I was planning on some feminist blogging...

... instead I spent the time reading about Millenials and Gen Y and Gen X and Gen NEXT and how they lack the tools necessary to integrate into the workplace. Crippled by the "Cinderella Syndrome" and an environment rich in praise, encouragement, and blatant bribery, the workplace is often the exact opposite of what one has been told.

I experienced this in in the microcosm of Persia Market, and upon greater reflection, when I worked as a tour guide and English instructor for the two Turkish men about a year ago, and further into the past, at CLV. In all three cases though, the added excitement and communication woes stemmed from not just intra-generational struggles but also international minds conflicts. Whether one is working for Turks, Iranians, or Europeans of all stripes, there are major points of dispute that are only exacerbated by being young and inexperienced.

What has caused trouble for me in the past is that I will tolerate a frustrating situation and its many slights and fight to communicate effectively for only so long. Then, like the proverbial donkey's back, I snap. This snap often includes me at my worst, argumentative, speaking in what is considered an "angry" tone of voice, and a refusal to deny that my concerns or ideas are important.

What works at jobs such as the coffeeshop has been my ability to effectively communicate with my managers, and also the fact that they are receptive to my ideas and suggestions and often ask for them. At my food service and service industry jobs I found people interested in my perspective and ideas for improvements and changes. That is exactly what I want professionally, and I cringe at the thought that it is hard to find within a standard job environment.

Admittedly, I do have the most experience when it comes to service industry jobs, therefore my opinions have a greater relevancy. When teaching English and traveling though, [both things at which I might have a bit of experience] I was surprised to find myself countermanded ["You can say do sports" "No, actually, as a native English speaker, I can assure you that one plays sports"], as well as insulted.

I'm considered a bright cookie, and have been told so by peers, family, friends and employers in the past. I have a lot to learn, but that is okay. I think anyone in his or her twenties has a lot to learn yet and anyone who thinks otherwise has a weak grasp of reality.

Persia Market was the worst experience becuase even to the outsider it is spledidly mismanaged, and to have my ideas of ways to help customers help themselves and even the concept of inventories entirely shunned was frustrating. I hate to see something limping along brokenly when with just a small amount of effort, it can glide effortlessly along. It is actively painful to me to see a job half-done, work done that is far below par, or sheer laziness compromising the final result.

That was the situation when I quit my first job ever, when I was assistant cooking for CLV. I had been trained within the organization for five years; I knew the ropes and how to handle all sorts of situations. It was terribly frustrating to see a poor product being served, and to not have the authority necessary to improve any of the problems. Laziness and lack of effort was rampant, which tripled my workload.

I was told I "handled stress poorly" and that was the root of the problem. Not the lack of effort of other employees, not mismanagement from the top, not the failures in ordering and planning that were wreaking havoc throughout the kitchen. No, the problem was rooted in me. I was relieved when, after my departure, the entire place fell to pieces to such an extent that even the most oblivious counselors and staff members noticed that there was a serious problem.

Regrettably, that one outburst, that immediate departure [in spite of work two separate years afterword without any major or minor incident] has forever ended my possibilities with a CLV career. My file is red-flagged and I've lost the trust of the people in charge of hiring. The woman who mismanaged the kitchen into the ground has been promoted multiple times and reportedly still does the same amount of nothing. Her failings enabled her to continue to move upward, which flabbergasts me whenever I think about it.

I work hard to understand multiple perspectives, but a worldview wherein mediocre is okay and effort is considered nonessential is something that I don't tolerate well or at all. I would love to find a workplace where my work ethic and abilities are appreciated [one with more upward mobility than head barista, that is]. My current boss told me when I was job hunting that I didn't have "a lazy bone in [my] body" which I appreciated, also the fact that he offered to mention this in any referrals.

I don't understand how apathy and "good enough" function, but it is apparent that most of the world runs well like that. I have such a low tolerance for that kind of behavior and attitude that I'll need to look harder for a workplace that suits who and what I am, so that I don't have as much difficulty integrating.

I honestly believe that there are jobs out there that are looking for someone just like me, with my unique skill set and drive. I'll tuck that belief into my pocket and work towards it. That will have to suffice for now.

Back to work...

Definitely worse than back to school. With school, one knows when the next vacation day is coming; one can make plans, one can travel. With work? There may be no days off. There may be no vacations. There is just more work, endless and forthcoming. I have coffee shop work in the mornings and early afternoons during the week and pizza parlor work in the evenings on the weekends. It's as if I never lost a job; a week of frivolity [if moving and gypsy-ing can be considered frivolity], then over. I dropped into a publishing house's open house yesterday and yakked it up with all the important people; their benefits package is beautiful.

Now I get to wait. Wait and wait and wait and hope and follow up and wait and wait and wait.

Next raw foods adventure: flax seed crackers! I have a dehydrator, I have flax seeds, now I just need to get soaking and shaping and all those good things.

Current feminist-education reading: bell hooks.

Current residence: next door to the future residence! [Silent, oh, because it's sandwiched in between the train tracks and the cemetary.] It is a nice neighborhood; birds singing, cats prowling.

The kitten might be named [per Suzy's suggestions]: idiot dragon, in Japanese, Bakaryuji. As he climbs up trees and gets stuck, regularly, repeatedly, it makes perfect sense. No, it's not my kitten, it is the kitten I am housesitting.

pretty girl hate

Saw Mirah, with Laura Veirs and the local the Delicious opening last night. The Delicious drummer, Ben Fowler, went to high school where I did and dated a dear friend of mine; I was his first newspaper interview when he was with a band known as Cardboard. He still acknowledges me, even though he's an indie scene big name drummer boy, it warms the cockles of my heart!

I was worried she was going to do all new stuff, but the second half of the concert was all Advisory Committee, the soundtrack of my past year, the love of my musical life. Scott came along and we had a lovely time, surrounded by so much hipster you could choke on it. Everyone was cute and young and that made the whole event so surreal. They were second-gen hipsters, as in I recognized almost no one and a 19-year-old friend recognized everyone. I felt old.

I'd like to note that I don't like Laura Veirs and I feel bad about that. I also didn't pre-listen anything, but for her to follow the Delicious wasn't exactly a good choice. Mirah played a Katrina song with the line, "out to the Gulf of Mexico, where the souls of all the poor folks go" which was poignant and beautiful. "It's not your fault, Pontchartrain," she sang, "It's not your fault, levee-break," and the song was elegant and political and exactly what I love in singer/songwriter goodness.

She also isn't usually political at all; but I like her anyways, which is unusual enough. I was surprised to learn she was an indie darling; I'd received a song of hers, Light the Match, on a mix-cd second hand in '04, and finally got around to purchasing Advisory Committee last spring. I listened to it non-stop since and need to scrape together funds for more albums. I was so happy that she came to the Buskirk Chumley and that she was affordable. It made my week a lot brighter, although I was impatient and bad at waiting; I never go see 'big name' shows, I haven't in years; I'm used to very bad and sometimes decent basement bands that I wasn't excited about anyway.

There was a girl sitting in front of my at one point that filled me with more pretty girl hate than I'd had in years; she kept artfully tousling her peroxide blond/dark brown streaked hair, with big chandelier earrings and a white-spaghetti-strap dress/shirt. She was that perfect amber blonde tan, with big eyes and elegant makeup and I hated every minute of looking past her perfect shoulders. I've been feeling pretty lately, and I hate to be so shut down; it didn't help that I'd come almost straight from job interviewing and looked 100 percent bland in professional dove grey pinstriped paints, a black tank and an Express going-interviewing-button-down shirt that Brett once called my Dilbert shirt.

I kept wanting her to say something dreadfully stupid or pick her nose or reveal a truly horrific tattoo choice, but no! She remained beautifully untouchable all night long. It was a shame.

Plotting, planning, the world turns and it all changes again.

So, the post Persia-Market life. I had been planning on spending the better part of a year at that job; I liked it, it suited me. It made me think about going back to school as a botanist or a naturopath or a homeopath. It invested me with a desire to help people heal themselves through good food and wholesome green growing things. It connected me to like-minded people who believed that there are other paths to health than through the medico-pharma-complex. I don't want to lose that; I want to actively read and learn and grow and make my own decoctions and have a four-seasons herb garden to cultivate and love as a path to tastier food and healthier lifestyle.

This leads me to think seriously about that GRE grad-school application business; if I start working now, I could be going to school next-next fall. [Fall 2008] and by then I think I'll be ready to be a student again; if nothing else so that I can perhaps qualify for more highly paid work post-Masters. I'd still be looking at combining politics, developing worlds, women's/gender studies, and French into some thesis.

I could also or perhaps concurrently [with the applications process] take coursework for a teacher's certificate or a translator's certificate. Both require an amount of work that wouldn't be too prohibitive on top of a 40 to 50 hour workweek with the weekends off. My rent and utilities will both be substantially less, and I won't have endless health-care-bills to pay off or an allergist to do homage to or pharmaceuticals to purchase to the tune of $150 a month.

I just need to make my brainpower more expensive to hire; I'd like to make more than 6 or 7 or 4 plus tips dollars per hour. Hell, $10/hour would be... so lovely! I'd also like to work for an employer where innovation and new ideas and hard work are actually valued, as opposed to despised. It's hard to work to the tune of my Protestant work ethic and have that be derided, as it is as much in my bloodstream as leftist politics or organic foods.

For the time being though, it is life as a career-barista and a philosopher-writer-waitress; not such a horrible thing, moreso the problem that it is disappointing to my family and doesn't include health insurance. They'll just have to settle for being disappointed and dream of the day I have health insurance and a 401k. I was looking forward to talking about Persia-Market work over the holidays though, to be able to actively join in these adult discussions of work place politics and bosses and more efficient ways to do x or y or z. Now I'm back to analyzing tactics to achieve good cappuccino foam with my mother. It's hard to be a grown up but not where my family is involved; pour me another martini, Uncle Terry, because Christmas is better with them than without.

Well, I seem to have mislaid my job...

which suits me, cause I just mislaid my apartment too. And my cats. So I'm like a free creature; no utility bills, no rent to pay, no cats to feed [just cats to visit], all I need crammed into the tiny teeny 2-door Honda. It feels like flying to France with no cell phone and that one huge suitcase.

It seems that I'll be back to being a barista and a waitress/pizza girl, both of which pay better, include better co-workers, and are run by competent bosses; heaven forfend! My family may cry, but I'm sure I'll survive; if nothing else, I'll be well caffeinated.

I'd be angry; but I just can't care about the worst work environment I've ever experienced; I've never worked so much, so hard, gotten so ill, so many times, from overwork and stress job related. Done, with that. Rather done; I'll miss my coworkers, but I hang out with them after work all the time anyway now, and they're a bit hip as to why I quit. As in, they might still think I'm crazy, but they don't mind.

It does bother me that someone wasted energy and karma making me out to be a raging bitch; though I do have that capacity, I was never like that at work. As B. said, "Don't worry about it; karma rebounds three-fold" so therefore his lies [eternal!] and snitty catty-ness and backstabbiness will be returned to him, many times over.

"Smile pretty and watch your back" Ani says, and it remains true; I'd like to trust coworkers, friends, people I like to have a beer with; but at the end of the say we're selfish, self-promoting bastards who look our for ourselves first and everyone else last. Bless our hearts.

Scott and Chris, my family and Angela, all get points and shout outs for helping the moving process; apparently I'm allowed to hobo it out at Angela's [sweet!]. No shout outs to the current tenants of my future house, who won't bloody move out so that I can move in.

I need to find a new hook up for Three Kings hookah coals; the shit they sell at the head shop on the same block as my old place just isn't cutting it. [They're from H0lland!]

Mirah's in town next Wednesday and I have my ticket -- but it is up for grabs; because apparently they need ushers. Score. Who's coming to see Mirah with me? The Delicious and Laura Veirs are opening for her.

Packing, Nostalgia, Leaving it all Behind...

This is the first time in a long time that I've lived in one place and not moved all of my wordly posessions multiple times in a single calendar or school year. When I was young, this process happened regularly, an average of once every 3-4 years. So, this moving thing, I have lots of practice, I can wedge all sorts of housewares into boxes, I know how to resist the temptation to place disparate things in boxes just because they fit and how to carefully cushion breakables such that they don't. I have a fine grasp of what is worth chucking and what evokes chuckles and fond or painful memories.

I do keep a lot of stuff around [quote points, can you guess it?] specifically and particularly small slips of paper; phone numbers, quotes, recipes handwritten, bits of art or clippings. Also, all the snail mail I've ever received, postcards and birthday cards; if you've mailed it to me, I still have it. I like the permenance of it; even if I've come to hate someone I will always, always, have that first slip of paper on which his or her phone number or e-mail was jotted down for me. I like to revel in the handwriting, where we were when it was written, what pockets and wallets and corners and books its been shoved into since.

The other traumatic thing is the absolutely unbelieveable quantity of food and cooking implements I posess. Emptying my kitchen cabinets is a nightmare; one that I'm currently working on. Its doubly hard and much like packing the bathroom; there's no knowing when I'll feel inspired to steam dumplings and need the bamboo-steaming-device. Or perhaps that I'll feel a dire need to crush instead of chop garlic and need the garlic press. I left out the rasp/lemon zester/tool-thing for just this reason; to need lemon zest and not have the device, oh the horror! I believe that the illustrious cataplum has a similar problem when packing his kitchen.

Books are so nice and easy to pack; perhaps that is why I have acquired so many. They don't break, they're in helpful shapes, and many types of boxes can accomodate them. The heaviness of them I will regret in about a week, but that can't be helped. Anyone doing anything July 8, 9, 10, 11? I could use your muscles, in a bad way.

My house is a maze of boxes; the cats are reasonably distressed. Any cozy feng-shui is ruined, shattered, by these tottering walls and castle ramparts crafted from carefully though seemingly haphazard stacks. I just know I've locked something in a box that I'll direly need in about two days' time. I didn't label them; why bother? I live in a studio now, though I'm moving to a one bedroom the suburban labeling "basement. kitchen. living room. upstairs closet. kids room." seems so superfluous. If I can't find it within two days of unpacking, it obviously wasn't that important anyway.

I like the vast quantities of negative energy that I'll be leaving behind in this house; the mold-spore ridden air and the cigarette-smoke-ridden plaster walls, the sloping floor, the plumbing on the fritz, the wiring and circuitry precariously dangerous, the flooding and pooling and watery joy of each and every rainstorm. I'll miss the porch, my neighbors, the porch, the back yard that isn't mine, the porch, the nice driveway parking spot, the porch and maybe sometimes the water pressure and copious quantities of hot water.

I look forward to the catdoor in the basement, having a basement for storage, having a living room and a dining space, having my own bedroom with a door, a bathtub, the permission to garden freely in the yard, the ability to actually host guests and have a couch, to possibility of separating all the minutiae of my personal life from public space. [Interested in my electric bill? It's hanging from the bathroom door, along with my bank statements.] Also the fact that it is in great repair and far from busy streets; the cat-children will be quite happy with that. There will also be the illustrious Don Gato and his new baby kitten to play with on a regular basis.

I have more boxes to fill; this exercise in not writing about what is actually on my mind isn't precisely a waste of words, but lacks the poetry of this slow progression into adulthood of actually having a house that my parents can visit, heaven forfend, where I could actually host a family party, god forbid, where I could have friends over to dinner and not seat them on my bed, to have doors! and partitions! so that I can foster cats from the shelter. It's exciting and terrifying; I need a room mate and don't have one; my one awesome possibility is copping out on me [she's too broke] and now I need to start looking again.

Maybe I'll make a flier: Love cats? Love food? Love books? Live with all three and me on the near West side! Or perhaps: If living with a forever full fridge, cute kitties, and a library constantly expanding interests you, please contact... Maybe even: Vodka and rice cream in the freezer; garden in back and kitties on the porch. Maybe we should be room mates.