Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
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Newton, CT School Shooting

the outside lane

News reports are coming out about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newton, Connecticut.  As I type, there are 27 believed dead, and 10 of those are believed to be children.  I know it is half a country away, but what I want to do right now is go get my child and duct tape him to my back.  Then, anyone would literally have to come through me to get to him.

My heart goes out to the families of all involved in this tragedy.  My heart goes out to the students, the teachers, and the staff.  To the law enforcement agents who will have to deal with the scene and aftermath.  To the personnel who will be working with those little bodies.  To the community at large.

Columbine was horrific.  This is an elementary school, so the tragedy seems heightened.

No matter how appealing it sounds to me right now, I won’t cut holes in a duffle bag and wear Thor like a backpack for the rest of his childhood because you can neither understand, nor prepare for crazy.  All you can do is squeeze the best out of every day, tell your kids EVERY DAY how much you love them, how proud of them you are, and how privileged you are to know them, and back it up with your actions.  Then, no matter what happens to whom, their little hearts are sure and solid.

There is a peace that passes understanding, and I pray that for everyone involved.

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That Nasty Honeybadger

the outside lane

In what should have been my senior year in college, I was standing in line to get a replacement Student ID. I’d had a miserable couple of months and not a good day. My parents had recently split up, I’d had a huge personal trauma, the uni had just cancelled the two classes I needed to graduate (lack of interest?!), and I had just left the Student Aid office, where I had been told that my financial aid was being cut off because I had to add another year to my plan in order to graduate and I would have accumulated too many semester hours without graduating for aid to continue. It was a frustrating, bad day, and by the time I got up to the point in line to have my picture taken, I had turned into a Honeybadger.

I don’t remember what set me off, but something the beleaguered student worker did was just exactly the wrong thing to do to me right then, and I popped off at her pretty rudely. My anger carried me out to my car, and off to work, but by the time I was in my office, I was feeling terrible about it. It was Service Industry Worker guilt.

So, I called the Registrar’s office at the uni, got the number to the room where they did IDs, called them and narrowed down the employees to the worker I felt I had insulted. When she was on the phone, I apologized profusely. I was absolutely ashamed of myself, and I would have loved to have a redo. Fortunately, she was gracious and accepted my apology. She probably forgot about it a day later. I’m 21 years down the road (the age I was when it happened, actually), and I still cringe when I think of it.

I started working in the service industry when I was 16 and had a job at Six Flags Over Texas, first in a burger stand, then in catering. You learn pretty quickly how nasty a creature the Human Being can be. Honeybadger’s got nothing on an angry mother of four, who is wrangling her kids and their friends in 103 degree heat. You want to lose some hide? Accidentally give her the wrong amount of change back.

Through high school, I worked either as a waitress or in retail sales. I went into banking in college, and did a stint in telemarketing for the university alumni association as a second job. I naively believed that if I were calling university alumni, I would be better received than that time (in high school) when I did telemarketing for a political campaign. Ha!

By the time I was halfway through college, I was a Dealing with the Public veteran. But you know what? You never get used to being used as a punching bag.

I still work in a retail service industry. I still get yelled at for things that are beyond my control. I still have people threaten to have me fired because I can’t satisfy their desires. I get called names, have the legitimacy of my paternity, and my virtue questioned–the best, most recent one of those was a man, who loudly proclaimed, “Just look at the color of her hair! A blonde like that? You know she gets around. SHE GETS AROUND!” And, I still get phone calls from people later saying, “I am so sorry. It wasn’t you. I had a bad day, and–I am just so sorry.”*

The apologies are appreciated, but it would be so much nicer if people would think before attacking. I’m a lot likelier to confront someone being ugly to a worker, than to confront a worker. That’s what turns me into a Honeybadger in Line these days.

*The man who thought I got around never called to apologize.

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12.12.12

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It has to be an auspicious date, given that it is the last repetitive calendar date we’ll see for a while.  Likely, it is the last repetitive calendar date I will see..  How will the world have changed when 12/12/2112 rolls around?  What will maps look like?  How will people get around?  What forms of communication will people use?

Auspicious is what you make of it.  I’m not superstitious.  I believe luck is made through lifestyle, so I don’t expect good or ill to befall me because of cats, ladders, or salt–although, there was that one time when a black cat not only crossed my path as I pulled into a parking space, but then walked around the side of my car and GOT INTO IT WITH ME.  It was my first day on a new job, and I probably should have taken that for the omen it turned out to be. 

I do believe in backwoods magic, though.  If only because I’m sure it can all be explained by science, just no one can get the Fire or Wart Talker to talk to them, so no one can study how their voodoo works.  At the most general, we can explain it through the placebo effect.  You can be a skeptic (like me) and still acknowledge that things happen.  You don’t need to know the why to know the has.

Those are my deep thoughts for the day.

If I live to see 2/2/2102, I’ll update you on Fire Talkers.

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Down and Out

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I was unemployed twice in 2009.  I had a six week spell between a layoff and finding a job, and then went nearly nine weeks between leaving that job and finding another.  I think once you’ve been unemployed, you live with that fear breathing down  your neck.  I do, anyway.  I am constantly terrified of making a mistake because I know what that mistake could cost me–cost my family.  If it was just me, I wouldn’t be so worried, but that kid likes to eat.

Gawker has been running a series of stories from the unemployed and under-employed.  Like me, a lot of the writers express shock and disbelief at finding themselves out of work.  They had jobs they thought came with security, and believed that with their educations and experience, if they lost a job, they’d be able to find one quickly.  One writer put into words a side-effect I experienced during my second stint at job hunting:

But the material losses weren’t the hardest. In less than ten months I experienced the complete eradication of everything I’d worked for in my career, along with my confidence, my dignity, my identity, my optimism, and any hope I had for the future. I started tanking my (elusive) job interviews. The pressure of knowing the opinion of a perfect stranger was the deciding factor in whether or not my life improves dramatically or just keeps careening off the rails began to manifest as overly self-deprecating humor and compulsive joke telling. I used to be great at interviews, confident and easygoing, suddenly I’m Rodney Dangerfield. Except I wasn’t funny. I was raw and desperate and completely gutted, and now I can add makes other people feel uncomfortable to a growing list of unemployment side-effects.

It didn’t even take me ten months to get there.  I went to one job interview where I was perfectly qualified.  I made it through the first round and was asked to stay to talk to the hiring manager.  By the time I got to see him, I was fighting tears and started overcompensating with–ugh–okay, the front desk girl joked with me that they called this man Big Poppa.  I actually threw that into part of my interview.  I knew when it was coming out of my mouth that it was horrifying and wrong, but he had just asked me why I wanted a job with his company and the other option was for me to burst into tears and tell him why I had really just left the last job, and how afraid I was that I would never work again because because because.  Instead I said I found the company interesting, and I liked how the office called him Big Poppa.  His face…horrible.  Then, I did go sit in my car and cry.  I still had to go home and try to be positive about my prospects.

P.S., I did not get that job.

I think the Gawker series is important because it reminds us that not everyone unemployed is there because they are voluntarily unemployable.  There are millions of stories out there right now, and most of them are worse than mine.  I did find work.  Yes, I started at the very bottom again, but I found a job with a company I really like, and I’m slowly working my way back up the ladder.  I have a working partner who is excellent at managing our finances.  I have two parents and a set of in-laws who would have made room for us in their homes–we would never have been homeless.  I remind myself that while I may have lost a huge chunk of pride, and I could have lost a lot more of that, I was never in any danger of losing a place to sleep, or of a way to feed my family.

Bottom line, I suppose, is that I’m preaching compassion again.

Taxes are probably about to go up, and that means we’ll all be tightening our belts.  Keep an eye out for people whose belts aren’t even keeping their pants up anymore.  Let’s help each other where we can, even if it is just through sheer consideration without condemnation.  You never know.

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Monday

the outside lane

Tis feeling like the Season, finally.  We woke up to temperatures in the 20s this morning, and a dusting of snow on our rooftops and car hoods.  My yard flamingo had a patch of platinum “hair” on his head.  I should have taken a picture, but I am killing all my FB friendships with over-sharing photos as it is.

I am the person who is always grabbing the camera.  I know there is a school of thought that we should spend less time documenting moments, and more time enjoying them, but I find that I am fully able to multi-task, which leaves me with mementos to enjoy for years to come.  How Baby Thor looked in a grocery basket?  I wouldn’t necessarily remember the exact fit.  What B looked like the night we met?  That I could have told you, but it’s nice to have record of it.  My mom sharing a milkshake with my son?  My dad cooing to him?  My grandmother holding him on her lap?  Those candid moments are priceless to me, and I would photograph them again and again.  I would take more pictures.  I am the photographer of My Life magazine, and I am awesome.

I sat through a viewing of Mean Girls, last night.  It was showing on MTV, and I will always stop and watch that like I will always stop and watch The Breakfast Club.  Once again I looked at Lindsay Lohan and thought, “Where did you go?”  It made me think about the families of the Cowboys’ Jerry Brown and Josh Brent.  I thought about all kinds of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and children who are without someone they love very much because of poor choices with alcohol and drugs. 

Be careful out there, Friends.  Don’t drink and drive.  Don’t get into a car with someone who is drinking.  Drive especially defensively this time of year, watching out for the people whose judgment has turned them into vehicular weapons of mass destruction.