Performance Anxiety

I don't know what my deal is. I have the hardest time in public bathrooms. I know I'm not alone in this, but I get really, really freaked by them. Hitting up the urinal isn't so bad, but if Number 2 is knocking at the door and I'm at work, I'll actually hang on for as long as I can until a suitable time (ie, when I think no one else is likely to be in the bathroom) comes around. Of course, there really is no suitable time for public bathrooms. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

The Vatican bathrooms

My biggest thing is privacy. When you're sitting there and someone is, say, in the stall next to you, and it's dead quiet, what on earth are you supposed to do???? Unless I'm amongst friends and we're behaving like 13 year olds, I don't want anyone to get an intimate understanding of the noises my bathroom areas make. It's rude and embarrassing. I don't know what happened to me. My thoughts turn to when I was younger and I had no qualms whatsoever with grunting and groaning very loudly, making an obscene spectacle of myself for the simple reason that I thought it was funny. It was even better when I'd leave the bathroom and my friends would report to me that they could hear me all the way to the lingerie section. There was no better pride. It can't be an age thing, because I still find that pretty hilarious. Just so long as the noises aren't emanating from my stall.

There's also the weird things other people do in the bathroom. For example, talking on the cell phone while dropping a deuce. I have never understood that. What would the other person think if they knew that while telling of the wonderful things that happened to them during their day, the recipient of their story was in the middle of evacuating their bowels? Isn't there some form of grunting or straining involved? David Sedaris wrote of a similar story, wherein he discovered his own sister had done the same to him. Her excuses for the grunting? Trying to open jars of mayonnaise. That story has me so paranoid now, that someone could be so much as exasperated from sweeping the floor and I'll state they're disgusting and request they call me back when they're done pooping. There was another moment when the person in the stall next to me used an endless amount of toilet paper. I don't know what their deal was, but I was patiently sitting there, waiting for them to leave so as to not have them hear my business (God, I sound like an old woman), and they just kept using more and more paper. It was crazy. I must have been sitting there for a good 10 minutes waiting for them to finish writing their TP novel. I finally said "Fuck it" and let it rip. It was their just desserts for taking so damned long.

Then there's the handicap stall. I'm sorry, but if you use the handicap stall when there are other regular stalls available, you're a fucking creep and you should burn in hell. To me, that's the equivalent of parking in a handicap spot, but instead of your car, your parking your ass. Not cool, especially when you work in a place that employs a lot of people in chairs. Just the other day I had to go in the worst way only to find that our 2 normal people stalls were occupado. I had no choice but to use the crip stall. At first it was cool, because I figured if someone handicapable were to wheel their way in, they'd see that all of the stalls were taken and assume I had no other option. Yeah, that was great until the other 2 people finished their bidness and left. At that point, it was me trying to take care of my own as quickly as I could. I was at the pool, but the kids, for some reason or another, were taking their sweet time getting out of the car. You know how kids can be. Every time that bathroom door opened, I prayed I would hear the soft pitter-patter of dress shoes as opposed to the squeak of tire wheel against tile. Needless to say, I made it out intact without incurring the wrath of one less fortunate. Is there even a clinical name for that kind of phobia?

(For some further hilarity involving misuse of the handicap stall, please see the 1st episode of the 2nd season of The IT Crowd!!!)

This is getting lengthy as far as restroom shenanigans go, but there is one more creepo bathroom story I need to tell. A few weeks ago, I'm in the stall "gettin'r done," as a certain, unfunny, faux redneck "comic" would say, when someone walked up to the urinal next door. I'm sitting there minding my own, when the gentleman says, "I could reach under there and take your keys!" You see, like most cool people, I wear my keys on a biner/beaner/whatever from my right back belt loop. So, of course, with my pants around my ankles, vulnerably, I might add, my keys are just laying there and ripe for the picking, according to the guy who should have been minding his own pissness.

"What?" I respond, not fully knowing what the fuck is going on. I mean, I just wanted to poop in private!

"I could just grab your keys and run off! You couldn't do anything about it!"

"Um...uh....heh heh......yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right." I don't know if the Keymaster noticed or not, but my feet slightly scrinched away from the opening of the stall. I put a little hustle in my bustle and got out of the stall. The guy was just finishing himself up when I made it to the sink. He was an older man of black skin descent and looked totally unassuming. I knew better.

"I could have just reached right down and snatched your keys!" He repeated as he walked up to the sink (not next to mine, thank Jesus) to wash up. I felt obligated to answer, now that the Keymaster had a face and I knew he was just being a Chatty Kathy.

"Yeah, I don't know what I would have done. I guess I would have had a mess on my hands." Whether he thought I was being literal or figurative, I couldn't tell. He then proceeded to say something I just could not understand. This was in part due to 2 faucets running. Also what he said next was so far from the topic of running off with the keys of a shitting victim, my brain just couldn't register the words coming out of his mouth. I think he was relating the topic at hand to a Bible story. A Bible story. In the bathroom. I shit you not. (Hardee har har)

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked. All I could do was smile awkwardly at him and nod a yes with a small moan of "comprehension." I then got out of the bathroom as quickly as I could with a firm grip on my keys. I wish the same could be said of my sanity. I've made it a habit of using the middle stall from now on.

Don't even get me started on the people who leave the sink on and walk out of the bathroom or even worse, the ones who don't wash their hands at all. And these are the class act people I work with.

In The Shit

I haven't really been regularly following people's blogs this week. Nor have I been writing anything new. I've been training the managers from Nashville all week on how to do my job, so they can go back to TN and train their people, wherein I will get laid off. It's amazing how these big corporations work.

So, yeah, I've been kinda busy. But, believe me, I'll have plenty of time on my hands to blog before too long. I'll also probably be doing it from Asheville, NC.

I'm Takin' What They're Givin'

Okay, let's get this shit underway. The first entry into my spanking new blog is going to be about work. And not work in the general sense ("I hate working") but work in a more specific way ("I hate my job"). I have rants I need to release.

Okay, I don't really hate my job. Granted, it's not the job I want and banking has absolutely nothing at all to do with my teaching degree, but it is a job and I'm lucky to have it. Sort of. All of us wonderful contractors were called into my manager's office the other day for her to tell us that our jobs are being outsourced to Nashville and that we might temporarily not have jobs. So temporary, in fact, that we might not be let go at all, but to be ready in case it does. And if it does, some of us will be made permanent if and when we come back.

Hello, Ms. Vague. I'm Mr. Confussion. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Have you met my friend, Mr. Stress?

This gets better. Let me throw some math at you. There are 6 people in my department, one of whom handles assigning tasks out to us and 3 of us (inluding me) knows how to do everything and we bust our asses (more or less) on a daily basis. Of the 6, only 1 is actually employed by my bank, so she stays. The rest of us are temps. One of us, who knows how to do everything, is weeks away from having a baby and she'll be leaving anyway. So, that leaves 3 of us wondering what we're going to have to do as far as employment goes. One of the three just informed us that she found another job and she'll be leaving. This leaves two of us: me, who is the only other person who knows how to do everything which includes very specific tasks that really no one else can do, and another girl who's very annoying and a waste of space, in my opinion. Basically, one of two things can happen: they can either keep me and divide what tasks are left for us to do between the 2 of us OR let me go (temporarily) and put the entirety of the workload on one person.

Add to all of this the fact that myself and a couple of others have been busting our humps to get a training manual made and ready for the people who will have our jobs. AND I'll be training the managers from Nashville next week. AND I knew about all of this before anyone else did, with the promise to my manager that I won't tell anyone so as not to cause undue worry. AND my boss keeps telling me that she has plans for me and she wants to make me permanent. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN????? My god this is stressful. I'm the only one here who is in total limbo and it is not fun. I feel like they're making me sharpen the very knife that they're going to use to slit my throat. Maybe. If I'm losing my job, I'm probably going to say "fuck it" and move to Asheville now.

I work in a very strange place. It feels like a halfway house. Kinda like how Orlando feels. Actually, you know what? This place is the equivalent to the Land of Forgotten Toys. A bunch of random people just ended up here because they couldn't find anything else. I'm making toys but what I really want to be is a dentist, damnit!!! Here are some points of interest regarding my job so you get the general concept of what I go through.

-I know how to do the job better than my manager does.

-I'm one of the few white people here, one of the only men, and I'm also probably the only person who doesn't go to church on a regular basis, let alone at all. I hear the names God and Jesus a lot, along with praise be this and good book that. Sweet Jesus.

-Even though a bunch of us might be let go soon, people are still wandering about looking for money, ie. chipping in for birthday parties, Super Bowl parties, kids' fundraisers, etc. I appreciate the intentions, but now is not a good time.

-And a Super Bowl party? Really? Is the Super Bowl a national holiday now? If that's the case, I want Monday off with pay. Jesus, who gives a shit??? (Ha! I wrote 'Jesus.' I guess it's rubbing off on me.)

-There are some seriously strange and annoying people working here. You have to kind of expect it with a job like this and take it with a grain of salt. One of my coworkers is a few years older than me and a total redneck. She wears those little bands with the balls on them in her hair. The woman is in her mid to late 30's for crisakes. They make her look like a giant toddler. She also acts like a toddler at times, too. She gets really hyper and just acts...weird. I usually flash looks of utter disbelief at coworkers regarding her behavior. This gets them laughing, which makes her think she's getting the laughs, in turn worsening her antics. It's fucking nuts. I'm all for acting goofy and having a good time, but dear lord, calm down! Today she's wearing some kind of leopard shirt. I mean, it doesn't have a leopard on it. It looks like she killed a leopard and she's wearing it's skin. It's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure she shops at Flea World. She also voted McCain. Her response to Obama being in office is that she'll pray in hopes that the Lord can guide him. Now if that ain't loony, please point me in the direction to what is because I'd like to see what trumps that. She also cackles rather than laughs and she constantly looks for some kind of sympathy by endlessly bringing up the fact that she's a single mom. Sorry, but boo fucking hoo.

I have more I was going to write about, but why blow my whole load on the first date, right? (How's that for a lovely image?) I'll just talk about it as it comes up. Actually, I think I'll make it a series! The "Takin' What They're Givin' Series." Damn, I like that.

Oh, wonderful. It's raining. Granted, we need the rain, but just remind me to write about how bad the drivers in this part of town are.