Here’s me at 28 weeks. The belly is gettin’ HUGE! I still can’t believe I gained as much as I did last time – I weighed 200 lbs at the end, and this time I’m only at 160 (so about 20 pounds total so far), and I’m “nearing” the end! OH if only 12 weeks felt like a short time…
28 weeks pregnant exactly!
I hate having to think of a title for a blog entry.
Last night I had really bad dreams. They actually started out good, exciting, dirty… and then monsters and demons and evil stuff crept in, and I spent the rest of the night trying to get back to the original dream. I never succeeded. I hate it when I wake up from a bad dream, because it really sets the mood for the day. Today I’m afraid, and for no good reason, of zombies and bogeymen coming out of the shadows to get me.
…
So for the first hour of work, I did random stuff, mostly not related to programming or finishing any of the many things I have on my plate. I checked out if anyone gives a crap about me (i.e. looked at the different registries we have to see if any new things were marked off – none were), fiddled around on Facebook, looked at my invites for the party this weekend, and then I noticed that Jason had responded to the invite. He wrote:
Bud Light and a “sprinkler set up” … holy crap is that ever a tempting offer. Unfortunately, I shall have to decline because parties are so stupid.
What a jackass. I understand that Jason Jones has some issues, I don’t understand what they are exactly, but mostly I think his brain is messed up and he likes to take that out on others. I still don’t think he needs to shit on everyone’s parade all of the time; he probably would be more beneficial to people if he wrote more random notes about interesting topics on Facebook or wherever he decides to write them, and kept his mouth shut about things that make other people happy. His comment combined with the feeling I’ve had this morning from my nightmares made me even more surly. I guess he succeeded.
…
I walked into the bathroom earlier and a very prissy looking woman was leaving one of the stalls, having just flushed the toilet. I got so irritated though, because she was the only person in the bathroom, and she chose to pee in the stupid handicapped toilet. Maybe the people in this building are so fucking retarded and oblivious that they don’t notice that the toilet in that stall flushes for a full minute, but FUCK! People! It FLUSHES FOR A MINUTE! For fucking pee! And I wanted to tell her that she’s an idiot, and that next time she fucking pees, or the next 15 times she pees, she shouldn’t flush the toilet because she’s wasted SO MUCH WATER in that one flush that she’ll never make up for it, but instead I just gave her a forced smile (hopefully making it look exceptionally painful) and walked into one of the other 4 normal fucking stalls in the bathroom. God. People are idiots.
The last rant seems related to the anger I’m feeling to day, but in fact it’s not; I’ve had this feeling about people using the handicapped stall for a long time. I mostly hold that shit in and don’t let people know how annoying they are, but this one had to escape today.
…
Ok, so I’m sorry for writing a bunch of angry ranting random crap. I also wanted to write something about Connor, and this time it’s not angry.
Yesterday, as Connor and I were driving through the Lincoln Consolidated Schools property (we cut through on the way to school), Connor noticed that a single construction worker was out in the football field, digging with a shovel. They’ve been doing some prep work for a while now, and he must have been the first one on the scene for the day. I didn’t notice the man, because I was looking at a large group of men closer to the school around a big machine, presumably getting ready to take it out to the field and dig, too. Connor and I were being pretty quiet for the drive because we were both a little tired, and the cool breeze coming in through the open sunroof felt good and urged a silence.
Connor broke that silence with this, “Mommy, that guy out there is digging all alone. Nobody’s out there bothering him. That looks peaceful.” [He pronounces it peace-a-ful.]
I just smiled. He’s only three, almost four, but wise beyond his years, and definitely beyond my wildest imagination of the wisdom a child could possess.
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So, I’m sneaky. Casey is pregnant, and she hasn’t “announced” it yet – or at least not officially to anyone but the sneaky shitheads (sorry Nick) she talks to, and apparently the people she also emails, and probably everyone else except the unprivileged people within 20 feet of her on a day-to-day basis. It bothers me, but not that much, because what I can do now is wish upon her all of the terrible ailments I have suffered through both of these pregnancies, and hope that they happen to her (or worse). Or not. Maybe I’ll just forget about it – I mean, she’ll be entering her third trimester right about the time when Elly is due, so she won’t be that big yet and I won’t really have to deal with her annoying me with being pregnant for too long.
I talked to an account manager in Connecticut today, and in talking about our pregnancies and the time we have left, she mentioned that Casey is also pregnant (so she knew, too!) I said, “Oh, yeah, I heard that – she’s not really telling many people around the office yet, strangely.” She apologized, as if… she had something to do with Casey being a bitch? Who knows. Then, because I’m sneaky and nosy and nobody will tell me and I refuse to ask Casey, I said something like, “Well, it’s early yet for her, although I’m not completely sure of her due date.” So she told me! HA HA! She’s due February 28th. So the calculations in my brain started to esssssplode out.
If Elly is born on November 20th, 6 weeks after that will be the beginning of January. I don’t plan on coming back right away though, so I’ll probably take about 6 more weeks of unpaid maternity leave, which brings us to mid-February. And if I come back then, Casey will likely be gone or leaving very soon after. And if she takes 6 weeks off from her proposed due date, that’ll bring us to mid-April, 2009…
AND THEN I CAN LEAVE THIS POO-HOLE!
And never have to deal with working with people I can’t stand again! Or… at least not these people that I can’t stand. I’m sure I’ll find more people to despise down the road.
I can take my profit sharing money (hopefully it’ll be $25K or so!) and HIT THE ROAD! Maybe pay off part of the house a bit, put the rest into the bank, and use that as a “few more months off”, or time to spend with Connor and Elly before school starts, or time to plan on making money from home… whatever. It’ll be time for me. Time well deserved, and hard earned.
They say that you should “live life in the present”, but today I’m happy that I can see the future and it looks to be pretty OK. Pretty good, even. I can’t even see any buses running me over, which is usually what I see when I look to the future (the whole “what if I get run over by a BUS tomorrow!?!” scenario), but today the future seems bright. Bus-free.
Almost 27 weeks! THIRD TRIMESTER, Here I COME!
I don’t seem to be gaining as much this time as I did when I was pregnant with Connor – but then again, I didn’t take a ton of pictures when I was pregnant with Connor. I regret that, but I guess I was really swollen so I probably would look back on this pictures and groan at this point. I was a whale!
My ankles are becoming a bit more swollen lately though, which is a little concerning. Or my left ankle at least, which is the one I sprained a few years ago so maybe it’s just some vascular issue. Either way, it’s uncomfortable.
Even more uncomfortable is my brain lately, but actually after talking to both Ravneet and Rachel I’m feeling a little better. And I wrote a post to one of those parenting boards, and it seems my crazy thoughts of inadequacy aren’t that uncommon. Lots of women go through the same thing. And lots of men pretend like it doesn’t affect them, or maybe they really are just oblivious.
Anyway, I don’t have much more to say. I want a chocolate shake!
I had a new thought today, and I have to keep blaming things on my pregnancy hormones, but sometimes things can’t be so easily shrugged.
Maybe we should just concentrate on Craig going to CRNA school? Maybe if he’s doing that, and he becomes a big fancy CRNA, I could stay at home with my kids for a while and do what is right for them, and for me, for a short while?
Is that SUCH a crazy thought? I mean, I know I want to be a midwife, but it will mean more care for Connor by other people, other people I don’t trust and that don’t have my child’s best interests in mind. I’m dwelling.
So the truth is, I have this ONE simple task to do at work today before Ravneet gets here, and I keep procrastinating because I really really really can’t get Connor out of my head.
I think every parent has a few moments they are not proud of; I know I had my first devastating parenting moment when Connor was only a few days old. I was exhausted and in pain, and trying to breastfeed at 3am. Connor would not latch on, and he was fidgeting and fighting like crazy. I smacked him on the head. A tiny, insignificant little smack, not enough to really do anything but surprise him, which it did… and then I decided I was the worst mom on the planet (that also threw me into weeks of depression, which was fun). I’ve decided that a bunch of times, actually, and last night I decided I’m going to change it.
Connor was a butt last night, he really was. We had a good evening, as it usually is, until 9:40 when I was finally telling him “Good night” for the last time. It’s always like this – he has this strict regimen of things to go through in preparation for sleep (not entirely directed by us, because he’s the one who insists on it all now), but when it comes down to actually sleeping, he fights it like a mad man. He doesn’t only fight it, he’s defiant and manipulative while he’s fighting it. If I ever warn him that he needs to be quiet or I’m going to shut his door, he doesn’t hear the “be quiet” part, only the “shutting the door” part, and he immediately screams out “BUT WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO OPEN IT?!?!” It’s very aggravating.
Last night I was pretty sure it would be a pleasant night, because when I left his room finally (no fighting involved), he was being somewhat quiet, and usually if I go downstairs and mess around in the kitchen for a while, he’ll calm down and sleep. But not last night. He talked, he sang, when I asked him to be quieter, he yelled louder, he insisted that he needed to “pick his nose in the bathroom”, he said he was having nightmares (he hadn’t slept a minute). I had a headache, I’m irritable, and I’m pregnant, and I went off the deep end. Several times. At midnight, he was still coming onto the top of the stairs and yelling stuff, and I spanked his butt hard, like 4 times. I forcefully put him in his bed, much more forcefully than I ever should have. I SCREAMED at the top of my lungs, and I wasn’t swearing, but the voice coming out of my body was not mine, and if I were a child I know I would be scared shitless.
Is this the kind of mother I want to be?
After my blood pressure went down, I sat down on the couch and cried for a long time. Then I went online and looked up things, ranging from anti-spanking websites, to anger control support groups, to parenting advice from random strangers, and I’m certain now that spanking is no longer going to be in my repertoire, or in Craig’s, for that matter. I grew up with it, and I will admit that I’m a well behaved and decent human being now, but I think that something was unhinged within me during the many spankings I received (I think of all of my sisters, I may have got the most), and it’s an angry fury that I sometimes cannot control. If I allow myself even the backup plan of a tiny swat on the butt for doing something really wrong, I’m letting myself have too much slack. I just can’t do it, can’t mention it, can’t support it, can’t have my child exposed to that part of me anymore. I explained to him this morning that mommy was wrong for spanking him so hard last night, and he’s so innocent that he was very understanding about it all. He shouldn’t be understanding! He should be upset about it, but I think that children handle things differently than adults, and maybe his coping method is to be outwardly fine, but he’s building up the same wall of distrust that I built when I was a kid.
I’m not saying that I was raised wrong, because at the time (and probably some people still think that this is the time), that was the way parents disciplined their children. I don’t think many of my friends had quite the same strict rules that we had, and I know they didn’t get spanked with a board, but they got swatted. Their mothers would smack them across their faces for talking back or swearing, and the whole “child abuse” thing wasn’t really mentioned all that much. The next generation of kids took it to the opposite end of the spectrum; they all had “time out” in their well-stocked rooms, where they could play video games and watch TV without any interruptions from their pestering parents. And now, here I am, with SuperNanny to tell me one way (the “naughty seat”), and my upbringing telling me I should handle this child a different way… and I’m really having a hard time with either.
Is there something else I can do? I asked Connor to brainstorm with me this morning, and he said he’s going to try to be good from now on. I don’t want my kid to think he’s bad; he’s a GREAT person, and the nighttime issues we have aren’t reflecting who he really is. The dinnertime battles we have are the same, it’s just that he’s really thinking for himself all the time, and doesn’t realize (or doesn’t want to realize) that he’s not in control of everything. Actually, he’s not in control of much, and I think that really bothers him. How do I give him more control over his life, while still being the parent to direct him and guide him in the things he hasn’t yet learned?
I don’t like this parenting thing. As I’m sitting here typing this, Elly is constantly nudging me in the belly, reminding me that I need to overcome this dislike soon, because it’s not going to be any easier when she comes along. There’s just too much responsibility involved.
Ugh. And a puppy soon, too. I’m insane.
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Puppies. I’ve been at work for 2 hours now, and I’ve done… almost nothing. I’m not completely proud of it, but I’m very unmotivated for this job. Plus, I now have another thing to focus on rather than work – the little Bassett Hound we’ll be bringing home in a little over two weeks.
Now it’s 10:22 and I’ve also spent time inviting another person to the party on the 31st. But I had to search for her email address first, which also involved rummaging through FaceBook for a little while. I’m so bad! I wish I could focus, but I don’t seem to have much trouble focusing at home… maybe that’s a sign?
Anyway. Puppy. Or baby. Anything but this. I’m really conflicted – I could go home at lunch and work from home the rest of the day, or I could stay here and work uncomfortably and unhappily for the rest of the day. I suppose it’s a better idea to stay; people are all antsy and shitty around here and will (if they haven’t already) start to look down on me and my work ethic. Or maybe they won’t – who knows – none of them have ever carried a baby in their womb (NONE of them!), so maybe they really have no idea what it’s like and are just glad it isn’t them. Maybe every time I’m not here, they’re glad to realize, once again, that they aren’t pregnant and don’t have to deal with whatever it is that I may be dealing with.
Today I’m not dealing with anything but indigestion, intense hip/groin pain, and the strong urge to NOT be here. The last one is definitely a symptom of being gone for a few days. Anyway.
Guess I should work. What a boring post.
** Names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the not-so-innocent. Very boring conversation, but it makes me laugh. And this is MY blog, so I’ll do what I want to do with it! NEENER! **
- Sassafras
The office door thing, though totally something I should let go about a thousand years ago, really perplexes me. So I sent a note to Lemming. He’ll get it when he gets back. Maybe he’ll shed some light.
- Succotash
you just asked him to explain why they do it? lol….
- Sassafras
i wrote:
What is with you office turds closing your doors when you’re gone? It made sense when Weiner One did it, because… whatever. It’s Weiner One. And maybe Weiner Two, because he has employee data files or whatever. But you? IntelligentWeiner? Evil Wench? Gumpy? Did you have a big conference and decide that this is the final separation between office and cube employees? You can lock up your… useless crap? We can’t?
You’re the only one I could ask, because the rest would be all “secretive” about their lemming rituals.
- Succotash
that’s kind of hilarious.
I’ll be curious to see what he says.
so you don’t think there could have been some sort of lame policy set by Weiner One, possibly to comply with insurance privacy rules or something? Not that they would have sensitive materials in their offices, but there could conceivably be a stupid rule um … for health insurance stuff … that offices have to be locked when not in use.
- Sassafras
yeah, maybe. lame, anyway. i have more SSNs and privacy data on my desk than IntelligentWeiner will ever have – he rarely works with client data. i think, more likely, it’s some lame thing they decided.
“makes it easier to distinguish who’s here” or whatever.
- Succotash
I agree that it’s lame…. whatever.
I still think you should try to set up your own door or barrier to your cube, and if queried, you could say that you might have sensitive information in your cube and you’re trying to protect it.
- Sassafras
that would be hilarious.
if that’s his answer for why they shut their doors, i’m totally going to do that.
someone needs to slap idiocy in the face, and i feel like it’s a fun job to have.
- Succotash
I feel like the wingdings are such a great example of what happens every day around here. One person does something by using X, another person uses Y. If anyone could give me a single rational reason why I have to do Y instead of X, i’d be happy to do Y. That’s great. Y is the way to go. But 95 percent of the time, it’s just … a person prefers X or X looks “better” to them.
I just sometimes take a step back and have to laugh at all the wasted time and energy around here.
- Sassafras
that is the way things work around here. there’s a fine line between being fanatical about it and having realistic expectations of people. for instance, i very frequently have to look through the code that other people are writing, in an effort to use the generalized stuff. and lots of the code around here REALLY sucks, in my opinion. but, if i wanted to make it all “perfect”, i’d be spending all of my time correcting other people’s code “mistakes”, when in reality their way works too. maybe not as efficiently, maybe not as easy to read, but it works. so most of the time i just help them get through the crap they really broke, so that they don’t blame my stuff for not working.
it’s just not worth it, the wingdings thing.
unless, of course, the people freaking out about stupid shit have nothing better to do with their time (Weiner One and Weiner Two are famous for doing that).
- Succotash
I’m all for improving code where there is clear improvement to be made or ACTUAL efficiency to be improved, but I’m not interested in wasting time fussing about purely stylistic issues with code that come down to someone’s judgement call about which code is “better”.
- Sassafras
Tight Pants hates when “if” statements aren’t capitalized. he’ll go through an entire script and change every lower case “i” to an upper case “I”. it’s psychotic.
- Succotash
that’s just dumb and a waste of everyone’s time.
oh yeah, capitalization. WTH? who fucking cares? Like, I have my capitalization thing I do, and it’s consistent. But why should I unilaterally get to decide how other people capitalize their code? Why is my way better? And who cares?
- Sassafras
exactly. if only people could see my thought bubbles.
and yours, for that matter. our cynical comments about how retarded everything is.
- Succotash
haha … like I know that I have lots of room for change, evolution, improvment, etc. as far as coding goes. But capitalization or wingdings or shit like that … that is not evolution. It’s just a waste of time.
but then I feel like if I don’t have my own psychotic, fussy, anal, coding standards or follow someone else’s anal standards, I must be the crazy one. There must be something wrong with me for wanting to know WHY people do the things they do.
- Sassafras
oh, no. see, that kind of thought will take you down the lemming path. it will lead you to being a nutjob, like the rest, and not using reasoning and logic in your daily work life. there IS something wrong with freaking out about stupid crap that happens in the big gray box. there is.
LIFE is TOO SHORT to give a shit about wingdings.
- Succotash
haha … oh, don’t worry … that will NEVER happen. I just get infuriated.
- Sassafras
me too. all the time. whenever i see a shut door.
you know what bugs me the most about the closed doors? i know i’m dwelling. i’m trying not to. but what REALLY bugs me is that this kind of thing happens – a big group of people start doing something weird constantly, and it turns out that they had some kind of secret meeting about it or whatever and now they do this – but nobody else knows about it. and i can’t stand those secrets, especially given the fact that most of the turds in offices haven’t worked here much longer than i have, i don’t have much respect for them or what they do, and in general i think they’re a bunch of weiners! not even in general, they are a big lot of turdwads. and their stupid secrets infuriate me even more than if, say, the entire middle row there started putting their shoes outside their cube doors.
because then it would be like, “heh, you guys are weird.” but the office door thing is most certainly a “this is what we’ll do from now on, but there’s no need for anyone to know why”.
- Succotash
and I think that’s exactly why it bothers you. I see why its ridiculous, but it doesn’t bother me. Because to me, they have always been “higher up” on the (imaginary) hierarchy. But for you, well, you and they are all on the same level, so when they try to set up some sort of distinction between us v. them, you KNOW its a bunch of shit, and it must just seem like a slap on the face. Like them trying to seem better or more important. I bet they did have a “secret” meeting about it. But why? Like … let’s say they all did decide to do it or there is some reason they “have to”, or someone told them to. Whatever. It’s NOT secret material. It’s just meaningless and small and stupid. The very fact that they hold it aside as some kind of secret is really the offensive part. Like “we have special things we do because we’re different” or whatever.
- Sassafras
well yeah! that is why it bugs me! and it bugs me that people like SoulGlo and Turd and Weinerriffic know the reason, too, because they either are fucking an office person, or they’re related to an office person, and so the separation between “us” and “them” extends to within the cubes, so we can’t even have a unified “US”.
meh. it’s just something to waste my brain space on. it’s kinda fun to waste brain space on it though, for me at least, because sometimes i come up with witty shit to put on my blog and it makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. like i’m “getting even” or something, with my silly words that are read by all of like… 5 people.
- Succotash
ugh … you know, I don’t even know who is related to who or who is fucking who in this office. Well, maybe I do, but I try not to think about it. Like ever.
- Sassafras
i’m just causing rumors, mostly, but SoulGlo is related to Gumpy (brother and sister). and Evil Wench and Weinerriffic have a strange intimate relationship that with her evilness and his lack of morality could only result in naked time between the two of them. or maybe they’re just “really good friends”. whatever it is, it’s not normal.
- Succotash
gross
- Sassafras
anyway. hey! thanks for letting me vent for a while. i’m feeling spunky today!
feisty!
- Succotash
maybe she’s preggers with Weinerriffic’s baby
- Sassafras
eew!
- Succotash
<shudder>
can you imagine what that baby would look like….? dear lord
- Sassafras
we should write a show about our office.
- Succotash
except nobody would want to watch it because it would be annoying and depressing
- Sassafras
well, we’d have to embellish a little
a lot.
but, we could base it on the characters here. and we could exaggerate things, like there could be a cube FULL TO THE CEILING with boxes, and we could film funny clips of people trying to pack another box into that cube.
we’d have to start recording Evil Wench’s laugh, so we could have a lot of track time of all of the different varying annoying levels of it. i don’t think even an actor could get that thing down.
- Succotash
we wouldn’t have to … haha … I was just going to mention her laugh
we wouldn’t have to exaggerate it, though.
it’s already as exaggerated as a laugh could be
- Sassafras
oh, no. just paste it into the show once in a while, kinda randomly (as it seems her laugh just randomly invades my ear space).
dude. this show already rocks.
- Succotash
let’s script it.
We got this book at the library called “Everyone has a belly button”, which describes how a baby develops in the womb from being a tiny cell through when the baby is born. It’s longer than many of Connor’s books, so he really likes to choose it every night because it means he can stay up later with me. I read all of the words in the book exactly how they are written, because I’m not really afraid for Connor to know correct anatomical words or for him to ask questions about how things are happening. It doesn’t go into any detail about how sex happens, so I don’t have to travel down that road yet (he is, of course, only three years old). However, the book does use terms like “uterus”, “placenta”, “vagina”, and “breasts”. Once in a while, Connor giggles or says “Va-CHINA” a few times just to bug me. Last night, however, he was tired and ready for bed, so he was even more focused on what the book was telling him. He listened carefully and didn’t interrupt throughout almost the entire book, but then on one of the last pages where it describes the mommy’s uterus squeezing the baby out of her body, through the vagina, and into the world… he stopped me. He looked at me with a very VERY concerned face, and asked “Mommy, does it hurt when the baby comes out of your vaCHINA? Because I don’t want that to happen if it hurts.”
I had to reassure him that yes, it hurts a mommy a lot, but after the baby is out she is so happy to meet the baby that she doesn’t even remember it hurting. He seemed OK after that.
Then he wanted me to tell him the story about when he was born. After a long night of fighting and arguing, it all ended really sweetly.
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I’m sad today. I’m not completely sure why, but I think it’s a combination of being overwhelmed with life, being away from my son, working at a place I despise, and being pregnant. That would probably explain the sadness. I’m sad that last night I had such little patience with Connor, that I couldn’t even enjoy the last night of my weekend because I spent so much of it being frustrated with him and the way he ate his dinner. I’m sad that I obviously do not mean much around here, and that as much as people who don’t work here want to blow smoke up my butt, I’m really not that important. I just work here, just like anyone else, and although that does leave me with a lot of freedom because I lack responsibility, it also makes me feel like I’ve wasted too much time here.
Last week on Friday I finally talked to Scott about our “arrangement” for when I go part-time. The conversation began very professionally, with him explaining the different benefits that would continue without a problem, and the other snafus that we’re going to run into (like the fact that I can only have medical coverage if I work at least 30 hours per week). When, however, I mentioned the salary issue, he started to get defensive, and caught me off-guard a few times with his disrespectful remarks. At one point we were discussing the fact that this is happening earlier than he expected, and he said something to the effect of “at least now we’ll be able to get used to you being gone sooner, and we can sort through things that need to be done before you go.” I simply agreed, that yes, this will make things easier than if we just ignore the fact that I’ll be out of here in November until November comes! Then he said, “Don’t act like you’re doing me any favors.” He mentioned at one point that it would be easier on him if I weren’t leaving earlier, if I weren’t leaving at all, in fact it would be easier if I weren’t pregnant to begin with.
Who in their right mind mentions to a pregnant woman that the situation would be better if the pregnant woman weren’t even pregnant? Because then… what if I miscarried? What if something terrible happened? What kind of idiot makes a comment like that in general, let alone to an emotional wreck of an employee? TO AN EMPLOYEE, ever? I was appalled. I think I hid it well, because I didn’t cry when I was in there, but it did feel like he thought I was scum for choosing family over his precious company, and I really didn’t want to ever come back in to work for him after that. But, here I am.
There were so many other things that came out in that conversation that I can’t remember in full detail to be able to write it all down. The real result is this: I’ll be going “part-time” starting on August 15th, working 3 days a week in the office and figuring out a way to get in an extra 6 hours elsewhere. I can work my own hours, so if I want to come in late, I can, and I believe if I want to skip a lunch and just work straight through, I can do that as well. Once I get closer to my due date, I can work one of those 3 days completely from home, so long as I get my hours in. I’m not going to be salaried – they’re going to pay me an hourly rate based on my current salary. I’ll still get medical, I’ll still get profit sharing, and I’ll still get my bonus at the end of the year (although I was informed that by going part-time, the amount will be “impacted”, whatever that means). I’m not completely clear on how maternity leave is going to work out, but I still qualify for it, and I believe it’s still going to be paid – though whether it will be paid based on my hourly rate or my previous salaried rate is still a question. They don’t have an official policy on it yet, surprise surprise.
All of that is good, actually. I’m excited for August 15th to come, and I’m glad that part is over with. I’m not excited to deal with my coworkers giving me grief for working less, but they could do it too if they wanted to make less money… they’d just need to ask. There are consequences, and if anyone walks around here thinking I’m a scumbag for working less but not feeling the effects of it – they can shove it up their butts. I’m feeling the effects of it already, and soon it’ll become even more clear.
What sucked about the conversation, and what is taking me some time to get over and get used to, is that I’ve been working here for almost 5 years and I feel like nothing good has come from it. Well, not nothing. I have new friends. We bought a house, and are raising a child, and we were able to put Craig through school because of the sacrifices I’ve made by working here. But, in all that time, my boss still has no respect for me or my decisions, and even though it shouldn’t hurt, it does. I think if it were anyone treating me this way, not just Scott, it would be hurtful, but the fact that it is someone that knows me and has grown maybe not to understand me, but to know about a few intimate details of my life… that feels even worse.
I judge people like crazy in my day-to-day life. I judge whether a person is a good driver or not simply based on they way he changes lanes. I think most teenage kids are probably jerks or self-absorbed, I think many of the people in my neighborhood are disrespectful, and I’m sure my neighbor is a raging alcoholic though I rarely ever actually see him drinking. So I’m not claiming that I’m faultless here – I have plenty of room for improving my views of the human race in general. But I still cannot understand how Scott could treat me like I’ve become one of the “undesirables” that he so adamantly despises, simply because I choose my family over this place. I’m able to see how he could choose this place over his family; he has no family, nor any desire, and so this place does define him.
I’m really babbling. It was a way to pass time. I’m leaving in seven minutes.
