Pollyana Says...

One of our customer service people quit from a division that is "over-worked." By over-worked, I mean that in order to get a full-day's work done, the people in that division have show up to work within half an hour of starting time and limit their socializing to half-hour blocks of time.

It was decided that the customer service person, we'll call her Buffy, would not be replaced, and I was charged with the task of finding out how to spread the work out among the other five customer service people.

Now, you have to understand my perspective. When I was doing all of the transactional work in human resources, I supported four hundred employees, processing payroll paperwork, insurance claims, conducting orientations and doing most of the recruiting for twelve dialysis clinics. I did this for three years and never put in a minute's worth of overtime. When I left they hired three people to replace me.

Since that time, I've won two service awards. The first was in creating and implementing a performance management system for two hundred HR managers who did not want to do performance evaluations, and thought they knew more than I did; the second was to receive an award for service in my cafe -- the one I took over in an effort to keep it from being closed and ultimately increased its capacity by two hundred percent -- all with no advertising or major staff changes.

You could say I know a thing or two about customer service and efficiency.

I can't go into specifics about the company where I currently work, but suffice it to say it's in a very competitive and specialized industry. Also, the company where I work has been dying a slow economic death for the last seven years, in large part because of the way they do business. A new management team was brought in to improve things.

So, it will come as no surprise that every suggestion for change is met with, "Well, in our business you can't do that because..." The phrase is followed by a laundry list of reasons and potential Armaggedon scenarios, and the person who makes the suggestion is made to feel like a complete imbecile and un-Christian for even suggesting a change in the way they've always done it.

So, I've met with the remaining five customer service people and gotten a list of their duties. Then I met with the people for whom Buffy's clients. No one will believe me, but Buffy wasn't all that busy, and no one seems to get the concept that a job might have taken half an hour because there was a half an hour in which to do the job.

I'm such a radical!

But what I'm discovering is something new about myself. Throughout my life, I've been in make-it-work situations. You know, situations in which you either make it work, or you don't. And if you don't you might not have a roof over your head or food on the table. Those kinds of situations. And I have found that in every one of those situations, if I ever took the tack that I couldn't make the situation work, it wouldn't work. Yes, I've had a number of failures in situations where I was certain of success; but I've never had a success when I was certain of failure.

Another One Bites the Dust

Cindy Sheehan has decided to what appears to be the American thing to do and put her life first. After two years of service to the American public, and the loss of her son, I think she's entitled to do just that. While I think it is probably the right thing for her to do personally, I'm deeply saddened by two things. First, that there is no one really to take up her cause, and second that after two years she's not retiring because the job is done, but because she's become so disheartened with the apathetic American public that she feels as a society we're beyond redemption. She's given up.

This is what it means to lose a war. I believe that Al-Quaida's goal is not military domination or even the annihilation of the American people. Their goal is simply to break the American spirit. At the heart of the American spirit is the cherished responsibility to challenge authority, to stand up for beliefs, and to work to affect change. Cindy Sheehan will no longer be doing that.

There have been nearly 3,500 American deaths in Iraq, but Cindy Sheehan is the casualty that really signals the loss of the war. The George Bushes aren't Al-Quaida's enemy. They are Al-Quaida's play things. Al-Quaida is smart enough to know that they can't change the George Bushes, but they can control them. Bush and his ilk are as predictable as the sun. Al-Quaida knows how to provoke George Bush. The Republican party has shown the way to condition the American public to knee-jerk respond to specific stimuli and were too mesmerized or too lazy to control that response.

The Cindy Sheehans are the ones that Al-Quaida should fear. They have the guts to stand up for their beliefs, even when those beliefs may not be popular. They demand to be counted. That is the American spirit and today we had another crack in it.

Memorial Day

I have a paper due tomorrow, analyzing my professor's single-most significant literary achievement. I've read -- or more accurately, waded -- through the "tome," but I just cannot get myself to sit down and commit my comments to paper. All that keeps running through my mind is, "Give me the damn diploma already!"

While reading the book, great ideas for short stories kept running through my head, and I found myself resenting having to spend my time reading a marginally interesting book, when I could be writing marginally interesting short works. I completed the second half of the book while spending time at my little coffee shop, sitting outside and enjoying the most perfect of perfect days. I know that if I'd had my laptop with me, or a pencil -- heck, chalk -- I'd have started putting a story together. As it was, I tried to continue reading while keeping details in my head. I've jotted a few notes, but what is clear is that my first major project will be a collection of short fiction. I have enough drafts and pieces that can be re-written that I should be able to assemble a coherent collection with at least a vague theme. I'm not really going to give myself a deadline, but I'm thinking it should be complete by Labor Day.

So, while I was reading and clinging to mental details for my story, I was also returning to my thoughts of Rosie O'Donnell. These thoughts, of course, lead to the war. And as I sat in my little sidewalk cafe, reading a nearly completely spurious book, I became very sad at the realization that on the other side of the planet there were young men and women who were dying, believing that their deaths allowed me to enjoy my perfect Sunday afternoon. Whether that is actually the case or not I cannot say. I can, however, ask the question, why do I deserve this? Do any of us?

And with this unprecedented ease, comfort, and privilege, what do we do? One of my favorite periods in history is the French Revolution. As a child, one of the first books I read cover to cover was a biography of Marie Antoinette. I remember being taken by the description of her little charades as a shepherdess and the little village she'd had built at Versailles. When I went to Paris, I took the train to Versailles just to see that village. It still stands, miniature two-story buildings that are hollow. There's nothing in them.

This is Memorial Day, a time when we remember and honor those who gave their lives -- Gave. Their. Lives. -- so that we could live ours. I find myself haunted by the question, can I do something worthy of such a sacrifice? Is enjoying a glass of ice tea on a Sunday afternoon enough?

The knee-jerk, nihilistic answer is no. But then I have to examine that answer, challenge it. What if that is enough? What if it is?

Viewing a Dream

I honestly don't know why I'm so effected by this dust up on The View. I respect Rosie O'Donnell, but I'm not a rabid fan. If I'm home during a weekday and there is absolutely nothing to do, I might flip on The View for a few minutes at the beginning to listen to them discuss current events, but I don't think I saw one session while Rosie's was on the show.

Still, I'm bothered by the clip that I've posted. I even dreamed about it last night. The dream wasn't about Rosie and Elisabeth. I was in a class, an art composition class, that was being taught by a young man and there were two other students, twins who looked an awful lot like Alicia Silverstone. Anyway, the teacher started talking about painting composition. I don't remember the substance of the discussion, but I remember thinking that the guy didn't know what he was talking about. I asked a question, trying to get a grip on his perspective because it was so radically different from mine, and it was clear that the twin sitting next to him thought my question was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard. She didn't say anything, but she looked down at the table, smirking. Her sister on the other hand appeared to be following the conversation. The teacher didn't appreciate the question, either because he couldn't answer it or because he too thought it was stupid. So, he brushed it off.

I did not appreciate that. At this point the dream became very clear. I asked the professor who his supervisor was.

"Dr. Barber."

"And, isn't your name Barber?"

"Yes."

"Interesting."

Then the dream refocused back to that fuzzy area where I could kind of see what was going on, but hear nothing. The teacher tried to set up a composition for painting, and even with my limited knowledge I could see that it was bad. The smirking twin was intent on the lecture, but her sister could also see that the class was worthless. I decided the class wasn't for me and I left.

I find that clip very interesting, because in it I see the tyranny of the nice. Elisabeth is the nice, sweet, all-American little mom, and to quote Rosie, she's the 'big, fat, loud, lesbian.' From the clip, I get that behind the scenes there was never a moment when Elisabeth came up to Rosie and said, "I know the media is being hard on you, and that we don't politically agree, but I want you to know that I still think you're a good person." Instead, she said nothing.

Make no mistake: that little dust up was more about personal issues between those two women than it was about politics. What I find interesting is the passive-aggressive position that Hasselbeck takes.

Because I've been in similar positions as Rosie, I really feel for her. One of the reasons I've taken up writing is because it requires a thoughtful selection of words. I experienced it at work recently. A person took part of what I said, dismissed the rest, and whipped up a whole drama in which I was "vicimizing" her. Fortunately, I have a handbook that pretty much dictates how I handle situations and it was very clear in short order that this woman was playing games.

That's what I see with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. She waited for the moment when Rosie would string three or four words together that could be taken out of context and then she sprang. The problem then is that either with, or without her knowlege, Hasselbeck had a conservative media machine taking those words and recontextualizing them in order to create a "Baghdad Rose" out of Rosie O'Donnell. And instead of recognizing it as a smear campaign, it appears that Hasselbeck bought into it, without examining the agenda behind it.

This little situation is going to haunt me for a while.

A Grim View

Rosie O'Donnell resigned from The View today, three weeks before the expiration of her contract.

Regardless of whether you happen to share Rosie's political views, (and I do) you must concede that in an era where public statements by celebrities (including politicians, who today are little more than celebrities) are either vapid or vetted by spin doctors, Ms. O'Donnell demonstrated the essence of the American spirit by speaking her mind. When I heard her point of view, I was sure that Rosie had done her own legwork in forming that position. She'd done the reading and she articulated her own thoughts. She was not basing her statements on information she was fed by handlers or propaganda cycled through a media machine from a defensive administration.

There will be those who will castigate Rosie for being too emotional and for losing her nerve, but I think that's an unfair assessment of the situation. Ms. O'Donnell never asked to be the lone voice howling in this war-mongering maelstrom. She should be a single voice in a chorus demanding action from the American public and government to 1) end this war, and 2) punish those who initiated, mismanaged, and ultimately lost this war. Instead she was confronted with a blond Cupie doll who could posture as a victim every time the logic of her borrowed points of view were challenged. America will succumb to the tyranny of the weak, or those who adopt the appearance of the weak every time.

Rosie, is loud and abrasive, but she's also an American and what we've witnessed today is the result of a relentless passive-aggressive attack from the political right in this country to silence a popular critic.

Rosie O'Donnell will not be last to be silenced, but I hope America wakes up before the all the voices of dissent are eliminated. We don't have that many left.

Awareness

Dedicated readers of Ham Salad know that I have never posted a video clip before, but I thought this exchange was very important.

Joy Behar's statements at the beginning of the clip are really the reason to watch this, and Rosie O'Donnell lets her speak. It's when Elisabeth Hasselbeck tries to define the war that things go wrong.

Here's an idea: What if they all were right?

Here's another idea: What if the reason we're in a war in Iraq is because we allowed it?

No one seems to remember that the U.N. Peacekeepers were inspecting Iraq and were saying that there was no evidence of WMD's. And while it's true that we're there now and we need to focus on getting out, it can NEVER be forgotten how we got there.

That said, one the one hand, as much as I oppose the war, I think it is a mistake to publish a timetable for leaving Iraq. On the other hand, war is escalating in the Middle East. If we don't get out of Iraq soon, we will be driven out by a war with Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and all of the other countries over there who want to preempt a U.S. invasion. Given our conduct and rationale for this war, they would have every right to do just that. We cannot win a multi-front war on the other side of the planet, and we'll have no allies. We will go it alone. We will have to institute a draft. We will be incredibly vulnerable to domestic attacks. And I believe that if this happens during this administration, we will feel justified in using nuclear weapons. If that happens, all bets are off.

There is, however, some good coming out of this war. Slowly. Painfully, I think America is becoming aware and re-engaging in world politics. It's not too late for us to reclaim the high ground and to lead the world to peace. It is not only too late, but it is our responsibility to do that.

And by "our" I mean "your." I mean "my." It's not up to Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton or Rudy Guiliani or John McCain. It is your responsibility to take a stand on world peace.

I've asked it before, and I ask it again: What are you going to do?

Terrorist

What is the definition of terrorist? The American Oxford Dictionary: a person who uses or favors violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community.

Now, I ask you: Why are we in Iraq? I'm not interested in the real reason, at least for the purposes of discussion. As I understand it, we went to Iraq as a preemptive strike against forces who have sworn to destroy the United States. It was believed that Iraq harbored such forces, or at the very least supported them.

"We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."

In addition, if I understand the reasoning, we went into Iraq to depose Saddam.

In my view, the flaws in these reasonings are many and obvious, and not the point of this post. I want to focus on the word "terrorist."

"A person who uses or favors violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community."

Now I have another question: do two wrongs make a right? How do you take the high road when you use the same (or worse) tactics as your opponent?

Frankly, I do not think the American troops are terrorists. I think they're dupes. I think the vast majority of them thought joining the military was the best available career option and I think that the American government has taken advantage of them.

That said, I'd also like to add that I think it is a very dangerous thing to talk about the American government as if it was a discrete entity. WE are the American government, each and every one of us, whether we voted for the current administration or not. That's the price you pay for American liberty. This war is being fought in my name by...

"A person who uses or favors violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community."

I wish I knew where it came from, but my mother sent me the best quote today regarding Jerry Falwell. I'm paraphrasing:

You're supposed to say something nice about someone when they die, so here it is: At least the son of a bitch is biodegradable.

That pretty much sums it up.

Random Updates

• After this week's drama surrounding parking, it was good to spend yesterday with other condo owners sprucing up the yard. It was perfect weather as opposed to the cold and threat of rain we have today. I think I mended fences and should have no trouble getting on the board when one of them leaves soon.
• The kitchen-floor guy simply decided that he didn't want to work yesterday, so he just called to say he'll finish the job on Wednesday, which means another wasted vacation day from work. But what's done so far is beautiful.
• RP has another post up on Match.com. Since I'm taking a break from the chorus, I won't see him again until September.
• In the absence of RP, I think I've come across a Virtual Prototype, (VP). I seem to be developing a thing for Harry Connick, Jr. I guess it's true: the heart wants what it wants.
• Work is depressing. I hate virtually everyone there.
• School is a drag, but I only have three weeks until graduation.
• Writing is actually going well.
• I am falling more deeply in love with my little neighborhood coffee shop, Charmers. The entire staff appears to be lesbian.

Fussy Cat

My cat is twenty years old, and he's been with me since birth. He's very vocal. One summer the electricity went out during a heat wave and he made sounds I haven't heard come from a tenor.

Butch is very fussy. He will only eat food immediately after its come out of a can. When he's finished, the remaining food can sit there for days. I know, because we occasionally fight that battle of wills and more often than not I relent and open a new can. I keep some dry food out for him, but really it's for decoration. He never touches it. Lately, Butch has become fussy about his water. He needs fresh every couple of hours. He's fussiest about his litter box. He's never been a cat to bury his turds, and if there's one turd in there he'll walk around complaining until its removed. If there are two turds in his box, and he needs to make a third, he will make a deposit anywhere he damn well feels like. It's his loving way of letting me know he's being neglected.

However, he's become less fussy about his fur and at the moment its a matted mess. If you give some of the knots a tug, slabs of fur come off and expose his pink skin. So far we've cleared up the knots under his neck and along his ribcage. But there are still matted messes on his chest, stomach, lower flanks and his potty area. Some of the knots have been so uncomfortable they've effected his walking. Sometimes he complains when you try to cut them off, and sometimes he just sits and purrs.

Is this what marriage is like?

Contractors

Today was supposed to be the day that my new kitchen floor was installed. The guy showed up, tore up the old floor, laid the subflooring, and then said he couldn't complete the job until the back door was removed, cut, and rehung.

I hate getting angry, but when I called to see if there was someone I could get to come out to cut the door, I was told, "We don't do that, and it's in the contract..."

I interrupted the man on the other end of the phone, "I understand you don't do that, but your man wants to take my back door off it's hinges and leave it that way for a week. That can't happen. Can you recommend someone?"

"We don't do that, and it's in the contract that this might be a possibility and that we can't take responsibility..."

"So, when the man who came out and measured my kitchen, he couldn't have told me that I needed to cut the door down?"

"He would have no way of knowing how thick your tile is."

"But since the tile isn't delivered until it's to be installed, why didn't the installer check this out before he ripped up my floor?"

"Well, there's no way he could know that until he'd rip up the old floor. It says in our contract that we're not responsible for doors..."

"So, two professionals cannot determine whether a door needs to be cut down until the old floor is ripped up and a new subfloor is laid, but I'm supposed to magically know how much a door should be trimmed and schedule a contractor to do it before your installer arrives?"

"It says in the contract..."

"Thank you."

I hung up and got on the internet. I called Janet at Handyman Matters and her scheduler, Julie was amazingly helpful. They scheduled someone to come out on Monday to cut the door and the floor installer said he would try to come back Wednesday morning to finish the project.

But, this should be the last of my little condo touch ups for a while. If you're looking for a handyman, you should call Janet and Julie at Handyman matters. They're particularly good with hysterical queens with dismantled kitchens.

Retail Therapy

As many of the people in the office are, I am virtually useless at work. There was a big board meeting today and essentially the Chairman was fired. The CEO was behind closed doors with the venture investment people when I left the office for class this afternoon. When I went in this morning at 7:00, the CEO was already there. He sat me down and told me that I would likely be out of job by Friday. Now, it looks like I'll be employed for life.

The drama has been building for weeks and yesterday I'd reached my peak and went shopping at lunch. Shopping for clothes is more depressing with each passing year. I'm at that in-between stage where most of the clothes that are produced are for younger men and I would look like a fool if I wore them, or their produced for the younger men's great-great grandfathers who are one golf swing away from that great putting green in the sky. I'm simple in my tastes, but even I would like something a little snappier than a white shirt and khakis.

I'm sure that somewhere there's a collection of young-men's wear designers laughing themselves into comas. Have you tried to buy casual clothes for me? The men's department in Macy's looks like a giant garage sale with dirty, torn jeans and rumpled shirts. I kid you not: I found a brown t-shirt with some logo on it that looked like one I'd worn in grade school, and looked I'd worn it every day since grade school. It was stretched out of shape, the sleeves had holes in them, the collar was frayed. It was ON SALE for $42. I didn't even bother to hang it up, just dropping it on the floor. I'm sure I actually enhanced it's value.

But the Levis were on sale, so I bought a pair, and I found four dress shirts with sleeves that actually reach to my wrists, so I bought them. I spent nearly two hundred dollars, which I NEVER do.

Thank God I'm still employed!

Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead...

Jerry Falwell has gone to meet his maker. Let the rejoicing begin!

It's On!

I read several blogs that I do not have listed on my "Must Read" List. They're blogs that seem to have potential, but are seriously flawed in one way or another.

Like Ham Salad.

Well, one of these mid-potential writers just won a serious award for book-length collection of poems. He just graduated with his bachelor's degree.

Time to get cracking.

Writing Crap

I've been re-reading some of my older posts.

My writing is crap. The sentence structure is stiff and predictable. My subject matter is narcisstic and mundane.

But I am not giving up. I am not giving up.

Update

It's definite. The CEO is staying. I turned down an interview and have decided that they will have to fire me to get me to leave. I'm staying until I go into my Ph.D. program.

Baby's First Deal

Shortly after the first of the year the CEO called me into his office and told me he'd hired Jordan.
Jordan is a beautiful young woman of African, Chinese, American heritage, who graduated magna cum laud in three years from an Ivy League college in something like history. She'd moved to California for some unknown reason, and while there decided that she was going to make a name for herself in marketing. She set about haunting successful marketing and advertising executives she read about. She'd hounded the CEO for months and finally he agreed to meet her. She flew to Chicago, met with the CEO, worked the word 'penurious' into her conversation with me and a week later was hired.

The day the CEO told me he'd hired Jordan, he'd been in several tough meetings and was in a particularly foul mood. He informed me that it was my personal responsibility to turn Jordan into a marketing superstar.

"I'll do my best," I said.

"That's not good enough."

"OK. Consider her your next superstar."

I know nothing...nothing...about marketing and within a week I was meeting for an hour every day trying to tell this very smart young woman, who also knew nothing about marketing, how to become a marketing professional. She told me that she wanted to be unconventional and not only, "think outside the box, but redefine the box." Hell, at least she knew what the box was.

I started talking about tarot cards and archetypes. We talked about Karl Jung, and from there talked about developing our clients into archetypal modes. Jordan was really excited about the idea and researched tarot cards and Joseph Campbell and Karl Jung for weeks. Finally, she went into a big marketing meeting and started talking about archetypes and their role in branding our clients. They practically threw her from the office, and our daily meetings were reduced to once a week.

About a month ago Jordan came to my office on a day that had been less than pleasant for me. I asked her what she was working on, and she told me she was making cold calls, trying to drum up personal appearances for our clients. I asked about any creative projects and she started to cry. She said nobody liked her ideas and she was beginning to think she'd made a big mistake.

I lost my cookies. I chewed her out for an hour and told her that if she wanted to be superstar in marketing she needed a tougher skin. I told her she was going to have a million brilliant ideas that nobody but she would like. I ordered her out of my office and literally told her not to come back until she had something creative to show me.

Yesterday was the day. She sat down all bubbly and told me how she refocused her research on one client and found out everything about him, and then drew parallels between him and his sponsors. Then she identified a unifying them and found a gap. She then researched products to fill the gap, and found the perfect one. She made some calls and began negotiating her first deal.

It's a very small deal, but the significant thing about it is that it's not random. It's the lynch pin to the entire marketing strategy. She found the missing link. This was something that a collective thirty years of experience had failed to do, and she did it on her own in four months.

Jordan and I talked and celebrated in my office for about an hour. I couldn't have been more proud if I'd done it all myself. That one hour made up for the last six weeks of horror. I'd forgotten what a good day at work felt like.

I Quit

Yep. I quit the chorus, at least for the rest of the season. I had to. Work is insane and the class is demanding and I want to graduate with honors, so the chorus had to go.

I'm not sure I'm going to go back. The fact is after three years I still don't know anyone very well -- and I tried. It's a really tight-knit group of guys and unless you fall into a specific demographic that includes ample salary and/or trim waist, you're really wasting your time trying to get know any of them.

I may feel differently in the fall, but for now I'm done.

Dread

The absolute dread of going to work tomorrow hit like a brick wall at about 2:00 this afternoon and I've been virtually paralyzed all day. I'll make it in to the office, but I honestly don't know how much longer I can take this.

I work with truly hateful, hateful people.

First Burst of Brilliance

This is how I think my writing should read.

Will I ever be good?

Sunday Entitlements

Unlike my friend at It's a Booger, I revel in Sunday mornings. After decades of donating my Sundays to a local diner, making the owner incredibly wealthy and providing him with a small degree of fame, I feel like I've earned my right to fritter my Sunday mornings away scanning the Internet and sipping Diet Coke. The sheer joy of not having to be nice to people I'd just as soon spit on overrides any dread of Monday, even at this horrific time in my employment history.

Yes, I admit it: there are elements of human society that I loathe. I know it's not very evolved and that I'm likely to roast in hell for my lack of Christian charity. In this post by James Wolcott, he vividly captures one segment of the American population who, I believe, make Americans hated around the world.

If you've ever worked in the service industry you might have some idea as to the heinous nature of those who feel as though the world is owed to them because... You learn very quickly that you are a second-class citizen if you wear a uniform, apron, or name tag while earning your living. Those people who decry the decline of quality in the American service industry are more than likely the same people who snap their fingers to get a server's attention, arrive late the movies and insist on sitting in a center-of-the-row seat, and wait until they get to the front of the line before pulling out their wallets.

Sometimes I feel that my real job is working through the contempt I feel for certain behavior. Right now I struggle with people who seem to act as if they are morally or intellectually superior, if not exactly to me, to other people. And the real challenge in wrestling with these feelings is avoiding the danger of manifesting the type of behavior I detest. How do you be charitable to the uncharitable, and do they even deserve it?

Doesn't George Bush deserve our pity instead of our scorn?

Of course, given my liberal political leanings, and living up to the stereotype, my knee-jerk reaction is, "No, he deserves all the scorn we can heap onto him." But why?

Because whatever lack of intellectual capacity he may have...

...however limited his world view is by lack of intellectual curiosity...

...however shelter his life has been...

George Bush has quite simply abused his position of power. Whether he's been led astray by more nuanced minds with exclusive --- dare I say Fascist --- agendas, he has broken his oath to the American people by refusing to listen to the will of the American people and begin to bring the war in Iraq to an end.

I know this is just another modestly-informed blog stating the painfully obvious, but that last paragraph is an exercising of my American birthright. Objecting to the war, criticizing our president is my right. It's your right.

And that is what is a right, an entitlement, not making people crawl over your dog at a sidewalk cafe just because she's so comfortable sprawled out in the middle of the walkway.

The Poseidon Adventure

I first saw the original The Poseidon Adventure at about the same age as Eric Shea was in the movie. The fact that I can quote the name of the never-heard-from-again boy who played in the movie should give you some idea as just how much of an impact that film had on me. I had wanted to see it because I'd wanted to watch the boat tip over. Then when that scene came, I ran from my first-row seat up to the lobby and waited until all of the screaming stopped before I went back in. I remember what impressed me about the movie was how those people survived, even when they shouldn't have. That it was there sheer determination that got them through it.

I've always admired that in others -- determination to succeed -- even when I haven't been able to adopt that mindset myself. There's a part of me that wonders what degree of success I'd have achieved if I'd not stopped acting. There's another part of me that wonders where I would be if I hadn't taken nearly a year out of my professional development to basically watch T.V. While I don't think I'd have drowned in the ballroom of the S.S. Poseidon, I'm not sure I wouldn't have sat down and waited for the water to come get me.

Then again, I'd have probably sat there and figured that if the water was going to get me anyway, there was no reason to make it easy and I'd have gotten up and trotted after Reverend Scott.

I picked up the two-disc set of The Poseidon Adventure the other day and I just finished watching some of the special features. There is absolutely no denying that the dialogue is awful and the symbolism has been applied with a trowel. Still, there's a refreshing innocence to the film that probably comes more from associations with my childhood than anything else. Yet, to hear Stella Stevens gush with such great pride at having been part of the film I get enthusiastic for it all over again.

And, it seems that very late in life I'm beginning to adopt the much-admired quality of determination. My employment situation has got to be the most dire I've ever seen or heard of, but I'm not giving up. They are going to have to come and get me and I'm not going to make it easy for them.

As for the Poseidon, I saw the television remake, and the recent studio release with Kurt Russell. In both cases the special effects were superior, but the results had lost the charm of the original. You can only experience something like that once, and re-broadcasts serve as charming reminders. Remakes should not be attempted.

Rum-and-Coke Therapy

I think this was the absolute worst week of my professional career: worse than the week when I fired someone every single day; worse than the week I worked thinking I had the flu that turned out to be hepatitis; worse than the week I worked as an HR coordinator in a law firm.

This week I had one of the VP's take my list of proposed staff cuts, add my name to it and turn it in to the board of directors as her own analysis. This week I had another VP who has been stabbing me in the back with the staff because I've been too supportive of the CEO and do too much of his delivering of bad news come into my office - yet again! - close the door, and ask me basically if the CEO was mad at him. This week I had an employee make up a story with a germ of truth to it, and when I tried to explain that she didn't understand what she was talking about, she called me a liar. In writing. Twice. The CEO is still threatening to quit, which means if he goes, I go, and at this point I don't care.

But to ease the pressures, tonight I treated myself to several Rum and Cokes. I think this might be the first time I've actually drunk to relieve stress. I can't say that the stress was relieved so much as I got a brief vacation, during which I could sort of see all of these situations a little more clearly. Of course, the problem is that the clarity that comes with alcohol consumption is short-lived. Still, I think I reached the point where I recognized and accept that all of these issues are other people's problems and they're trying to make them mine. And for the first time I'm not going to let them.

Monday should be fun because that's the day the CEO plans to deliver his ultimatum and there will probably be a big meeting to discuss the delusional employee.

And when we get her issue settled I will expect an apology.

Something Good

I've reviewed my posts of late and decided that they're pretty damn depressing. Sorry for that. I'd like to be able to write light, frothy little essays when the world around me is disintegrating; I can't.

But I'll try.

The good news today is that I left work at noon and I'm not going to take any benefit time. I'm going to make them pay me for the entire day.

And the professor sent out an announcement saying that class would start half an hour late!

And I checked my bank account and if I'm really frugal I can save per month about what I made in two months managing the cafe.

And in the event of an emergency, I have enough money in the bank to carry me for nearly a year.

And I have a vacation planned and paid for.

And I have a kitchen floor ordered and paid for.

And it's spring!

And I've almost forgiven RP for calling me a sphincter.

Almost.

...and It Continues

Just when I'm convinced that each day at work is the absolute worst possible, it gets worse.

Today an employee who has been told he's going to be fired made an allegation of "racial preference" against the CEO -- the person who will be firing. In spite of the drama it was likely to cause, I sat down and had the dreaded talk with the CEO, who responded better than expected but still not with ice cream and a raise.

The allegation is easily disproved, so I'm not worried about that. I'm just tired of being put in the middle of these situations. Yes, I know it's my job, but I hate it.

Still, I'm not going to quit.