Youch!

As of today, I’ve been written up twice at work. Both times were unfair, but today’s was the ultimate injustice.

To get the sympathy juices flowing, let me begin by explaining that I’ve been working morning shifts a lot lately. I’m tired all the time. I got two big doses of bad news last week. And I’ve had a complete breakdown in the past week due to the buildup of suckiness.

This morning started off awful when I turned off my alarm clock instead of hitting snooze. Charlie’s meows woke me up 20 minutes later, and I managed to get ready sans makeup in half an hour. We’ve been using the back door lately, since web worms have taken over our front door. We’re not sure why. The back door is not the best option for several reasons, but I came to understand the most important one this morning. I stepped out the door this morning into complete darkness and proceeded to tumble down three steps, landing on my ankle with my foot bent to the side, and finally crumbling into a heap on the ground. I called out for Dave between sobs, certain that I’d broken something. He scrambled out of the house in his boxers and we assessed the situation. After demonstrating that I could move my foot, and while there was shooting pain I could stand on it, I called into work and let the supervisor know I’d be late. I hobbled inside, popped some Advil and was on my way, certain that everyone at work would understand I was late for good reason and take pity on me.

Apparently, that’s how things work in the bizarro world I sometimes live in. In the real world, you’re punished for any transgression even if it’s beyond your control. I walked in seven minutes late with my gimp foot and dirt and twigs stuck to my clothes, apologized for my tardiness, and received a writeup from my supervisor. She explained that she was really sorry that she had to write me up, but under the new management that’s how it needed to be or else she’d be written up. I empathized with her, because she’s my friend and was telling me the truth. But I was actually thinking about how lame, idiotic, unfair and belittling it was to be punished, when hadn’t I been punished enough? Adding insult to actual injury, I had to be there, on my feet, for eight solid hours. By the time I got home I had a throbbing, swollen brown and blue bruise across the top of my foot.

And I still had to deal with a lot of mean customers. People, if you’re in a bad mood, avoid all business transactions where you have to communicate with someone, because we don’t want to deal with you. We’re going through shit too, you know!

I love my job. I love the people I work with, the regular customers, being in a fun environment. But it’s things like that that make me feel really small; they make me feel like I deserve better.

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