my last day

Well it is finally here. My last day at the firm. My goodness how time flies. Well actually in this case time did not fly. I suppose it is due to the fact that I wasn't "having fun". But whatever the reason is I have felt every single waking moment I have spent sitting in this office. I don't feel the relief that I was anticipating feeling, perhaps that is because I haven't been able to break things or curse people out. I think it is impossible for me to inflict the kind of pain on the firm that they inflicted on me, so why bother? I read something somewhere once that said long, boring, miserable days were a positive thing, that way life doesn't slip by. So I guess I will just tell myself that as I try to ignore the fact that I wasted oh sooooooo many hours here doing nothing.

Although I am EXTREMELY excited to be getting the fuck out of here I have done some thinking today and it isn't all that bad.

so below is a list of things I will miss:

1. Janelle

2. Free cookies at 10:00am and 3:00pm in the kitchen.

3. Getting hung up on. Although I think it is very rude to hang up on a person and slam the phone down in their ear, it is just slightly less annoying than having to readjust in my seat and take a message. I assume that deranged people wont be calling and hanging up on me at my new job which means I will have to do more taking messages or god forbid answering their questions myself.

4. Lack of dignity. Yes it might seem like a very odd thing to miss but when you are treated like shit is gives you perspective, it makes you realize how unimportant most people who think they are important are. I hope I don't forget that.

5. Christmas bonus. I don't think that needs any explanation.

Yeah, that is probably about it. But I really will miss those cookies. Anyway I am almost done being stressed out about everything in life and in about 48 hours I will be flying the friendly skies. I don't even think there is anything left for me to worry about. Well that's not true, but I will worry about that when I get back.

happy hour...happy lunch

Well I'm drunk. Yeah that's right. Happy hour moved up a couple of hours. Janelle took me out for a good-bye lunch/drinks. She is a bad influence on me if I ever had one. A couple of glasses of wine later and I am staring at my computer praying the phone doesn't ring. I guess it isn't too different then what i am normally doing, but I don't even like wine. I don't ever drink in the middle of the day. Quite an interesting experience. Since it is a time no one expects you to be drinking no one treats you like you are drunk. Its like they expect me to act all normal or something. Navigating this here keyboard isn't as easy as it usually is either. Both of my bosses are out today so it makes it nice and easy to just do nothing. Also since tomorrow is my last day I don't have to worry about getting fired.

I was going to bitch about how long and boring jury duty was yesterday but who really cares? Let me just say one thing. The random sampling of the Brooklyn population that was present at the Jay street court house yesterday was really quite something...that is all I am going to say.

Whoever sat at my desk sure did a good job of cleaning it up. Which is nice I guess, except for the fact that it is my desk and if I want to keep it messy whoever sits here should just fucking deal with the mess. It isn't like I have piles of dirt or cockroaches on my desk, just some unfiled papers. And how do they know that they are unfiled. Perhaps I have a very complex filing system that is just too advanced for them to understand? I mean hello? You don't just sit at someone else's desk and rearrange their files. Sure I have no actual method for why anything ends up where, but they don't know that.

That blond paralegal is still pissing me off, and she also pisses Janelle off, which pisses me off even more, because Janelle is the nicest person I have ever met, so how could you be mean to her? I just don't get these people.

Anyway that's all I have to say for now, perhaps I will go into the empty office on my floor and take a nap. I can't believe it is only 3:15. I don't even like wine. I also have a SERIOUS case of hiccups. But this might be the last you hear of me for a while since I will be on a nice little vaca for a couple of weeks. Of course this might be the last you hear of me ever if I get kidnapped by crazy people. Anyway you will hear all about my trip when I get back!

three and a half days left

Matt is gone tomorrow and Thursday for work related business so it sure does seem like it will be a nice quiet last couple of days here. Janelle and I are going to take a nice loooooong lunch tomorrow to celebrate. I might even have a drink or two. That is of course if I am actually here. I might have to go to jury duty tomorrow. I guess if I had any faith whatsoever in the criminal justice system it wouldn't be so bad. I just don't really believe in putting people in prison. Unless they are rapists or child molesters. But then again rapists and child molesters deserve a fate far worse than prison...not the death penalty because I don't believe in that, but I am sure I could think of something.

Anyway, I am trying to think of things to say to get out of it should I be called forth to carry out my civic duty. I guess I could tell them that my Mars is in Libra and I don't think that that is conducive to making any kind of decision about anything especially one that involves someone else's life. I could tell them that I would be more than willing to serve on a jury as long as they are comfortable with the fact that I could never convict someone. Unless maybe if they had videotape of him/her committing the crime...but even then I would still feel a little uncomfortable saying guilty. I mean who am I to judge.

I could just say I don't believe in prison and I have no faith in a system that is racist and classist. I think that is what I will say. Had I not planned a European vacation for next week I probably would have said anything I could say to get ON the jury and then done my best to sabotage the entire operation. Oh my. Let's just all hope that when I call in tonight they will tell me not to report. With both bosses gone it seems like a pre-vacation vacation right here in the office the next two days so why spoil that by going to jury duty?

I saw some special on MSNBC investigates or something the other day about San Quentin State Prison and I was truly appalled that we allow people to live like that. As Caitlyn likes to say...we put people in cages...literally. It just doesn't make sense to me. "But they're murderers!" Ah who gives a fuck. If you think about it we are all at this very moment probably doing something to contribute to the death of another individual. And our society condones killing all the time. The government is allowed to kill terrorists, criminals, and pretty much whoever else they want. Not that I am condoning murder, I just think that we need to look at what is really behind all this "keep the streets safe" bullshit. Any guesses? $$$$$$

One other tidbit of interesting information. This I learned at one of my many job interviews over the past year:

"The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is one of the largest and most notorious maximum security prisons in the country. Nicknamed "the Farm," it is a working agricultural complex that utilizes cheap prisoner labor (wages range between 4 cents and 20 cents per hour) for traditional agriculture production and light industry. The penitentiary occupies 18,000 acres of the prime farm land that was once a 19th century plantation--the Angola Plantation--named after the area in Africa that supplied most of the plantation's slave labor."

Um, hello people...wake up and smell the roses. Prison...Slavery...Prison...Slavery. It's not that hard to figure out. I wont get into the whole long explanation of it here because you should already know by now. Just google it or something if you don't. Perhaps if I get called in for jury duty I should print out a bunch of information about the Prison Industrial Complex and how big business profits off of prisons. Contaminate the jury pool, that's what I'll do. But you do really have to be careful what you say about these kinds of things. Next thing you know you have people calling you a communist/terrorist and off with your head.

Well I am just going to spend the next hour or so finishing up my book and trying not to get too upset about the 2 million or so people locked up behind bars right now in this country that are innocent, or probably should be in rehab instead, or at the very least didn't have proper legal representation. Oh see there I go getting upset again.

i can't wait to leave this place

These fuckers are trying to screw me over. So I gave my notice and said my last day would be May 12th. Which is sort of true. My last day in the office will be next Friday but I had already put in for vacation so I plan on getting paid for it. Well apparently I haven't "earned" all my vacation days for the year yet...allocated quarterly....blah blah blah. Bull shit. By my records sitting here staring at a computer screen getting yelled at by fat ugly impotent men pretty much has earned me whatever the fuck I want. I wont explain the whole long boring story but it goes something like this:

Big multi-million dollar law firm tries to screw over little old me for a couple hundred bucks. We aren't even talking thousands here people. But what they didn't realize is that I'm not stupid. So worst case scenario they continue trying to screw me over and I come down with some kind of illness that by chance should force me to call in sick for my entire last week at work. Sick days you see, aren't allocated quarterly. I mean I guess I can understand why they wouldn't want to pay me but as I stated before this is a multi-MILLION dollar law firm. So what the fuck?

I told everyone what I was leaving to do, and they think I am some kind of saint. Like they have never heard the words Non and Profit used together in the same sentence. "Oh wow, that is really wonderful." "You will feel so fulfilled." Is it really so wonderful though? It isn't like I will be donating kidneys to people. I am just going to work in an office that doesn't lie, cheat, and steal from people in order to make money. That doesn't seem "wonderful", that just sort of seems like the way things should be.

They all got a bewildered look on their face when the words NON-PROFIT spilled out of my mouth. Looking at me like they wanted to say "wow, I have heard of those before, but I just didn't think they really existed...or that anyone would want to work for one. When you say non-profit, does that mean that you don't make any profit? Wait, you must make some profit right? They got someone over there cooking the books so it looks all non-profit like but you are really racking in a pretty penny...right? No? Really? Hey Doug get in here...listen to this...Elizabeth is going to work for a NON-profit...they don't make a profit...I'll be damned..." I think it also threw them off a little since the name of the organization has the word Free in it. Non-profit...Free. I think I might have just blown their minds.

I am trying to see how much damage I can do before I leave. I think I may have put the copier out of commission yesterday. Next Monday...the printer. The copier was a piece of crap anyway. I didn't do it on purpose or anything. So I finish my copies and I go to press the "complete" button and I get this unbelievably strong electric shock. Ouch. You wouldn't think that would effect anything but right after that the display screen started blinking and saying a bunch of crap I have never seen before. I just ignored it. I figure someone who cares will call to have it fixed. And maybe, just maybe I can make it through next week without having to make a copy.

Besides the pens and notebooks that accidentally have found their way back to my apartment I am trying to figure out what else can accidentally fall into my bag. They don't have anything too good around here. The three hole punch is virtually useless and who needs a stapler? I suppose an extra pair of scissors never hurt anyone. But I think I should just draw the line at pens. I really do think stealing is wrong, even if it is from really rich people.

I however have no problem with killing plants. Ok if I put it that way "killing plants" then I feel bad. I wouldn't want people out there to think I don't value life. Because I do...I value it a lot. So the fancy plant in my bosses office has officially died. Well not completely, but one of the flowers fell off and the other one is completely shriveled up. Oops I tried. I even looked up directions on the internet about how to take care of it. But that didn't help. I don't know anything about plants.

Maybe if she had even been a little bit nice I would have asked specific instructions. It was bad enough I had to go all the way down to the kitchen to fill up that stupid water can. But as I said to Janelle this morning, good thing I'm outta here. Hopefully she will forget that it was absolutely thriving when she left the office. But these plants are very particular, which would be fine with me if they were self-sufficient. But no, they can't do a damn thing on their own so I was left to try and decide when to water them and how much water they needed. Well I really suck at that so next time someone asks me to water their plants I will make it very clear that there is a 75% chance the plant will be 100% dead when they return. I just can't worry about these kinds of things anymore.

resignation letter

It has been quite the stressful week. But to make a long story short I had two job offers and I have accepted one. I will give my notice tomorrow and when I get back from my European vacation I will have a new job! I start May 15^th. I am very excited. I can hardly believe I actually got a job. And they actually sounded excited to have me work there. I don’t know if I can really trust an organization that would put me in charge of anything. I figure even if the job ends up being completely terrible I wont have that figured out for at least another three months. I wonder what I will do with all the extra hours in the day I spent sending out resumes. I guess I can spend that time reading, paying bills, playing on the internet, and writing my friends emails…ya know all the stuff I do while I am at work. I can’t wait to give my resignation letter.

How about this:

To Whom It May Concern:

Please accept this letter as my formal notice of resignation. Effective 5/12/06. The associations I've made during my employment here will truly be memorable for years to come. I cannot imagine working at another place that would make me feel so worthless, expendable, and humiliated. I don’t think I will ever be able to forget the experience of getting yelled at by strangers and by people that I don’t even work for.

This firm will surely stand out in my mind in the years to come. I hope this notice is sufficient for you to find a replacement for me. Although it shouldn’t be too hard for you to find someone to sit and stare all day. I can’t imagine how I would be needed to train a replacement or tie up any loose ends so I think you should be good to go. In fact if you would prefer today can be my last day so let me know if that makes it easier for you. I’m outta here fuckers,

Elizabeth Thomas

The only bad thing about working for a non-profit is I will feel guilty stealing office supplies. I suppose in the next week I should fill up on pens and notepads, not to mention those awesome mechanical pencils.

But I am happy to be starting a new chapter. Oh yeah thanks to everyone for listening to me bitch and moan all the time.

paralegals sucks

This paralegal at work has been giving me trouble. Not big trouble, just enough trouble for me to give her a dirty look after she has turned around. She is blond. I'm just putting it out there. You can do whatever you choose with the information. I haven't had much contact with her except she used to work a lot with my old boss, Andy. I think Andy liked me better than he liked her and that is where all this negativity stems from.

She gives me dirty looks in the kitchen and doesn't say excuse me when she brushes past me. Sure I give her dirty looks too but not until she has turned around. And I don't say excuse me either but that is only in retaliation for her rudeness. It all started when I moved to this floor. Her office is right around the corner from my desk. She has an extremely annoying voice. Sometimes I have to hear her laugh or say something stupid and I don't like it. She has a very unfortunate looking pointy nose. Like really pointy. She also likes to talk a lot about things she knows nothing about. Like taxes for example. I know absolutely nothing about taxes, so when someone says something about them that I might say, I know they are pulling it out of their ass.

I don't know what her problem is. She is a paralegal, come on give me a break. A Paralegal. Also it is hard to take her seriously because of her name. Not that there is anything wrong with her name, it just also happens to be the name of Nate's hyper-active golden retriever.

Oh I guess I should just let everyone know...I wont have to be dealing with any of this for much longer because I got a job. I know I know, very exciting. It only took a year and a half but hey, good things come to those who wait...right? But you will hear MUCH more about that later, now I must go.

on the phone

I wonder if Matt has noticed that I only bring things into his office when he is on the phone. For example if a package comes, even if marked "RUSH", I don't take it into his office until he has gotten back on the phone. If he asks me to make a copy, I make the copy then sit at my desk, stare at the phone, and wait for him to pick up his line and start talking. Why you ask? Because if I go in there when he is on the phone the chance of him giving me more work to do decreases significantly. The chances of idle chit chat are about zero.

I just place whatever it is on his desk and turn around before he gets a chance to tell me to "wait one sec". But every once in a while I knock some stuff over on his desk and in the extra second or two I spend returning things to their original spot in the pile he comes up with some kind of annoying task for me. I suppose it is my job but I like the arrangement we have. I do nothing, and he doesn't seem to mind.

My system usually keeps me without much to do, which I don't mind, the only problems occur when it is really quiet in the office. Like today for example, it seems everyone has decided to take the day off, or "work from home", so the phones have been quiet. Usually that just gives me extra time to read my book and play on the internet. But it gets annoying when I have something to bring into him. Do I take it in and take the chance that he will have something waiting for me? Do I take the chance that I will have to talk about how my weekend was and how his weekend was? Or do I just wait until someone calls?

It is bad enough I already know I have to make a trip to accounting and copy some crap this afternoon, the thought of anything more than that is just too much to handle. So I wait. Hoping one of the annoying partners will call and keep him on the phone long enough for me to sneak in and out of his office. The phone is bound to ring eventually. The worst is when I go in there because I see he is on the phone, just to find out when I walk into his office that he has already hung up. That's a real bummer.

Unfortunately today I have to request some pretty heavy vacation time, not to mention the fact that I have to take off for jury duty next week, and have missed lots of days for "appointments". He is probably starting to question my dedication to the job. But my vacation time has already been approved by the people that matter, so its not like he can say no or anything.

The excitement of Gmail chat has faded slightly so work is pretty boring these days. Although I am about to quit. Even though I really hate it here I feel a twinge of guilt at the thought of quitting. I am not quite sure why. If they hated me as much as I hated them, they wouldn't feel bad about firing me at all.

my life is in shambles

Sure I'm not Barry Bonds, but I have problems too. Where to begin?

1. Well my job still sucks. But I am ok with that now. I just have to live with the fact that I am ruining my life and all I do is make one mistake after another and three years after graduating college I have made pretty much no progress whatsoever. I have another interview for another dead end job tomorrow so perhaps that will bring some positive change my way. I am just so fucking sick and tired of talking about how I would be a valuable asset to some organization that I don't even believe in. At my interview last week, the little pricks didn't even shake my hand. What the fuck? How unprofessional is that? Do I look dirty or something?

I have been to enough interviews to know when people don't know how to give an interview. And these people didn't know what they were doing. By the time I left I felt like I had just been through some kind of attack. Like an interrogation from the war crimes tribunal or something. So this guy quoted my cover letter and asked me to explain what I meant. What do you mean, what did I mean? Um...it is in English. It means what is says. Then he asked to describe my typical day. After I finished lying he looked at me and said "well could you define what that means?" Define what that means? Define? What are you fucking stupid? You want a dictionary? Not only did I just tell you in very clear terms what it is I do (or at least what I say I do) it is all written down on my resume. The very resume you are holding and flipping through, and quoting. Yes he quoted my resume as well and asked me to define that too. He asked me to define about 15 things while I was in there. How about I "define" asshole...loser...pretentious douche bag...I can do that.

I also hate it when they ask me what the most difficult part of my job is. I can't very well say "well, my job is actually so easy a well trained rodent could do it. But its like really hard for me to get up in the morning, so that's what makes it tough." Why do they care about the most difficult part of the job I am quitting? People are so stupid. Then he asked me why I was interested in social justice. Why the fuck not? I'm sorry that is the stupidest question I have heard so far. "Actually I am not in favor of social justice at all, in fact I'm against it. I am for social/racial/economic INEQUALITY." Then the woman in the interview made some crack about my college. Fuck you. You knew where I went to school before I got here, so what's the problem? Clearly since you have the job I want your college did a much better job of teaching you how to be a productive member of society. I'll give you that but it also did a better job of teaching you how to be a raving bitch.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow's interview will bring. I just don't understand what they want. What I am supposed to say to make them know I am capable? I just don't get it. What do I need? More education? More experience? In what? For what? I don't get it. How much experience do you need to be an assistant? All an assistant does is assist someone else in doing their job. Maybe I am not as smart and capable as I think I am? My parents always told me how great I was. I should never have listened to them, they don't know what they are talking about.

2. I am also in the process of finding a new roommate. The whole thing just makes me want to pack up and skip town. Signing another lease seems like too much of a commitment for me right now. A whole year! That is craziness. How am I supposed to be able to decide now where I want to live for a whole YEAR!!!! I guess I just have to get over not wanting to live with a stranger. I spoke with some guy last night. A friend of a friend. He seemed normal. I guess I could just have faith that it will all work out. But a stranger in my house? I don't even like having people I know there half the time. But I guess this guy is going to move in, unless anyone else can come up with a reasonable alternative. Suggestions?

3. God and this jack-ass Clay Aiken wannabe is down here talking to Janelle. She is filling the hallway with this vile disgusting noise that comes out of her mouth. She calls it talking, I call it verbal diarrhea. But unfortunately there is no over the counter drug that will make her shut up. Why on earth is it necessary to have someone on this planet that talks so loud and so often about nothing. Her voice is like nails on a chalk board. She makes me sick and the fact that I know she is sitting in some desk two floors above me makes me want to jump out a window.

When they talk about "scum of the earth" I can only imagine they are talking about her. I am surprised you can't hear her right now screaming about the Yankees and Mets. Just the fact that we both can live off of breathing in the same air astonishes me. I think that is perhaps the only thing we have in common. See gives you the ability to see exactly what is wrong with the human race. She makes you realize how beastly humans really are and the only thing that separates us from the "animals" is...well perhaps she is the missing link that they are always talking about because I can't stand to think that her and I are part of the same species. It seems almost impossible.

4. I just spent about 15 minutes on the floor of my bosses office awkwardly trying to open a box, that didn't even need to be opened. Not really a big deal, it was just kind of embarrassing.

5. Since Shiela is going to be out for a while I am responsible for watering her plants. That sure sounds like the worst idea I have ever heard. I have nothing against plants, but when they are all dead when she comes back I don't think she will be too happy. Its not like I do it on purpose, I just don't know how much water they are supposed to get and when they are supposed to get it, and even if I did, I would probably just forget or be too lazy to do it. It's ashame to because right now her plants are really thriving.

Well that's all for now. But thinking about all this has gotten me really worked up. Maybe I will go pick a fight.