working

11-18-99

Sorry about my front page being down on netscape browsers for a couple days. I forgot one little slash (/) and picky netscape kicked my ass, and nobody told me for a few days. Every time I open up netscape on my machine it crashes my hard drive.

Thursdays I work all day instead of only half, so there's not much to talk about except work. I watched a cat get spayed and a dog get neutered, though, so work was pretty interesting. It's just so surreal to stand over an anesthetized dog, sans testicles, and discuss politics, especially with Dr. Figaro. Dr. Figaro is a big fan of Jesse Ventura, the abolishment of taxes, implementation of international tariffs, and the second amendment. In other words, he's Libertarian. Until today I never thought much about the Libertarian party; never really thought about what it was. Dr. Figaro is incredibly well-read and intelligent, so it wasn't at all unpleasant to listen to the views of someone with whom I disagree on most counts.

I also must make a public retraction: a few days ago I said he dislikes cats. Today I found out he has two cats at home, and used to have a chihuahua. No other dogs. I've seen pictures of the chihuahua—he had only one eye. He was brought to the vet by the shelter and nobody wanted to adopt him, so the Figaros did.

We also talked about the 'net. He asked what I do online and I mentioned that I like to read others' journals. I explained that people keep their diaries online, and that they're somewhat addictive. He nodded and we talked about online news sources for a while. After a bit there was a break in the conversation and he said, "So you keep an online journal, then?"

Doh. I've rarely told people with whom I work about this journal, definitely not the boss. I spend so much time complaining about my various jobs in it. Don't know if he'll do the work to dig me up or not, but the site is pretty easy to find, and he'd have no trouble locating it. Especially not if he knows of the existence of journals. Sounds like he does.

I'm trying to remember now, and I can't think of many ex-coworkers who know about this site. One from the grocery in Ann Arbor, but I just told her a couple months ago and haven't worked with her in years now. And I told Ken at the store in Haslett last year, but he was a fellow cynic and I knew he'd never tell on me. I never told anyone at the factory. I don't think there was one person there who didn't get torn up here at some point.

I guess it doesn't matter so much. I rather like working with the dogs. I love going in to work in the morning and going home when my work is done. I'm the perfect employee in that respect: once I'm at work, I just want to go home. I work fast. They don't pay me to stand around much, or ditz on the job, because I do my work to get out.

Not like the grocery store, where I might stand idle at my register instead of sorting bottles at the bottle return—I was going to stand at that register until 7 pm whether the bottles got sorted or not, so why should I put myself out by sorting bottles? Still getting 6 bucks an hour, getting paid the same whether I dust the candy shelves or not. On the other hand, if they'd said, "Just help us sort these bottles and then you can go, since you'll just be standing around the rest of the day anyway," I'd have sorted those damn bottles, squeezed anti-bacterial gel on my palms and been out the door before the gel had a chance to dry.

Tomorrow I have two first lessons with new students. One of them's a horn player—I've never taught a horn lesson before. I don't know much about the horn at all. I think we'll spend a half hour talking about good old wind and song and then I'll figure out what I'm going to do with this kid.

John and Rob and I decided to do Thanksgiving together. Rob's cooking the turkey, which is good because I can't cook a turkey, and I'm going to do the other stuff. The pie, the mashed potatoes, the bread, etc. I'm so looking forward to it, even though I have to clean up doggie poo twice that day. I'll be sure to shower before squirting pumpkin sludge into a crust and baking it in the kennel—I mean, the oven.