The Close Siblings: Fear and Anger

This week I have been angry. I have been angry at the world, at situations, at companies, at people.

Anger is not a common emotion for me. True anger, I mean. I get pissed easily but the few people who have ever seen me seethingly angry know that these things are different.

Anger at World

This week there have been attacks. There were several in Paris. Within the past couple weeks; there have been attacks in Bagdad, Beirut and Nairobi. I am angry and devastated that gunmen opened fire at a rock concert, on a college campus, at a sportsingball stadium. A friend wrote a beautiful editorial piece that linked part of the reason Paris hurts so much is that it is the heart of Western Culture. Growing up in Western culture, I, like many around me, have associations of art, philosophy, and culture with Paris. It feels like someone broke our heart. And that makes me sad and angry.

It is true; I am having a difficult time dealing with this. I am not alone. In fact, when my mom told me Paris was attacked I think we both started crying. She has a stronger tie to the city than I, as she grew up there, part-time, and I did not. Yet we both cried.

Anger at Company

In the light of these attacks, I decided to do something that was pretty risky for me. I logged off Facebook. It has been well established that Facebook manipulates people’s emotions. The algorithm sees what you “like” “comment” and “share” and then provides you with more like it. But this quickly leads you down some slippery slopes. If you click an article critiquing the narrow focus of the media giants on Paris and not Nairobi, then all of a sudden Medium articles critiquing racism in Western culture burst through the fissure you’ve created with your attention. Facebook is one of my social lifelines while living alone and most of the time the manipulation is just something I put up with. But in my heightened emotional state of not being able to deal with the attacks, I accidentally gave too many things my attention. Within minutes my newsfeed was so brimming with commentary, off-site articles and bleu-blanc-rouge veneered pictures I couldn’t deal.

I decided to log off. I could not actually critique Facebook: otherwise no one would see the post that said I was logging off. If someone would be kind enough, please post a link to this post on my “logging off” status so people who don’t get this blog may see my reasoning.

I have found less media input to be helpful in dealing. I cannot comprehend hundreds of people dying. I was encouraged as a kid to understand the magnitude of the Holocaust, but no one can do that. I can barely cope with three deaths in the past 2 years. I cannot comprehend senseless, gory and public deaths. But I can write the words out and be afraid and angry that the same fate might befall me, or someone I care about.

But I can do something different. I can focus on love. I can comprehend loving hundreds of people. Another dear friend sent me a comforting letter. It said

“Goodness is far more rampant than evil; that’s why evil feels like such a violation.” It is a lot easier to see this by taking time to call the people I love and allow myself to be loved, comforted and soothed by the fact that it didn’t happen to us. This time.

Media, in contrast (contains spoilers)

I have been consuming some really good media this week. I am flying through The Silo Effect, which I will talk about, in more depth once I finish. I rediscovered and fell in love with Jim Hawkins in Treasure Planet. Treasure Island, but steampunk! Lacks strong female characters, despite the Captain giving a good start. But to compliment, I just finished The Prince and Me. This is currently my favorite chick-flick/rom-com because she gets the fairy tale ending but is like “Wait, no. Fuck this. I said I was going to do Doctors Without Borders, that’s what I’m going to do.” Subtly at the end, she is receiving her PhD when her friends are receiving their BA’s and they are all the same age. I love most movies with Julia Stiles, esp when they involve Shakespeare.

Something Good 1

I gave up on being an adult and made a pillow fort. Adult things like bills and paperwork were not allowed in. Neither were boys. But no boys tried, because they know better than to mess with my fort. YES I KNOW IT DOES NOT HAVE A ROOF.

Anger at People

So TLoTH has a “see something, say something” policy. It’s probably a good policy since we’re the targets of constant hacking among other things. It has felt like one of those things that have been pretty consistent since I’ve been here. I’m not really one to stand by anyway so I just roll with it.

Then this situation happened this week. I’d really like your input on this because I’m still not sure if the outcome is ok. I will preface this with the information that I am a non-exempt employee and people in positions identical to mine at are also non-exempt. Simply put: we have to obey labor laws. We also tend to work 9-80 weeks that means 80 hours in 9 days, or 44 and 36 so every other Friday off. (8 hours on Friday because I know that’s my dad’s question.)

I went over a friend’s house on Veteran’s Day (we had off) to give them something. They mentioned they were tired from a hard week. I’m like “It’s only Wednesday, it can’t be that bad.” They then said that Monday had been a 16-hour workday and Tuesday had been 10 hours.

Wait, WHAT?

Accordingly, the story was that the prior week, this friend had done some work. Friend did this work poorly, as happens when you’re a new employee and training up in an environment. They were some kind of images and they had all come out fuzzy. There was insufficient communication that the fuzziness was unacceptable early on so all pictures were fuzzy. Ok. The boss then requires friend to re-do all pictures. (So far I’m like, ok. No big. TLoTH moves slower than molasses so “asap” is usually 2 weeks.)

Come Monday, friend fixes all pictures. Arrives at 7:30am and stays until “mentor” takes friend home at 10:30pm. “Did you at least have a dinner break?” “No.” Friend emphatically says that they volunteered to stay; they did a bad job initially and it had to be remediated. Immediately. It was a really bad job. It really had to be fixed immediately. “It’s not a big deal.” Say they. I ask if they plan to bill for the overtime and friend acts as though I am crazy, it was volunteered time because they did a bad job.

I fume around a bit, give up and leave.

Thursday, I seek out the Head of the safety team I’m part of at work. I think being trained as a mandated reporter when I was 18 stayed with me. I ask her what to do. To my perception there is clearly coercion and law-breaking occurring. Making someone feel like they “have” to stay 7 extra hours in a day out of guilt and without pay is not ok by me.

Very long story short, I brought this to my managers who informed me there is absolutely nothing I can do. The only person who can bring this to anyone is the employee. So sit tight and do nothing, Sara.

I don’t know how to deal with this. I felt like a complete Scorpio and completely helpless. I feel weak and delicate; there is so much bullshit that others deal with like microaggressions and coercion and I cannot even conceive of putting up with any of it. But many people just soldier on because they are the only woman, Latino, Black, gay, trans, etc. person there. They often have to work twice what I do. It’s bullshit and I feel like I can do absolutely nothing about it.

Good (?) Thing #2

Wednesday’s pickup rehearsal got…personal. There was significantly more hair petting than there should have been. On the bright side, I had physical contact with people!

The play has been going really well. Everyone’s favorite seems to be my second play. That’s because it’s hilarious. I really enjoy my cast-mates even though they are the kind of "evil" people who talk me into singing karaoke by myself at a bar. Fun fact, I sang alone at a karaoke for the very first time this week. It is much more fun if you have a buddy or copious amounts of alcohol. Take my word.

Fear at Situation

Today it started snowing. By the time everyone else went home, it was just lightly dusting. In the half hour between when everyone left and when I left, it was full in earnest SNOWING. I have not experienced snow in nearly a decade. I have never driven in the snow. I was already terrified. I told my co-worker I’d drive him home because waiting for the bus sucks.

I figure out how to remove ice and snow from my car and sit with the seat warmer for a while. Co-worker finally rendezvous and we go. Roads have not yet seen a plough. It is bright white and I drive about 15 mph, max. I’m departing the lab proper and I see the light change far ahead. I start breaking 30-40 ft behind the next car. The break doesn’t work. It felt like it was arguing with me. I pressed slowly and constantly, and the break would catch in spurts. I kept pressing but the car didn’t fully stop until 4 inches from the truck ahead of us. Fortunately at this point, my co-worker asks for me to let him off at the next bus stop and just focus on getting home safe. I did not exceed 18 mph the whole ride home and there I parked.

I do not plan on driving again for a very long time. Speaking of…I should sleep so I can catch the bus tomorrow. Please send me music you’d like to see closing out my posts. I’m running a little dry lately.

For now I’ll leave with you something to Oud the soul.