2:53 PM - Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005
You silly rabbit. Trix are for kids.
All my glands are swollen. You can barely press on my neck or throat and I feel severe pain. And this chair is becoming impossibly uncomfortable the more I sit in it, which only makes me feel as if all my clothes are uncomfortable too. My hands are ice cold... but that still doesn't mean that I'm frigid!!!
I'd take tomorrow off from work, but I need to take my car in for an oil change at 8:30 - and even though I'm justifiably sick, it doesn't matter. If I take off tomorrow, they'll say I took off this entire week. People really do tend to exaggerate things. You do something they see as wrong once or twice, and automatically it records in their brains as if you do it ALL the time. My sisters insisted I take off the Monday after my cat Ashley died. Angie insisted it was okay with Brian and the others at work. When I went to my little luncheon with B&M, I discovered that it's going to be held against me on my record for the rest of the time that I work for this company. Sure, if somebody else lost their companion and took a personal day off, it would be okay. I lose mine and everybody's in a fanatical state. I just can't win at this place.
So what are the pluses to working here? I'll make a list of pros and cons.
Jessica's List of Pros:
1. I get to spend time with my dad, even if it's not quality time.
2. I get monthly bonuses.
3. A lot of the people have known me since I was a kid.
4. I can take off to go to the doctor, dentist, etc. whenever I need to. Refer to Con #5.
Jessica's List of Cons:
1. A lot of the people have known me since I was a kid.
2. Most of the workers prefer to keep their distance because A) I'm related to their bosses, B) they assume I get special privelages, and C) I guess they feel jealous, inferior, and in threat of losing their jobs.
3. I get bored way too easily doing what I have to do.
4. I hate having to do "intern" like work for a bunch of unappreciating individuals every single work day.
5. This will change, however, when we move into the new building. No longer will I have flexible hours. Instead, I'll be the moron who gets trapped between the walls all day while everybody else is allowed to keep the flexibility. I find this extremely unfair, but I'm told this is how it is for all receptionists.
6. I am classified as just a receptionist when my job is MORE than that.
7. There are days when I'm extremely overwhelmed and busy, while there are far more days where I'm extremely bored and lacking mental stimulation.
8. I feel out of control.
9. I'm trapped in a square room without a window in an area of high traffic volume.
10. I have to answer the bloody phone!!!
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As you can see, there are definitely a lot more cons than pros. To a normal person, this would mean that perhaps it's time to look for a new job and find something that one likes to do. For someone like me, however, it means experiencing anxiety and depression to its fullest extent. Why is that? Because no matter how many times I sit down to make out a list of the things I love to do, everything I put down on that list won't bring home the bacon. When I try to figure out what I am good at, the only thing I can place on that particular list is: typing, having a bad attitude towards life, reading, writing, drawing, and organization.
What can one do with their life with these types of skills? I have no clue. College was supposed to prepare me for this. Did it? No. I could move to NYC and become a book editor, but that would mean leaving my spoiled life, my support group (the family), and adventuring into really unknown territory without a penny to my name.
Fear is my worst enemy. Fear of the unknown. Fear of leaving my contentment. Fear of finding myself more alone than what I already am.
People who believe in God often tell me to place my faith in Him. Seeing that I grew up a strong believer in the Catholic faith, I do find myself turning to Him in desperate times. While I know that He can't save me from what I'm up against, I know that He's supposed to help me endure it all. Everything is supposed to turn out okay, because no matter how bad it may get.. it always works out in the end. I try to believe that, but it's not until I am through the crisis I was in before I start to realize that its a true statement.
Have you ever noticed that we Christians refer to God in a submissive manner? It's as if we are the subs and He is the Master. No wonder there are people into the whole S&M (etc.) lifestyle. It's a way for the "Master" to feel as if He is that much closer to being like God.
On my way to work today, the radio station I listen to was talking openly (not graphically, of course) about oral sex and teenagers (ages 13 to 17). One woman called in and said that she doesn't want her to daughter to be sexually active at a young age, but IF her daughter is going to become that intimate with a boy she should reap the benefits too. She should also be pleased and not just do the pleasing.
The DJ's thought hard about this, and it was also discussed that girls do indeed take the more submissive role in sexual relationships. They have a misconception of sex and never learn to value sex for what it is meant to be because they spend the majority of their sexual exploits giving boys oral sex without getting anything in return. Suffice it to say, if you ask a teenage girl why she doesn't demand pleasure in return, she'll respond that she does receive things in return. Her self-esteem goes up because she receives satisfaction in pleasing her partner.
But how do you tell a child that age (let alone many women my age, too) that a boy/man can receive that type of pleasure from anybody, that it's not worth giving him 5 to 10 minutes of pleasure just because you think it makes him value you more? Looking back on my past experiences, I can honestly say that I was naive just like these young girls. I still take on a very submissive and passive role in my sexual and nonsexual life. It's how I was raised. It was the environment I was raised in. Which is really sad for Kansas, given the fact that it was such a liberal and nondiscriminating state just 100 years ago. It's as if the place has been affected by the Bible Belt states, warped into their conservatism over a short period of time. It's a bunch of middle ground individuals who would benefit best from a Democratic standpoint, but they are spear headed into believing they would earn more out of life from the Republican political view just because somewhere along the line, conservative religion began to pull on their strings and yank them more towards that side. I'm not saying I'm Democratic. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Republicans or Kansans. I'm just saying that when you take a lot of working class people and use the religious morals of the conservative party to sway their way of thinking, you are using them to better yourself while hurting them in the long run. Yet, they don't see it that way because they think they are voting for the right people because their so called "right" people use their moral beliefs against them!
And there I go again.. using a ton of words to explain what can be said in very few words.. jumping from one mainstream thought to the next just as it hits my brain. I go from talking about my career to sex to politics and religion. Oh, how our worlds are so affected by these very things.
I could go on an analytical discussion from a sociological viewpoint highlighting how these areas play such a significant part in shaping us as human beings. But I won't. Like I've argued in the past with myself, a lot of the sociological perspective (and often the psychological perspective) is good old common sense. You just have to open up your eyes to your surroundings and take in the things that shape and affect your daily life, realizing that you're really not that different from everybody else in the world. Sure, you may have your own unique flair, but in the end... everybody's a lot like everybody else ---> No matter what part of the world you may live in or come from, and what race and ethnicity you are.
Now.. before I argue with myself from what YOU might be thinking right about now... let me state this: We may not all be the same age, the same color, the same religion, of the same social status or that kind of thing. But we are all human, and by being human.. we all have traits and emotions and structural cultural aspects that make us very similar and less unique. Unless of course you are a serial killer or a psychopath, but I don't consider them to be completely human. You may come from a part of the world that raises you to believe in different rituals and customs, but we're all trying to survive. We're all trying to make it from point A to point B.
Well, I'm tired of ranting. Mostly, I'm tired of stating things and then thinking of ways to refute the things I say, and then feeling as if I have to think up more ways to justify my thoughts and back up my claims.. but then I just think of even more ways to refute them. So all I can say to myself to give myself peace of mind right now is that there are always going to be different ways of looking at things. And no matter which way I choose to look at the world, somebody out there is going to be looking at the same world from a different perspective.
SO I give up now. Plus, it's now 4 PM and I need to get some work done before I leave this square room without a window.
