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I shouldn't be surprised

…and actually, I’m not quite sure surprise covers my reaction. Outrage is in there, for sure, but there is an element of incredulity.

During the RWI debacle, someone at the SBTB commented that it wouldn’t be long before there were cries from conservatives about how de ghays oppress and bully them–and not shortly after, this comment popped up at Courtney Milan’s blog.

And then, when the furor has calmed down some, someone calling itself SeaLaughing left this screed (without a link, of course): (more…)

Is that the baseline mark for strength?

I was reading DAJane’s review of Alpha Instinct, Katie Reus debut, and got increasingly annoyed as I read on.

(Please note I’m not talking about the novel, as I’ve not read it)

Jane uses ALL CAPS to note that the females in the story cannot provide for themselves.

Just a few lines later, she reiterates, “They can’t even financially support themselves, you guys.”

Keeping to the pattern, the review last line is,  “the depiction of these poor little she wolves who couldn’t even financially care for themselves was depressing.”

But the last straw was the very first comment. LG says, in part,

I wonder what these ladies do when they have males around. Just have sex, look pretty, and bear children? They certainly can’t be working, if they can’t even provide for themselves financially.

Seriously?

So, women like me, who make just a few cents more than the minimum wage and work over forty hours a week, yet still barely scrape together enough money to pay our bills, we are…what?

A myth? non-people? don’t exist?

Or it’s simply that we are even weaker than the female characters in the story in question?

Yeah, this hits way too close to home, so you may want to skip it.

Look, haven’t we often complained how the heroes in many a romance have to be financially successful to be considered heroic?

Haven’t we asked for more realistic characterization? (aka, “How many English Dukes can you fit at Almacks?”)

Then why in the fuck would women struggling financially be automatically weak?

A lesson in management (or, how to fuck that up)

Where I work, everyone but salary managers and (hourly) shift supervisors provide availability so that, when the weekly schedule is made, you are not expecting employee A to show up while he’s sitting in anatomy class two hours away.

Manager R has been making the schedule for a couple of months–and oh my lord it sucketh ass. (Read: we’ve spent a lot of time waiting for A to show up, while he’s looking at bones and muscles somewhere else)

Manager B was in charge of training, so there would be times when unknown-to-anyone-else employee X would show up, as clueless as the rest of us, for ‘training’ (on what? for how many hours?). Not happy with that clusterfuck, manager B tells employee C to show up for training at this time, on this day…only to send him right back home the moment he shows up (after driving 20 minutes, mind you) because “we don’t need you right now.” ¹

erm…

Manager J decided to transfer employe K to another store–realizing right after the paperwork is complete that we don’t have anyone who can cover K’s position during the hours she was available.

His solution? Schedule employee N–outside her availability–to cover those shifts, while scrambling to train employee S (who, by the way, sucks at it) to regularly cover those slots.

*head desk*

Best part of last week: manager A asks manager J whether N will indeed cover K’s shift on Saturday. J’s answer, “I don’t know, she made me so angry² that I hung up on her.”

*sigh*

 

I need a new job–three months ago.

 * * * * *

¹ The second time he asked her, right out, “then why the fuck did you schedule me for training?” She’s lucky he didn’t do it in front of customers.

² Angry because she’s “bitching” about having to work when she’s not available to do it, how dare she, the bitch.

"Not someone like that"

“Not someone like that”

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Posted in: Azteclady Speaks, cranky AztecLady, rant

I’m a bit hesitant to post this because the exchange started in a different venue where I’d rather not create trouble for the moderators–especially since technically I’m still one of them.

So, if I may, let’s keep whatever discussion ensues over here, please. With that said…

This is what happened: remember how I posted that I’m in love with this video? Well, there’s a thread in the music area of that other forum devoted to all things Adele. Obviously I had to share the love, right? So far so good. Some people comment that they don’t get the video, blah blah and then this guy says that the video doesn’t make sense because (and I quote): (more…)

You don't need wide lawns

You don’t need wide lawns

Saturday, November 19, 2011
Posted in: Azteclady Speaks, cranky AztecLady

Back in the day (gah, probably more than two years ago), before I got a job, I used to read Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds at least a couple of times a month. At the time most of the posts were highly entertaining, sarcastic accounts of the blogger’s working life at some country club where the neighbors have more (much, much more) money than sense.

I laughed and laughed at some of those people’s antics, perfectly capable of imagining most of the ridiculous, outrageous and frankly stupid situations, conflicts and confrontations she described there. Not only is a sense of entitlement expected from people with money to spend on meaningless luxury, but  I’m a bit of a misanthrope, willing to think badly of humanity at large–which is interesting as I can’t manage that much cynicism when it comes to people I do know, even slightly, in a round-about-not-quite-know-you way *waving at Las*

Then I got the job and don’t find those accounts as innocently funny anymore.

AztecLady after a full shift (more…)

I’m left handed.

Like all left-handed people, I have learned to cope with a world where everything is designed for right-handed people, from scissors to ice cream scoops, to shift stick cars to computers’ mice. For the most part, truthfully, it’s no biggie, and it has make me less dependent on my dominant hand–closer to ambidextrous, you may say.

However, there are certain activities for which nothing but my left hand will do, most of them related to crafting. I cannot hold a sewing needle with my right hand unless it’s to thread it–for sewing, it’s all about my left hand. For knitting, I use both hands but I recently discovered that not only do I knit completely left-handedly (is that a word?) but that there is a bias towards right-handedness in knitting.

Apparently, most left handed knitters knit the same way right handed knitters do, up to and including knitting from right to left.

I don’t–I knit as I write and read, from left to right. This is, once again, no big deal, right?

Well, not quite… apparently there is a right and a wrong way of knitting from left to right, particularly with things like cables, so that the twist in the cable goes from right to left instead of (insert expression of horror here) “backwards” (aka, how I do it).

Huh.

Honestly, does anyone really cares whether the cable twists ‘right’ (image on left) or ‘backwards’ (image on right)

(first image, detail from Lion Brand’s free pattern for Mixed Messages Scarf–second image, extreme close up of one of my hand knit scarves)
New game: find the logic

A newly married woman in her late thirties says, “Now he can’t leave me.”

A woman in her fifties about a coworker who’s looking for a second job, “I thought she married him so that he would support her.”

A woman in her twenties complains that she’s not making enough money. She gets a promotion–far more responsibility, $0.25 cents more per hour (that’s about forty more dollars a month, before taxes). Next thing she does? Get a new car–new as in this year‘s model, directly from the German cars dealership.

From a group of women in their mid-thirties, over lunch, “… and I finally realized that all the awful things that were happening to me were the result of my lack of obedience.”

A woman serving herself coffee on a cup from the competitor next door, “You are out of decaf, are you bringing more out soon?”

A group of women has been sitting at a table for about four hours. One of them gets up and asks, “At what time do you close?” “We closed ten minutes ago, ma’am.” “Oh. So we can still order, right?”

Reading the menu while placing an order for lunch, “Oh man, I didn’t know that had so many calories! Well, give me the (lower calorie count alternative) instead. Can I have an extra piece of bread with that?”

A woman in her early forties, “I just don’t understand how is it that he can’t see just how perfect I am for him!”

A woman in her late thirties takes a job serving drinks at a strip bar. She’s been told that she can make up to $300 a night. She explains how she had to go get new underwear because the ‘uniform’ consists of a black corset/cincher and really short black shorts. After the first night on the job she quits, shocked  that some of the customers grabbed her ass.

A woman in her mid-thirties, “Could you look in the trash for me? I can’t find my cell phone.”

(All these have been overheard by yours truly, by the way)

Or perhaps it’s more like a series of mini-rants.

Either way, here we are:

  • Why is it that people believe that buying a lousy cup of coffee for less than two bucks gives them the right to treat the employees at the coffee place like slaves?
  • How can people coming in for breakfast/lunch right after church justify to themselves calling wait staff “bitches”?
  • What makes a man call a bus person over to a table—while she’s carrying a heavy plastic tub full of dirty dishes, thanks so much—to tell her, “this is the worst goddamned coffee I’ve ever had”?
  • Where does a male customer get off calling the young female employee preparing his food ‘brainless’ and telling her that ‘a monkey could do her job’?
  • In which universe do customer type people live that they believe it’s okay to tell an employee eating lunch during her break, “Since you work here, would you mind giving us your table?”
  • Who tells customers of any age that it is okay to stick chewing gum to non-disposable dishes?
  • When has it become acceptable to buy food ‘to go’ at one place and enter another establishment—with the full family, drinks, etc.—to eat it?

Did I mention that customer type people suck?

Well, too many of them do, at any rate.

Do you ever feel the urge to say, to a loved one (or a friend, or well meaning relative, acquaintance, etc.), “I don’t know where you get your information, but it doesn’t apply to my reality”?

What are you thinking now

I confess I’ve been having to exercise restrain not to do that myself, just now.