Work

The people I work with are so fucking rude and unfriendly. I've tried to be nice, but the little shit-heads are just cold. And rude. And they don't seem to be very bright either. Based on their conversations, they do a lot of drinking. Motherfucks.

First of all, everyone completely ignores me. I've tried to be nice, engage them in conversation. No go. (Well, there is one girl here who will actually talk back when I say something. But she is the exception rather than the rule.) I could probably have a heart attack and no one would do anything. Maybe I should try working topless some time--she what happens. In fact, I think I will do that just before I leave. Maybe even gain about fifty more pounds just to gross them out even more. That is, if there were to notice. Ugh.

So, I have this desk in the corner. Obviously my desk, but when I am not here, not only will people use it, but they will leave their shit on it. How very rude is that?
Now, my desk does not have a phone, so I have to treck over to the front desk to use the phone (which is, in itself, not a big problem. I don't like phones very much anyway.) Anyway, today I had to call the help desk to fix an e-mail problem. So I went over to the phone, called the IT desk, and told the guy my problem. Now, he didn't know how to fix it, so he took my name and number and promised to call me right back. Which he did. Only, when the phone rang, one of the shit-heads here answered it and told him that I did not exist. (Keep in mind that there are about nine people who work here at any given time. And then there is me. And I'm here pretty much all the time. Why no one knows me--well, who the hell knows). Finally the IT guy got it through to her that I did exist. So she calls over to me and I go to the phone. Now, to resolve this e-mail problem, I need to be in front of a computer. There is a computer right next to the phone, but shit-for-brains is busy doing something useless. So I treck back to my desk, unplug my laptop, and treck back (and the trecking is not the problem here. I need to be doing more trecking. The reason I am overweight is because I don't spend nearly enough time trecking. But that is not the point here). Well, anyway, turns out I cna't resolve this particular problem unless I am on a Salisbury computer. Well, tough shit. Goat-head is not going to give up her computer so I can fix this little problem. So I get instructions from the guy to fix it on my own (which I just did. It was really easy to do. But again, not the issue here).

I'm not sure I've ever worked in a place quite like this. List of jobs:

Md Renn Fest (food booths): co-workers friendly. Not in a close buddy way, but they would talk to me.
Mailboxes, Etc: Great boss who used to be in a rock band. Nicknamed me the "packing princess" because of my above average spacial reasoning skills.
Army: Okay, this one sucked. But I expected it to suck. Co-workers either two-faced or openly hostile. But they didn't ignore me.
Office job in Arizona: again, good boss (even if he was a republican). It was a work study job, but he wanted me to take over for the secretary when she left. I was appreciated, damn it.
Highs (data entry): Okay. This one sucked. Most of the co-workers were twits. But there were still a couple of co-workers who were nice and spoke to me.
Odessy computers: sucked. Creepy boss. But I could bitch out the computer nerds when they screwed up (they were scared of me. Always a plus.) And I had my totally awsome quitting line (when the boss wanted me to tidy up, I hd to explain to him that I didn't know where things went because I was new. He said [and I do not exaggerate here] that I should be good at tidying up because I was a girl. I looked him in the eye and said: "The only difference between me and a man is that I don't have a penis. Mail me my check."
House of Musica Traditions: Crazy boss (but still pretty cool). I worked with musicians--again cool. With the exception of the occasional folk guitarist who informed me that I was not a real musician becuase I could read music and played the oboe (yeah, I know. How weird is that?) it was a pretty cool job. Totally disorganized though, and drove me slightly crazy in the end.
UMBC Writing Center: good job. I liked the boss (slightly over-stressed English prof) and to co-workers were (mostly) great. We helped each other out and spent way too much time talking about comma and semi-colon rules, dangling participles, and the differences between participles and gerunds.
Linkages to Learning (which was volunteer, but I count it here): Teaching job. Great students. Very rewarding.
Valence IUFM: Okay, the two English teachers were real bitches. And some of the students were clueless. But most of the students were super-nice. And a lot of them offered to show me around or help me with French beaurocracy.

So here I am. Last week the director here was showing around some ENglish prof, explaining to him the purpose of this whole place. Now, granted, I'm not officially attached to this place, but still... She showed him around the space and introduced him to everyone. Expect me. She didn't evne bother to mention to him who I was or what I was doing here. It was like, "and here's the desk. Oh, and here's another desk with a chair. Here are Tom, DIck, Harry, and Jane. Here is my favorite bookcase."

I can't wait to get out of here. I like the program (mostly) but I hate the school. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. The people here are just way too cold and unfriendly. (Even the people in my classes). There are not a lot of other grad students--in fact, in two of my classes I'm the only grad student at all. So I don't have anyone with whom I can discuss ESL and the classes and the workload and stuff like that. Bleh. Bleh. BLEH!

SO. I'm channeling all this frustration and annoyance into trying to get through the program as quickly as humanly possible. I am starting to wonder if there is any way I could have it done by the end of next summer. Hm, probably not. But if there were a way, I would so be on it. I would be on it backwards and forwards. Bleh. Yeck. Argh.