I have realized what having a "thick skin" and also being "seasoned" mean at work. When someone says some dumb-ass stuff in a meeting, I know in my heart that she can fuck off because she's wrong. I don't worry about it at all. Unlike my poor coworker who takes everything 100% personally and gets super upset. I swear to god, once in my working life have I been as upset in the office (about work) as she is at least weekly. It's so weird.

Hah! This is so core to all the drama in my office this past year. I swear to god I'm the only person in my entire department who has never a) complained (in the official or quasi-official sense) about a coworker or b) been complained about. It's fucking ridiculous, is what it is.

People are ridiculous!

I swear to god, once in my working life have I been as upset in the office (about work) as she is at least weekly. It's so weird.

I get overly emotional at work often enough that my performance reviews often contain the phrase, "she wears her heart on her sleeve."

And then I go Ani DiFranco and think, "no, it's underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot."

So the power is off here on our block in Highland Park again. This time I just went to the library--my boss will text me when the power is back.

Also, the bank across the street from us got robbed this morning. Pretty boring from our perspective--just a lot of cops milling about, and "Police Line" yellow tape in front of the doors. (The robber fled earlier on foot. We didn't notice.)

Sumo's post reminds me: I invented a card game, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, the Card Game. I wanted to test-play it with people on this trip.

I don't really get upset at work anymore- maybe once or twice a year. I do get irritated and bitch to friends, though. Because my workplace is stupid sometimes. I am trying to get business cards for my new director. I have neither her professorial appointment information nor am I allowed to actually fill out the form for the business card. So instead of HR talking to accounting about the business card and leaving me out of it (and HR and Accounting are 2 people who sit next to each other), I have to gather the information and give it to accounting who fills out the form! I am going to lose it.

So, my cousin is engaged, and I looked up his fiancee, and she's an artist, and I really like her work! Unfortunately she seems to be doing well enough that she is probably not in my price range. [link]

Well, I like conflict. I know. But I do, so especially in my younger days, I liked fighting for something and knowing I'd won out, by the sheer skills of my amazing logic and rhetorical powers. But it had yet to occur to me that there was a loss there, and it was relational.

The last time I got really upset at a job, I quit the next day. But that was a bullshit part-time job that had been driving me crazy for months with the sheer WTFery of the manager.

Still felt good, though.

I often need to be reigned in. I sometimes worry that I'm Don Quixote in purple hair and tattoos. That and the attention span of a gnat are my two biggest weaknesses. I think I'm forgiven because if you fuck with one of my people, I'll move a mountain to make it right.

But I'm certain that I have a net loss in the "overly emotional" department.