How to Get Fired: Reconciliation, Sociopaths, and Sex

More than Cheese and Beer's Sunday's Confession prompt is, "Reconcile."

Well, the first thing that comes to MY mind because we are talking MY mind is a badass story. I'm not confessing at this point. I'm bragging. I'm also not understanding the definition of reconcile in the proper context... Besides, I don't feel like talking about my emotions. And I should tell this story sometime because it was a big deal in my little life.

So I was working at this local nonprofit charity in bookkeeping, and I was hired as AR clerk because I did such an awesome job to prep for the annual audit through the temp agency. Well I have a tendency to be good at math and to learn quickly, so AR clerk duties that first took 40 hours a week to do ended up being more of a 5 hour a week job (especially once I turned everything into an Excel spreadsheet). So I was looking for things to do around the office.

Boring story, huh? It's about bookkeeping. You know. One fish, two fish, three fish, four... It gets juicier fishier.

So anyway there was a guy there who handled payroll. Long story how it happened, but he ended up with the title of HR Manager, the job duties of Payroll Clerk, and, well this is a confession after all, a decent lay for someone with his penile size. His ex wife wasn't lying about that... Met her at a bar. We're friends now. We shared a lot of laughs. Awww good times.

Why I slept with him? Because young women make stupid decision. No. That's a cop out. I was attracted to him because he was old, ugly, and lonely. I'm laughing when I reread that like, "Really? This is how your brain works Michelle? What is wrong with you?"  But there's something about lonely men who haven't gotten laid in years that I'm just turned on by, and I think it's the way they look at you. They touch you like they are touching a woman for the first time in their life, but without the awkwardness of puberty. You know, no doubts, you know, you mean something to him, that you aren't just another piece of ass he calls when he's in the mood. And you also know, you are exactly what he needs right now. When he went from grumpy cat at the office to Mr. Blue Bird on my Shoulder happy, you know you did that with your magical vagina, cough cough. LOVE with your love.

But don't be fooled by the naive innocence years of sexual frustration wreaks on a man. Once a man like that gets laid by a beautiful woman, he becomes confident. Sometimes arrogant. He will take his new found self esteem and use it to get other women.

While love conquers all, this is lust, and power and greed usually trumps lust. Fast forward toward the end of my career at that place... Basically, he tried to get me fired, and it did eventually work. The office drama separated into two West Side Story gangs, and his loyalty was to the bad guys, the dark side, the assholes.

Years after this bragging moment I haven't even gotten into yet, which is less epic than this tale, I was more of the Comptroller. The real comptroller was planning to retire and just kind of left me her job duties. Fine with me. We were best friends at that point, and her job was more exciting than mine. She got to prepare reports and talk to the auditors, and prepare the Trial Balance. Closing entries. Exciting stuff. There was also a new executive director who was also a sociopath with a circle of disciple men who followed her around everywhere (including my HR prick, pun intended). They all got raises and bonuses without doing any actual work. Meanwhile, there were people working 40 plus hours a week at 13,000 a year. That's 6.77 an hour, while executives sitting on their ass doing nothing but "secret meetings" about "HR situations" (AKA, they dicked around all day), were getting paid 60 grand a year (doubled their annual salaries when I started with mine going up 10% maybe?). Small nonprofit. Of course, I didn't realize this was America at its finest yet. Nope. I saw it as a great injustice of corporate greed in the nonprofit sector that must be fought. I was trying to do the right thing.

Eventually, I gave up trying to talk people into being decent human beings. My shit level was reached. I went to the Board of Directors with evidence I had compiled for almost a year about the Executive Director and her disciples, who had been trying to get me fired for random things like making long distant calls I didn't make (I had a cell phone, why would I use their phone?). So I went to the Board with my loser reputation the higher ups were trying to form for me. I showed the "hostile work environment" (conveniently after EEOC training was done) this created, who did the actual work for the bonuses they claimed, and made some valid points otherwise. I also proposed a budget that included raises for everyone and returned the Christmas bonuses. The Board loved it. I had this bitch by her balls, except bitches don't have balls.

Nope, at the board meeting that was going to vote to fire the bitch, she showed up because the guy I was sleeping with informed her as he was logging everything I said or did in our relationship to her... She didn't show up alone. She was with the director of our greatest funding source that pays admin salaries (CSBG) who works like an hour drive away usually. He was an old pervert, and she was pretty. Not as pretty as me, shut up. Anyway, he told the board if they don't get rid of me, listen to their Executive Director like good sheeple, he would cut their funding entirely. So they really felt they had no choice. They downsized my position just so I could get unemployment because they felt so bad. I don't know how many of them pulled me aside, some I didn't even know by name, to apologize.

The karma train, maybe irony train, hit that station though. That year, Bush cut CSBG in half, so they lost most of the grant anyway. They had no other grants to fall back on because they lost about 10 grants and programs because the Executive Director didn't turn in the paperwork for it, probably because she didn't know how to fill it out and fired the only person who did (me), well besides the person who retired with her middle finger in the air (the comptroller). That agency is still a shell of its former self. They never have funding to do much of anything. It's sad how one bitch could take that down so much so hard. They really helped a lot of people back in my day, and now they don't.

But back to my bragging story. Before the drama unfolded, before I slept with an a-hole with short man syndrome, that a-hole didn't think I could do much of anything in the office. I don't know if it's because I'm a woman, or because I was young, or because he was so blinded by my cleavage he neglected to see the brain, but anyway, Bank Reconciliation was his job, one he was 6 months behind on. It wasn't like reconciling a personal checking account. They had 6 checking accounts plus an investment account (AKA Sweep Account, that NOBODY knew how to reconcile, not even the bank) that played with a couple million dollars annually, with a 70 page GL, where we accounted to the penny (no adjustments). This guy did not think I could do the bank rec simply because he couldn't. He had tried for 6 months to do it. Obviously his logic was totally sound because if he can't do it, then surely I couldn't. Eyeroll please.

Of course, I had no idea how to do a bank rec, not even with my checkbook. So I learned first with the smaller accounts, and I reconciled them, up to date, within a day or two. Easy. This guy kept saying, "You can't do it." So I kept saying, "Watch me." Then I tackled the main account. It took me 3 days, with constant doubt-talk coming from the direction of that guy's desk, but I reconciled that bitch to the penny. Within a week, I had the 6 months we were behind caught up entirely. Then the sweep account. It really didn't need reconciled, but I had to. After asking a million people including 10 people at the bank including the bank president at two different locations, I was still at square one. So I thought about it, on paper, and it looked like some Einstein formula because algebra was my friend, and I figured it out with math and science. So then bank recs became my job duty, one that became more of a breeze once I made an Excel spreadsheet do all the calculations for it.

They got harder when we got the Workforce Investment Act money. Those grants are insane. Irrationally insane. It was you spend the money, and they reimburse approved expenses. A thousand dollars worth of motivational pictures like this was approved. A dollar for toilet paper in their office, not so much. That's our government at its finest. And they wanted every penny spent or coming in split 2 to 3 ways, in a funky percentage like 22.556312% goes to this fund and the rest goes to this other fund, and I don't want it to be off .000001% at all.

Then we hired a guy to handle just that account, who became a disciple to the Executive Director. It was more like we hired a troll to put random entries in the software. He even managed to do a single sided entry, a debit with no credit. That's impossible to do with the software. The guy gave me gray hair and hypertension. That was another one that got a year behind to get reimbursed (not the bank rec because I did the bank recs) because the guy getting paid twice as much as me couldn't figure out how to do his job. So I got those caught up and it became my job. They kept the guy at his salary to do filing, while I still made half of his salary doing the only job we paid him to not do. Then to add to insult, short man prick who I was humping at the time got a $600 bonus for that and the glory with the Board, for my work. The funding source even sent an email praising my awesome, but nobody in the office acknowledged it. It was like I was in a Ben Stiller movie.

So yeah, I'm a master at reconciliation, when it comes to numbers at least. When it came to office politics, not so much. If you don't know me, my brain operates like this. You say reconciliation, and immediately I think about numbers. Not people. In fact, I think about numbers more than I think about people generally anyway. Numbers are nice. You know they are positive or negative, rational or irrational, without having to guess at it.

Moral of the story? 

1. You might lose your job trying to do the right thing.

2. If you are attacking your boss at work, follow the money as far up as you can. Don't stop within your own organization. Cover your ass as many directions as you can.

3. This is exactly what's wrong with America. This is why there are no jobs. This is why your pay check sucks. Because this happens everywhere. It's not just that greedy people are in charge. They are evil, power hungry, ego stroking sociopaths. The greedy people are those like most of my coworkers who dared not rock the boat because they didn't want to lose their jobs. They lost their jobs anyway because the organization downsized when there was no more money for them, so it was all in vain. An ironic twist of vainness. But the world is full of them, the multitudes of sheeple who dare not rock the boat, and that is what is killing our economy. The people who actually work need to overthrow the people who don't and get paid regardless. People who don't work should be collecting government welfare checks, not corporate welfare checks.

4. Never sleep with your coworkers, and if you do, definitely do not talk about work in the bedroom.

5. Women do a better job on an academic level than a man. There's actually empirical evidence to support that claim. We score higher on tests, get better grades, and mentally trump men statistically from the moment we are kids all the way to death. So when you men get all, "She can't do it because she's a dumb woman, go make me a sammich" you are a complete dumbass and you would service the world better by collecting disability and making me a sammich.

6. Anyone, anytime, could be a future writer thinking about adding your character to their story. Behave accordingly. 



P.S. Some of my journal entries had descriptions, to entertain the auditors as they'd be the only ones to ever see it, like...

The payable that couldn't
The receivable that wasn't
Let's see if this works
No it didn't work
Diane told me to
Reversing another Mentry (that was my code word for Mark's Entries, the guy who gave me gray hair)

P.P.S. Can you tell how old I am using things like P.S.?

Fuck Bad Words, and the R-word it rode in on

I guess people are blogging about the R-word, and I had this in my notes as a blog to do eventually, so I guess now is a good time. I haven't read other people's blogs about the R-word because it usually pisses me off on many different levels.

Speaking

Notice I call it the R-word? That's because things like the R-word, the N-word, and the homosexual slurs are disrespectful to a lot of people. I prefer not to use them out of respect. If I were to use those words, I wouldn't be using them to piss people off. I'd be using them to communicate or try to be funny, and since there are people who lose the point when one of those words are used, or they lose all humor if one of those words are used, it would totally be anti-productive for my purpose to use those words. The purpose of language is to communicate, and that purpose is lost when certain words are used. If I did want to offend people, I really prefer my point I'm making offend them than my vocabulary, though I do use the fuck word a lot because it's fun to do. That's a different fucking blog post.

Anyway, I do believe in bad words, but differently than most people. You know how there's a difference between truth and the norm (majority rules)? For example, the earth is round. That's a truth. For many years, the fact is the earth was flat because that was the common belief. It was wrong, but it was right because everyone all agreed. 

To me, words are words. They have no soul, so they can't be good or bad. It's not the words, it's how you use them. That's the fact truth part. Then there's the part where the majority has decided otherwise on a somewhat ignorant level, but at least they usually have good intentions. Anyway, the majority has decided fuck is a bad word. Words like that, fuck shit ass… those are not bad words to me. They are naughty words, like farts. It's bad etiquette to use them in certain places at certain times. But now, because of this majority thing, there are words that are bad words. They are only used to demean people, like there isn't a good way to use those words because of the history of their use locked them in. At least fuck can be used as a good thing. I can say, "Mother fucker" to insult someone, but I can say, "Motherfucking awesome" to compliment someone.

There is no way to compliment someone when you use the following words…
 

Any racial slurs

Any homosexual slurs

The R-word
Fat

Listening

But, that whole concept is a double edged sword. Now, I may offend some people and for that I'm not sorry. Part of communicating is speaking, and I just discussed that. The other half of communication is listening. So how do you handle when someone else uses the R-word? Or any bad word for that matter?

Me, I look at their intentions. The context. Why?

A lot of times, people's definitions of the word is different than what it is, or what you think it is. For example, the n-bomb. It's a racial slur. A very bad one. Probably the worst word ever invented in the history of man. Look it up in the dictionary and it means ignorant. So some people use it to mean ignorant, which that's irony for you. Some subcultures have decided that it means trashy people of any race. They call white people the n-bomb, and they will point to a black man and say he is NOT the n-bomb in the same sentence. There are some people who use it as a way to take back the power, mainly black people (and white posers). Do I think they should be using that word? No, not in this world with that word's history. On another planet where it has no history, maybe, depending on the definition you give it.

But am I going to ostracize and criticize them for it's use? Depends, the intention. I do believe in God, and it's about what's in our hearts. Gotta look at the spirit and soul. Nothing physical can define morality. People try to. They try to make it tangible, and they lose a lot of the point of it in the process… The only black and white is in our hearts, not in our words or actions like most people believe (again truth vs fact).

What pisses me off with the r-word specifically… A, if you call a special needs person an R-word as a way to belittle or demean them, I'm going to be really pissed and I will hurt you one way or the other, whether it's your physical self or psychological self depending on how far you are from my reach. B, now the complicated part.

I have autism. My child has autism. We are both high functioning, which I hate that term, but anyway, that's us. People have called me the R-word because I'm weird. But I'm not an idiot. I know most of the population who uses the R-word use it to mean really stupid, low IQ that can result even with no diagnosis, and it generally has nothing to do with special needs or autism. I do not get offended when someone says, "That woman was so r-worded because she forgot the mayo." That has nothing to do with me or my autism.

What pisses me off is when people hide behind people like me to be mean to a stranger. I'm talking those situations where you are talking about the price of tea in China and someone says, "Wow, your husband did what with the tea? That is so r-word." Then out of the blue, Susie McJudgerson is on there clutching pearls damning someone to hell because they called my husband the r-word and somehow, with that, insulted Susie's kid, every special needs child, and all these people who were never part of the conversation or a subject in the conversation. It's like saying, "Fuck the man who was insulted, fuck his wife who is special needs. This is about me and my kid." I guess it's okay to call someone with autism an asshole as your means to advocate autism. See, that is DEFINITELY stupid and illogical and selfish.

Some of them then take it to the next step. They play the pity card. I mean we are talking a good cause here, and anyone who disagrees is insensitive, heartless and against the cause.
  

Criticizing people for shit they didn't actually mean is bullying. What happens is the social herding instinct comes into play with low attention spans and poor reading comprehension skills, and some level of laziness. If you criticize someone for insulting kids with special needs, everyone assumes that person just insulted someone with special needs, and the wolf pack preys on someone who never said anything about special needs.

Here's an EXTREME example to show how it works…

Erica: So I was thinking, now that Duke is dead, I have all this left over dog food. The humane society might take it. They could always use some extra food.

Susie: That is so fucked up Erica. How dare you? Do you know what the Humane Society does to these animals? They kill them, and that's after they torture them by putting them in these cages all day long. Sometimes the animals are actually abused beyond the regular neglect. That's just fucked up you'd donate to them.

Erica: Actually, I know someone at the Humane Society who is really good with animals, and they really do try to find homes for the animals so they don't have to euthanize them.

Susie: I can't believe you. Enabling that is the same as abuse. You are a dog abuser. I can't believe you don't care how they kill all those puppies with sad puppy faces. What did those dogs ever do to you?

Mildred: Hi guys. I'm too lazy to read all the comments, but wow. Erica really? You can go to hell and suck Satan's dick. The world would be a better place without animal abusers like you. You deserve ass fucked with a pitchfork fuck you. You are such an idiot. I'm going to punch you in the face if I ever see you.

Erica: Mildred really? Because I want to donate to the humane society. I miss my dead dog. I want to do something good for them. And Susie? You are insane. I don't enable dog abuse. I love dogs.

Mildred: So you killed your own dog? You are so fucked up.

Beatrice: Who killed their dog?

Mildred: Erica did. She is pro dog death. She's trying to say she's a good person because she donates to the humane society. Like that makes it okay.

Susie: Wow, Erica you are a real piece of work. Calling me insane after everything you just said. Look again hun. You are the insane one.

Mildred: She's fucked up is what she is.

In addition, the r-word doesn't refer to your kid or to me unless someone is calling us that word directly. To associate us to the r-word as a way to defend us is calling us the r-word. I don't think anyone realizes that when they do it, but seriously, how would you feel if every time someone used the word "idiot" I jumped them in how it insults all the mothers of special needs people. The parents of special needs people within an ear shot of that would be insulted if I did such a thing.  Same thing follows with the r-word. Unless they are talking about your kid, to make it about your kid is calling your kid the r-word. It's insulting.

I am a firm believer that criticism is a person not calling someone else out on something, but projecting their own insecurities, worries and fears (some valid and some not so valid)… Parents of special needs who insult people for using the r-word I think are insecure about their child's special needs, in a way they probably don't even notice. They worry so much about their child being called names for their situation...  It's common. It's natural. I know. I too am a parent of a kid with special needs. You don't think I don't do the same thing? 

I am probably most guilty with this over the word fat. Every time someone belittles a person for their weight, I see my child getting belittled, and all the sudden I'm holding her feelings right there in the palm of my hands and this person is spitting on them. To steal Insane in the Mom-brain's concept, it makes me sporky. But that's my issue. It's in my head, and it haunts me even when people don't insult people for their weight. And my issue is, I have to get over the fact that my daughter is a little overweight, and yes some people are going to call her fat, just like people call me fat. Anorexic people get called fat. Everybody gets called fat. Just because I worry it might be true for one of my kids doesn't make it about her every time someone talks about fat. This is my issue. It's my fears. It's my worries. 

So I don't ask you guys to just remove the R-word from your vocabulary, but remove it from communication. If someone uses it in a way to demean, have at it. Tear them a new one. I'll be cheering you on. But demeaning people for using the word who wasn't trying to demean anyone is using the word to demean. Reread that one slower, and then try to say it real fast five times. But it's true. If you are demeaning people, you are demeaning people. I don't care whose name you do it in, whether it's autism or God. If you want to help, if you want to advocate, uplift people. Promote acceptance and understanding when you see it lacking. Save the insults for people who are actually insulting and deserve it. 

I don't expect you to be Jesus Christ and approach everything with love. I'm just saying, don't use autism or any "disorder" to hate people on our behalf. Don't use us to call someone an idiot on our behalf. You are not doing us any service with that, not at all. Autism is not the R-word. SPECIAL NEEDS IS NOT THE R-WORD. Quit telling people we are on our behalf.

And if you are a parent of a child with special needs, go find yourself a therapist. It's a tough gig. You need a place to vent. The stress, the anxiety, the lack of time for yourself, the lack of sleep, the lack of any idea of decent hygiene.... shoot all parents should go see a therapist. I never felt like I had any special needs until I became a parent. 

 

Rumor Has It...

I'm probably one of the very few people who really enjoy listening to rumors about myself. I really do, and the more negative it is, the funnier it is. I really find it amusing. Now in my Darth Vader voice, I do find the lack of creativity disturbing. While sleeping with the entire College I attended football team was pretty creative, as if that many men really want to sleep with me, I haven't seen that level of creativity since 1997.

Actually, instead, I've heard the stuff I list first here. Most of the time, the rumors aren't worded so nicely, but since I'm not a fan of racial slurs, I'll translate into non-asshole. 

Distinguishing fact from fiction...

Whore -- False
Slut, maybe.
Porn star... there you go.

Is a bad parent -- False
Neglects and Abuses her children -- VERY FUCKING FALSE
Sold her children to the Lollipop Guild for 2 Hershey Kisses... There you go.

Smokes crack -- False
Dyes her crack green for St. Paddy's Day, hmmm, that was actually someone else and trying to claim it would infringe on that girl's intellectual property.
Married into the Mexican Drug Cartel and is now the new Godfather... there you go.

Loves black people --- True
Will only sleep with black people, ummm I really don't care what color you are.
Is black and has applied 27 times to be Obama's "intern"... there you go.

Loves gay people --- True
Is gay, doubt it.
Slept with the entire college cheerleading squad taking away the virginity of 5 chipper blond girls and is the reason Ellen now likes women and inspired the song, "I kissed a girl and I liked it."... there you go.

Quick to fly off the handle -- True
Gets into a lot of bar fights, debatable.
Interned with the CIA as an assassin and retired to be a mercenary after taking out Jason Bourne... there you go.

Is crazy-- True.
Is psychotically dangerous, probably not.
Was kidnapped by science and became a subject for what was later known as Experiment 626 where brain surgery was involved and then was abducted by aliens and formed an emotional bond with the alien sociopath (Bob) completely responsible for 90% of our earthly conspiracy theories... there you go.

Is a broke ass bitch -- Depends on the day.
Never had a job and always depended on the system -- Sorry, very wrong. Actually I have a better resume than all the people who came up with this one, which is actually very sad on their part.
Used so much welfare that it knocked the American Economy into one of the biggest recessions ever and then got elected into Congress... there you go.

Don't forget to lie through your teeth and tell everyone I look fabulous.

BTW, these are all things I was thinking about telling people I did for a living at my High School reunion had we actually had one, except I was going to say that I interned with Bill Clinton and Monica was my scapegoat for that scenario had I gone with it, but I probably would have gone with the assassin one.