What's upsetting you today?

[DanaC]

Heh.


I hate facebook. Every so often I have a flurry of activity reconnecting with friends and relatives - but I hate everything about fb. I hate the layout - everything looks too fucking busy. I hate the atmosphere - and as much as I love my cousin Rache - I am soooooooo not interested in every single drawing, painting and clay model her many little ones produce - nor do I want to be privy to her and her fellah's sweet nothings - ffs, keepthat shit to yourself. It's like stepping inside a goddamned Hallmark card.

[Undertoad]

For me it's 90% crap and 10% interesting and/or important items from friends and family that I care about.

But I do believe that if I worked at it, tended to my feed, with unfollows and whatnot, I could get that interesting number up to 15%.

[DanaC]

That sounds about right.

It's also slightly depressing to discover just how racist and reactionary some of my extended family and childhood friends are :P

[Undertoad]

That one worked out in reverse for me - my super-racist friend from age 13 turned into a super-progressive who manages the only remaining independent bookstore in the area!

(I really want to know how it happened but we have not connected up at that sort of level.)

[DanaC]

Hahah. That's excellent.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by DanaC

It's also slightly depressing to discover just how racist and reactionary some of my extended family and childhood friends are :P

I had an email from a family member recently (I don't Facebook) who insists they are not racist and are aggrieved if something I say even mildly suggests their attitude is a little unfair. They blamed the late post, and a couple of torn envelopes arriving over the course of a few weeks... on immigrants.

But of course.
They come over here, mess with our post, who do they think they are etc etc.
I'd say you couldn't make it up, but sadly the newspaper this person reads, does. Frequently.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

A friend of mine has decided, after numerous cancer episodes, that she will no longer use western medicine to treat her cancer, and will now employ holistic treatment including veganism.

Update, she is still with us but in pain. Sometimes, she reports, she cannot bend over to get pots and pans on the lower shelves. Some days, she reports, she can't walk from one end of the house to the other without pain.

She doesn't talk about it at all. Everything I know is from the few offered statements she made over dinner and conversation last Sunday. Denial is a big part of her arsenal for dealing with this. I'm not judging. Certainly I have used it from time to time myself.

She went and got some pain management, so she's wound up not entirely anti-doctoring, but she's not going for treatment. I think this says that she was exhausted from all the medicine she has been through, with multiple rounds of cancer and then open heart surgery.

But if that's what it is, it would be better for everyone involved if she would just say so. I feel like there is something emotionally preventing her from admitting she is committing slow suicide. It's not hard to imagine how one might end up in that sort of personal emotional trap.

It is so heartbreaking.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You might point out that's how Steve Jobs killed himself, but being that aggressive is not your nature.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

But if that's what it is, it would be better for everyone involved if she would just say so.

My Mom told everyone she'd do the pain medication but not the chemo. She was more open about that decision than anything in her life. I guess it was her nursing background.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

But if that's what it is, it would be better for everyone involved if she would just say so. I feel like there is something emotionally preventing her from admitting she is committing slow suicide.

Is it possible she feels like she is protecting her loved ones by pretending everything will be fine? That if she says, "Yep, gonna just die in awhile, and I'm at peace with that," all her friends and relatives will hate her for abandoning them? A fair number of people are able to get to the point where they are at peace with their own death, but very few are ever able to agree that death is the right choice for someone they love.

[Undertoad]

I'm not sure what brings her to this point. At one point she told Facebook that she was cancer-free after a few months of veganism. I don't know if she really believed it, just wanted to believe it in the sense that belief makes things true, or wanted everyone to treat her normally.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

... A fair number of people are able to get to the point where they are at peace with their own death ...

I'm getting the impression, from the story as told, that she's not yet one of them and rationality has been slipping away.

[glatt]

I need to get my head screwed on right. This shouldn't be bothering me so much, but it is.

My firm renewed its lease at this building and is going to renovate its space into more of an "open office" concept. I just saw the new floor plan yesterday.

I am losing my private office. It isn't a big office, but I've had one private office or another for about 20 years. I'll be in a marginally larger room, with 4 people in it and a small desk in each corner.

"Managers" get to keep their offices. I'm a manager in what I do, but not in my title. I'll be losing about 85% of my file space and getting a desk about half the size of the one I have now, so I have to dramatically change how I do my job and what records I keep on hand.

When I let my mind wander and go down the path of worry, I think about how one of the things I do is manage contract workers, and at first glance, I don't see any space for contract workers in the new building. Which means they intend for all future contract workers to be offsite. If they are offsite, they won't be managed as closely by me any more. So now I'm wondering if they are going to phase out my job. Or part of it anyway.

The truth is they need me badly for this renovation. I'll be doing lots of managing space and moving staff around. It will be very busy for me. And during that time, I'll get a clearer picture of what is coming, and can try to maneuver myself into an indispensable position. But right now, all I can see is them not valuing me.

Gah. Those fuckers. Part of the problem is that the firm used to be run by really smart people, and the people running it now are fairly clueless. And that bugs me too. I wonder if this place is a sinking ship. I fantasize about dusting off my resume and going elsewhere, but my chances for succeeding are better here in this organization where I have a good reputation with a lot of people I know well. How am I going to get my foot in the door anywhere else, and maybe those other places are run by idiots too.

Anyway, I have all these toxic thoughts going through my head. Things have a way of working out. I just need to clear this shit out of my head.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hopefully, in your cape & long-johns role, during the renovation, you'll be able to gain access to an influential ear who has the power to jiggle the plans a little. Maybe a penthouse suite with hot and cold running secretaries.

I have a feeling you're in an all too common situation, where smart people put a business together, then get replaced by business school, cookie cutter, professional managers, often at the insistence of wall street.

[Clodfobble]

I always believe in hedging bets. There's nothing that says you can't throw yourself wholeheartedly into the renovation, while also dusting off your resume and casually browsing the corporate job listings. You have the luxury of lounging around waiting for the perfect new job to come up, and if it doesn't, you're no worse off than you were before. You can even take a sick day here and there, go on interviews, and turn any job offers down if they're not mind-blowingly better than where you are now.