Before I bring everybody down by complaining, I’d like to make some attempt to support my community and re-blog what you’ve all heard already:

KDHX is having their spring membership drive!  This is the only independent radio station in St. Louis and they are 100% dependent on contributions.  I renewed my annual membership for Rocket 88 and became a very small part of the super badass $8973 from my ZIP code.  The most generous and musically-inclined ZIP code in the city!  Woot!

So please donate.  Get yourself a sticker and some tickets to Midwest Mayhem, and then we can all hang out at City Museum and congratulate ourselves for being great.

Okay.

Something is rotten in the southwest corner of the building.

It’s on both sides of my desk.

There’s a person who allegedly sits to my right.  I say allegedly because he rarely shows up.  He has a number of excuses, but most involve his kids.  Look, I don’t think anyone else has the right to tell me what to do with my uterus, so I can’t claim authority over someone else’s reproductive rights.  However, if having kids renders you incapable of doing your job, you’re going to need to choose.  Kids or job.  Pick one.

If your kids are always sick, or you’re always sick because the kids made you sick, or your spouse (who doesn’t even work) is sick because the kids made them sick and this somehow means you have to stay home all the goddamn time to take care of sick people, even though the majority of them are old enough to operate a Kleenex and a microwave by themselves, you’re clearly not cut out to be an employee.  If, in a 6-month period, your co-workers observe that you have not been at work for one full week at a time ever, you need to re-examine your priorities and stop pissing everyone else off.  I have enough to do on my own.  I don’t need to shoulder your workload because you have difficulty understanding the difference between a paycheck and fucking.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m genuinely surprised to see this guy in the office.  I’m pissed off because I’d love to be able to call into work whenever I’d rather focus on some other part of my life.  Dude, I have two jobs, a boyfriend, a nephew, pets, friends…you know, an overall life.  I got shit to do on top of my job and I know I don’t have time for kids, too.  My coworkers, all middle-aged women, are pissed because they weren’t given the same allowances for kid-related absence.  In order to be treated equally, they had to balance being parents and having jobs.  They had to wipe noses, make breakfasts, get the kids to school, show up on time, and christ almighty, I could write forever about the gender divide but I’m carpal tunnel-y today and I’m pissed about other stuff, too.

Like the guy who sits on my left.

In the entire history of my working life, I’ve seriously wanted to punch maybe 5 of my coworkers.  And I mean seriously.  Like, I could feel my hands twitch and the anticipatory-of-violence endorphin rush to my brain started anytime they were in my presence.  The reasons for wanting to assault people are varied, but it usually amounts to incompetence, assholeishness, or a combination of the two.  The current person I’d like to punch is a perfect storm of incompetence, assholeishness, and on top of that, grammar abuse.  You know who he is?  He’s one of THESE people.

(from Natalie Dee)

He has grown up with every privilege in the world – white male, upper middle class, full private school education – and he has no idea how advantageous this is, or how everyone else in the world might not have experienced the same luck.  Not what he deserves, not manifest destiny, but luck.  It is impossible for him to wrap his narrow little mind around the reality that this is not an equal society, and people are sometimes treated very badly through no fault of their own, and to make things worse, he refuses to believe this sort of thing.  It’s not convenient enough for him.  It amazes me that people who are worth upwards of $300,000.00 in formal education can be so completely clueless.  People who spent years learning how to think are incapable of imagining any sort of life beyond their very limited version of it.  (Oh, and congratulations on still living with your mom, bro.)

There’s a rumor that custodial services are being cut and we’ll all have to empty our own desk trashcans.  Like, big deal.  Oh no, it’s soooo hard to take responsibility for my own waste.

He sneered, “Why should I empty my trash?  That’s what janitors are for.”

Then he poured a bag of chips into his mouth.  At his desk.  About 5 feet away from me.  And my hands started clenching, and I had to remind myself that I have a salary and health insurance and it would not do to beat someone within an inch of their life.  So I told him it was a shitty remark, and as glorified receptionists, we were in no position to look down on another profession.

He looked at me like I was retarded.  Which he thinks I am, because I didn’t go to college, I have tattoos, and I live in the city.  I deal with this by remembering that as dumb as he thinks I am, he must really hate himself when he remembers that he has the same position as and makes less than me.

…..

Sorry.  This was really long and full of a lot of vitriol.  Jesus, I’m even listening to Faces and I can’t stop the poison.