The Best Day This Year

We got rehired for the seasonal part-time job from last summer but they've made it a permanent position and it comes with $1/hour pay raise.

This marks this first time a company has made us feel valuable. They like our work, as menial as the job may be. But more importantly, they like who we are when we come to work - flirty, mouthy, bitchy, opinionated, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, sensitive, funny, moody...even more, they don't even bat an eye at the inconsistency.

We're totally employable! They like us. They really like us!

In addition, we received word today that we have been awarded not one, but two scholarships from the University, from the department in which we're majoring, for the next two semesters (our last year). No word on the amount, but every little bit helps. This is the first time in our 6+ years of higher education we have ever applied for a scholarship, and we have one of our favorite (female)  instructors to thank for the last minute urging to at least try. (We weren't going to because the "popular vote" was that it felt too much like "begging" by writing a letter saying why "I" deserved free money).

So now the last two weeks of classes (which is when the first day of work starts) will be a total crunch, what with work and all the final projects and exams, but it will be worth it because we can finally stop living off of the savings account for good, which will relieve some major underlying stress that is causing some strange/unusual reactions - waking up feeling strangely hollow and empty, having a hard time moving, feeling like nobody is operating this body and it's just on auto-pilot. At least we think it might be related to that stress.

So, all in all this is probably the best day this year. Have to say, waking up this morning, it didn't feel like it would be.

First Day At A New Job

Our first day at the new job was good. It's enjoyable enough work, not working with the public, not dealing with retain or working in fast food.

The back pain in the first few hours wasn't so great, sitting in the work truck wishing it would go numb we knew it could be worse.

Then we got back to the office and busied ourselves with stuff and tried not to think about it.

The job is physical, but we're going to try not to focus on the eventual pain, just focus on the mental part of it all, instead of the physical part of it. There are a lot of numbers and things to remember...we're not always good with that kind of thing.

It'd be nice if over the counter pain killers were enough, so we could take them at work; but years of experience have proven that when the desiccated disks, protrusions and tears in our spine become an issue there's really nothing that can help, without insurance and prescription pain medications. Then, even if we had the insurance, would we want a lifetime of pain medication dependency?  It seems easier to grit our teeth, cry, close our eyes and ride through it...at least until we're physically older.

The hours are so flexible, and the pay so good, we feel fortunate to have gotten the job.

So, that was our first day at a new job. As much as we're allowed to say, anyway.

Hired!

So, we got the job.
We knew we would.
The only interview we've had that didn't produce a job in the last year and a half was for a temp agency, and we're sure we were just a required number on their books.

We start next Monday, after the background check, which will come back fine since the last seasonal job we had around Christmastime cleared just fine.

This one is (seasonal) for 6 months or so, but with a company that has room for advancement. We're hoping while we're in University (classes start the end of August) we can continue to keep coming back to this job in the spring-summer until we graduate and then move up.

The pay is great, the hours super flexible (three days a week, if we want), and it involves no customer/patron contact. It'll be perfect...hopefully.

It feels really good. We were starting to get stressed, since we're not eligible for unemployment benefits or anything, and our savings accounts were starting to get lower than we're comfortable with.

In other news, James' interview has been set with immigration; after the error they made, it was scheduled quickly, and so soon we'll be having a stressful interview to see if he gets to stay in the States. We're optimistic. He's nervous and keeping his expectations low. Hopefully it goes well. We have about two weeks to go before that happens.

This feels like it's going to be a good summer.
Or at least a good day. (because let's not get ahead of ourselves).

A Little Bitty Irrelevant Update

Last Friday night we registered for our Fall courses for University*.

We're pretty excited to be going back and finishing this specific degree (Communications); and a bit nervous, but only because of the balancing of a Full Time class schedule (plus homework, a relationship, and housework), and hopefully Part Time work.

That's a lot of human interaction on a regular basis. And stress. (Welcome, anxiety).

Wait, so what can you do with a Communications Degree anyway? Sounds like a bullshit degree, right?
Turns out there's a lot, and a lot of them piqued our interest, so, fine, more decisions to make.
Here's a sample of a few things we can do once we fill in the gaps and finish our degree: Print Journalism, Media Relations, Broadcasting, Jobs in Social Media Management, Public Relations, Human Resources, Advertising/Marketing, Lobbying, Speech Writing, Graphic Arts/Visual Communications  Writer...the list literally goes on and on...

Anyway.

We have an interview on Thursday, a second one, a followup on a phone interview we had a couple of weeks ago when we went to Minneapolis with James. *fingers crossed*
The job is flexible, and seasonal (6 months) so it's pretty perfect right now.

That's it, just this little update while we work on other things, like painting, and some researched entries...and wasting time doing the other things we do.

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*The classes - we might try to add another, we're not sure yet:
- Meteorology I w/ Lab (to fulfill GER [General Education Requirements] science credits)
- Information, Technology and Social Change (required)
- Technology and Change (required)
- College Composition II (required)

You're Right...

...we've really got nothing to blog about tonight.

We did get a call for a pre-qualification meeting for a job (it's security work, "pre-qualification" is normal)...but it's at the same time we have a walk-through scheduled for the new house (on Monday); so we told the guy we might have to miss it, and inquired about future meetings.

But really we're holding out for a certain job we applied for...that will fit nicely into our University schedule this coming fall.

We've waited for things before that bit us in the ass...so, we don't know what to do. Guess we'll wait and chew our nails. It would really be nice to work again though.

In the meantime, it's six days until the walk-through for the new house, and about 9 days until closing. It's coming fast. We're excited to reduce some of the anxiety that comes with 5 o'clock and beyond.

Something

Backache that is making our eyes burn, cold and hollow in their sockets.

It started Saturday night as body pain, it hurt to have our skin even lightly touched, and we could feel our bones. This morning we went to work and it grew worse, now it's everything that hurts.

Since getting home from work we've spent every minute with a hot water bottle and a glorious fleece blanket, on the sofa.

Now we've poured a Gin, in hopes the pain subsidies and it makes us sleepy enough to pass out at a reasonable hour and sleep through the night, after tossing and turning last night until 4:30 am from the discomfort and pain.

Today was our apparent last day of work though, with suggestions that they may call us in for a couple more days the end of the week, or at least before New Years Day. We'll see. Of course we'll do it; we could use the extra income.

It's Christmas Eve. We're not really into Christmas (most of us anyway...Gifts make many of us uncomfortable. They make me uncomfortable, anyway), but Merry Christmas/Happy Holiday anyway.

Apologies for the very lame entry. Or something.

Random Update

We got the job we wrote about it the previous post. Not sure when we start. It's very temporary, and very part time. But the pay is good.

We've been having some relationship issues. We're not going to write about it yet.

That's it. That's all.

Job Interview

We have a job interview tomorrow!
It's only for part-time holiday work though.
Still, we're freaking out.
What if we say something stupid, or inappropriate.
What if we're too overqualified (trust us, you wouldn't think it, but we are overqualified for a lot of jobs in our field/range of "skills").
What if we wear something too dressy, and not casual enough for the region.
What if, what if, what if...

OMG, it's going to be mortifying.
*fingers crossed*

Biding More Time...

Well, the 20 acre property we were hoping would come through and stay on the market went off today. The Dream Property (Weeping Willow) remains sitting there.

We've been looking at the housing market for weeks, and heavily the last couple of days, and there is nothing desirable in our price range. So. We have decided to wait it out. By our calculations the property should fall into another lower price range that is negotiable by the end of December to mid-January. It's been decreasing in price steadily since June...and so we want to wait until either it goes off the market, OR we can fight for it...again.

At least two more months living in The Mother's basement...

In the meantime, James is looking for work, as are we. We applied for two jobs today. Part-time jobs, our back can't really handle much more than that in the environment we are trained to work in. We don't necessarily need to work, but it'll probably be nice to feel a step-above barely functioning...which is how we feel now, sometimes.

The third day at the gym went well. We feel we're on a path to better health... positive about doing what we've done so many times, even though there is certainly some mild concern about things being discussed in our head these days...some of our others who have been gone for the better part of a year are deciding to...be more here. It's a fine balance...the promise of being fit-feeling again brings all of our crazies to the front yard, so to speak. (Sorry, we had to use that tired old joke format...we just had to!)

So, here's hoping for the best, a Part Time job for the Frankies that won't hurt the back too much more than it already hurts, continued visits to the gym and, of course, the waiting for that property...for two more months.

*fingers crossed*

Because Love

 <- That's what we did today.

We also caught a carp that we decided not to keep, (they are not generally good for eating, but we're going to try it sometime anyway) and one of those stupid goldeyes again. 

We were supposed to hear from our real estate agent today regarding a recent property offer...we're apprehensive to say to much right now. We're sure James is being driven crazy with our constant chatter about the farm, at least fishing helps distract from it.

Basically we'll be spending days fishing, enjoying the summer sunshine...we can almost feel summer hitting the turning point as July continues and our birthday approaches...until we can get ourselves onto our farm, then ... renovations, and cleaning, and all sorts of other fun.

It's been a great summer so far. Last year at this time we were just about getting fired from our second-to-last job, and getting ready for James' first face-to-face visit with us (we met him on Twitter, you know), and just getting our head above water with managing our "mental illness" and each other, again.

So much has happened since then!

We're almost done with all the stuff James needs to have completed to be a resident of the United States. Then a few months, an interview with government, and over $5000 later he'll be ours to keep (for at least 10 years, at which time he will have to renew his papers) - hopefully. There is an off chance he won't be approved, but it's such a tiny chance, there are other things to worry about.

We think he's a little crazy; but he's awesome, so we'll forgive the crazy, like he does for us.
Because love.

What Happens On Twitter, Doesn’t Stay On Twitter

What happens on Twitter, doesn't stay on Twitter...or on any other social media outlet, for that matter.

It’s not Vegas, and you can be sure of it. Less people get fired for their Vegas peccadilloes then do people that vacation daily on social media networks.

Lately we’ve been noticing an uptick in Tweets that make using a fake name/identity, or a fake .avi, on social media networks seem like a negative. We figure those tweets, like many, are formed out of ignorance about the online world, and probably the world in general, so we’ve decided to come out in defense of people whose face isn’t in their .avi, and whose name isn’t all over, or part of, their @.

We are in defending the regular people who use social media as an escape for their offline life, those who use it as a social outlet, an extension of their life; that use it much like going to a bar, or hanging out with friends. Not those feeding their own ego anonymously by forming wild, outrageous and/or creative tweets/status updates, just for the sake of creating them. There is a fine line between the two, but there is a difference. While there is nothing wrong with "entertainment" social media accounts, they too, like everyone else, should be careful.

We want to note right off that we are not defending parody accounts, people who use a fake .avi, a fake name, and a fake life; nor are we defending accounts set up to harass and bully people behind the mask of anonymity, those people are just sad.  

There are reasons why people should be as anonymous as possible with their name, location, and face, on social media.

Nobody Can Find Me!

First, even if you use an alias online, people can still find you. The online world is not anonymous as you think it is. An IP address (computer address) can trace right down to an approximate physical location of the person, like Ames, Iowa, for example. An IP can be pinged by anybody through e-mail, chat forums, websites and social media.  It can be, and has been, used in cases against cyber-bullying. It can be, and has been, used by local, state and government organizations for purposes of apprehending criminals.

Even being anonymous, but using social media from work, can be dangerous. Many companies who have an Internet network in the workplace use a firewall (a network protection device), which means e-mail, instant messaging and social media may be monitored by staff, or IT personnel at any time. Obviously that can potentially be a breach of privacy unless you work for an organization dealing with highly classified information, but you are on their time.

Even if you use easily identifiable identification online, say your real name, but use a program to release carefully timed Tweets/statuses during the day using a program; yes, people use applications like that; many employers do not understand how that works, even though it is easily detectable in the details section of each Tweet, for example; and it can appear as if you are on a social media site when you are not, when you are supposed to be working.

Being Me Online, What’s The Worst That Can Happen

This past couple of months we have heard, directly from the Tweeters, the following instances which caused them to "go underground" or lock their accounts. (by the way, some people lock their accounts for just these privacy reasons, how about easing up on making them feel bad, they're just doing Twitter differently.

• One person had their employer find their account and confronted them, they are now in recreation of a new account.
• One person who works freelance had a client bring in a printed copy of a Tweet, and they subsequently lost a client because of it.
• One person had students of their spouse requesting to follow their Twitter account. It made them uncomfortable.
• One person had students who found their account, forcing them to use an alias and an .avi.

...and need we remind you we got fired in July 2011, out of the blue, and during the “exit interview” they commented that they had found our Twitter account, citing a tweet from the week before. While we did prepare a document to be submitted to The Human Rights board detailing our entire employment with the organization, we decided in the end not submit it because we had to eventually leave the country because of a work permit issue. (Read our Human Rights document)

Not enough examples? 

• Gilbert Gottfried got fired from the insurance company Aflac for politically incorrect tweets he made about Japan, because upward of 75% of their policies are for Japanese clients.
• Football athlete Larry Johnson got suspended from a game for questionable Tweets.

It's not only famous people who bare the brunt of expressing their humor, opinions and sharing their life, sometimes people get penalized for "over sharing" their life.

• As far back as November 2009, because of a Facebook photo of her drinking on a European vacation, and the drop off a cuss word in a status on her private account, teacher Ashley Paine was forced to resign.
• An Oakwood Hospital employee was fired for a Facebook status  where she expressed her disgust for a cop killer who had recently passed.
• An fitness instructor of Life Time Fitness got fired in 2011 for a tweet about a fellow employee's fast food lunch sitting on her desk.

For every one of these stories there are countless more like them.

Businesses also search social media and the Internet to find out about potential employees: Social Media Platforms and Your Next Hire, they may not be as impressed with your Tweets or status updates as your social media chums.  

Bottom line, if your company or organization is overly sensitive to it's image and public perception; if you are slacking off at work, and they need a reason to fire you; if you're looking for a new job; you may be one questionable written sentence away from being fired, you may be passed over for that dick Tweet or dropping too many "F-Bombs"…you could be hammering the nails in your coffin. 

Your employer should have no right to fire you for expressing your feelings and opinions off of the company clock, on your personal social media accounts, but if you get canned for it we suggest you contact The National Labor Relation Board, as did five employees of a Buffalo, NY who got fired from a nonprofit organization for a Facebook conversation. Of the complaints for wrongful termination due to social media usage filed with the NLRB in 2011, 51% were deemed legitimate enough to bring before a judge(1).

Organizations shouldn't forget the fact that they employee real people, and real people have thoughts and feelings, and a desire for expression as a means of release, and just because they have a job doesn't mean they love the job all the time. The world shouldn't be made of Stepford citizens, and neither should workplaces.

So…you’re thinking, big deal, some of them might have deserved to be fired, or get in trouble, nothing will happen to average people who just wants to Tweet funny stuff from personal non-anonymous accounts.

Nothing should make private accounts more appealing than the FBI's monitoring of it, and it's ability to jump to conclusions. Take the early-20's British couple who recently got detained and denied entry when trying to come to the United States for vacation, all because of a Tweet gone wrong, as we mentioned in a post earlier this week, American The Anxious, America The Paranoid. 

You could be arrested under the Terrorist Act, as did Paul Chambers in 2010, who tried to explain to police what Twitter actually was during an interrogation about a terrible Tweet gone TERRIBLY wrong, because they were not familiar with the online social media website. To this day we still have to explain what Twitter is to people, just yesterday at the place where our boyfriend works an employee was trying to explain Twitter to the CEO of the company, and why it’s might be important to their business. He didn't "get it". Just because a lot of people in the world (millions) use it, doesn't mean everyone understand what it is…some of the people who use it don’t even understand it.

Tessa Mayes, a civil libertarian who specializes in privacy law and free speech issues says that "[These days] making jokes about terrorism is considered a thought crime, mistakenly seen as a real act of harm or intention to commit harm.”(3) 

Remember the 2002 film Minority Report? Familiar with George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four? Who says science fiction doesn’t come full circle to reality.


And the government is planning to increase their monitoring of social media as indicated by a recent job posting earlier this year by the FBI seeking a developer to build them a data-mining application (2). While an anonymous account won't help you against the government, it does make it more appealing, no?  

None of this is meant to scare you, it is meant to keep you mindful both of your own Internet identity, and the means that drive others to use a fake handle, and an .avi of a cartoon character. Don't make people who who stand behind an obscure name and a fake .avi to protect their identity feel bad, when the real people who should be made to feel bad are the ones who use social networking to mindlessly hurt and bully others and in so destroy honest and fun freedom of expression.

“The good thing about anonymity over the Internet is that you can tell people what you’re thinking without any reservation. The bad thing is, people are overusing it to the point where it is no longer welcomed by the society.” Social Media Misuse That Could Cost You Big Time John Uehara, 2011 

Maybe it's not "just" social media, maybe what happens there means a lot more.

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Resources:

• (1) For Angry Employees, Legal Covers For Rants, Meanie Trottman, Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577049822809710332.html
• (2) FBI Seeks Data Mining App For Social Media, Elizabeth Montalbano, Information Week, January 22, 2012, http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/232500552
• (3) Twitter Joke Led To Terrorist Act Arrest and Airport Ban, Mark Hughes and Jason Walsh, January 18, 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/twitter-joke-led-to-terror-act-arrest-and-airport-life-ban-1870913.html

How We Turned Roast Beef Into An Apple Fritter

*drool*

This is just a fluff piece...but you know, not a porn fluff piece. Yeah. We didn't all think that was funny either.

Today at work we learned a lesson. Wait. Lesson? Maybe. In so much as we know how shit works, but this time we put the theory to the test.

We turned roast beef into an apple fritter.

What?!

Yep. We sure did.

We work around a huge array of foods; different departments in our work place make different foods...all departments share one dishwasher though. 

The dishwasher pretty much has run of the food being made, always sneaking buiscuits and bacon, donuts, muffins, whatever he pleases. Why? That's how it works...despite what people realize, one of the most important people in a kitchen is the dishwasher. A top quality one anyway; and as such he gets treated well, if his fellow employees are smart, and not full of themselves.

Why, you ask, is the dishwasher important?

For one, the dishwasher does the shittiest job, cleaning up after morons (us included) who don't have to worry about using too many dishes, don't think twice about how much of the dishpit fills up with pots, pans, hotel pans, bowls, utensils, dirty equipment; in addition to dealing with the mindless cooks, the dishwasher knows where shit is. You need the measuring cup...the ONE that an entire staff shares for some stupid reason (why is there not more than one in that fucking kitchen?!)? The dishwasher knows where it is. 

We know this first hand because we searched on and off one day last week when we needed the measuring cup to make creme brule, and the dishwasher was off sick. So while the dirty dishes piled in the dish pit (it wasn't in the pit though)...we unsucessfully tried locating the measuring cup. The next day dishwasher was there, we inquired about the measuring cup and he took us to it, the place where he figured the evening dishwashers probably put it.

See, they are important. They know where everything you need is located.

Today we were shaving a baron of roast beef - (a large, important section of beef containing both sirloins, or rather a giant cut of good quality roast) - this one was about 10lbs, after cooking. Anyway, we decided to try an experiment today...and so we took a few nice thinly shaved sliced of fresh roast beef over to the dish pit.

"Psst" we said, and the dishwasher turned to see us set the roast beef on the drying rack.

"Thanks sweetie!" he says, all smiles, and later he told us about how he had took the beef, some mustard and a biscuit, and made himself a tasty sandwich.

He's watched us eye the donuts a lot at work over the past few weeks, trying to encourage us to partake (which is techinically theft, so we don't because donuts is not our department) and we always decide not to, because we also don't want to ask the guy, or the woman, who make the donuts, if we can have one for free...we don't like "begging"... or "asking for things".

So today, after sharing roast beef with the dishwasher, he saw us eyeing up the apple fritters in the rack to be sent to the sale floor, we started to reach for one, then pulled our hand back. He saw us do it and tried to get us to take one, we shook our head to indicate we were not going to, so he went ahead and asked the donut maker for us, asking her if it would be alright if we had one.

Of course it was, and so we got to eat our first free donut at work.

What a lame story, right? But if you think about it, it's really a story about scratching each others back, and "who you know"...even if you are only a lowly kitchen worker; and sometimes you should be nice, because nice things can come back to you....even if it's just an apple fritter (just an apple fritter?! Who said that?!)

Have a happy Friday, friends and readers...we're off to do a little public drinking, shopping and going out to eat ... somewhere. It's still up for debate. When you cook professionally, and are educated in food costing, it's an exhauting thing to decide where to eat, where to put your hard earned cash, when you know what the raw materials cost, and what pay cooks make in the city where you live...and realize that the people doing the hardest work are not the ones making any profit...and are barely scratching by...but probably on drugs, and drinking heavily with whatever is left over.

~Ivy, Frank & Cassandra

P.S. you should read yesterdays blog entry too! 

We’re Not Breaking Up With You, Twitter, But…Trying To Do a Relationship Right, While Balancing Social Media

Or Tuesdays!

Our British Invasion

We Put In Our Three Weeks Notice

Okay, so we never got the three weeks notice/resignation in...we ran out of time on Friday to bring it to the "boss". We will on Monday though...

So, yesterday, aside from saying goodbye to Fuck Face quite unexpectedly…we also had a hell of a day at work.

About three days ago the one guy we work with in our kitchen station got upset, because when we leaned down to get something out of the fridge by his knee, in the thick of rush service, we put our hand on his side to let him know we were there. He jumped to the side, partially tripped over our kitchen clog, got angry and wore because he thought we were pushing him.

First, anyone who knows how a hotline in a kitchen works when you are getting slammed knows you are moving around very quickly, and it is not unheard of to put your hand on someone to let them know you are there, especially if you need them to move aside and you don’t want to risk any “below the waist touching” on accident. Plus, what could we gain from pushing him in the middle of a rush? Ignorant little twat.

So we could tell something was up because he wasn’t friendly or nice to us for the next two days. Which is fine, because we are leaving in three weeks, and fuck him, he’s a stupid kid; we just want to get our job done, make it through the day and get the fuck away from people.

Then yesterday we were going to put in our three week notice because we have not heard anything about the paperwork/short form they tried to push through last minute and we wanted to make sure we end this job right (because we never have before) in case we make it back to this city with a valid work permit, and want to be employed.  We’re pretty much the master at walking off of a job with no explanation.

But then the sous chef (the sous chef in a kitchen is the one who is right under the chef as far as kitchen management goes) took our station partner to his office while we were cleaning up at the end of service, and following that he took us aside, sitting us down in his “office”, which is just one are of the building where donuts are sold, right off of the kitchen.

The first thing he asked was about us saying something on the hotline.

“Did you look at a bill and say ‘god damn chicken’?” (a “bill” is the receipt/written slip of paper that has the order on it)

He could see the shock and confusion on our face. We, at that point, and still, don’t remember saying it.

“No. Did I say that?”

He responded with a “never mind”.

It’s possible, we figure…but also, if it was our kitchen partner, or someone in the vicinity that “complained” it could have been a misunderstanding and us saying “I’ve got tha chicken”. We remember saying that this week during service, to indicate we were going to put the chicken in. Don’t know how we remember such a small detail…but we do.

Then he asked if we had any pain.

We just stared at him for a moment.

“This is all off the record” he said to us, in his Sri Lanken accent. “I’ve just noticed some days you move in the kitchen like you are having pain.”

So we tell him about our back, share with him brief details, but not excessive amounts, about the car accident, tell him about how one of the instructors in culinary school (one he knows because he had graduated the year before us in school) said we wouldn’t last 10 years in the kitchen. A tear came to our eye when we say “So far it’s been 7 years since the accident”

He agrees that it’s sad; he knows we love cooking, we are good at it. He loves food and cooking just as much.

We continue to talk and he tells us that we are a nice person, and friendly, but sometimes when he looks at us, he sees something…”There is something going on in there” he said to us.

All we think is “crap” and “If you only knew” and then…we’re even more sad. We’ve only been at this job for 5 weeks, we’ve tried to put our head down and work, get the job done…during service we are focused as we can be…but, it comes off as bitchy. And sometimes we bitchy.

He is far too perceptive we suppose…he references mood as we being to talk, asking about anything in our personal life, we explain to him it’s probably the back pain.

Basically he likes us working in the kitchen though; he wishes we were not leaving. He’s just concerned about our back, and also agrees that sometimes that might be why we are short with people, because of all the pain. But we also know that sometimes we are a bitch, even though we try to control that from happening.

He only knows half the story, and it’s okay. We’ll be one from there soon…and we can try again at another job, we suppose.

We discuss other problems in the kitchen, which we site, and he agrees, as communication problems. The meeting ended well, he shared stories about what he had done before culinary school. A nice guy and we are fortunate to have him as a sous chef for the next few weeks.

So, we were stressed even before meeting with Fuck Face for drinks last night, but then that took it to a whole new level.

We told James we don’t think we will ever be able to have a job, all of us, together…and we don’t know how to do about it. We need to find some online work, so we can work where people can’t see our eyes, our face….the thing that gives us all away; it’s impossible for us to hide anymore.

We’re no good with real life situations…and it’s okay, because we prefer the life we have (livesd mostly behind closed doors), if we could only make money to live not working with people…because it’s so difficult, it hurts. We get so many headaches at work these days…and our back literally feels like someone is setting it on fire on a daily basis now.

So, that’s the conclusion of our week. If we were staying at this job we’d probably get fired down the road, that’s clear now…so it’s a good thing we are moving away from this city. We also said goodbye to Special Someone on Thursday, and yesterday Fuck Face told us he loves us, after all this time, and that he always has.

It’s no wonder we drink, and amazing we don’t drink more.

Where We Live and Why We Might Have to Move...Again.

Here’s the thing.

We live in a country not our own, but it feels more our own than our country of birth. If you are a reader of our blog, and have actually read some of our life stories (which we need to complete yet) then you probably have figured out where we live. We're still not saying though...just because it's risky.

We have lived here, in this country, for seven years (come December of 2011). We went to school here on a study permit for three and half years, we stayed here on a work permit and opened a catering company which we’ll write about sometime in the future, then we worked at our last job, which we’ve written quite a bit about, and now this new job…a job we love, despite the physical pain it puts us through…we do enjoy it.

The work permit is the problem we are facing now, it is a type they started offering graduates of this countries Universities and Colleges the same year we graduated. This permit is not extendable on its own, which means we need a new work permit…and as far as we have been told by the Immigration Department a few weeks back.

This is also the reason we were very anxious to get a new job, because you can’t get a work permit without a job offer, and since we already live here what is better than a job offer for being eligible for a work permit than already having a job?

So we’ve been working on the paperwork, and talking with our boss about the paperwork they are requesting from his end, because the employer has to justify your hiring over that of a citizen of this country.

We’ve talked to Immigration in person and they said there needs to be a certain form filled out (something like a job market survey); our employer talked on the phone with them this afternoon too, and was told it’s not just a form; it’s an application for permission from the government to hire a non-citizen.

He seemed pretty put out that he was going to have to spend his time filling out the paperwork, and didn’t understand why they didn’t have to do this with the last foreign employee they hired, who hailed from China (this is a big place, our place of work…there are people working from all over the world). The paperwork is six pages long.

“This thing is longer than my mortgage application was”, our employer said, after he printed it off.

And we laughed it off because we had already heard the bad news we are about to share, and we were forced into a switch so we didn’t cry in front of our new boss; a couple of us DO NOT take bad news gracefully…

So what’s the big deal?

The permit expires in one month, which means in ONE MONTH we are here as a visitor, no longer able to work…so we’re going to be unemployed…AGAIN. Of course we can stay here, in this, the first place we’ve ever felt was our home…but we won’t be living in a building, we’ll be living in a box. And winter is coming, so that’s not so cool. And we are so tired of moving, we just moved into this apartment last October, and we love this apartment (we have had nearly 30 physical addresses in at least 6 states and 1 non-state).

The woman on the phone from Immigration basically told our boss this afternoon that if he had not posted the job listing in at least two places, which they require proof of, then the application WILL be denied. So, because he decided to use the government job board website to post the job listing, and didn’t post it in the local paper (which nobody reads) or on Kijiji, or some shit, we’re going to be denied our permit. (75% chance of denial, as far as we can tell)

For the first time we have a good paying job, and despite the pain we were willing to stick with it and work on some alternative pain reliever methods…and we had budgeted so that by the end of January 2012 we would have all of our debt paid off, as long as our only excess expense were a few bottles of wine a week (a bottle of what we drink regularly costs less than $12 after taxes). We gave up smoking in January, and we gave up marijuana a couple of month later (between the two we were spending over $600 a month on things we smoked) for a plethora of reasons, and we really don’t eat out, or much. Debt makes us nervous. Very, very, nervous. If you have read the stories of Us (THE CHAPTERS OF FRANK/HOW WE CAME TO BE US/ADDRESSING WE) then you probably know why from at least one of the stories.

More importantly, if this permit is denied we’re moving back to the United States by the end of the year, something we really don’t want to do…so we are probably going to be looking for a job in the United States…and we are willing to move just about anywhere. (New York and California are preferred though...maybe Chicago).

The economic state and employment outlook of the United States is really…making us feel we’re jumping from the fire into the flame…and all we want is to be in the pan. And we don’t know if we can even apply for unemployment there until we find a job, having been living “abroad” for seven years.

How much bullshit do we have to put up with? Really. It’s not as bad as it could be we suppose…we just have a “severe” mental illness, some of us suffer from depression and eating disorders, we have soon to be debilitating back pain* from that fucking car accident and we are basically unemployable.

We write though, and we paint. And if it wasn’t for those two things we’d be dead today.

At least we have our wonderful boyfriend, who is much too far away… (he iss selling all of his belongings to try to raise money to come to us as fast as possible)…

…And our family, who we called on tonight. We don’t ask for help. We never really have, but tonight I decided to tell them what we need. And we might need help. That’s what family is for, right? *sigh*

The Facebook message we sent to The Father, The Mother and The Brothers...a first.

~ Frank et al

…mostly Frank…everyone is freaking the fuck out right now. Emmie really wanted to spend some time out tonight…she, Ivy and Cassandra had what they thought was a very successful day at work. Emmie is pretty good at staying on task, and great in the kitchen because burns don’t bother her as much as the rest of us, and we burn ourselves a lot.

*was also told by the boss this afternoon that we move too slowly in our job position, he is thinking of moving us to a different department…one we don’t want to move to. Of course we didn’t tell him about out back pain or anything. We’re still on probation, must’nt give them a reason to find fault in us…we have two and a half more months left of that, if we make it past the work permit bullshit.

- Is that all coherent? Does that make sense? We've had a fucking week from hell...we're going to drink a whole shit load of wine -

Good Deeds and Old Jobs

We're not going to say what nice thing we did. But we did a good deed this afternoon after work.

This may confuse people (who follow us on Twitter). It shouldn't; perhaps you just don't know all of us.

Look. We're not ALL angry and hateful. We're not. It would be easier if we were, there would probably be less fighting. (less anxiety too)

Did you know we used to work at a soup kitchen that not only served free soup but also whole meals for very little money to the homeless and low income people of our neighborhood? They also had a food program where low income locals could buy food at low wholesale prices, but not in wholesale sizes; fresh foods like meat, fruits and vegetable and dairy. We were in charge of the food there, making menus, helping with ordering and inventory, as well as being manager/director of the social media. We all think food for everyone is very important (though some of the others don't like to eat very much).

We always had to be very careful what we said about our job; but since we don't work there anymore...and we never signed a confidentiality agreement, we can say what we want. It's been over a month now too, since we worked there.

Yes, those who used to follow us know that some of us used to say some pretty mean things about some of the people we encountered on a daily basis, from volunteers to the people we were serving (and sometimes about co-workers who deserved it *coughs* Fuck Face *coughs*)

There is a reason for that, for our anger. It's probably not a good reason though, so maybe it's an excuse.

Some of the people we encountered on a daily basis were on government assistance and not because they were mentally ill; some of them were lazy, or decided to be a baby making factory (you could tell the difference between the woman who hadn't planned on having a child, and those that were perpetually pregnant by different "baby-daddies").

They also acted like they were entitled to everything (mostly the "welfare" mothers). We knew the ones who were too mentally ill to work a regular job, and even some of them would help out by volunteering...they were beautiful tortured souls.

We interacted with people who were schizophrenic on a daily basis, people who would give tours to imaginary people outside our office, tell us at least once a week that there was "feces on the mirror in the washroom", when in fact, there was nothing. These people we're not on street drugs.

We also interacted with people who's minds were so addled by drugs and alcohol that they could barely walk and/or speak...and it was hard to tell if they were on the drugs to "scare off" their mental illness, or the mental illness came from the drugs and alcohol. Sometimes it really is a "what came first" situation.


Some of them were on prescription drugs that were supposed to help them get off of street drugs, drugs that they got addicted to instead. Clearly the governments of the world think it better we be addicted to something approved of by society, not to mention taxable...then some "dirty" drug.

People there would steal, even though they were getting an amazing and inexpensive service; and when we would confront them, they would get pissed off at us. One time we were told "why don't you get a real job?" by a snarling woman who looked like she was going to spit on us, when we confronted her about an apple her kid didn't hide fast enough, that he was trying to steal. She got very angry and defensive, and acted like WE were in the wrong. Poor behavior begats poor behavior (yeah, we like that word lately, begat), and she taught her child a very bad lesson that day...and it probably wasn't the first time.

Another example; we overheard a young man, no more than 23 years old, who was a frequent visitor, talking to another "guest". He said the reason he doesn't have a job is because he is lazy and has poor work ethic. We've see him as a volunteer there, and he was right about himself; but hearing him say that that day made us beyond angry, mostly because the day he was tasked to help us as a volunteer we were in so much pain we could barely move and he was a pissy little baby about having to stand while he waited on customers.

Some of the people there made us sicker.

So, sometimes we would say mean things at that job in tweets because the people made us angry. Angry that sheer laziness got them off the hook at being responsible, that THEY were okay with their laziness...and having other people pay for their laziness. We were angry because we were struggling every day to make it to work, to function and be coherent, when much of our day was brutally difficult for us to manage, and we were the sickest, mentally AND physically, than we'd even been in our life. In addition, they money being lazy, living off the government, than we did working...and then we got fired from that job.

Back to why we do nice things. Back to why I do nice things (or rather, Catherine and I).

At any point in our life we could have been/could be that person who is hungry on the street corner...we could be that person dining in a soup kitchen...sleeping on a cot in a shelter. We've been lucky to not ever have to do that. The same can be said for anybody who is barely scrapping by on a day to day basis. All it takes is one wrong thing to happen and you are the guy sitting on the corner with a sign that simply says "Hungry".

So tonight, we did a nice thing and we were told we were awesome. And while we thanked him we know we're not awesome, we didn't do it just for him. We did it for us, to remind us to be thankful...even if some of us are a bitch most of the time. Our life isn't great, most of the time, by any stretch of the imagination...but it could be worse.

Now having said that, we don't give change to bums. The local downtown security group advises against it, citing that over 70% of the time it's for drugs and alcohol - and we agree and have seen it in action; but we will offer food if we have it on us, bus tickets if we have them and they are asking for change for the bus. We offered a lady an apple one day, after she said she wanted money for food. She declined it, of course, she didn't want money for food after all. Probably if some guy walked up to us and said "I want money for a fifth of whiskey", we'd walk him to the liquor store (if we had the money ourselves) and buy him some whiskey, because with us honesty works. The people we don't like are the people who try to scam for anything. We'd sooner spit on a person in need who is being dishonest.

Over the years we've gotten smart about it. They (the beggars, bums, what have you) are not asking for money to pay their bills (likely), they are not asking for money to pay rent (you have to have a job in order to have a place to rent)...if they are asking for money to get to a different city (like a young couple who hangs around in our neighborhood) you have to wonder why they don't just get a job for a couple of weeks, rather than beg for a month. They are probably asking for money for food, drugs or alcohol. Surely you can provide them one of those things, just a little of it...maybe just once; because wouldn't you want someone to show you a little kindness if you were legitimately in need?

~Cassandra and Catherine (and we're the reason that kid didn't take our "death stare" seriously on the bus...we almost started giggling at him, and our eyes give everything away, always. *blush*)

Our First Day At A New Job...an overview

Until we get into the groove of things (our new job which we started today)...posts will be short, probably.

We only have a week left with James, he leaves on Monday the 22nd ; next week this time when we walk into the apartment and say "Honey! We're home!" and will only have the cats to greet us, instead of our 6' tall, beautiful, wonderful & patient boyfriend (yes, we've gone a bit soppy right there - and one of us had a good cry last night before we fell asleep)...and now we'll have to get our own wine from the kitchen, and carry our own groceries, and touch ourselves...that better? We'll be alone again, which some of us are really okay with...back to dancing and drinking wine at the grocery store on Saturday night.

Anyway, our body aches from head to toe from our first day of our new job. It started half way through our shift. We hope it's only because we are needing to get used to it...but we know better...we know that this is going to increase the destruction that our body endured in the car accident even more, the destruction and pain that made our instructor of Culinary Arts tell us "you will not last in this industry 10 years..." (because of our back), but we have little choice because we are not eligible for any sorts of disability benefits in the city we choose to live, even though we have several; not that we would want to go that route anyway - we just need to find a job that fits us, we suppose....and not get fired from it. We also hope we can somehow make this job part-time. We don't need it to be full-time. But it's a job. And we know we should feel lucky we have one, but tell you what. We'd trade your (speaking to the unemployed, who say they want to find a job) unemployment check for our job in a heartbeat. We can live on very little money, we've been doing it our entire life.

So with our arthritis and our disintegrating spine, along with all our other stupid problems mental health problems and stupid mild brain damage...we will work this job until...well, until we quit or get fired; because history hasn't shown us we can maintain a job more than a year without one of the two happening. (Don't feel sorry for us, if you think you do, that would be fucking bullshit, we are merely here, sharing our life with many people, and being as honest as we can about the things that occur and the feelings that we have.)

Maybe something else will come along (if anyone wants to hire a website graphic designer, we've done that...as well as social media *smiles* sorry for the little plug), but until then, as usual, we gotta do what we gotta do...which is going to make us all come home at the end if the day and try to find ways to deal with the pain. Hopefully it doesn't get as bad as it was in March. At least we have Twitter...our Tweeple...and wine.

Just in case we don't post a lot this week, read other stuff around here; here are the links on our...."Our Recommendations...Weeded from our Feeded" page...

Some of our writing on this blog we like to promote (consider them highlights), 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 (they are in the What We've Been Up To over on the left). Here are the highlights of what we have written so far this year. There are some repeated under different subjects because some blog entries deal with more than one subject matter.

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

• Mental Health Awareness Month: Our Introduction
• The Other Girl
• The Other Girl: Her Final Journal
• We Chat With The Father About DID (this post contains information on what DID is)
• Frank Gets Candid (We talk about Catherine, one of our alters)
• **We Freak Out** (this was a very important day, the day we met Marisa, recoverer of DID)
• We Are Fragments
• We / We Get Random / We Have Questions
• Marisa Answers Our Questions
• Frank Gets Candid, About Memories...and Bethany (we talk about one of our alters)
• A Note From Frank, and ONLY Frank (actually not written by Frank)
• Standby and The Death of the Other Girl: Part 1 of 3 (we start talking about the death of one of our alters [our core])
• Our Ears May Be Burning (we talk about what people we recently knew might be saying over Easter)
• We Just Need A Good Map (Mental Health Awareness Month Post - Frank talks about DID mapping)
• We Don't Do A Blog Post (we talk a little about mapping, Bethany, unicorns & stuff)
• We Discuss Three Mis-Diagnosed Mental Illnesses
• A Day In The Room (Writing done by those other than Frank et al)
• We Have Nothing To Lose (Cassandra talks about the death of a mentally ill "friend")
• Frank Lets You Know Bitch (me!) (Bethany got to write her very own entry about herself)
• Sam Gets Angry About Ignorance (Written by Sam)
• A Little Bit Of Emmie (Written by Emmie)
• Sam Gets Set-Off (written by Sam)
• We Answer Some Follower Questions
• Cassandra Writes About 'Someone Special' (Written by Cassandra)
• One of Us Has Sociopathic Tendencies (Written by Melody)
  The Other Girl - Stuff She Wrote:
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal: Canada to Berlin
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part II: Berlin, Germany
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part III: Munich, Germany
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part IV: Germany -The Final Days
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part V: Germany In Photography
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part VI: Amsterdam In Photography
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part VII: Cairo, Egypt
• The Other Girl: A Travel Journal Part VIII: Alexandria, Egypt

Health:

• When Anxiety Attacks
• Franks/Our 100 Pound Weight Loss Story
• Collision: The Other Girls/Our Terrible Car Accident
• Stress and Expediential Weight Loss
• New Pain and Old Fear

Family:

• Why Most Of Us Dislike Our Mother
• We Chat With The Father About DID (this post contains information on what DID is)
• A Few Hours With The Father and Baby Brother
• Father's Day, It's All About Our Father

Relationships:

• Relationships, Frank...and Love
• Our First Girlfriend
• The First Boy We Liked, That Liked Us Back
• An Ass-Face Comes A Texting
• We Go To University, We Take A Lover
  
  Standby:
• To A Human, If Indeed That Is What You Are (1 of 3)
• The "Death" of Standby and the "Birth" of a Villain (2 of 3)
• Standby: The Final Chapter (3 of 3)
• Standby and The Death of the Other Girl: Part 1 of 3 (to be continued)
  
  Fuck Face:
• A Mistress Without Cutlery
• What Become Of The Broken Hearted
• Fuck Face: Who He Is (also work related)
• The Demise of Fuck Face...Part 1
• The Demise of Fuck Face...Part 2
• The Demise of Fuck Face...Part 3
• The Demise of Fuck Face...Part 4
• The Demise of Fuck Face...Part 5
• The Demise of Fuck Face...Part 6
• We Have Drinks With Fuck Face
• To Send, or Not To Send...The E-mail Is The Question
• Situation Stand Still
  
  James:
• 50,000 Tweets and All We Got Was...
• A 'State of the Union' Re: The Visit of Our Twittercrush James
• James and the Giant Peach Pit...Of Despair
  
  
  Friendships:
• Friends: A Tale of The Non-Bestie
• Our Ears May Be Burning
• We Have Nothing To Lose
• Girl Crush Gets The 411 on Us
• A Frank Evening With Fabulous People and The Pup
• We Get An E-Mail Intervention
• We Get An E-Mail INtervention: Followup: The Followup

Work:

• All In a Days Work
• All In a Days Work II
• All In a Days Work III
• A Day In The Room
• Another Day, Another Dollar; Fuck Our Life
• When The Job Gets Fuckity
• We Get Fired From Our Job
  
• We Get A New Job and James Meets Fuck Face
• Life:

• Please Don't Let Us Be Misunderstood
• All We Have Is Hope
• Cooking With Frank
• A Distraction, In The Form of The Jeans
• Seriously...And @NickSilly Answers Some Questions
• We Get A Guest Blogger - Kinky Sex!
• We Have Nothing To Lose
• How We Feel About Advice...and We Ramble
  
• Sometimes Karma is a Bitch for a Reason (1 of 3)
• Life Kicks Us in the Ass at Every Turn (2 of 3)
• ...More Ass Kicking From Life... (3 of 3)
• Fuck Face Gets Fired and What We Think About That
• We Get A New Job and James Meets Fuck Face

Opinion:

• Religion, You Say? We Have A View On That
• Growth and Change; An Artist Standpoint
• Birds of A Feather, on Twitter, CAN Flock Together
• For Us, It's All About Team Awesome...and Twitter
• Reading We Recommend: Casey Hannan
• Hell Ride: A Film Review
• You're Doing Twitter Wrong

Art/Poetry:

• Evil of Three: A Painting
• Saviour: A Painting
• Deadly Catch: A Painting
• Untitled Vision A: A Paiting
• Pretty Things: A Poem
• Erase This Poem
• Envisage of We: A Poem

Humour/Random/Fun:

• The Tale of the Barbie Massacre Trail/Part 1
• Happy Zombie Day A.K.A Happy Easter
• Love Juice...We're No Cosmo Magazine But...
• The Flavours of Emotions
• We Talk About Listing People On Twitter
• Who Are The Twitter Elite...And Of Course We Ramble
• You're Doing Twitter Wrong

Guest Bloggers:

• Our New Guest Blogger (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About Depression (Kerry Stott @kerrystott)
• We Get A Guest Blogger (The Single Mom @singlemomdate)
  
  
  Imported From Our Boyfriends Blog:
• 'I Meet Cassandra And It Doesn't Go Well'
• 'A Rough Night, Not The Good Kind'
• 'Who's Here Today'
• 'I Talk to Cassandra'
• 'Nine of Nine'
• 'Meet Catherine, Not Bethany'
• 'Today Was A Good Day'