It's been a shit day. Spring flipped me the finger, showed me her heels, and went to play silly buggers with some other population, leaving me sitting in the rain and cold. I suppose I should be grateful she was kind enough to stay my weekend, but still. She could have eased us back into winter rather than leaving in the night without so much as a Dear John letter.
Add to this my supervisor calling me into her office to tell me that helping customers actually solve the problems that are making their cell phones a black hole of misery is the wrong thing to do. I should be keeping the calls short instead. I'm sorry. I can't do that. I'm a fixer. This is appreciated only by the numerous customers who lavish praise upon me for actually taking the time and making the effort to solve problems they didn't think could be fixed. My supervisor is unimpressed by their sentiments. She cares about numbers.
You've all been there, I'm sure. Loved by everyone except the one person who holds your career in the hollow of their greedy little hand. If you feel like blowing off steam in the comments regarding same, please feel free.
On top of this, Aunty Flow is late. This does not mean a stay of execution. It means Cousin Pre-Menstrual Syndrome gets an extra week of sleeping on my couch and making me want to slam things. Peri-menopause, I am here to tell you, sucks shit. When you're not bleeding, you're bitchy.
So it's been one of those days wherein lemons abound and there's not enough sugar in the house to make lemonade. The only thing that kept me from beating innocent doorframes to death was the hilarity reported in Discurso.
When I'm upset, I fixate on certain songs. Tonight, there are two. The first is by Dead Can Dance, one of the finest bands in the universe. It's called "American Dreaming," and it's just melancholy yet hopeful enough to match my mood precisely:
I'll be honest with you. When I first stumbled across this song, I almost didn't listen to it, because I was terrified it would be another jingoistic propaganda piece. It's not. And that's very much to my liking.
The second song is Enigma's "Return to Innocence." The older gentleman is singing a Chinese peasant song, and that combined with the soaring female vocals convince even this hormone-ridden sadsack that yes, possibly, things aren't as bad as all that:
And where else can you possibly see a unicorn running backwards?
This song makes me raise my hands, dance, laugh and sing. It makes me want to dance through a rice paddy with a double-fistful of grainy goodness, waving said bunches at the sky and shouting Chinese peasant songs with glee. This will be difficult to accomplish, as I haven't got a rice paddy.
But I have got hope again.
Off with the melancholy. On with the outrage.
Dana, dear, I am thinking of you and wishing you peace, happiness, and lots and lots of ink.
ReplyDeleteI understand your work situation. In education, I feel an obligation to give students the grades they deserve and the grades they've worked for (or not). Unfortunately, the PTB (Powers That Be) can evaluate me based on any criteria they choose at the moment of evaluation, which may include how many "bad" grades my students get.
Sucks, don't it?
When we're both well known full time writers with a few great books on the bookshelves of America, our former employers will be kicking themselves for ever thinking we were anything but stupendous! Ha!
I love you!
p.s. You were too kind to me on your blog--I was just saying what I thought needed to be said.
My supervisor is unimpressed by their sentiments. She cares about numbers.
ReplyDeleteLoved by everyone except the one person who holds your career in the hollow of their greedy little hand.
Ah, you have my sympathies. I'm not going to blow off steam for myself though. Mostly my boss is a decent guy. Sometimes a little blinkered, but generally decent.