me to show him how to rotate his als challenge video. after showing me a bunch of other als challenge videos.

get back to my desk. another coworker wants me to show him how to make two-sided copies for his young men activity tonight.

nope, shouldn't have come to work today.