Corporate Work Doing Dishes

When I got my first few intellectual jobs (Linguistics), I was so PROUD that I was being hired for my brain.  (And told more people than I should have, who probably didn't think I should have been as surprised as I was)

Stage Managing in Theater was all about setting up the chairs, being the secretary and making the calls, an assistant, the maid.  The Servant.

I would have been lucky to make $70K a year.  (Even as the head Stage Manager of Hamilton.  Worse, there is NO job security from show to show.  Even if I had made it all the way, it would be $2k a week for 20 weeks a year...)

Corporate Work is just as bad in ways, and worse. My manager doesn't want me to write my own reports, he wants to look at my notes and sculpt it into a report of his own.

I was hired for my relationship skills, my degrees, my experience and felt like I was the mistress (Contractor) but now instead of being appreciated for who I am, I'm told that my whole job is to do dishes.

Waltham Traffic, 7:40am

There has been no sun or rise for the past two days.

Rain and fog, although no ice yet.but it will come.

I've stopped listening to the news since the election.

I sit in my car for an extra 10 minutes before I enter my work building.

10 minutes of music a day is all I get.

Haunted by Your Former Self

Drove by the old coffee shop in a taxi the other night. The building next to Grand Central is gone, and the view is gorgeous.

A hole in the sky.

And I can afford to take a taxi, and can afford to give a nice tip without worrying.

Rich People Complaining

One querulous woman kept complaining that the morning shuttle was late (15 minutes). Day of, and the day after. Needing to reaffirm her righteousness.

And she had a meeting in the afternoon, which she fell asleep to, but annoyed the rest of us. 

Walking to a 5:30 start, the girl who stopped me because she was high as a kite. The police were after her for peeing in the bushes at the NYPL. But she couldn't tell her father, back in the Netherlands.

Pleading with me, stuck in an expensive habit.

I Can Be in Love With Almost Anyone

Somehow, at both sunrise and sunset, you can gaze at people and see how they could be beloved.

The homeless or working people, tired at the beginnings and at the ends of the day.

All the office workers in the city.  Possibly 10% in love at any given moment.

How many affairs, how many broken hearts?  How many of them in the first flush of friendliness?

How easy is it to fall in love with one person?  With 10?  With everyone on the subway?

Just planting the seed of the idea.

Try it.

5 Days a Week

I forgot to account for the notion that 5 days a week of 9-5 is absolutely exhausting.

It's even worse when there are lots of rules and regulations. And when all of them are kept in the shadows, so you have a sense of trying to do things properly, but then not having any idea of what that means.

Contractors are 2nd class citizens. No travel, no being allowed to join "employee groups", (even if I end up contributing).  And there is no loyalty and no sense of accomplishment.  And seeing your co-workers being burned.  And trying to support J, when she wants her ego stroked, but she is hesitant to sneak me past the hotel staff in the lobby. (Rolling my eyes)

Has she never been in a hotel before?  Or does she just not want to offer to share a hotel-then say so!  She encouraged me to get a hotel room, and to charge overtime to pay for it.  (BC me fraudulently charging the company for HOURS is less of a sin than sneaking me through the lobby)
We were invited to have dinner, but I have to get home before the last train.  I will try not to be too catty in the moment when I remind her why I have to miss dinner.

Funny to be pressured into paying by someone who has a REGULAR JOB, benefits, and job stability.

Tough Jobs

Watching an awards show right now.

So happy that Broadway celebrates the best of live storytelling.

Especially knowing how terrible the world can be (and was last night at 2am in Orlando).

Conflicting emotions.

Just be happy for the people who are happy.  And that you have those memories or working with them.

(And know that you will always be the Waitress.  The faceless, nameless one in the background, waiting to get your story told.  And sung. Stay strong and keep showing up)

Love is Love is Love is Love is Love