06 August 2004

The " hurt " Entry
Date: 6 August 04
Climate: still spring to me
Eating: --
Drinking: water and chai tea
Feeling: stressed
Listening to: hum of wires and faxes and computers
Watching: time tick by
Reading: google

I am really hurt.

I called to ask if the person I worked with at 880 would be a reference for me, and he told me that he would "have to call me back as that is a very complex question."
So lets review what I did wrong.
First off, over and over, they kept telling me how "great I am doing" and how they only hear "nothing but good things."
From my time at 880, I recall being a good organizer, and doing my job well.
I don't ever remember quitting 880 but being shipped up here--which was what they rather instructed me to do.
Now that i want to come home, and possibly change jobs (while I am still somewhat employed through them) they a) don't know if they can get me a job back there and b) won't tell me if they'll be a reference if they, in fact, cannot get me a job back there.

I am really upset right now. I feel really cheated.
I felt such an affinity to 880 and to the union but from the way they are acting, I feel as though what they stand for and what they communicate, compared to what they do, are contradicting points.
I should have seen this coming. Another two organizers had this happen to them, and I have heard that they aren't even guaranteeing a job to the other "heroes" who are in Missouri for when they get back.
This whole program is operating in no way, shape, or form like we were told and led to believe.
I think that if it all comes down to it, I don't even know if I can consciously go back there to work, with all this happening.

The only thing I have to look towards is that everyone here has been fantastic and has said they'd be references for me. Unless 880 tries to sabotoge that, I think I will be okay.

But I still feel hurt.

05 August 2004

The "banging my head up the side of a wall " Entry
Date: 5 August --i think my milk expires today
Climate: feels like spring to me...i feel really nostalgic for my old place off Taylor*
Eating: --
Drinking: chocolate milk
Feeling: burnt out
Listening to: idlewild
Watching: nightline--that huge tour of musicians promoting voting is an ACT project (moveon gets more naming rights but we have to do most of the planning...yet another reason I am happy to be fleeing)
Reading: new Atlantic Monthly--very funny article re: Barack Obama by a guy from The New Republic: best line was when he noticed Barack doodling and he realized
he was, in fact, doodling pictures of himself.

Today has been a crazy, crazy day.
First, get to work and have to dress "nice" due to the fact that I am going down to the federal courthouse to get licensing for this press conference (we have no one speaking yet!)--get lost in Detroit, always fun, meet with federal marshall guy and homeland security guy, and the building manager, get license after much questioning (technically I could do it without it since its a public building but who likes angry bureaucrats?)
Drive back to work, get hit with "surprise" project, aka laying out awards for the team leads (and I don't really get why since all I have been hearing is how they're NOT doing what we need them to do, but whatever).
The two directors I work with get angry that I am working on someone else's project and come to tell me that I have to tell the others no from now on...right. I can't say no when its as simple a project as that.
Finish in about 30 minutes, start to call MI vets to participate...and I am still trying.
Organizational BBQ tonight and a bunch of fun radiology appointments tomorrow. Great!
At least the big boss told me I looked great today. Its the little things.
1 day until Eddie arrives
10 days until I can leave here, scott free.

03 August 2004

Hello Friends--
Well, if you have had the luxury of reading my blog (sounds lame, yes, I recognize that), you're probably aware of the unhappiness and dismay this job and new residence has brought me, way up in Detroit.

After arriving back from MN for my fathers 55th birthday party, as well as some time to talk this over with my family, and of course, with much contemplating (about a month, really), I have decided to leave this state and this job, my last day actually on the 13th, and pursue what it was I wanted to do a year ago: law school. Although I struggled quite a bit about leaving this position, the departure is a positive one altogether... the chief of staff and the communications director, with whom I worked with quite closely, were happy to hear that I was taking a leap away from Michigan, and they even readily agreed that this was a sheer "waste of my time." This also free's them to hire a more appropriate (black and older) replacement...no joke. They volunteered themselves are references already. My union liason wasn't so pleased, he was visibly angry (I watched his hands clench) that he wasn't the "first to know"--seeing as he came in at 3. You just can't please everyone.

Regardless, I have realized that despite whatever background I may have in communications, this isn't the right time or job for me to be in right now, and so with that, I will be moving back to Chicago, staying with a fantastic friend until I get settled in my new apartment, a place in Lakeview I think, near the tail end of the month.

I will email you my updated phone/address as soon as I know it, but my cell and clearly my email, is still the same.

I don't quite know what I am going to be doing, really. And at first that really scared me, since I usually have quite a managed plan for success. But the sheer fact that I will be back home, with friends and loved ones, is comforting to me, and the rest will follow.

I may or may not go back to organizing with 880, but without a car and without really wanting to buy one, I may not. I just don't know. I have an interview with the DNC the Monday I come back, as well as some other interviews and leads lined up at various law firms and I have even considered working at BlockBuster--don't know if this is a breakdown or just a stranglehold on the overexcelling personality I have been running at for the past, like, 5 years but its a welcomed change either way.
Surprisingly, I really don't feel stressed; nothing, really, at this point, will be worse than what I have been doing since the beginning of April, and rest assured I have made the appropriate worse than/better than comparisons.*

My best to you all; I hope you're doing well in your jobs and life as a whole. Update me when you can.

Miss you--but hopefully seeing you soon.
cherie*

This update written while enjoying "Starting from Scratch"
--the puppy channel story, TAL episode 233.

The "End is Near " Entry
Date: 3 August 2004
Climate: Summer sun
Eating: rice
Drinking: water
Feeling: finalized
Listening to: Howie Day
Watching: ProActive infomercials
Reading:
The dawn is breaking/A light shining through/You're barely waking/And I'm tangled up in you/Yeah/I'm open, you're closed/Where I follow, you'll go/I worry I won't see your face/Light up again/Even the best fall down sometimes/Even the wrong words seem to rhyme/Out of the doubt that fills my mind/I somehow find/You and I collide/I'm quiet you know/You make a first impression/I've found I'm scared to know /I'm always on your mind/Even the best fall down sometimes/Even the stars refuse to shine/Out of the back you fall in time/I somehow find/You and I collide/Even the best fall down sometimes/Even the wrong words seem to ryhme/Out of the doubt that fills your mind/You finally find/You and I collide/You finally find/You and I collide/You finally find/You and I collide --this is Jliz's favorite Howie Day tune. I have been listening to alot of Howie lately. How emo of me.

My last day in MI is the 13th.

Couldn't be happier.
There's a nail in my tire. Great. Going to exchange the car for another -- I don't think it will be another shuttle, I hope I am not back to the cavalier (yuck)--

Home, here I come.

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