So, yeah. My life sucks.

A few weeks ago I quit my old job at Office A because I was offered a job with a 40% pay increase. When you haven't seen a raise in 4 years, an extra 40% looks damn good. Office A threw me a lovely going away party, and I was sad to leave them behind, but happy to start a new, better paying job.




That is, until, a week later, they shit canned me. Evidently, despite working my hardest to ensure they knew I was worth what they paid me, it was decided I was not a "good fit." Well fuck me sideways. I tried going back to my old job, only to be told they'd filled me position. The attitude was basically, "You shouldn't have left. Life's a bitch, huh?"




I applied for unemployment, and I also did something I never thought I'd ever have to do: I applied for welfare. And I was accepted. Yep. I am now officially a welfare Mama.




I never thought I'd be at this point. For the last ten years I have been employed. I have never had to apply for unemployment, much less welfare. But, you know what's worse than being on welfare? Going to there "orientation classes." The classes are designed to help you get and keep a job. And I get it, some of these people have never held a job in their life. But some of the topics covered seemed to be things a mentally challenged llama should know. This such as...




1) Don't show up to the interview hung over, or drunk.

Um, duh? I cannot think of a single profession where showing up smelling like a bar isn't frowned upon.




2) Don't be rude to or insult the interviewer.

Again: duh. Unless you are deliberately trying to bomb the interview, why on Earth would you insult the person trying to give you a job?! This person is offering you money to perform a job you're obviously qualified for, or you wouldn't be here. It's like a first date: put forth your best impression or you aren't going to make it past the appetizers.




3) Your email should not be SexxxyPoleDancer69.

Unless, of course, you're trying to apply to be a dancer at a titty bar. Then, by all means, have at it.




4) If you would wear it to "da club" don't wear it do "da office".

What choo talkin' 'bout, Willis? You mean my tits and ass hanging out aren't work appropriate? Wish someone had told me this before I showed up to da office wearing pasties and lucite 5" heels.




5) Spell check your correspondance before you hit send.

In this day and age, there is ZERO reason why anything should be misspelled. When you're asking for a job, don't you generally want to sound intelligent? Unless the company you are looking to be hired with specializes in hiring the mentally disabled, you generally want to appear like you passed 4th grade English. Dumb ass.




I realize that they wouldn't mention these things if they didn't have specific examples to draw from. That being said, if you cannot figure out how to send out a spelling-error free email, and show up acting (and looking) respectable to a job interview, you have bigger issues. With the Internet being free in a TON of businesses, there is NO reason why you can't Google how to act/dress in an interview.




In the meantime, pray to the diety of your choice that I get another job quickly. And if you happen to know anyone who's hiring, by God give them my number.



~Mad Merlot Mama

In Which I Piss and Moan Like a Whiney little Bitch

First of all, let me say I am happy to have a job, much less one that pays better. I accepted a job at another firm, with one helluva pay raise. (How pathetic is it that making $30k a year is considered "one helluva pay raise"?) But everyone has things about their job they SERIOUSLY could do without, and I am no exception. For example....





1. Your coffee fucking sucks. Remedy this.

At Old Office, we had a coffee vendor, and I was in charge of ordering. Since all of us were severe coffee addicts, I spent the extra corporate cash to get the good stuff. Primo coffee and a primo brewing system. The employees were free to drink as much as they wanted, and all was right in the world. At New Office, not only does the coffee straight up BLOW, you have to "donate" $5-$10 a week for the priviledge of drinking their swill. They use cheap, crappy coffee to begin with, and they brew it incredibly weak. Now, I like strong, jump start a jet plane coffee. My theory is, I can't make mine stronger, but you can water yours down. What's worse is that even if they did buy better coffee, the water is heavily chlorinated and that taste comes through in the coffee. There is no winning here.





2. They have openly admitted they hold a double standard when it comes to me.

Everyone else in the office wears jeans and sneakers, and if it's warm out, shorts. I am not afforded such a luxury. Because I am now at the front desk, I am required to wear dress slacks, skirts, sweaters, and the like. I find this amusing, as guests aren't there to see me, they're there to see the people in the back office...The people wearing jeans and sneakers. Also, while everyone else can have pictures and such up, I cannot. I had two pictures of Kidlette on my desk, under the lip of the counter. (That nobody can see.) I was promply told to remove them, as again, I am the "face of the company" and they wanted a professional image. Not so much as a personalized desktop background.





3. There is to be ZERO music playing at all times.

Again, this double standard irks me. Most people have small radios or iPod docks, where they play music. At Old Office, absolutely everyone had music playing. We all happened to work better with it, and the theory was "If if helps you work better, go for it." I had a Mozart mix playing, and I was told that such actions are highly unprofessional. I find this amusing, since every single waiting room I have ever been in plays music. I cannot work without music, I cannot concentrate. As a result, I hum to myself constantly. It's not the same, and I truly have a difficult time maintaining focus.





4. There is no socializing. Nada. None. Zilch. Period.

I get it, we're all here to work. I understand this. At Old Office, if you happened upon someone waiting for the coffee to brew, it was fine to chat a bit. If it was the last couple minutes of the day and we were slow, you'd find people talking to one another. Not so at New Office. People exchange brief, perfunctory hellos in passing, and that. is. it. Attempts to engage in any form of conversation, to y'know, get to know the people you work with, are rebuffed. I feel like it's the first day of school and not only am I the new kid, I've got an obvious communicable disease.





5. That computer you're using is for WORK only. Do NOT use it for anything else.

Before you roll your eyes and say, "Duh." think about it. Who among us can say they only use their computer for work? Like you've never gone to a non-work related website, or sent a friend a quick email? Or had some down time, and hit up TMZ? At Old Office, nobody really gave a damn if you surfed the Web, as long as your shit got done. New Office has a program that not only logs every single website you've been to, it logs exactly how much time you've spent on each site, and my boss gets a notification whenever I go to a non-Office website. (And he also knew that I tried to log into YouTube and Facebook, both of which are blocked. Fuck. Me.) The worst part? I'm used to talking to Mad Housewife every single day through IM. I tried to download it, and got blocked, and then my boss asked why I need Yahoo IM, since nobody else had it. FUCK. ME.







Here's to buttoning my lip so I can make better money. (Here's to also needing more liquor and cigarettes than I ever have in my life.)





Mad Merlot Mama

Committed.

I had to commit my husband to a mental institution last week.


I'll rewind.


My hubs is in the active duty Marine Corps.  I'm a Marine Corps veteran.  Between us we have 13 years of active duty (so far) and three deployments to Iraq.


Thats a LOT of PTSD to cram into a single household.


My hubs works a VERY high stress, high security clearance job.  In a position with a TON of responsibility.  He's been working in that particular position for over two years.  Now they work these guys to death- hubs schedule was two days on, two days off, three days on, three days off, repeat in 12 hour shifts.  5 am to 5 pm, 5 pm to 5 am, switching days and nights every two weeks.


I totally defy you to work like that and not go crazy.


Add into the mix a genetic predisposition to depression and a fucked up history of childhood abuse, and you have yourself a steaming cauldron of crazy.


Long story short, my hubby told me that a) he couldn't shut up the voices in his head and b) that the voices were telling him that it would be an awesome idea to kill himself.


I have to explain that besides being husband and wife, we also have a parallel bond as Marines.  It's hard to explain if you've never been a Marine, but it's like having been in a cult together.... I digress.


Anyway, in the last ten years or so, the Marine Corps (and the military in general) has been losing more guys to suicide (and motorcycle accidents, not suprisingly) than to the actual WAR.  So the Marine Corp's suicide prevention program is pretty pervasive. We're all trained to handle this shit.


So, through the shock of my husband dropping my shotgun in my lap and telling me to get rid of it because the voices wouldn't STFU, my training kicked in.  I guess brainwashing is for life.


I told him that either I call the ambulance, or the base Chaplain and hub's First Sergeant.  He picked the Chaplain.


Hubs voluntarily checked himself in to the mental hospital a few days later.  He stayed there for a week. He made incredible leaps and bounds in his recovery.  He's properly medicated, we have a tentative diagnosis.


He's home now, and in the middle of an intensive outpatient program.


I'm still numb.


We still have to figure out what our new normal is.