The Napkin Diaries

I'm free! Free from the hell that was my first real, big girl job. Let's do a little recap of the last 2.5 years of my life that I've wasted away:

I had moved to Charleston with Husband (at the time he was Boyfriend, then soon became Fiance). He got me hooked up with a part-time admin job which I kept for about 5 months. I left that job because I managed to land a real 40 hr/week job at a bigger company. Just happy to have a real job with a real paycheck, I was too naive to notice the shit storm I was walking into.

My first boss was a living nightmare. He was this squatty little asshole with a serious case of dandruff who looked down on you (okay we'll figuratively since he had to look up at nearly everyone) if you didn't have 17 college degrees like he did. On a good day, he stood 5 and 1/2 feet tall. And yet for being dwarf-sized (in man height), he had an ego and an attitude big enough to accommodate, oh I don't know, fucking Big Foot. Initiative and creativity were bannished from the building. You were punished for having new ideas. If he didn't come up with it, then it wasn't good enough and would not be considered...

As if having his miserable ass prancing the halls wasn't bad enough, he then decided to hire this lousy excuse of a man who had a serious case of The Dunlop. Dunlop was fat, annoying, loud, full of himself, and disgustingly disrespectful to women. I was one of his first targets because I was a young, pretty, and intelligent woman. Those three things basically put a giant bulls eye on my back (though I wonder if he ever gave me credit for my brain). After taking his abuse for a few months, one day I decided I had had enough. That was it. I was no longer dealing with his meat head bullshit. He asked me to do the most retarded task and I said "you know what, NO. I'm not doing it."

This of course upset our Dunlop. "What? You only do what YOU want to do? What YOU think is important?"

I was fuming. Livid. Ready to strangle his big fat wrinkly neck. "You know what?! Yeah. I get to decide what deserves priority and what actually needs to be done! I besides, I don't actually work for YOU."

He yells at me with his fat all wiggling with rage, "I guess we're done here then."

I give him the meanest stink-eye I can muster up and growl, "I guess so!" And march my young, pretty, WOMAN ass out of his damn office.

I didn't give a fuck. I was tired of being treated like shit. I was tired of being discriminated against because of my age and gender. I was just tired.

Things quieted down soon after. Dunlop and I didn't speak. I didn't have a list of 50 irrelevant bullshit tasks piled on my desk, and I could actually do my job as it was intended.

And then something magical happened one day.

Our Dandruff-Doused Squatty Shithead Boss resigned. The sky opened up, the rain stopped, birds sang, and the entire building seemed to enjoy a collective sigh of relief. That hell that went on for the first year and a half of my life in this job was now over.

After shithead left the building, things got better. Shithead's boss took over and he basically could have passed for Santa Claus. He was a sweet, fat, jolly even, man who actually cared about his employees. However, while he cared about us, he didn't really care to make changes for us. So we were still floundering around with no real direction with our figurative thumbs shoved up our figurative asses. (And for some people, those asses are mammoth, let me tell you. I work with some of the ugliest, fattest people Charleston has to offer. Sheesh.)

Then the Gate Keepers of Hell (aka: Upper Management) decided to fire Santa Claus. Because obviously us minions were entirely too happy and that needed to change. They also fired a few of the other respectable people... so that left about 3 people in the entire company that were actually worth a shit. Amazingly enough though, the Gate Keepers appointed the RIGHT person to take over the Charleston office once Santa had left. Our new boss was a band member turned business man who talked to much about drinking, actually drank too much, but also gave a shit about his people AND and and and, DID something about it!

So, our new Lead Singer (if you will) has been in the lead for the last 6 months. I was the right arm to this man.

Big ass decisions? Consult Nic.
Have an HR Talk with this heathen of an employee? Consult Nic.
Happy Hour on a Tuesday? Consult Nic.

He trusted me with everything. He actually cared what I had to say. He actually saw the potential in me and let me do crazy important shit - like write papers to help win the company millions of dollars. He said things like "I don't know what I'll ever do if you leave." This guy actually saw me for what I was worth... so I decided that I actually needed to be paid for what I was worth.

And then the battle started.

I came in livid one day because I was just sick of everyone expecting me to always do the right thing and do it quickly. I sat down with him and said, "pay me more or I quit," (that was the short version - this actually took about 2 hours to say). So, after battling with the Gate Keepers of Hell, I actually managed to wrangle myself a sweet ass raise. Things were looking up.

And then the Gate Keepers really showed their wrath. The rain started again. Only this time, it was sideways rain. The birds didn't just leave, they died. There was no sunshine. No rainbows. No smiles. We were in Hell.

The Powers That Be decided we needed to do this "reorganization" and our department needed to be swallowed by another department. Which basically meant "Anything that you did before?? Well fuck that. It's our way or the highway, bitches."

They made my job difficult. No, scratch that. IMPOSSIBLE. They added 14 steps to any given process. They bitched at us for not hiring enough people, but they were the ones slowing us down with their newly instilled 14 extra steps. I even sat down with Satan himself and asked if Charleston could continue to function the way we did before. His answer: "No. We're doing it this way now."

Turns out Satan is far more of a shithead than Shithead Boss #1 ever was. He's a squatty pig-headed, Napoleon Complex of a man too. Only with a British accent on top of it. He makes me cringe. He's a total bastard.

I had finally had it. I was crying on a daily basis. I was now riding around the hallways on a broom with a frown. I was once considered a "cheerleader" for the company and I was now a haggard bitch because they MADE me that way. I went absolutely ballistic on Lead Singer one Thursday afternoon and threatened to quit.

The following Tuesday, I did. I fucking quit.

I had managed to land a sweet job with a smaller company and received my offer letter from them the Monday before the Tuesday that I sought my freedom. I even got a raise on top of the massive one I got from my current shit hole of a job. I took that opportunity and ran. Oh I fucking ran fast too.

As soon as I told Lead Singer, "There's no easy way to say this, but I've taken another job," the shackles busted off of me, the boulder on my back rolled off and I could actually breathe fresh air.

Today is my last day. Today is the LAST time I ever have to feel this way. Today is the beginning.

For a good 20 years of my life I was scared to death of guns. Like, I couldn't be in a room with one. They made my heart pound. When I was about 21 I finally sat down next to one and held it. Then I placed it neatly back into its little bag and didn't look at another one for a couple of years. Gave me the heebie jeebies.

Well Dave has since gotten me more familiar with them. And it just so happens that I've been raging mad for the past few weeks so the unanimous decision was for me to learn how to finally shoot one of these bastards. Wait, I mean, learn to shoot a gun. Not shoot a person.
And if you care to know why I'm so pissed off these days it's because I'm completely sick of men treating me with complete disrespect because they think they are "older and wiser" than me. Wow, I don't know how much longer I can bite my tongue but if one more person makes a comment about how getting married young is a terrible decision or decides they are going to "shoo" they're hands at me and tell me to "go do my little HR stuff" I'll probably pull my hair out. I mean, did people never learn the phrase "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?" Ugh.

So we went to the gun range. I picked up a 9 MM, fumbled around with the bullets, which by the way, is the hardest part about guns - trying to get them into the little holder is extremely difficult, and then I made sure my giant ear headphones were on and my cool yellow protective eyewear were on my face right and then I aimed at the paper target and freakin pulled the trigger.

I shook. It was CRAZY! Like, I'll never forget that moment in my life. I fired the gun and I managed to hit the paper target guy that I had strung up. I put the gun down and waited for my hands to stop shaking and then I decided that I liked it. So I tried again. And again and again and again. I realized that I couldn't keep my eyes open when I was shooting because it was so damn loud. So I practiced trying to keep my eyes open and I tried out different ways to stand and I basically thought I was a total bad ass.

After getting more comfortable with the freaking weapon that I was holding, I remembered just how mad I'd been for the past few weeks and took aim at the target's face. I shot a round of bullets and brought the target back to me to inspect my damage. Yeah, hi, I shot a line of 4-5 bullets in straight vertical line down the guy's face. Apparently I'm a good shot, so we've learned. My catch phrase of the day: I'll shoot you in the face!! And my husband's response: I should have known she'd be good at this... she's Italian.

So needless to say, I'm glad I got over my fear of guns. I'm pretty sure it's the best form of stress relief I've found. Visiting the shooting range is like my new favorite thing. Oh, and PS: they have pink guns. I'm not even kidding.

Life has been a little on the crazy side lately. The craziness accounts for my lack of blogs, which I apologize for. I made a huge decision that will pretty much effect the rest of my life as I know it. And I'm actually very okay with this decision...

I'm moving to Charleston with Dave.

Man, I love how that sounds. I'm not sure what I will do about my Master's degree. I'm not sure what kind of job I'm going to get. I'm not sure about a lot of things. The one and only thing that I know I am sure of is Dave. So we will pack up and leave in the middle of May. And I'm not going to look back. We are both so excited to be making such a huge step in our relationship. I cannot wait!

I haven't decided if I am going to keep the blog or not once I move. That decision is still pending. I feel like I'm finally growing up -- which means I don't really have all the funny drunk stories anymore. Either way, yay! Really really big YAY!

I had a real job interview this morning at the SC Dept. of Mental Health for the position of theraputic assistant wherein I would be leading groups of mentally ill people in counseling. Big stuff, huh? So I get there, meet with Victoria, the nice hiring lady, whereupon she asks me how well I think on my feet. I told her I am very good at thinking and acting spur of the moment. She said, "Good, because I told the clients that we have a guest speaker today... and that is you." Holyfreakinshit. So, I had to go into a meeting room where approximately 50 mentally ill clients were and explain to them how to use safety at the cookout they will be having this coming Wednesday. Talk about crazy. No pun intended. I have never in my life had to do something like that. I spoke for about a minute or two and then asked them to contribute more safety advice or ask any questions -- so it ended up lasting about 5 more minutes. And then they all clapped their heads off for me. Awesome. I came out of the meeting room and one of the staff was like "Was she hosting church in there? They're all hootin', and clappin' for her like she did something awesome." So from that, I can safely say that I did a good job with it. Way intimidating though. So then I had to sell myself to her, make her realize that I would kick ass in the field, especially since I have had experience from doing the interviews at Gateway House all year. So hopefully in about a month I will be working full-time! Wish me luck.

So to celebrate my interview skills, we grilled some burgers and splashed around the pool this afternoon. Joe made like 5 trips to try to complete the "grill out" setting -- to get the jambox, then for batteries, then for 2 more batteries, then for some change for some coke to add to his beam or whatever... sadly though, the jam box never did work for us. It was funny because Emily was all sittin in the grass trying to rearrange the batteries in some kind of special order so as to make the machine work. She was like "we need more batteries." So needless to say, I thought it was kinda funny... sorta like the comment of being "just a few fries short of a happy meal;" you can also be, "two batteries short of a jam box." And yes, damnit, we call it a jam box. And it typically plays ridiculous 80s music compliments of Joe. And we like it. Especially when it comes next to a cooler of bud light. And by the way Joe, I really really want to sing Toxic tomorrow night at karaoke -- you take the high notes of course. It'll be a hit.

Also, I love Catherine. We had an interesting chat this afternoon. I also almost fell out of my seat from laughing so hard. That's all I really feel the need to say. Okay bitches, I gotta get ready for the SeNiOr WaLk.