Philosophy of Perception

If that’s true, that might explain why there are so many damn happy people walking around. And why I just can’t seem to be happy lately. Between my job, my coworker (yes, hateful one is still just as hateful two months later) and ACS (hot mess those guys) I’ve just about had it with the human race. Now add in the fact that once again someone is attacking Brian over useless crap and we’re rounding out with a banner week… and it’s only Wednesday. I’m about ready to just pack everything up and move to an island where stupidity would not be allowed. This would apparently ban the vast majority of the world.

I’m just really grateful for my very awesome friends (both RL and Internet). Just the support that I get makes the days seem a little bit more bearable. And save me from slaughtering stupid coworkers. Oh and speaking of stupid coworkers. I have got to share this one with the world.

Here is the background of this latest incident of stupidity. I’m a social worker at an agency in New York. We have a parent support group and yesterday Glamour Magazine came to the group to give a presentation to the women about beauty and wellness. They also brought along gift bags with makeup that could be found at your local drug store. Now me, being me, I wanted some of the stuff but I was a good girl and backed off. Luckily my director is awesome and totally snagged some stuff for me and my friend/co-worker. So anyway, we’re dividing our booty (i.e. kicking and pushing each other to get the good stuff) when she found a lipstick that she liked. She asked me what I thought of the color and I said it looked good. Now here comes hateful ass, we’ll just call him Slap Bait to simplify things. Slap Bait decides to interject his opinion into the conversation that did not include him.

He tells my friend that color doesn’t look good on her because it wasn’t her color. Which is true but we already concluded that if she wore the right outfit, it wouldn’t matter. But of course, he being a male and all knows much more about makeup than the ones that actually wear it. And then he says what had to be the stupidest thing he’s said… this week. Nothing will top the time where he said that this group of Cubans that looked at him wrong should go back to thier own country. But he came close this time.

He proceeds to tell us that he’s an expert on hair and makeup because he has an alter ego named Anton… and he’s a gay black male that’s obsessed with fashion and makeup. Please excuse me while I hurl. Now I would like to point out that Slap Bait is in fact a short, Jewish questionably heterosexual male. That’s all I’m going to say about that. The offensive factor is high. I’m prejudiced for saying that the pregnant guy could have been lying. But he’s not prejudiced for that one. Oh yeah, that’s balanced. And one of these days I’m going to shove his short behind down the stairs.

Okay, I’m done ranting out. I’m going to now eat my baked polenta and mushrooms while worrying about going to work tomorrow and facing Slap Bait.

I just remembered I had this thing today. Hmm. Anyway, as some people can attest I’ve been in a pretty crappy mood. I’m not going to go into full details on the off chance that someone this is actually related to finds this but suffice to say that I’m in a bad mood because of an incident at work. And it’s all that pregnant guy’s fault. What pregnant guy, you ask? Well this guy: http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid52947.asp

Now I made an innocent comment to one of my co-workers that it seems mighty suspicious that this guy was having a press conference on April 1st. Historically, that’s just not been the day you want to come out and have people take you seriously. It would be nice if it was true but I’m just too much of a skeptic to believe I guess. I’m not denying the possibility of a trans-gender person having a child. What I’m skeptical about is whether that is the case here. There are too many red flags in this case.

Well anyway, my real problem is that this comment led to an utterly unneeded debate between myself and another co-worker. I don’t really know what set him off, nor do I care to explore at this point. It took every bit of my energy not to start screaming at him right then and there. Somehow from my comment he gathered that I was prejudiced against trans gendered people just because I said this guy might be lying. I might be acting overly sensitive (it tends to happen) but that really pissed me off. I try my best to always keep an open mind and I pride myself on being tolerant to everyone. So when someone calls me prejudiced, especially when its not true, I get mad. I tried to step back and examine my own comments thinking that maybe I was just misconstruing my own words, but no, the co-worker I had originally directed the comment to was backing me and explaining my point to the other guy. But he still swore I was being prejudiced.

Sigh. Like I said, it’s probably me being overly sensitive but I just wasn’t expecting that. After the commute from hell this morning, ongoing drama with ACS and my job, I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with that. Especially not from someone I had considered to be a friend. I guess that’s what I get for trying to be nice. I think I’ll just stick to my supervisor’s advice and keep to myself. It makes it easier for everyone.

But enough of my whining, I finally cracked and decided that I need to waste some money. I mean I got this job and have yet to splurge on anything totally and utterly ridiculous. So I did. Today at 2:30 (shortly after the above incident), I purchased a brand new iPod Touch. It’s expensive but so totally worth it (I think). And according to Apple, they’ve already shipped it, so I should have it by tomorrow. Yayness! Sorry, but I’m one of those people that shop when they’re upset. And that iPod went miles in improving my mood. If not for that I would have been kicking people while on the train this evening. And there are still laws against that… stupid laws.

And there you have it. That was my day. I got yelled at about a pregnant man that may or may not be real and bought a terribly expensive mp3 player that I will love more than my cat chances are. Somehow it all balances out to be a slightly average day.

Most people know about me and my six month struggle to fin a job. Okay, if I’m really honest I didn’t really start looking until around Novemember and even then it was kind of half ass. But at any rate, there was a struggle to find gainful employment so that I wasn’t freeloading off my parents. Now that I’ve found this wonderful job the only thing I can say is that I wish I was unemployed again.

 Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. I love my co-workers. I work in an amazing building surrounded by really awesome places to eat (Burger King, McDonald’s, Applebees, its wonderful!) and I get to see really interesting cases. But still I just wish that I had some time off. Now that things are finally starting to move at work by the time I get home I’m exhausted. I barely have time to feed my cat much less work on any of the million story ideas I have floating around in my head. I have my series on TS2 site that I haven’t really even had much time to type up. Its a pain! Yes, I’m whining. Deal with it.

I know that with time I’ll learn how to balance work with play but for right now I’m stuck. I have nothing that even resembles a social life and I’m supposedly in the prime of my life. Well, I guess its true. You get what you wish for and I wished that I had a job. Now I have one. Now I just have to learn how to manage work and having a life. Not that I had much of one before I started working anyway….

I don’t know how many people have heard this case outside of NY but here is the gist of this situation. A woman, Leatrice Brewer, killed her three children, a girl and two boys, six and under, this past Sunday. The woman had a history (apparently) of mental health issues and criminal records. However, none of this was shared with the social services agency assigned to this case. Because of this, when the agency assigned to the case never believe that the children were any imminent danger. So when a visit wasn’t completed that Saturday, it was rescheduled for Sunday. By Sunday morning those kids were dead and now the supervisor at the agency is all but being hung out to dry.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/02/26/2008-02-26_caseworker_suspended_after_mother_kills_.html

I do agree that there is definitely a degree of personal responsibility that this man has to face. He failed those kids in a major way by ordering a delay but I don’t think that he should be held responsible for all of this. This makes me worried as well as angry because that very well could be me or one of my co-workers in that situation. We do work with populations very similar to this, with families that are just as messed up as these and it very easily could have been one of us that wound up in this situation. That frustrates and scares me at the same time.

 Since the story has come to light, my supervisor has been on a kick forcing out to the homes more than normal. And I can’t say that I blame her. There is a severe lack of communication between ACS and small prevention agencies. That lack of communication is what leads to incidents like these. But its not ACS that gets caught in the crossfire, its supervisors and staff at these agencies that are getting the blame. I’ve only been with my agency going on a month now and I’ve come up across some of the most incompetent people working at ACS. And its these people who hold my client’s future in their hands. Its ridiculous how unmotivated some of them are. That is until something like this happens and all of a sudden the ACS worker is very quick to place the blame on someone else.