It's been almost a month and a half since our department received news that the company had finalized the contract. Three waves of layoffs will make way for third party customer service representatives to take over. Soon, another agent - more often than not based in another country - will be answering the phone. Not me. Not Marie. Not Tomasita. Not Chris. Not any of my co-workers.
I have let it sit inside like a stone. Unfeeling. I have not even looked at my resume since being hired on, despite the early warning.
Tonight is perhaps the third time we have all been gathered together to discuss it, although, frankly, there has been little discussion. The majority is quiet. What do you say to that? My mind goes blank usually. Or rather, my heart goes blank while my mind races into walls, probably in attempt to knock itself out. It really sounds more dramatic than it is.
While the Important People spoke to us from the front of the room, the cynic in me could not help thinking how much more this display of support was a means of easing their conscience as opposed to being "there" for us.
It is logical to me that these meetings truly serve both sides. But I don't pretend this demonstration is not vastly to save the company's collective face. To save the faces of those who made the decision for the good of the company. In other words I can still fully appreciate the benefits of this gentle ass fuck as opposed to a brutally lubeless intrusion - and the fact that some people truly do care for us AND the success of the company. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive - the consequences for us simply suck. In truth, the company is a much better company than the majority and I have a genuine sense of loyalty working there. Success on company's part via assimilation? Or mine?
Though I hardly dream of being a customer service representive for my entire life, the job has fulfilled me and I hope I it. For the first time since news broke, I struggled to swallow back tears. Maybe it's because Michele and Erin cried.
But I suddenly realized, despite my logical understanding of the decision being completely impersonal to any of us, I have been taking it personally on an emotional level the entire time, a distinction I thought I was much better at than this. I have always thrived on validation from others. I do not require it to function, to be fantastic but gee golly Miss Molly, it sure does help!
Because of the nature of our department - fast paced, clock hands riding us like a depraved psychotic - validation of the individual's abilities and successes is lowest priority and the importance of resolving any mistakes much higher. The silver lining of that structure is this: I have learned to rely much more on myself than before, a habit I need to continually foster. Trust and self-reliance is not a habit that comes easily to me but I can do it, and do it pretty well anyway. My experience working in this department has strengthened me and I am utterly grateful for it.
But I am sad. Sad to see others go. To know that things are changing pretty drastically for those I have grown to care about almost like a family. Mentally, differentiating work from friends/family is easy but emotionally, suffice it to say I easily fall in love with awesome people.
I also feel that the change is overall a beautiful one, one that has some of us dusting off our dreams and re-evaluating our hopes and goals. And we get to do it together.
Showing posts with label shit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shit. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Head to toe, spirit to soul
Is there a breaking point? It happens in slow motion. Breaking points work outside of the normal flow of time, weaving past, present, future quick quick quick all at once. That makes sense to me - a dramatic fork in the road can shatter a reality.
For a split second, all of my life's traumas and depressions rolled up microscopic as a pre-Big Bang egg a quark could swallow exploded soundlessly. It washed over me in waves so tidal they drenched every wall inside me head to toe, spirit to soul. I thought I would die for a moment stretched on in ironic limitlessness. I felt sad, helpless, angry, shamed, fearful - my mother's face at the center of it all. Then, it was over as soon as it started. It was like a RAR file spontaneously unzipped then recoiled.
Lapse in sanity is just a tiny lapse in our linear world, a glimpse of a far more enduring version of reality, truer than the kinds in which we typically participate. I still have no idea why it happened or what it means - just that it happened and could be the introduction to something more significant to come.
For a split second, all of my life's traumas and depressions rolled up microscopic as a pre-Big Bang egg a quark could swallow exploded soundlessly. It washed over me in waves so tidal they drenched every wall inside me head to toe, spirit to soul. I thought I would die for a moment stretched on in ironic limitlessness. I felt sad, helpless, angry, shamed, fearful - my mother's face at the center of it all. Then, it was over as soon as it started. It was like a RAR file spontaneously unzipped then recoiled.
Lapse in sanity is just a tiny lapse in our linear world, a glimpse of a far more enduring version of reality, truer than the kinds in which we typically participate. I still have no idea why it happened or what it means - just that it happened and could be the introduction to something more significant to come.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Irony is a big, old, honking bitch
Lately, certainties seem to slip through my fingers. I can grasp all I want, set all the clever little traps to get that "extra edge" but all for naught. I swear that the truth is lurking right before me, so close I can physically feel it. Vague but as tactile as breath scraping across my skin. The big April Fool's joke is that Certainty does not exist - and that's the only certainty! Irony is a big, old, honking bitch.
Today, I vented about work and hopefully didn't get anyone in trouble in the process - I want to retract it all and fling it down the garbage disposal where it belongs. Desperation is sticky and I can feel its slime trickle down all over me. I think when my office nameplate launched into a suicide dive to my feet while Kelcey talked about her earring flying out of its place was an omen.
I am flawed, imperfect, terrible. I think that's what I'm supposed to learn from this. Not that it's "OK" but that I should know better by now. Now, that I am lifting this thin veil of ignorance to what I have allowed to happen inside of me. My heart endures but I've been treating it like an enemy and wrenched it from its natural partnership with mind. Speaking of which, this self/soul mutilation has fostered a bloated mess that clogs clear vision. I picture some grotesque alien with a flabby head so large its prone to drag limply behind me as I trudge along.
It needs to stop now.
Today, I vented about work and hopefully didn't get anyone in trouble in the process - I want to retract it all and fling it down the garbage disposal where it belongs. Desperation is sticky and I can feel its slime trickle down all over me. I think when my office nameplate launched into a suicide dive to my feet while Kelcey talked about her earring flying out of its place was an omen.
I am flawed, imperfect, terrible. I think that's what I'm supposed to learn from this. Not that it's "OK" but that I should know better by now. Now, that I am lifting this thin veil of ignorance to what I have allowed to happen inside of me. My heart endures but I've been treating it like an enemy and wrenched it from its natural partnership with mind. Speaking of which, this self/soul mutilation has fostered a bloated mess that clogs clear vision. I picture some grotesque alien with a flabby head so large its prone to drag limply behind me as I trudge along.
It needs to stop now.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Where the Buffalo Are
So my brother decided to resurrect our old hard drive from 5 or 6 years ago for...whatever his purposes are. He salvaged my old documents and to say the least, it's been like finding a time capsule of HORROR and DISMAY at what a silly teenager I was.
He found a creative piece I wrote less than 2 months after I turned 17 for one of my two history classes during senior year of high school. I was enrolled in 2 history classes - 1 IB World History class and 1 "remedial" US History for the easy A to make up for my dismal grade in IB US History the year prior.
The teacher asked us to write from the perspective of the Native Americans during the European colonization of the United States. I think I was a bit liberal with the prompt and wrote in a style loosely inspired by Toni Morrison's Beloved since we had read it for IB English. Since the hard drive crash, I have been looking for a copy of this piece ever since.
I not only turned it in and got an A, I printed it out in red italics - AND read it out loud to the class for extra credit. It's a fucking wonder they didn't send me straight to the school psychologist:
Chance Hilott
US History – 6
Her side rises with my head against it. I lay my head on the soft down of my mother, ensanguined with blood. Mine and hers, our blood, it bleeds into the milk she leaks. Precious, life-giving elixir, tainted with blood, human and animal. I hear the Earth our bodies rest upon, the Earth which we cannot separate ourselves from, I hear her cry out, drink in our blood. She observes her own children go mad with greed, with fury. She weeps. The breath snorting through my mother’s nostrils fades. We see red and are blinded by it.
We cannot do a thing.
My mother and I. We cannot close our eyes. The men without skin scalp my sister. I see her fall to her knees before me, her eyes meet my lifeless ones before she falls silently to kiss the Earth. Her blood feeds the Earth too. My mother’s body shudders. I shudder.
There…I see my father wrapped in the red mist. He wrestles with the skinless one. Something happens, and the skinless one falls. My father wipes his brow as he watches the Earth drink the blood of her skinless son. My father explodes! His body collapses on top of the skinless one’s. They embrace, their blood merges as one stream. The Earth drinks and cries.
The skinless ones. They crush my baby’s skull with stone. Yesterday he said, “Mama.” They rape my aunt. They spit on her, scratch her face and slice off her breasts with their wolves’ claws. They drag her ravaged body behind their horses. They slice her neck but her eyes are open. They laugh, their mouths move. They chew us up and spit us out. Their smiles are stained with blood, coating their teeth like oil. They carry our scalps on the point of their sword, mocking our way. I cannot see anymore.
Nothing but red.
It consumes me. I cannot cry but my soul weeps. I cannot moan but my soul wails.
Where is my mother? I forget. Where have all the buffalo gone? My heart hurts. I am so tired. My eyes hurt. I do not like the red. But I cannot close my eyes. Blood, the Earth’s breath stinks of burnt blood, like copper. The skinless ones taste the red too. Some of them hesitate because of it. Most are propelled by it. I cannot see the blue sky. There’s too much red. I cannot see the buffalo. Too much red. I cannot see the Earth. Too much red. I cannot see my mother.
Too much red.
I cannot taste her milk. I gag on metallic blood. My mother’s blood. The skinless one’s blood. The buffalo’s blood. My blood. The Earth swallows it all. I want water. But the red is too dense, thick like cotton. I cannot breathe. Singing. Who is singing? I need to taste the singing. I want to taste that song. I need to hear the milk. I can hardly feel it when they take my scalp. My eyes are open! But I don’t care.
Who is singing? I have to touch it…I reach out for it with my mind. I have to have it. Her song carries me away. It is mine. She whispers to me that she will take me to the buffalo, where the milk and the water are. Where the red won’t hurt my eyes. Where the red can’t clog my throat.
She says that my mother is there.
She says that my sister and father are there.
She says my aunt is there. And my sweet, sweet baby too. But she cannot carry me there until the red is gone. Until we are set free.
So still I wait.
He found a creative piece I wrote less than 2 months after I turned 17 for one of my two history classes during senior year of high school. I was enrolled in 2 history classes - 1 IB World History class and 1 "remedial" US History for the easy A to make up for my dismal grade in IB US History the year prior.
The teacher asked us to write from the perspective of the Native Americans during the European colonization of the United States. I think I was a bit liberal with the prompt and wrote in a style loosely inspired by Toni Morrison's Beloved since we had read it for IB English. Since the hard drive crash, I have been looking for a copy of this piece ever since.
I not only turned it in and got an A, I printed it out in red italics - AND read it out loud to the class for extra credit. It's a fucking wonder they didn't send me straight to the school psychologist:
Chance Hilott
US History – 6
Where the Buffalo Are
Her side rises with my head against it. I lay my head on the soft down of my mother, ensanguined with blood. Mine and hers, our blood, it bleeds into the milk she leaks. Precious, life-giving elixir, tainted with blood, human and animal. I hear the Earth our bodies rest upon, the Earth which we cannot separate ourselves from, I hear her cry out, drink in our blood. She observes her own children go mad with greed, with fury. She weeps. The breath snorting through my mother’s nostrils fades. We see red and are blinded by it.
We cannot do a thing.
My mother and I. We cannot close our eyes. The men without skin scalp my sister. I see her fall to her knees before me, her eyes meet my lifeless ones before she falls silently to kiss the Earth. Her blood feeds the Earth too. My mother’s body shudders. I shudder.
There…I see my father wrapped in the red mist. He wrestles with the skinless one. Something happens, and the skinless one falls. My father wipes his brow as he watches the Earth drink the blood of her skinless son. My father explodes! His body collapses on top of the skinless one’s. They embrace, their blood merges as one stream. The Earth drinks and cries.
The skinless ones. They crush my baby’s skull with stone. Yesterday he said, “Mama.” They rape my aunt. They spit on her, scratch her face and slice off her breasts with their wolves’ claws. They drag her ravaged body behind their horses. They slice her neck but her eyes are open. They laugh, their mouths move. They chew us up and spit us out. Their smiles are stained with blood, coating their teeth like oil. They carry our scalps on the point of their sword, mocking our way. I cannot see anymore.
Nothing but red.
It consumes me. I cannot cry but my soul weeps. I cannot moan but my soul wails.
Where is my mother? I forget. Where have all the buffalo gone? My heart hurts. I am so tired. My eyes hurt. I do not like the red. But I cannot close my eyes. Blood, the Earth’s breath stinks of burnt blood, like copper. The skinless ones taste the red too. Some of them hesitate because of it. Most are propelled by it. I cannot see the blue sky. There’s too much red. I cannot see the buffalo. Too much red. I cannot see the Earth. Too much red. I cannot see my mother.
Too much red.
I cannot taste her milk. I gag on metallic blood. My mother’s blood. The skinless one’s blood. The buffalo’s blood. My blood. The Earth swallows it all. I want water. But the red is too dense, thick like cotton. I cannot breathe. Singing. Who is singing? I need to taste the singing. I want to taste that song. I need to hear the milk. I can hardly feel it when they take my scalp. My eyes are open! But I don’t care.
Who is singing? I have to touch it…I reach out for it with my mind. I have to have it. Her song carries me away. It is mine. She whispers to me that she will take me to the buffalo, where the milk and the water are. Where the red won’t hurt my eyes. Where the red can’t clog my throat.
She says that my mother is there.
She says that my sister and father are there.
She says my aunt is there. And my sweet, sweet baby too. But she cannot carry me there until the red is gone. Until we are set free.
So still I wait.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Laughing at shit
Tomasita started her first blog today. I thought, why not? So I'm going to try resurrecting my online journal addiction, yet again. Back in 2000, a close friend encouraged me to start a diary and pointed me to diaryland.com. Steadily, I poured my daily thoughts, emotional shifts and mundane crap into a section of the internet abyss for 3 years at http://www.diaryland.com/hemopoetic, then in another stint at http://livejournal.com/neatobandito.
I'm confused about why I ever stopped since I loved it so much. Possibly, some logical part in my brain overcame the habit because it served no directly practical purpose. Perhaps I ran out of things to write about. It wouldn't surprise me since I'm basically boring.
In any case, writing about this self-proclaimed boring life brought me the clarity to better cope with incoherent bullshit clamoring for attention in my mind. I think writing made room for the more important shit. Shit is shit but there are all kinds of shit. I don't want bullshit, heavy shit, or stupid shit. I want to scoot that shit over to make room for the important shit or shit that counts for something. That's the type of shit that makes life worth actually living.
I'm confused about why I ever stopped since I loved it so much. Possibly, some logical part in my brain overcame the habit because it served no directly practical purpose. Perhaps I ran out of things to write about. It wouldn't surprise me since I'm basically boring.
In any case, writing about this self-proclaimed boring life brought me the clarity to better cope with incoherent bullshit clamoring for attention in my mind. I think writing made room for the more important shit. Shit is shit but there are all kinds of shit. I don't want bullshit, heavy shit, or stupid shit. I want to scoot that shit over to make room for the important shit or shit that counts for something. That's the type of shit that makes life worth actually living.
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