Friday, January 21, 2011

Thank God This Is Almost Over

I have had a contractor here working on my kitchen.  He is doing good work, but he is an ass.  I have taken to referring to him as Princess Sunshine.  I have had so much fun with him woo boy!  The second day he was here, he showed up two hours late, as he did the first day.  When I mentioned this to him, he said, very insolently, and loudly, in my own damn house "So!"  He then told me that he works for himself and does not have to keep a a schedule and does not have to explain himself to me.  Yeah, he does work for himself, and he does not have to explain himself, but he does need to show up when he says he will, I do not have all day to be at his beck and call.  And I am PAYING him, hello? I called my General Contractor who had a chat with him about the bullshit of that situation.  So, I did not fire him that day.

I am looking for a job.  Well, Princess Sunshine thinks nothing of wandering into the room I use as an office to bother me about something or other and yelling at me while I am on the telephone doing interviews or trying to chat with contacts.  Then when I excuse myself from the phone conversation to tell him I am the phone and not able to talk right now, he gets an attitude and goes and closes himself in the kitchen and makes a lot of noise.  This guy just totally assaults my sensibilities. 

He whined and yelled at me for not shoveling two feet of snow out of my whole driveway.  I usually just do a car length at the end by the road, and park my car there, and then make myself a path to the door.  Life is too short for some things, like shoveling snow that will melt eventually.  So I found myself a plow dude and had the drive way plowed, Mr. Whiny Pouty shutting the fuck up about it was worth the thirty five bucks.  And, seriously who the hell does not wear boots when the state has just been blanketed with two feet of snow?  Asshat!

Princess Sunshine is a slob.  He leaves the seat up and does not wash his hands much.  Apparently, he waits until he comes to my house to take a dump.  I drink 16 glasses of water minimum a day, and this dude is in there more than me.  Geez!  I can live with different hygiene standards, I own Clorox Clean Up.  What really chaps my ass is he bugs me when I am in there.  I do not think he is a creep or a perv, just a clueless twit!  I have taken to leaving my own house all day, that way I can pee without being terrified I will be yelled at by this ding dong because he wants to be in the bathroom.  I have not showered regularly either.  Because he is too special to keep a schedule, I do not know when he will be here, and I do not want to be naked and wet while he is here.  Yuck! 

Last but not least, even though Princess Sunshine says he does not work for me, he thinks I work for him.  I have been to Home Depot or Lowes at least three times each day picking shit up for him.  He refuses to just give me a list of stuff to buy so I can buy it all at once.  He yells at me because he is not specific and I ask questions so I can get the right thing, then he says it is wrong, and I have to go back to the store.  My favorite thing was when he told me I had to fill up his gas tank.  When he originally quoted out the job he said he would pick up the counter tops.  Now, if I were a contractor, and a client said; "I would like to have this that and the other thing done, and can you pick up these materials that are too heavy for me/will not fit in my vehicle?" I would include the time it would take me, and the gas for my car in the consideration of what price to quote.  So, finally he decides I may go to the store to purchase the counter tops, and he will be nice and come with me, but I have to buy him gas, to go 6 miles total.  Suck my non-existent dick!  I say, no.  He tells me I have to buy adhesives, bolts, blah, blah, blah, and he has to go so I get the right stuff.  I say he agreed to pick up the counter tops when he quoted the job, he said "the counter tops are on you!"  I said I will call the GC and see what he says.  I wanted to fire his ass and get him the fuck out of my life, but my GC said he was going to finish the next day, and could I please just let him finish as it would be faster and easier than finding a replacement.  So, I go back home, explain to Princess Sunshine that the GC and I have decided for the sake of expediency to have him finish up rather than find someone else to do it, so he has to tell me what to get.  He tells me, with much yelling, Jesus Christing, and still refuses to be specific.  I go to Home Depot to see my best friends I have been hanging out with all week, and they  hook me up with all the stuff I need and put it in my car, and wish me luck with Princess Sunshine.  He was really put out when I got home, and I had all the right stuff.

Allegedly, he will finish up Sunday.  I told my GC if he does not, I will come get him, the GC, and he and I will finish together on Monday.  I am at the end of my rope with this.  It has been a long two weeks.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Flashback - Written 10/06

Today I was thinking about a dog my family had. We got him, I think, when I was nineteen. He was a really cool dog, a pure bred sheepdog that we got from the dog pound. He had a tattoo on the roof of his mouth and everything. The day I had to put him to sleep was one of the most difficult in my life. I lay down on the floor of the vet’s office, crying uncontrollably, and holding him while he died.

My Mom took the dog everywhere with her, when he was alive I mean, we are not into taxidermy. Eventually it turned out that his previous owner noticed him one day hanging out of the car window when my Mom was heading home from work. The man happened to work for the same big organization as my Mom, and saw the dog in the parking lot that day after work. The dog did not recognize him, but the man was glad to see him happy and healthy with a family who loved him. The man told my Mom when he and his ex wife had split up, in the midst of the divorce, to spite him, his wife refused to let him have the dog she hated, and then abandoned the dog. The man searched all over and cold not find the dog. The nice lady at the dog pound found him just in time, and saved his life. He only weighed forty-two pounds when we got him.

This dog always looked like he was smiling and laughing. He was so funny, and so sweet. I loved him very much. I would lay down on the floor and snuggle with him all the time.

We also had lots of cats, I think we had five then, two were mine, two were brothers from one of the litters of a slutty kitty we once had. We could never get her spayed because we are Catholic, and she was always pregnant when we tried. The fifth cat was one my Dad brought home one day from visiting my sister Syko because he had watched her throw it up against the wall in a drunken rage and dislocate its hip. We were pretty sure the cat also had some kind of dain bramage.

The disabled cat and the sheepdog loved each other. We joked they were interspecies homosexual lovers. They slept together, ate together, and played together. The dog was the only other animal the cat would tolerate, and the dog loved him and took care of him.

We took the dog in the car all the time, people at fast food places always gave him free fries. We often took him to the ice cream store nearby and brought him dishes of ice cream. Kids loved seeing the doggy waiting in line and lots of them loved to pet him and talk to him. He was big, almost one hundred pounds, and we kept his hair short so he looked a lot like Falkor in the Never-ending story. More than once a child was so mesmerized by him that the dog easily succumbed to temptation and helped him self to a dripping cone in the hand of an adoring child, daintily taking a lick. My Dad always brought a new cone for the dog's fan club members.

The dog liked to wander around the house visiting with everyone in the house while we went about our daily business. One day I was sitting upstairs on the floor of my bedroom talking on the phone to the man who was my boyfriend at the time. He and I were the same age and kind of both reluctant to love somebody so much, but hopeless nonetheless. My boyfriend knew about my adoration for the dog, and that I constantly hugged the dog and talked to him. This must have slipped his mind that day. As I sat there talking, the dog wandered in and snuggled his delusionally diminutive self onto my lap and started giving me doggy kisses. I said, "Hello my love muffin, thank you so much for the nice kisses!" And my boyfriend screamed, "HEY! I though I was your love muffin!"

30/1

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself

I have been thinking forever about how to articulate this, and have come up empty, so here goes nothing. 

I am ubiquitously “too sensitive” and it causes me innumerable woe in the world of work. 

My last job was really hard for me, but I learned a lot about dealing with conflict and difficult people constructively, and to try not to take it all so seriously.  I am, however, only human, and it was a rough place to work.  Further, I feel that my own behavior deteriorated, and I sometimes was not the professional self I strive to be. 

So, now that I am laid, layed, whatever, off, I am terrified about getting a new job.  I have no idea how I will handle dealing with all new people, and a new environment.  It really hurts me when people are mean to me.  I know I should “consider the source” and not worry about what other people think.  I think I do not care what other people think, I think I just don’t like being attacked, picked on, belittled, and otherwise aggravated within the confines of my work life because I have to make nice with these clowns.  I do not want to be stressed out, and nervous to go to work. 

I worked on this a lot with my shrink.  What it is for me, this dealing with work related fucktardism, is two things.  Most of my life alleged authority figures were not dependable, often unfair, and usually crazy.  So, dealing with screwy people at work really pushes my buttons.  And, speaking of my buttons, number two;  I just do not want to make an effort and invest the emotional energy with these people.  I have dealt with a lot in my life, and I do not want to waste any of it now dealing with people who drink heaping cups of nasty for breakfast.