Oh, just shoot me now. After a fairly dull meeting during which I was admittedly sick to my stomach, but managed to stay awake and make comments during it anyway, I then was dragged into a meeting with my boss and grandboss about the following:

* You always fall asleep in meetings (no, not ALL of them, but yes, the Monday morning ones if they go on long), including this last one, which I did not do.
* You were slumped in your chair during the Thursday meeting while our speaker was talking and that was rude.

(This was an INCREDIBLY BORING speaker on an INCREDIBLY BORING topic--Tigress agreed with me there--that we categorically did not need to know about. Seriously, seriously fucking dull. I do not know or care about this boring dude, if I offended him, whatever. I just don’t care. Nobody needed to know the history of why their office is changing what they do and their various subcommittees. Yes, subcommittees. It really didn’t have any relevance to what we do and killed 40 minutes of my life I will never get back. I am at a loss as to why they even bothered.)

* Don’t you want people to pay attention when you’re on stage? I honestly don’t care what the audience is doing. I don’t know your life, I don’t know if you left because you were bored or had diarrhea, I’m not going to fucking care or worry about it because bottom line, it’s not my business. Not that I could say this...or anything else.
* Can’t you act well enough to be convincing? Me: “I’m not a very good actress.”
* They continue to harp on how certain employees are afraid to ask me questions. Uh... I know I’m biased on this, and sure, the entire office could be gathering to tattle on me after every meeting, but seriously, the younger ones say hi to me, come by, make jokes, etc. and still ask things. I am literally not seeing what they keep saying I am doing. I do not think this is a current issue right now.

(But also, if you nitpick every single aspect of how I speak and act, you wonder why I don’t want people to come in and ask questions? I admit I don’t want them to, but I don’t stop them either.)

* We aren’t okay with you saying you don’t feel well in the mornings--even though I have been told previously that I should probably explain that I don’t feel well but came to work anyway because people will take it personally if I am not sunshiney.
* Why weren’t you using New Computer System We All Know Is Busted Even Worse Than The Old One until we made you use it? We appreciate your 100% compliance now (they actually sent a report tracking every single thing we did in the two systems...which I guess is to publicly shame people who can’t get what they need to do done in the new broken system), but why didn’t you?
I didn’t answer this, nor did I point out that my boss was doing the same thing, for the same reason: that the new system is even worse than the old one and makes our work slower. Also, we literally had a meeting in the afternoon about how bad the new system is and how hard it is to do anything in it.
* Yes, we know that everything is really bad here (and you have reasons to not be happy here), but still, have hope! Hope hope hope!
* Why don’t you find another job, hint hint,was brought up. I pointed out to them that I can’t get another one if I can’t man a busy phone line or do the budget and payroll. No other jobs that don’t require that exist except once every few years, and nobody wants me for those. Though to be fair, I am total crap and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting me.
* We understand that it’s hard when you can’t do what you would want to do for a living. I pointed out that I cannot make a living doing anything creative and that having a regular paycheck and health insurance is, per their cute new language that they keep bringing up like it means anything, is MY CORE VALUE. It is literally my only core value in the world. When you watch someone slowly die for years, you do not underestimate the value of health insurance.
* No, “helping” isn’t something I love or live for or feel like it’s my mission in life.
* Ever played the lottery? No. Why? I don’t actually think I’m going to win?
* Don’t say you don’t have any choice! You have choices! I pointed out that I didn’t have any good choices here, though sure, I could make some bad ones that make it worse. I’m not going to do that.
* I swore up and down that I am 100% committed to the job and will never, ever, ever leave.
* Grandboss told a story about someone she knew who didn’t want to be there any more and got herself fired. I said I wasn’t going to do that.

(With all my heart and soul I don’t want to be here any more. But I really don’t have any better options. I have rehashed my options a billion times in the last 8 years. I can’t come up with any better options to still have a regular paycheck and health insurance and not lose my benefits, I just don’t care about anything I see out here anyway, and nobody wants me. There’s no point in rehashing for the millionth time.)

And here’s the real Big Brother moment here....

* We expect you to be GENUINELY HAPPY TO BE HERE, WE ARE NOT KIDDING. Or so sayeth my boss. Grandboss was all “fake it until you make it.”

That’s where I lose it. You cannot fucking police my emotions and demand GENUINE HAPPINESS out of me here. Not when things are the way they are and you know they are like that and you know damned well you are dumping an enormous workload on me because I’m noe of the few left. That’s not okay to ask.

As Tigress said, “nobody’s ever good enough here.” They literally are not allowing me to be human.

For a brief moment, I thought, why should I bother? It’s not like I’m ever going to get a promotion or another job here. I will never get a review that goes over “meets expectations.” I will always be marked off as being horrible with humans. Nothing’s going to change if I fake being GENUINELY CHEERFUL every day (because as previously mentioned., I can’t maintain actual happiness here even when I wanted to try to.).

Then I thought, “oh, right, layoffs are coming.”

I would also like to point out, apropos of nothing, during the first meeting, another coworker of mine straight up said, “College students always hope you’ll get hit by the bus” so that they can get insurance money. She openly said she hopes she gets hit by a bus so she can retire. Also, it happened to some girl at Irvine!

This is coming from someone who is always neutrally calm and does Reiki and never appears to be conspicuously having a problem (such as yours truly). Someone who supposedly likes it here is saying that she hopes she get hit by a bus so she can quit working.

My boss’s response to this: “You literally launched a grenade over the fence at this meeting.”

The rest of us were all OH NO YOU DON’T REALLY WISH THIS. I pointed out (a) did you ever have to read Ethan Frome in school? (b) getting hit by a bus doesn’t mean that you’ll get injured in a way you can recover from, (c) odds are really good you’ll have permanent damage for the rest of your life, have trouble walking or not be able to at all, which is super inconvenient (get a Ouija board and ask my dead handicapped dad, or my coworkers with MS every day that our elevator is broken again), and (d) whatever money they give you years later will not make up for your pain and suffering and odds are will just go to your medical bills. And (e) not having any ability to work really fucks you over for life, because this world will not provide for your survival if you can’t.

I wanted to mention that at one of the money spell lectures I went to this weekend, someone mentioned that she got hit by a bus or a car or something and it took years to get the money and she was still suffering. You don’t want to do money spells and then have your house burn down so you get insurance money. No, no, no.

Though on the good news side, my boss’s kid full on tackled the principal’s son at school. So there’s that.

I also found Girl Scout cookies and some heart rocks. So there’s that. And I got free yarn for another project. So don’t say I didn’t have anything good happen today. But still, I want to lock myself away from the world and wish for death because death is the only way out of this.

Also some asshole keeps knocking at my door, knowing I’m in here, and NO, I’M NOT GOING TO FUCKING ANSWER THE FUCKING DOOR. I CANNOT BE KIND AND NICE TO YOU AND I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF ME. LEAVE ME ALONE. I am not at work right now and I am not obligated to let you in, let you ask me questions and give you the fucking happy face. You ain’t paying me for that. Even if the building is on fucking fire, let me die in here.

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