Sometimes the hardest thing about my job is tempering my natural sunshine puppy-dog rainbow love optimistic streak with cynical reality. OK, I know I’m more up in the cynical shit, but a girl can dream.
Back in the olden days, there was a musical called “Hair” and a song called “Easy to Be Hard,”incidentally covered by groovy 70s band Three Dog Night. In the lyrics, whilst bitching about someone being mean to them, the singer shits on the meanness in question by suggesting progressive activists are the biggest assholes. OK, maybe I should let the lyrics speak for themselves:
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud, easy to say no
{Refrain}
Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend, I need a friend
Sometimes, that song just runs through my head all fucking day at work. I mean I work with some seriously committed workers who by the very nature of their work are trying to fix some shit that’s very wrong politically and economically. For less money than they could be paid in the real world (or the political world) and with likelihood of ending up at best a silent-ish partner footnote in public, published reports, they are actively doing shit for the world.
But, interpersonally, apart from the large world stage agenda, and in the small little office setup, I just gotta scratch my head and think, “you got to be fucking kidding me.” I ain’t no saint, and I am quite arguably not the least bit nurturing, but I dunno, maybe ‘cuz my ma taught little kids most of her life, including her own, I picked up a little eensy bit of something like etiquette or courtesy, something that says, “Hey, I’ll wait my turn.” Everyone has not been so blessed to upon occasion put someone else’s needs ahead. Sigh.
I’ll stop that rant there, given that I’m writing right up against that line where I got myself hung on my own rope at another job (mind you by a fuckhead with an axe to grind), but nonetheless my own words themselves did contribute to the ending of that gig.
Point is, really about me. Ironically, I know, my hating on the behavior of others is really about me. My needs, my viewpoints. Fuck you all else.
In several of my past jobs, I’ve worked with women who for personal reasons, including health, have had to take time off and make adjustments around taking care of themselves. (What are the fucking odds really that that’s been the dynamic? Two of them actually have had the same chronic health condition that hit only about 1% of folks in the country.) Anyway, I mention gender, because at the same time, I’ve worked with the regular middle class cliche — married with children (and, of course, this being 2007 and the whole sexism mojo still at play women are the primary caregivers in the dynamic).
Me, I’m in the middle, no kids, no caregiving, but no health problems to speak about (‘cept for feeling increasingly creaky around the joints and fat around the middle). I’m the schmuck who pretty much can be at the office most all of the time, given there ain’t no standardly accepted excuses that trump health or children. “Um, yeah, love to help you out there, but I have dinner reservations at this cute bistro, you see,” kind of makes you sound like an asshole.
Somehow, I think my relationship with Pat has made me a natural to fall right into that middle, and it’s presumed responsibility to help out the others. The suck side, of course, is I hate care taking. I hate extra responsibility. If I wanted to nurture I would have spawned my own cell cluster and dragged my DNA-carrier to soccer practice, dance lessons or tae kwon do. But, I doubled up on the prophylactics and focused on the joys of double-income no kids.
Pat once told me she never expected me to take care of her if she ended up so infirm as needing it, because that just wasn’t my talent. Wisely, she suggested hiring someone with the requisite skills.
Here’s the thing, though, and it also relates back to Pat. There seems to be an inverse proportion to women who could use an extra hand asking, versus them that don’t who do. Here’s what I mean. Pat was a single mom. She had five kids (a good 2-3 more than today’s averages). She had a job, and before that she had a full-time class schedule to get the training to get the job.
She pretty much never missed a day of work. She didn’t shirk extra responsibilities expected to come out of her own short-supply time (bus duty after school, parent-teacher meetings, assemblies, training). Only one fucking time can I remember her using one of her kids as an excuse to get out of anything. Yup, I think she might have called in sick the day she was trying to get in touch with the Soviet consulate to figure out what the hell was up with her traveling middle child and his ill-timed appendicitis in Moscow.
More than anything, she didn’t make excuses or accept them. I know some parents now who are like that, too. And, it seems like a lot of single mothers in particular to this day find it necessary to hold up to the world that they’ve got it covered.
And, folks I know and have met with various serious illnesses, chronic problems, they pretty much tough it out. I’ve worked with people who hid chemo, diabetes, HIV, rheumatoid arthritis, hormonal conditions, migraines, MS and all sorts of things that just make it tougher to get through the day. What they’ve had in common seemed to be a desire to not be perceived as invalids. Nope, instead, they plugged on, sometimes with what looked like a cockeyed optimism, because otherwise they’d be throwing in a very personal towel. Who the fuck wants to limp around and act pathetic, since once you do it’s like a lifestyle choice.
But, and here’s the shit that rises my dander, yanks my chain and overall just pisses me the fuck off, sometimes it feels like it’s the folks who should have it all covered who ask for the most favors. Let me get this straight, you have an intact family with two grown-up adults working together to raise the family, you have an extended family, you have a house, at least one car and maybe a nanny thrown in for good measure, but I have to listen to you tell me how hard your work schedule is because you have kids? Sister, please.
I’m similarly unmoved by jet lag, colds or flus, unless you give everyone the same courtesy you request when you’re sick. In my career, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been called or emailed when I’ve taken scant days off by prima donnas who weep and ask you to weep in solidarity for their every hangnail. (And, by all fucking means, if you can’t function when you are downed by a rhino virus, I don’t ever want to hear you complain about how the folks with the actual illnesses always seem to have something come up when you need them. We all gots to bend some of the time.)
If you are well, if your children are well, if you and your husband have built a middle-class castle with the accoutrements of a comfortable life, I’m not sure you get as many favors as them that don’t. It might sound unfair, but you might even have to be the giver not the taker.
I am very likely as much of an asshole as the next guy. I am sure I am just as selfish as the human condition allows. However, it seems like I’m the schmuck who gets asked to cover by the people who in my opinion shouldn’t be asking. And, I’m the schmuck who offers to help out the people who don’t ask, simply because I’m aware enough and mildly conscientious.
With all that helping, I guess the only thing that keeps me from being a complete schmuck, is I do know how to help myself. My last life’s lesson from a woman who hated to ask for help was to fucking learn how to take care of myself.
Woe is me that me and my kind might constitute a minority.
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