Den of Wolves

As I was admonishing my five year old, not to be a tattle-tale the other day, it dawned on me…why was I teaching my son that it is wrong to “tell on” people who are doing something wrong?  I think it’s ingrained in us.

The question is why?   Why do I want my young son not to tattle?  Well the obvious answer is that nobody likes a snitch.

But wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone snitched on the people who chose to do wrong?  If we all stood up for justice?

Do I want my son to grow up thinking that it is more important to be popular than to do what is right?  Do I want him to hesitate to call for help if someone is being robbed, raped or murdered?  Do I want him to avoid standing up to testify against someone who is guilty–because it’s “not his problem”?  Do I want him to have to question what is right in these types of situations?  Do I want him to be that person?  You know, the one who “minds his/her own business” regardless of the consequences to anyone else? 

It made me think of the story of the rape and murder of a young woman in the 1970’s (not sure on the timeframe) that was used as an example of the “Bystander Effect” in one of my psychology classes in undergrad.  A young woman was brutally beaten, raped and eventually murdered in the courtyard of Caprini Green.  The crime took place over the course of several hours, because the woman would scream, lights would come on in the apartments facing the courtyard, the assailant would flee and the lights would go out.  Every time the lights went out and people went back to their own lives, the assailant returned and continued to brutalize the young woman.  This happened several times, resulting in the young woman’s eventual murder, when she might have been saved.  If even one of those people who looked out the window and witnessed the event had called the police, she might have lived.  When the tenants in the building were eventually questioned and asked why they chose not to call the police, answers ranged from “didn’t want to get involved” to “I assumed somebody else would help/call”.  Surely someone else would be the tattle-tale.

This story has stuck with me.  I numbs me to the core that something like this could have happened…

But I think I now have an insight into what might have motivated those people to “mind their own business”.   Maybe it’s a stretch.  But it sure gets me thinking about the lessons I am chosing to teach my sons.

I was tagged back in February by Lumpy Lumps for the 7 Random Things Meme.  I’ve done it before, but hey, I’ll do it again without looking at my last one and see how much overlap there is.  It might be an interesting glimpse into my mindset.

So:

1. I spent two weeks in Moscow when Russia was still part of the USSR.  I saw armed guards with automatic weapons guarding both entrances to the McDonalds in Moscow, only allowing a few people in at a time, while the line to enter wrapped around the city block several times.  People took turns standing in line for days at a time because it was the only place where they were absolutely certain they would be able to purchase food.  This was right before the fall of the Soviet Union and I participated (I use the term loosely-spectator sport was really more like it) in protests in one of the several smaller squares that surround Red Square (since they had caught wind of the impending protest and blocked off Red Square to keep the crowds manageable).  Tanks rolled down the street and soldiers marched by carrying weapons at the ready.  My crazy psychology professor, dragged us right into the middle of the fray.  I was scared bleepless, but now I have a great story to tell my grandkids someday.
2. I spent a day in Mexico one time with a child molester.  I didn’t know he was a child molester at the time, I just knew him as my friend, Dan.  I still have an image of him in my mind showing off at a Mexican restaurant (wait, I guess it would just be a restaurant when you are actually in Mexico), eating jalepenos one after the other.  It was funny at the time….now it’s just a little sad and pathetic in hind sight.
3. In keeping with the travel theme:  I drank water straight out of a mountain stream in Switzerland, while backpacking through Europe, then went to a restaurant halfway down the mountain and drank beer in giant bottles and ate chicken and french fries.  We fed little pieces of chicken to the hens that were begging around the tables.  Wrong on so many levels…I know.
4. When I was 18, I had a summer romance with a spanish boy named Jon, while staying for a month with a family in Vitoria, Spain, on an exchange program.  Except, he pronounced his name Yone.
5. I have seen the Mona Lisa, the Birth of Venus and the Last Supper.  I have also seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but I didn’t get to see the Pope.  For some reason, that day, he didn’t make his usual appearance at the window of his suite at the Vatican. It would have been Pope John Paul something or other (may he rest in peace), not the new Pope. 
6. I have seen the leaning tower of Pisa.  Apparently, they photoshop out the humongous concrete blocks they have weighing down one side of the foundation and the tethers they have to keep the thing from falling over completely.  It was very disappointing.
7. I have been out on the town drinking in the night life in Helsinki, Finland.  I paid $23 for a small hamburger, french fries and a diet coke, ala a McDonald’s ripoff restaurant.  Did I mention that this was 20 years ago?  I also paid $7 for a croissant and a bottle of water–which is so much more shocking when put in perspective of how long ago that was.

That was a nice little trip down memory lane.  I should count my blessings (except the child molester part) more often.  I have really done and seen a lot in my life.  That wasn’t even the half of it. 

Anyone else have any unique or interesting experiences you would like to share?

If you are interested in the Unilever story and want to hear more about their outrageous practices:  masquerading as a company that “cares” about it’s consumers, then you need to check out http://whatthedove.blogspot.com.  

It’s a really good site that is taking on the task of laying Unilever’s practices bare and exposing them for what they really are:  How Unilever presents itself is about self-serving brainwashing of consumers and not the altruistic motives it wants you to think.

Go check it out.  It’s very enlightening.

Can somebody please tell me if Unilever has ever done anything about it’s skin lightening line of products? 

I can’t think of any product more offensive than a one designed to make someone “whiter”.  I know women who are white spend a lot of time using tanning booths, spray on tans and various other self tanners, as well as just laying around in the sun.  It all boils down to self-esteem.  The idea that “I am not good enough the way I was made”.  You could carry this really far with criticisms of everything from make-up to shampoo, but that’s not what chaps my hide.

Dove’s (a Unilever Company) Campaign for Real Beauty is the reason I have a serious problem with this particular company and this particular product.  How can I believe a company that peddles self-esteem and real beauty on the one hand and out of the other side of it’s mouth tells women in third world countries that they are not good enough, because they are not “white” enough. 

The latest propaganda they are spewing is a great message…if it wasn’t delivered from the company who brought you “Fair & Lovely” skin lightening products.  So here’s a little free advertising for them, in spite of my misgivings, because I think the bottom line message is good and it’s true in spite of who is doing the telling.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/dsef07/t5.aspx?id=7373&filmno=1

I haven’t died in case any of you were wondering.  I am just beaten down and depressed.  I come home and it takes all my energy to get my kids fed and to bed.  I keep thinking it’s getting better and then I get the rug yanked out from under me.  It’s like working with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (oh, I forgot….I’m not supposed to use punctuation-excuse me while I go whip myself with a cat of nine tails for using periods with Dr. and Mr.)

That’s it. That’s all I have the energy for. If you want to know more of the sick, twisted details of the torture that my whack job boss is putting me through–go read my reply to comments on my post from last month (oh…I mean, my last post)…

My crazyboss told me that if I kept “sighing like that, it’s going to get real old for everyone concerned and stop saying you’re sorry!  It’s time consuming.  Just correct the mistake and get on with it.”  SHITE lady!  DAMNED IF I DO, DAMNED IF I DON’T!

Things seem to be looking up.  Apparently, she thought about what I said about how I would learn faster if she wasn’t hanging over my shoulder.  Initially, she told me there wasn’t any work that she could let me do independently, but for the past three days, that’s exactly what she has done.  I think she is a lot less stressed out too, because she is able to get some of her administrative work done and I’m working a lot faster without her standing over me.

I’m still wonked out exhausted from the stress, but if things keep going this way, I might be able to get back to normal pretty soon.

Anybody else have any good boss from hell stories?  (You guys only heard a little smidgen of what I have put up with for the past month).

Since it’s officially been a month since my last post, I figured if I want any kind of a hobby outside of losing sleep over this new job, I should post something.  Here’s the scoop.

This is the worst job I have ever had in my life.  I literally had to force myself to walk through the doors yesterday. (I am NOT talking about Big Brothers Big Sisters-which is my only sanity saver in my professional life right now.) 

My new boss is training me and although I am not an idiot and my old boss thinks I am a genius on the computer, my new boss thinks I am an absolute idiot and as much as tells me so every day.  She sits on my desk, above me and over my right shoulder, watching what I am doing (even though I have told her more than once that it makes me nervous when she sits behind me and watches me and I have also told her that it makes me makes stupid mistakes that I wouldn’t ordinarily make and then I get flustered and make even more mistakes because she is watching me).  When I told her this on Friday, she just pursed her lips and gave me a half nod like, “Yeah, I’m sure it does” and CONTINUED TO SIT THERE!!!  Even after she spilled my pop all over my desk by backing into and knocking the bottle over (the lid was on, but apparently not tight), nearly ruining files with important papers in them, she continued to sit on my desk–above and over my right shoulder.

Her parting shots to me are generall huge sighs with a “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you–you are hopeless” shrug of the shoulders and statements like (and I quote), “I don’t know what you’re going to do so that you remember this stuff.  You are going to HAVE to work faster.  This has to become second nature to you.  I am dismayed that you don’t seem to be getting this.”

I have to point out that I AM GETTING THIS.  Have you ever tried to type with someone staring over your shoulder?  Now imagine that that person holds your career in the palm of their hand, everyone you work with is terrified of her, everyone is so afraid that the place is practically a tomb.  Hardly any noise (even though everyone is expected to keep their office doors open all the time).  Now imagine that that person gives you disapproving looks and treats you like an idiot EVERY time you make a mistake on a system that is so complex and archaic that she doesn’t even know all of the menus and paths and submenus (because she “would use them so infrequently, it would be a waste of resources” for her to learn them).  How well would you do?

One of the mistakes that she is so frustrated with me for is that on certain menus (ONLY certain ones, mind you) you have to use F9 or F11 for functions where you would normally use the enter key.  Well, out of lifelong habit, I keep smacking that damned “enter” key.  When I do, it takes me back to the main menu–WHAT THE…!!!  If I didn’t feel like I had to use an unfamiliar system at warp speed, maybe I could take the time to hesitate and think before I strike a key.  I have also told her this, that I need to think for a second about what I need to do next, so I don’t make mistakes that will cost me more time in the long run.  But she keeps pressuring me to work faster.

I have been working there the equivalent of two and a half weeks and she expects me to use this system like I have been using it my whole life.

That isn’t even the half of it.  I will post more later, but an example of the micro-managing that this woman does is that I got “talked to” in the second week, because I used a Post-It pad to take notes at a meeting (I should have used a scrap pad–who knew?!)  Apparently the fact that I wrote down policy changes on it and was going to use the Post-It to stick it onto the fact sheet regarding the policy doesn’t really matter–I should have used scratch paper to write it down and then copied it onto the fact sheet later.  Apparently, Post-It notes are more expensive than the $21.32 an hour they are paying me for my time.

So, here is where I end.  I have to go get ready to go to my good job first and then later to my crazy job.  I hope you can all forgive my lack of posting now that you know what I have been dealing with for the past month.  I have been getting home, feeding and putting the boys to bed so I can fall into bed myself and then get up at the fricken crack of dawn so I can go do it all over again.  I had no idea such high stress could make you so tired.

Well, apparently my body has decided that I better get up in the morning during a time frame ranging anywhere from 3:30 to 6:00a.m.  My mind starts waking me up about that time and I finally give up and get out of bed (around 4:45 or 5 a.m. every day this week).

I’m dog tired….Rosie dog tired…

Speaking of Rosie…She is one smart pooch. Baby gates be damned! Able to leap tall baby gates in a single bound. But wait!….Why leap, when you can shove your nose between the vertical bars and lift up to pop it open?…viola!

Last night I had added the tension gate on the other side of the walk through gate to keep #2 son from getting to the basement (he can open the walkthrough…remind me why I bother to keep that up again?….oh yes…to keep the dog in the kitchen when I want…….wait……crap….).

ANYway…I heard a ruckus and looked over. Rosie had climbed the tension gate and was hanging there, hind feet on the cross bar, front legs hooked over the top, using her nose to pop open the walk-through gate so she could finish her climb up and over.

So much for baby gates.

Note to self on new job: When working in a highly confidential area…there are many, many user name and passwords to remember and you only get three tries before you create a security breach. The IT guys think I’m an idiot. Better send muffins.

I just read a new book by an author I had never heard of, called Blood Memory.  It’s by Greg Iles and it is a novel about one of my favorite fantasies.  It’s about a serial killer who is targeting child molesters.  It’s a pretty good read.  I can’t wait to read more of his stuff.  It does have some pretty graphic language and visuals, so if you are weak of stomach, you may want to pass.