|
|
|
|
|
|
Name: Clawed
Crystal Ball - home
The Bishounen Chorus
powered by Blogger
This page best viewed with firefox at
1024x768 or higher.
Buy me things?
45.3% corrupt
in the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye framed thy fearful symmetry?
|
mmm, homemade mocha frapuccino. I <3 my boy... :) I really need to get back into playing with web designs... and writing, and rping.... but WoW... it's so addicting... right now I'd do practically anything to be able to listen to my ipod while I work. I think I'd even take a pay cut, or give up one of my breaks. With nothing to listen to but the sounds of the office (which get really loud and chatty sometimes- like now, when I can hear someone being very "AWWWWWWWWWWW" from the file room halfway across the building (probably over someone's birthday gifts - don't get me started on the "work-appropriate things" list... Oh, hell, it's my rant space. The office has a no-radio, no-mp3 player policy. I get that. Most of the employees have to answer phones - hard to do with an iPod stuck in one ear, and the game of competing radios is not fun in a cube farm. They have a no-food-at-desk and no-drinks-without-lids policy. I can *sorta* get that - less mess - but it strikes me as a little... elementary school-ish. There's also a no chatting policy. When we're on the floor, we're expected to work. As expected, this last rule is broken a lot. But for all that we're supposed to be uber-professional... why, oh WHY can I hear someone "Awwwww"ing over birthday gifts across the building? ... why oh why does distribution/mail room/ file room smell like Old Lady Floral Perfume??? I mean, like the carpet's been *soaked* in that overpowering floral scent that Little Old Ladies tend to wear? I thought I was going to pass out - or puke - when I went to put some files away... Yes, I have a list of the number of days in each month listed next to my monitor. It's so I don't have to dredge up that stupid poem we all learn in elementary school when I enter the 60 day losses. Because I hate having to dig out a calendar when I'm trying to determine if a loss on the 1st of a month when the policy inception date was on the 21st of the previous month is inside or outside of the 10-day critical period. (This is done because a loss within 60 days of a new policy may be a sign of fraud. A loss within 10 days of a new policy is a big red fraud flag. Most of them are legit, but some... like a guy with a brand-new mercedes, takes out a full coverage policy the day before he gets into an accident with a curb, leaving the car in rather damaged but still driveable condition... Also, we track which producers - offices that sell our policies - have a lot of these 60-day losses. Suspicious, wot?) I want wireless bluetooth earbuds for my ipod. They make them. They'd cost me about a month's pay, but... >.< is it bad to work for a company and not agree with some of their policies? My employer, as you all know by now, sells car insurance. They specialize in Hispanic/mexican business. A lot of their clients do not have valid driver's licenses, valid us ids, etc. This is annyoing in and of itself, but I agree with Finch - if I'm going to be run into by someone without a d/l, I'd rather the person have vehicle insurance than to have to deal with someone without. Likewise for illegal immigrants, though tracing them down via legal means when they don't want to be found causes headaches on a daily basis with our adjusters... No, what annoys me about the whole policy is that it only applied to hispanics!!!! If you're chinese, native american, french, canadian, russian, white... anything else... you get denied. Have nothing but a eurpoean id? No insurance with [company]! Chinese with an expired d/l? No insurance with [company]!! U.S. citizen, but your d/l is with a different state? No insurance with [company]! If you're hispanic, though, have no d/l, not a resident of this country, and the only form of ID you have is a mexico ID card? Full coverage!! In fact, this point has been brought to [company's] attention before. I file letters and records of visits by adjusters to our producers (the people that sell our policies). Many, many of these are in california, as that's where the bulk of our busniess comes from. There is a massive hispanic population in california, of course, but there is also a massive chinese population, and many of our producers cater to the latter one. Several of them have been noted in the visit logs as complaining that their chinese customers get turned away for policies that their hispanic customers get approved on, and the only difference between the two policies is the nationality of the applicant. Several of our producers have severed ties with [company] and refused to sell us anymore because of this disparaty. I see refusal letters every day when I'm helping to sort the agent mail where the reason for refusal is a lack of a valid driver's license, but in the visit logs I see the agents proudly reporting they they've sold one of the producers on the fact that hispanic clients don't *need* a d/l to sign up. I can't dredge up any information on [company] or the separate policies we sell to explain it, and my position here is not secure enough to start questioning people about it. ... did I mention that Finch's aversion to faxing in a resume is really irritating? He won't do it because fax machines can screw up his resume, you don't know if they actually got it or not, and people who just list a fax number just want to be able to pick up a big stack of papers off their fax machine and go through it and that means they're lazy and technologically illiterate. Because any decent employer has email or prefers people to call them. Yes, that's right. Employers who only use a fax machine in their help wanted ad aren't work working for because they prefer the fax machine. I think I've put my finger on one of the reasons why sometimes Finch really irritates me. He seems to be completely unable to extrapolate things, or to reason out in his own mind what I might mean if I say something he doesn't immediately comprehend. for example, since explaining this is really hard. Friday night we made a pot of soup. He had started it before I got home, and since he was making another dish to go with it, asked me to toss the rest of the soup ingredients in the pot once it reached a certain point in the cooking process. Wanting to know how much to add, I asked, "Is this a half-batch or a full batch?" (We usually use a different pot, and I seem to recall often doubling the recipe for leftovers. In any case, it had been a while since we made it and I honestly could not tell by looking the amount of soup in the pot. He didn't answer, "Single." He didn't answer,"the usual." He answered, "Huh???" ( I could almost see the multiple question marks) "Is this a single recipe?" "Well... yes?!" (said in the same tone as if I had asked something like "Is this soup?") "Okay... just wanted to make sure..." I replied. "We've NEVER made a half recipe, sweetie. Why would you ask that?" (said in the same tone as if I had just suggested boiling my toenails in the soup) "I thought it was a decent question..." I muttered. I get that a lot. It really gets on my nerves. It's not like I asked a question out of left field - something like "Should I put the soup down my underpants?" or "Is it hot yet?" (the soup was boiling). I tend to follow the "there are no stupid questions" rule of thumb, especailly since I'm very forgetful and like the assurance of double-checking that I'm doing something correctly. Measure twice, cut once and all those little adages. Finch, apparently, does not subscribe to those beliefs, because, judging by his reactions, I seem to ask a *lot* of stupid questions. (And yes, I've brought it up. His defense is that it's just him trying to convey his confusion. Well, dear, your 'confused' tone sounds an awful lot like the rest of the world's 'patronizing' or 'sarcastic' tone.) That's one form of the lack of extrapolation. This happens a lot, to the point where I'm hesitant to ask a question, even if I've genuinely forgotten the answer or am confused about the situation. The other one that really bothers me, doesn't come up as much. I do have a good example, though, and one that ties straight into the "can't just let some things go". My mother called me just as a group of us were heading out to dinner last night. Annoying, but not unmanagable. She wanted to fill me in on a few details of her and dad's impending visit to phoenix, and ask a few questions. I was on the phone for, maybe, 10 minutes, and nobody really minded, as we hadn't even really made up our minds where to go yet. When we got home, we were sitting on the couch. Finch was looking through the paper for job ads. I was waiting for a piece of the paper to read. He was giving off that "disapproving of something" vibe. I made the opening move. "I'm sorry my mom called just then. At least this time I got her off the phone in under half an hour." "Yeah." He paused before firing the first shot. "I just don't understand why you cow to your mother like that." I raised one eyebrow, and made what i hoped was a mollifying comment, followed up by a slightly snarky countershot. "I'm sorry that I'm actually friends with my mother." He gave me a sideways look. "I just don't understand *why*." Direct hit! "Why what? Why I cow to her, or why I'm friends with my mom?" "Either." I was... stunned. I muddled through some sort of explanation that I cannot now recall, fueled by my WTF reaction as the rest of my mind reeled. Sure, Finch and his mother don't have a good relation... well, to be blunt, they pretty much hate each other and take as many opportunities as possible to slice each other into little thin strips. But he hero-worships his dad, and has practically nothign but glowing reviews of his grandparents and the rest of his family that I figured, if he couldn't personally call up the friendship-with-mom bit, that he could at least understand being friends with one's parents. Hell, up until that moment, I'd assumed that he'd been friends with his father, at least. "I'm confused." I'm fighting a losing battle here, but I'm not goign to go down easy. "Is is bad to be friends with your parents? I mean, my mom's not the greatest, I'll be the first to admit it, and she and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I have a lot of fun with her and I enjoy doing things with her. She's even gone to bat for me against my dad before." (you'd have to know my parents to know just how HUGE that can be - they're rather old-fashioned, highly religious, and very "present a solid front" sort of people; for her to side with me in arguments against my father and do the polite version of telling him off is huge, major points.) Dad and I have never seen eye-to-eye, but my mother is one of my good friends - and if being nice to her and spending 10 minutes on the phone to say 'hi, can't talk right now' is what it takes to keep the peace and not hurt her feelings, then that's what I'm going to do, damnit. My parents are old enough to be my *grandparents* - my grandparents are dead, and have been for years - and the fact that they're both still around and still in (relatively) good health and that I still have a good relationship with them means a LOT to me. Probably more than anything else in the world, short of my relationship with Finch and my sister. By the way, those two relationships - equal. I wouldn't be able to go on very well without Finch. And, though we don't talk as often as I like and live hours away from each other, I wouldn't be able to go on very well without DTF-chan. (there, I said it. Now hush, or I'm going to have to go Beldin on your ass.) "Well, yes." he answered. Direct hit #2!! "It's a bad thing to be friends with your parents????" Red lights blaring! Retreat!! Retreat!!! "In my opinion. I know that's not necessarily rational, but I just *can't* comprehend how anyone would be friends with their parents. Maybe it's because I was forced to be independant, but why would you want to cow to them like that? I just *cannot* understand it. So yeah, I think it is a bad thing." He backpedals. "But I don't think badly of you for it." Soooo... You look down on being friends with parents. You think is inexcusable to "cow to them" or "keep the peace". You think that having that sort of relationship is bad. But - it's okay if I do it? Even though it's not, and you just *said* it's not?? I went into full retreat. "Oh - I'd better pick those candles over there up before someone steps on them." Yeah. That's the other kind of lack of extrapolation. He doesn't have/doesn't know/disagrees. Therefore, it's bad, wrong, and people shouldn't do it. How does that relate to not letting things go? Lying in bed later, he could tell I was still miffed. So I let him know why I was miffed. I was tired. Very tired, and I was explaining badly. But, see, the problem is this. Once he's latched onto a problem, he won't let it go until it's solved to *his* liking. I can't apologize and be done with it. I can't say "let's not discuss this now." I can't do anything but try to answer his questions, and god help me if I get annoyed or frustrated or upset or display any emotion other than calm, passive confusion. So I tried that, but well, damn. I'm just not the sort of person who can discuss being upset or emotional without getting upset or emotional about the issue that got me upset in the first place! Imagine this scene (imaginary, but this is what he expects: *all in a calm voice as though we're discussing what kind of bread to buy* Him: "Why are you upset?" Me: "Because you sounded as though you thought I was stupid." Him: "How did I do that?" Me: "You said "I think your opinion is stupid" in a condescending tone. I know your tone was meant to sound confused, but that particular confused tone sounds condescending. Him: "I'm having trouble hearing that, but I'm sorry I said your opinion was stupid." Me: "In the future, I will tell you when you use that tone so that you can modify it." Now, perhaps in a perfect world, all discussions of arguments/emotional situations would turn out that way. Perhaps, in a perfect world, dog poo would smell like perfume, too. *He* may be capable of divorcing his brain and his emotions (or likes to think he is), but *I* am not. (Oh, BTW, that makes me wrong. See discussion on being friends with parents to see why. Yes, we've talked about *this* before too. Apparently getting upset in discussions like that makes me a psycho bitch.) What really happened was that I got defensive, he got annoyed and asked me why I was defensive. "I'm trying to come up with a way to get out of the conversation," I said. He got all butt-hurt and went out in the living room to cool off. Not because we were discussing an argument. Not because I'd said something pithy, or angry, or mean. He got all butt-hurt because I didn't want to discuss it right then and there and was so mad he had to get away from me for a while. And he wonders why every time I have to talk to him about a problem, I'm more and more reluctant to do so. At this point, I'm afraid to even defend myself because he pulls an emo "YOU SAID SOMETHING NOT PERFECT SO NOW I"M GOING TO BE ALL INJURED AND MOPEY!" on me, over small things - like times in the past, when he's made comments similar to the one he made about the soup. I know how hard it is to judge your own reactions, but for crying out loud - IT'S NOT INVALID JUST BECAUSE I WAS THE ONE TO SAY IT AND NOT YOU!!! Now, you may wonder why I don't say these things to him. It's because he won't discuss or even argue - he debates. He nitpicks. A general "you sounded angry with me" isn't good enough - he wants specific word usages and sentences. He'll then pick them apart until I don't remember what was real or not. I can't paraphrase an argument or saying of his - it's got to be word-for-word or it's invalid. And unlike someone who wants to reach a resolution, he doesn't go into the discussion thinking that maybe, just maybe, he might be wrong. He goes in with the "I'm right, I'm 100% right and she's wrong, and I just have to convince her of that." The points I win are 'granted' to me. "Well, perhaps I did use a condescending tone, but in the future, you're going to have to tell me when I do that because I can't hear the tones I use" when said in the same condescending tone that pissed me off, for example. (Yes, I've called him on that one too. According to him, that wasn't a condescendinig tone, it was an *explaining* tone. I was hearing it wrong. Yes. I was hearing it wrong. He wasn't saying it wrong - oh no. He always sounds exactly like he wants to sound. I hear things wrong.) *sigh* Maybe I'm just being childish. I know I'm overreacting to a lot of this, too. But that's why I'm *here*, screaming at you, dear readers, rather than saying these to him. I rant at you because you have the double buffer of the internet and knowing that the vitriol is not directed your way. I also know that should a shining example of my own stupidity come through, that that same buffer will allow at least some of you to point it out to me. And, of course, by forcing my chaotic thoughts into words and sentences and forcing myself to read them, I can actually say what I mean. Which helps. I guess it's just nice knowing that at least *someone* will listen. It probably won't change anything, but someone will hear me.
|
|||
|
|
|
