Recently in Opinionated Category

Yes, another Monday has arrived and with it the sun is shining brightly, the birds are chirping merrily and the people are just as annoying as always. Why does Monday bring such hate? Now, don't get me wrong, Monday is definitely not my favorite day of the week. However I try my best to get through it with as little drama and crazy as possible. That's not so easy when more than half of the people around you are whining that it's yet another manic Monday. Most days leave me wondering how people breathe without having to constantly think about it, but Monday... well, I have to remember to breathe to get through it myself. Controlled breathing, so that I don't fly off the handle and beat someone with my phone or stab them with the scissors. Those things land you in bad places. And I look horrible in any prison color.

Sometimes listening to music helps. I turn on a random iHeart station on my phone in the morning to help me wake up. I listen to music through the day, especially if people are throwing their negativity around like shit hitting the fan. Most Mondays are slow for me so it seems extra hard to get through them. Everyone else is in their blah-die-blah mood and I'm just trying not to get caught in the crossfire. 

Today I can't seem to wake up though. I had my coffee. I have even eaten an orange. My sinuses are trying to drown me but I'm afraid that if I take something it will start to put me to sleep. That's the last thing I need since I already took a half a day off because of that very reason. Luckily, it is almost noon and that means it's almost over. I am so close to leaving that I can almost touch it.

I think I will be taking a little nap when I get home. Little Lady has to work today so that shouldn't be too difficult. Try to enjoy your Monday and if there is no way possible for you to do so then please do everyone around you a favor and keep your bad Monday vibes to yourself. 

13 Minutes.

That's all it takes to be interrogated around here. 13 minutes of overtime. However, they only asked me about that specific day. There wasn't any mention of me being here 2/3 minutes early and clocking out 2/3 minutes late. Simply that 13 minutes that I was here for whatever reason.

It was probably when I was doing data entry. Technically, I don't get overtime. "We do not pay overtime" is what I'm told. However, that's also quite illegal. Interrogating people about it is even worse. I am not even supposed to be the one asked about it. My supervisor is supposed to be asked and then if they don't know they are supposed to ask me. I dislike it when someone new is in charge of something like this. Then you have to go through the whole training thing again with them. Take off the overtime unless I am at the front desk. If I don't get the front desk overtime then I won't cover it any longer. 

Honestly, I should start keeping track of every single project I do and how long it takes me from start to finish and then start making a fuss about not getting the little bit of overtime pay that I have earned. Although that would be a lot more work, keeping track of every single thing I do.. I can see the nightmare now. A spreadsheet filled with project name, start time, finish time, who it was assigned by and whatever other pertinent information I could think of.  I really should do that. It would help me more than anyone else.

I did go to my new supervisor and let him know that I was interrogated just in case they ask him as well and to let him know that if it happens again I might go to the next level. He said if it happens again to let him know and that he will go to the next level. Which is really nice and not what I expected at all. I almost hope for it to happen again. {I found it endearing that he informed me that it was illegal when I told him as well.}

Although if I do get interrogated again I would have a new target for my penny revenge... 

I found this on Pinterest today, specifically for this post. Well, I was looking and looking and looking.. you ever been to Pinterest? There's a ridiculous amount of great and amazing stuff there. I rarely have a hard time finding anything I look for there and so I've been using it a lot more for photos to go with my writing. 

Anyway.

I've been in a thunderstorm of a mood today. Not just any normal thunderstorm. I'm talking the kind that shake the house and rattle the windows. I think I've done pretty good keeping it contained for most of the day. There was an incident I almost attacked someone with it, but I took a deep breath and dealt with it another way. I did take some time to rant with a couple of trustworthy people and even asked the opinion of one, then tossed a suggestion into the box to {possibly} rectify the issue. I won't discuss it here. 

I'm trying extremely hard not to be negative and full of rage by thinking of things that I am grateful for in my bubble. Breathing slowly and deeply doesn't always work, so thinking of the good things is another barrier between me and the swirling rage. While I am still pretty irritable for whatever reason I haven't gone off on anyone today. Or myself. That's a huge plus because I am always the first one that ridicules me. There are people out there who probably think I think I'm perfect in every way, but trust me, that sentiment is far from the truth, so far in fact, if you stated it as fact you might be smote.

So don't state it as fact. Unless I truly dislike you, then please feel free. {Do it around me though, okay? I've never witnessed a smiting before....}

Things I'm so totally grateful for today:

• My health. The Little Lady is sick again and coworkers are sick again. I'm doing my damnedest to stay the hell away from all parties.
• This silly kitty. Even though I don't want anything to do with her {so I say anyway} she snuggles up with me shortly after I get home and demands attention on a regular basis, regardless of what I want. Sometimes she knows just what I need.
• Work. Pays what bills I can afford. They gave me a cube. Finally. I didn't even have to jello/pudding wrestle for it. They may be giving me more work but it's work that will possibly be a challenge, though the person supervising that work thinks I will still be bored to near suicidal tendencies per usual.
• My Jade tree and my Orchids and my cactus and my angel plant. They are looking fabulous and they are still alive. I have  the damnedest time keeping plants alive. I think my time out west must have given me a tiny bit of green thumb. Miniscule, probably, but hey, it's helping. My orchids, which I didn't think would bloom a second time {thought I wrecked them...} are growing the new spikes as promised and that means they'll bloom. The Jade tree has a little itty bitty baby and that one is going to a coworker when it gets to the proper size to be moved.
• The roof over my head and the food in my fridge. Each day I am grateful for these things. While I have never been truly homeless if it weren't for others there are times I would be.
• This laptop. It truly is amazing. Even with the annoying schitzophrenic quirks that irritate me to no end. I suppose it makes me stop to be patient? I don't know. 

Ok, your turn. Go make your list and post it, then let me know via disillusioned at sweetly-evil.org or chelle at sweetly-evil.org and I will post a link to it. Or, use the handy dandy comment form below, featuring ReCaptcha as your gatekeeper.

Do you have your rewards card?

I think this is the worst question ever. I hate hearing it. No, I don't have my rewards card. Well you can give me your phone number! Okay, let's try this again. I do not have a rewards card. Do you want to sign up, it's FREE! {And of course, because it's FREE, everyone should WANT ONE.} I think {yes, very dangerous, I know} that instead of giving away free rewards cards that give people free points or free prizes, or discounts, or whatever the fuck you give them, you should lower your prices and start helping to save the planet. Those rewards cards are made of plastic and they make the items you sell cost more because of how fucking expensive plastic things are these days. Yes, I know, they are probably made in China, but so what, that still costs a lot more to make than to lower their fucking prices. 

Coupons... The same thing with freaking coupons. Why can't they just charge reasonable prices? Oh, I'm lazy because I don't want to clip coupons. That's very true, I don't want to clip coupons, but it isn't because I'm lazy. I do have a full-time, 8hrs a day job, plus there are two other jobs I do when I am not at work, and a house to clean, a cat to pet and I also have to have time to shower, otherwise things could get a little awkward at the office, not to mention my requirement of food. {I. Require. Food.} I'm thrilled that there are people in the world who can walk out of the store with $1,000 dollars worth of food and only pay like 2 cents. Would I like to be one of those people? Yes, I would. Perhaps I could be. They say you should buy a paper for each person in your household. And there is where a problem is. I can't afford to get a Sunday paper, let alone a daily paper and two on top of it. Why yes, I could be one of those people who buys one paper from the machine and steals the second, but I'm really not into stealing newspapers.

The only rewards card I have that actually has made sense to me so far is my Kmart rewards card. They give you points, those points equal like 25% of a penny or something and when you get enough points you can have them take that off your total. However, I have noticed that in the recent times of using my card have they haven't told me how many points I have and they have not asked me if I want to use the points towards my total. This pisses me off to no end because then I get emails from them on occasion stating that I have such and such points that are DUE TO EXPIRE any nanosecond from now. Okay, so why the fuck did the cashier not look at my fucking points when I checked out and said 'oh gee ma'am ya got sum points here 'bout to expire. would ya like ta use 'em?' {No Exaggeration Needed.}

Why? Because they don't want you to use them, they want you to keep letting them add up and expire and add up again and expire so that you never use them, so that you never get a discount. I've had cashiers there tell me they couldn't tell me how many points I have or that it would be on my receipt {which last I checked, I get my receipts digitally emailed to me to refrain from killing two trees} however, I have not seen it on a printed receipt in quite awhile.

Oh but you could print out coupons from the intrawebz! Why yes, yes I could and sometimes I have, and then by the time I go to use them, poof, expired, no new coupon to replace it. So killing a tree and wasting ink, which is really freaking expensive, even buying two black cartridges and a color at Sam's is freaking expensive.

Then they blame the cost of food on the cost of transportation. Which, of course, blames the cost of transportation on the cost of fuel. Yes, that *is* a problem. However, I don't think that the cost is so significant that you need to mark everything up and force people to join a rewards program or use coupons to get a decent price on food and necessities. 

End. Rant.