Irksome Things!

Do you have any pet peeves that really make your eyes roll backwards and you see red and just want to explode all the anger and venom you're trying to keep hidden beneath your conscience level?

I've got probably a kazillion of them and sometimes, it seems they are fighting between themselves to find an escape avenue and get loose for me to vent when obviouisly, I shouldn't do that!

Where to begin though with my big list of things that would or could easily turn into a majorly massive rant?

I think I'll start with applying for jobs! If I could have even just a dime for every job application I applied for between 1972 (when I moved back to PA) and oh, about 1988, I could probably have a pretty healthy monetary accumulation there because of all the job apps and resumes I sent out in that period of time, I got called for an interview to three of them. The rest -well they apparently got lost in the mail as I never even got a post card saying "We got your application but your resume and qualifications simply suck so no interview will be forthcoming!"

I was always looking at employment ads from all over the place -this region and several other regions fairly nearby too that would mean a commute but wouldn't take me any longer to make a 40 mile, one-way, commute here that it used to take me to drive 10 miles from my apartment in the Maryland suburbs to my job downtown in D.C. So I could never understand employer's and their bias in that respect.

I had one guy -where I had applied for an office managerial type position tell me he was concerned I couldn't handle the multi-phone lines and how could I prove that to him. I compared it to waitressing and how you have to carry, in your head, who is going to need coffee freshened up, who has their salad or appetizer to come out, who else has a dinner order in and you're waiting for the cook to call you to take that out, whose table need completely bussed off and reset and who has some dirty dishes sitting by the edge that you need to pick up and deposit in the cart to be washed. All of these things are unwritten anyplace on your pad to help you remember who needs what but you do have to manage to get as many of those done smoothly and be friendly and efficient in the process -pretty much like answering a multi-line phone in my opinion. He didn't see it that way and told me there was no correlation to that kind of multi-tasking and phone skills. There was one job that went down the tubes.

Another potential employer -who actually interviewed me -told me that he felt I had every qualification he was looking for except for one small item he saw as a problem. The job was 35 miles from where I live and he had two other workers in the office and he needed someone who could be there, every day, on time at 8 a.m. and he knew, where I live that we often get hit with some wicked weather in the winter and he felt I wouldn't be able to handle that aspect. I informed him in the years past when I had worked in that region I only missed one one time -for three days -and that was because my car froze up and it took my ex-husband that many days to get it thawed out so it would start again. However, I then learned a couple weeks later he hired a girl fresh out of high school, who lived back in the boondocks like I do but she lives even further back than I do. Plus, I had worked with this person at the truck stop as a waitress and she had a bit of a penchant for calling off 15 minutes before the start of a shift which made getting a replace pretty much next to impossible. But then too, I'm not 5'6' and very curvacious, not exactly a raving beauty at all you see whereas she was built like the proverbial brick S**thouse and pretty as the day is long too. So much for not wanting to worry about a punctual employee after all I guess.

Another little tidbit that really pisses me off is when people ask me if I'm working and I tell them no. Immediaely, many of them, knowing I went to college as a very old returning student and got my BS degree at age 50, will then tell me "Well, why don't you go to work here or at this place or some other place?" Nice thoughts there folks but one sort of has to garner an interview first in order to maybe get hired was the way I was told that process operated! Those people I really wanted to smack them in the face and take a cinder block to their thick heads too!

I actually got brave after a 10-year-hiatus from applying for work due to various medical issues that now have somewhat better under control back in October. Much to my pleasant surprise, I even got a call to come in for an interview. This job was to be where you work with clients who have various difficulties, need sometimes just someone with an empathetic ear to listen to them, maybe provide some advice, etc. too and they wanted someone with a Human Services Degree -which I have -a B.S. in Rehabilitation Education /Counseling -and there are very few things I haven't had happen to me over the years raising three kids as a single parent, dealing with child support issues, an alcoholic ex-husband who was also frequently mentally ane emotionally abusive (along with a few go rounds on the physical aspect of abuse too), I worked two jobs for well over 20 years while trying to keep my kids in school and on the straight and narrow, had my house -the upstairs part -go up in flames one night and my 2 younger kids and I lived in a motel -1 room -for almost 4 months while the house was being repaired. I've dealt with the lunacy behind several government programs that, in theory are very good but in reality, do suck for the way they are administered. Won't go into detail on that now but trust me when i tell you some of their requirements were downright idiotic!

I had problems with my kids in school which I didn't know then but have since learned were because my son was ADs (Attention deficit syndrome) -didn't learn about that till I was in college and he was in the military by then. And now for the past 7-9 years, I have been learning, first hand, about working with kids with autism too because as you already know, my two younger grandkids both have that disorder!

Now wouldn't you think that expertise, knowledge in that many diffierent aspects of life, plus having the college degree and okay, also 68 years under my old belt to boot, would surely give me an edge in being hired over a girl no more than 26 years old who has no degree, supposedly is studying accounting and even had the audacity to come and ask me to help her turn out her papers for her classes!

And people wonder why I have an attitude at times!

Right now, I'm am very depressed for various reasons. One, being the loss two weeks ago of one of my very bestest friends ever -a lady who never failed to make me laugh, never failed to have or find good words to say too -after she got done harassing you, just the best, sweetest, funniest, zaniest most loveng and loveable person you'd ever hope to know. But my problem now is that my anxiety levels have been running very high, my depression levels are about on a par there too so I am taking the meds prescribed for me to help keep both those issues a bit under control.

And what's te problem with that you ask?

Unfortunately, deep inside me I can feel the tears building up inside me but the meds prevent them from  escaping and as a result, much as I'd like to sit in a corner, pull my hair out one strand at a time, curse a bit and drink lots of beer too, it still wouldn't be enough to bring that release about that a damned good cry will do for a person!

Maybe pretty soon I will just lay off the meds for a few days to see if I can unloose the tear ducts for a while and get at least a little bit of relief that way!

Peace and love to those of you how know me pretty well by now and abide by my rants too when I launch into one! I still have a few other things that boggle my mind too and I'd like to rip into but just a few that are sort of similiarly related at a time!