Day 9 Month 2 Year 2016 in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Bah. Don’t feel much like writing. And every time I write that statement I hear “Turn The Page” in my mind: “And you don’t feel much like riding, you just wish the trip was through”.... which I always misheard as “And you don’t feel like much lying, you just wish the truth was true.” Oh… ears.

Today I had a court shift. YAY! I’ve been missing the ever loving shit out of going to court. So to make it more awesome… some of the employees asked me to take their court shifts later this week. YAY!! A total of 12 hours of pretrial this week! Which is especially good considering, y’know… I’m a Pretrial Associate helping in the Law Library… not a Law Librarian. Anyway, I also met the new hire… the lady that will be my boss’ assistant. Meeting her and having a court shift actually made me reconsider putting in my two weeks… but… gah. I should. I should stop waffling and just do it. The other funny thing about that? My boss will be in Cozumel for the rest of the month starting Friday. Some may be saying, “Wait… wasn’t he just on vacation in Thailand? That was last month, wasn’t it?” Yeah. About. But it gets better… so he was in Thailand in December on vacation… he is taking the next two weeks off to go vacation in Cozumel… he is taking two weeks off in April to go to Ireland… and then he is taking most of June off for a trip destination TBD. ::insert shock face:: Okay… as much as I feel like a shit for handing in my two weeks right before he goes on vacation… that’s.... a lot of vacation. And to be an ungrateful ass… after 3 years in law school and 4 years working for pretrial with a rather hellacious few months in Law Library… when do I ever get to take ANY vacation?! Seriously? You’re doing two week vacations to exotic destinations every other month… meanwhile, I get paid shit to do my bullshit job and take it up the ass (luckily, that is only metaphorically so far). Yeah… fuck this job. I’ll miss the money… blood from a stone is still blood after all… But… yeah.... damn.

So that means, I have to finalize my resignation letter and put it on his desk by Thursday morning. Not a problem, I can do that. I just… yeah. I still feel bad giving him news like that right before he leaves on vacation. Because I’m that kind of guy. I don’t owe him my sympathy, he hasn’t earned it… but I do feel like it is a shitty thing to put in 2 Weeks right before he’s going to be gone for 2 Weeks. Though… if he cared about his job more, vacationed less, and was a bit more proactive about the Law Library issues… we wouldn’t have (repeatedly) staffing gaps like this would create.

Talking to work crush… she is furious (as she should be) that our boss is going on yet another long vacation but hasn’t told anybody but his assistant about any of it. Like… he’ll just be gone and we’ll all go “Gee, what happened” as opposed to thinking “Gosh, our boss doesn’t even respect us enough to let us know he won’t be here.” Brief Aside: Boss’ entire staff is 8 people… whom he texts about tiny, asinine issues. And he has our e-mails. If he can’t be arsed to send a quick e-mail “Gone for the rest of the month, address issues to Assistant” than yeah… that does seem like a respect issue. Which means… now two Pretrial people are going to GTFO this month. So… the nice guy side of me thinks, “Oh wow… that would mean he’d lose 3 people in one month… and I do want money… maybe I shouldn’t quit”........

But then the reality kicks in. Boss only cares about issues when they get so big that he can’t possibly ignore them. Shit… every Law Librarian quit at the same time last year in an attempt to send the message that there were significant problems that were not being addressed. Boss’ solution was to throw me over there without training or support and hope I figured shit out. He didn’t feel like he had to personally do anything because he could delegate it and continue not to care. So… the problems I continually bring up, asking for guidance and assistance and support… will NEVER get taken care of… because I’m there to pin blame or expect results.

HERE’S A GENUINE, STRANGE ISSUE (That includes a story!)

I have been in abusive jobs before. The last big one was when I helped open a shoe store. The manager who was supposed to open the store had taken a bad fall while setting up shelving and had hurt her back. The Assistant Manager was a convicted felon and was not allowed to be a key holder (So why make her a manager? I thought). So, the Manager under Worker’s Comp recommended me to the higher ups to help out (because I had been a part timer for her for years). I stepped up… I opened a store in a mall whose opening day made state wide news and gave them a great first week of the store. However, I was very clear that college started back up the following Monday and I would not be able to stay on at that job. After all, my college was 2 hours away from where I was working… I had to move and everything. I was specific as to when the absolute LATEST I could work… and they scheduled me for days beyond that as the only opener. So… I had no choice… ultimately, I had to leave the keys for the Assistant Manager (the one not allowed to have keys) and leave… because.... I wasn’t just NOT going to go back to college because of those assholes. Well… as logical and expected a move as that may have been? I still needed to be talked into it and encouraged every step of the way. Because… walking away from responsibility and expectations really is that hard for me.

It is similar to this. Because I know it really would be best to leave, to quit. But I keep thinking of reasons why I shouldn’t. Money, for one. Gaps in my work history for my resume, for two. Feeling useless, for third. And strangely… I honestly don’t want to leave the department high and dry. Work Crush interrupts that line of thought with a scoff. The job has clearly proven they couldn’t care less about me; my security, my hard work… none of it has mattered. But that’s who I am… I worry about things even if they don’t reciprocate. So… I imagine I’ll have to continually talk myself into this quitting.

It would certainly be an easier decision to make had I even an inkling of a possibility of a job right now… really wish I would hear back from one of the 4 counties that I’m still waiting on.