Showing posts with label Important Boss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Important Boss. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

We Get Fired From Our Job


So, as many of you know, and many of you don’t, yesterday we got fired.

Why?

Well, there reasons in our opinion that is clear and those not so clear.  The termination paperwork cited “performance and behaviour problems” as the issue for , we have reason to believe, however, given something said during the “exit interview” that there may be more at hand

We can’t go into too much detail about how much bullshit that is, considering until up to about a month and a half ago we had no job description for our position, therefore no guideline outlining performance requirements for the jobs that were created for us, and there was one large portion of it that they had never given us the guidelines for, despite our asking for specific requirements to fulfill the duties.

According to this paperwork this had been an issue for “many months”, which was news to us because last week Important Boss had informed us that we had been doing a great job. When we brought this up to them during the firing the woman from HR said “we also found your Twitter account” and mentioned (without actually specifying a date, time or what was said) a comment made about a patron that wasn’t very nice.

This put up flags in our head for the following reasons:
·         Our Twitter account is private, our name is not attached, nor is it attached to an e-mail address that people who “know us” in real life are aware of.
·         In 160 characters of a Twitter bio, specifically ours, there is no way to determine destination/identity – we could literally be anyone, anywhere in the world.
·         The Twitter account is linked to this blog where we detail an entire life of mental illness and how we struggle with it day-to-day.

In short, however they cut it, it looks to us, and others, like they discovered this account,  somehow connected it to us, and decided that they didn’t want someone with our particular mental disabilities working for them.

This decree did not come from the staff level; it came from a board of directors, the only people not privy to our mental illness. The entire staff we worked with on a day to day basis has knowledge of our disabilities.  Though likely it’s a staff member who turned their attention to this blog.

If we wanted to raise the issue we could bring up sexual harassment, and manipulation of a known mentally ill person by their manager; issues that can have an impact on “performance and behaviour” in the work place. if you look up sexual harassment information those are key words used to describe why any sort of harassment in the workplace is unhealthy and can effect employee work performance.

Either way, there are further circumstances surrounding this termination that we cannot discuss at the moment, things such as sponsorship paperwork they were willing to sign less than two months ago, and other issues like lack of lunch breaks of any sort during shifts.

Just wait until people find out what this “business” does, which someday will be disclosed since we all had the smarts not to sign one bit of a confidentially agreement at any time.

Important Boss took us aside after the Human Resources staff was done with us and apologized, telling us he tried to prevent it from happening, that he enjoyed working with us and that we HAD been showing improvement, but the board had felt it too late, and so went ahead with the termination. We believed him, every word, because we could see the pain and disappointment in his eyes and we stood in the office, heaving and crying, our eyes darting around in a panic regarding the state of our future. The poor young man had us as the first person he had ever had to fire.

So, after we were fired, mid-shift and sent home we walked around, drank and became of zombie in the heat of the city...we're still fragile about the situation, but we tend to "heal" fast from most things...this time it's just more of a struggle as we are confused and concerned about our future.

For those of you who have been trying to show us a silver lining by saying we can collect benefits of some sort…thank you, however, we are not eligible for any unemployment, social security, or any other benefits, except, ironically…the food shelf/food bank services of the city, for reasons we are not eligible are those that we are not comfortable sharing in this blog just yet. Our only option is to find some sort of work, however much we can as fast as possible before rent is due again.

This week, in two and a half days actually, we have a guest coming (a Twittercrush!) to stay with us for a few weeks. We have already asked for his help in getting us to sit down and work on art grants for writing and painting, as well as work on query letters to send to literary agents. We have years left to write about, and the last year a half of our life could be contained in a book by itself.

When we talked to The Father last night he told us to check ourselves into a hospital. We refused.

“We just need to be strong, dad”

“You are strong, honey” he said to us.

He told us that yesterday our name went out in the prayer chain at his church, and said he is as confused as we are about why life keeps dealing us difficult hands at every turn. Life only gives you what it thinks you can handle, but eventually, given enough things, it might just give you too much all at once. Considering our rental property issue of the past two weeks, some health issues we’ve had to deal with and now this, we’re pretty topped up with shit that life can give us.

It’s hot out today, we went to take care of some business with government official regarding our being fired, and on the way home we went into a local gas station/convenience store. The manager on duty gave us a free Slurpee/slushie, so we asked if they were hiring. He said they are hiring for night shifts with their chain of stores.

“Are you crazy?” he asked. “Every time I hire someone new for the night shift they say they can’t work it because they are crazy.”

We smiled, clearly evading the question, laughed and said “I can work a night shift, no problem.”
He then told us we had a great smile and said to come in tomorrow afternoon for an interview.

This job is far beneath our capabilities, and is likely only one night a week, but we are willing to take it if it means eight hours of week on a pay check while we look for something else. We also reassigned with a local temp agency today.

We will continue to look for more work, obviously, because being a gas station attendant isn’t something we desire for even the short term (nor are graveyard shifts); but as we are well aware, having had the life we’ve had…sometimes you gotta do what you gotta  go…and just see what happens.

~Frank et al

New here? Want to figure us out a bit? Go here: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/p/our-recommendations-weeded-from.html - it’s some of our best from all the writing we’ve done on this blog. <- there is a section on job related worries and issues we've been writing about this year.
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Monday, May 23, 2011

To Send, or Not To Send...The E-Mail Is The Question

Lost? Catch up: 


It's not much, but it's an update for today on the Fuck Face Situation...
We went into work today mostly because we ran out of coffee, when we woke up we thought, “Naw, let’s not go in”, but one check in the freezer for coffee beans and we realized we forgot to buy more at the grocery store yesterday, and the stores where we live are closed today. So, hopping in the shower and donning the most casual, yet put together outfit we could manage, which was pretty much all black clothing with a pair of jeans, and our black and white Airwalks, we headed off to work.

Important Boss told us we looked fancy today, when we intercepted him at the front of the building. That gave us a little encouragement, so we meandered around work stopping one of the “offices” to chat with Fabulous People and find out how her weekend had gone. We generally don’t talk to her much on the weekend, though we had texted her an updated view on the evolution of our newest painting, because it had changed so much since she has seen it Thursday.

Fuck Face was surprised to see us, or as we like to say, pretend-surprised because we figured he knew we were coming in. He knows pretty much everything that gets posted by us on Twitter, and our Facebook, because he’s go his own little stalker tendencies; it’s how he knows about our #barnliving hashtag…which we’re trying to figure out how to use more, just to fuck with him.



Some of our top #BarnLiving remarks....

There were a lot of people milling about work so we had to work on trying to get him distanced enough from the people so we could talk to him without being overheard too much because nobody, aside from Fabulous People, knows anything about his situation – despite the fact that our blog address is well known.

“So” we said, as we sipped our coffee “How was your weekend?”

He tells us how it sucked but “I made a chair out of bales, so now I can sit in that and read.”

“You should get an extra blanket to put over it, so it’s more comfortable. Or” we say, “you could go to the thrift store and get some pillows to put under your bum, so it’s cushy.” We grin at him. We find it hilarious that he lets us talk to him the way we do, but we’ve always found that to be one of the best parts of the relationship we have with him, since it’s very first days.

“Well. That’s …interesting advice” he says, and gives us an amused look; he think's we are both amusing and strange; and he enjoys this about us. We really can’t blame him for thinking we are strange, but we expect anger at some point for what we’ve done, especially when we make light of the situation and poke fun at him about it.

We begin to walk and tell him that we only believe half of what he tells us about this situation, half of the time. “So that must mean I believe you a quarter of the time” we say “but who knows, we’re not good at math and fractions” we laugh and walk away to go talk to other people.

Over the next few hours he tells us how he walked a lot this weekend, around the property, along the creek, into town; how he went to a local bar and ate some food, got some beer, and then went back to the barn, drank and passed out. How he spend a lot of time in the barn thinking.

“Thinking about what you’ve done?” we asked.

He makes a joke about thinking about some of the things he’s done that we’re pretty enjoyable to think about, as he looks at us a dirty grin spreads across his face. We can’t help but grin back.

He goes off to take care of some business and when we meet up with him later we are leaning against a counter, him and us, and we ask him how things are at home as we continue to down the coffee we are drinking.

He says when he looks at the house he gets vibes that knives are pointing out at him, but over the last couple of days he hasn’t had that vibe, which he figures is a good sign. We think he is pretty imaginative. He says nobody has come by the property to talk to her, she hasn’t seen her parents.

“She’s probably on the phone with people” we say. He agrees. We ask about whether or not they are talking to each other yet. It’s been over two weeks now since the night he told her about our affair.

“I’ve started telling her what I’d like, in the letters I’m writing to her” he is referring to the only method of communication he has told us he has with her, since she will not talk to him; the letters he writes her every day, to ask how she is, and how work is going. He does not know if she is even reading them, she gives him no indication, even on the rides into work in the mornings.

“And what is it that you tell her you want? Back into the house?” we ask.

He says that yes, both literally and metaphorically he wants back into their house and so he writes that.

“You know” we say, “You might want to think about your actions on Friday, and how that works with what you say you want.” We also tell him that he’s playing with fire, trying to tempt us in the way he did on Friday. He agrees, he looks a bit uncomfortable when we bring up Friday.

He has no excuse for us and doesn’t say much. We chat about non-issues and he asks what we are up to for the rest of the day. We say drinking and eating pizza, but indicate that we’re not so happy with this activity for the third day in a row.

He asks what we’d rather be doing, and we say any number of things and give him a look. We really would love to go for drinks with him, just to spend time with him and talk about books, life, things…he knows it. We know he'd like to do the same. Friends; at the end of the day we are friends.

When most of the place is cleared of people we stand against another counter and he walks up to us.

“Two of the top 5 things we’d rather be doing involve you” we say, referring to our previous conversation.

“Two?’ he asks, giving us a smirk.

“One of them being drinking, the other one being something we’re not supposed to be doing” we say to him. “But you should know,” we continue, “you really are playing with fire when you do what you did on Friday. You are not always dealing with me and you know that.” We explain to him that there’s one of us that does not care about destroying his life,  that while the rest of us like him, “She’s a bit of a sociopath” we say, and we explain that we try to keep her hidden but we can’t always control her. She will, in fact, destroy his marriage if he is not careful.

He tells us sometimes he doesn’t know who he is dealing with and uses many descriptors to refer to some of us. We know it is confusing; we all share a range of emotions, because we are different people, all with human emotions, so sometimes it is hard to tell. He says it's hard because it's the same package they all come in.

“Do you have a name for her?” he asks us, meaning the semi-sociopathic personality within our system.

“Her name is Melody” we say. He says her name.

We talk to him about our mapping briefly, the attempt to sort our all of the people living within us, and tell him if he wants he can see it, our map. He responds with “You said I’m not allowed to read your blog anymore”; we’ve told him that so many times only to find out he had been reading it, that we only half believe he has stopped in the first place.

“It’s a different blog” we say, “we have four now” and as we name them, he counts them off with his fingers, and we know he has visited them all. He is such a terrible liar; it’s the only reasons we believe the things about living in a barn that we have, because he’s so bad at deception – at least with most of us.

We get back to the matter at hand and tell him that we have his wife’s e-mail address, so if he continues to do things like he did on Friday after we had drinks, we may end up sending her an e-mail. “We can make her decision easier for her to make” we say.

Somehow he does not appear threatened by this; or worried. It just works further to confuse us and makes us wonder what is going on in that bald little head of his. If he wants us to pull the trigger, he need only ask, but we know his style is not that…he’ll just keep pushing the boundaries until we crack and destroy his life.

We mean it this time. If he does it again, what he pulled on Friday with our little alley tour, she’s getting an e-mail from us, and it won’t be coming from Melody – it will be coming from Frank, from me; and it’s going to be more than an apology letter – The Wife will know he’s been trying to temp us further.

Of course, we will draft it and send it to him first, just for the heads up – as a courtesy. We’re just that nice.

Someone has suggested that he may just have her change her e-mail address; fortunately it is her law office e-mail, so in order for her to change it she would have to have a good reason, and be very inconvenient – she probably has business cards. Furthermore, courier service is always a good way to get a message across, and she can’t very well quit her job at the law firm.

For someone who is really stuck between a rock and a hard place, and that is living in a barn (#barnliving) because of our affair, it seems rather funny that he is both telling us he is trying to convince his wife he wants back in the house, while simultaneously trying to get us to take advantage of him in an alley.

Given the nature of how we started our affair, him “giving us permission” to take any steps we wanted, it is like he is trying to abolish any responsibility, all the while forgetting that his mere participation as a married man is a huge portion of his responsibility in our affair.

He’s not making it easy for us to resist him. We don’t know what he wants. Some of our male readers and Twitter followers who have been in situations such as this are trying to convince us that he is confused, that he loves us; otherwise he wouldn’t be bothering to give us the time of day, let alone going for drinks with us, given that we forced his hand in revealing to his wife that he had been having an affair.

We get the impression that while he may certainly like us, there is something going on that we can’t put our finger on; while it capriciously hovers over our computer mouse, ready to click on the send button of an e-mail that could permanently change his life forever.

He shouldn’t be messing with a loaded weapon that’s being pushed into a corner. Really. Shouldn't.

--------------------------------------------------------------
For the month of May, Mental Health Awareness Month, we will be posting this at he bottom of each of our entries, to help provide additional information about us, and about Dissociative Identiry Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder.

10 Things You Should Know About US That MIGHT Surprise YOU:
  1. We used to be a Baptist missionary (yeah, can you fucking believe that shit?!) [we are NOT religious]
  2. We were once married (didn’t last long) [one of our stories talks about him]
  3. We have had nearly 30 physical addresses in 30 years, mostly as an adult (nothing could contain us in the early days) [we actually own a house, but choose not to live in it]
  4. We’ve lived in 2 countries: 1 province and 6-7 different states (running much)
  5. We have lost 120 pounds since the age of 24 (100 of it when we were 24) [and it's close to 140 pounds now)
  6. We have a full time job (well, now it's 32 hours a week - but they actually let us work around the other humans!) [it get's harder everyday, and this is the longest we've ever had a single job since we were 17. We've been there almost a year]
  7. We deal with social anxiety type symptoms every day (and these days we choose not to leave home much, but for going to work) [there are about three people we feel comfortable with being in public with and sometimes we have to be out there alone]
  8. We have multiple “mental illness” diagnoses (doesn't everybody?) [p.s. all misdiagnosed]
  9. We have two beautiful cats, who piss us off every day (but they are special, because they put up with us) [though one of us hates them beyond belief]
  10. We have struggled to survive, over and over, defeating the odds thrown against us (read our stories) [seriously, how are we not dead yet?]
We've copied the stories written here that are specifically about our past (mostly abuse) and moved them to our other blog, called:

Addressing The Issue of Frank: The Origins, History and Life Story of Frank, from "Just Call Me Frank: One Womans Endeavour At Being Frank"  
(this blog also contains our artwork/photography - the following links will take you to that blog)

Some of our writing on this blog we like to promote, these are those entries since mid-January 2011. There are bits of writing in this blog that we do not actually promote due to embarrassment over things that some have written - they are here for our own tracking - they are angry, mean, scary things. If you feel like it you can find them on your own. Here are the highlights of what we have written so far this year:

The Mental Health Entries:
Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder
Health:
Family:

Relationships/Friendships:
Work:
Opinion:
Art/Poetry:
Humour/Random Fun:
If you have any questions for us we are very open and will answer to our best ability - this is totally the month to ask us questions. You can either ask us on Twitter, in the comment section of a blog entry here, or e-mail us at justcallmefrank2010 (at) gmail.com.

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Resources for You - facts, figures and personal stories of other people can be found on these sites:
National Institute of Mental Health: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml
American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org/index.aspx
Canadian Mental Health Association: http://www.cmha.ca/bins/index.asp
Mental Health Europe: http://www.mhe-sme.org/
World Psychiatric Association: http://www.wpanet.org

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