Like many Indians and Americans I have been unemployed for way longer than I thought I would be. It really sucks and I am seriously questioning the local employers' sanity. Who doesn't want a brilliant, saucy Diva working for their Tribe? I mean really! I'm gold! I've always been paid far less than males are for the same job and yet I am also expected to serve as a mental health/sympathetic listener/gopher and driver as well.
Yanno what? I don't give a fat rat's hindquarters about your dead father who was a drunken jerk. Mine was too and yet I don't have the compulsion to repeatedly share my sad stories to captive audiences. I showed up to work and perform my job description as expected.
In one of my past jobs I was forced to listen to utterly absurd, schitzo-paranoid fantasies (someone changed her furniture around while she was in the shower and did laundry, too). Wow. Imagine yourself having to share part of your day, never mind an enclosed office, with a person like that. Imagine it and then ask yourself WWRD (What Would Ricey Do?). Quit, like I did. I was very relieved that there were only plastic knives, staple removers and fresh copy paper around that had sharp edges. Arrrgh! Don't get me started! Oops! I already got started.
Yanno what? I don't give a fat rat's hindquarters about your dead father who was a drunken jerk. Mine was too and yet I don't have the compulsion to repeatedly share my sad stories to captive audiences. I showed up to work and perform my job description as expected.
In one of my past jobs I was forced to listen to utterly absurd, schitzo-paranoid fantasies (someone changed her furniture around while she was in the shower and did laundry, too). Wow. Imagine yourself having to share part of your day, never mind an enclosed office, with a person like that. Imagine it and then ask yourself WWRD (What Would Ricey Do?). Quit, like I did. I was very relieved that there were only plastic knives, staple removers and fresh copy paper around that had sharp edges. Arrrgh! Don't get me started! Oops! I already got started.
Sooooo……… I have a few lamentable personal issues of my own (NEWSFLASH!!!) but none of them stress other people out. What I offer in my column is still the same as when I began it over 13 years ago; for more people to become aware of a voice and opinion (mine and like mine) they don't hear much from in mainstream media. I know I'm fortunate to do this and to have made a connection with yooz. Kiss! Kiss!
Back to the issue at hand. I like to keep "sharing" my personal life in my professional life to a minimum. I have long been aware of the American culture's weakness of over-sharing their 'owie's', personal conundrums and calamities when I was back in college. In the most scientific, sterile of labs on campus there was always a few weepy stories from unkempt, navel-gazing students and sometimes even professors about their last relationship breakup, their distant mother and their inability to talk about it to the relevant aforementioned parties'. Gawwwww! One idiot used to whine that "part of me wants to do this…and the other part of me wants to do that". I know! I KNOW PEOPLE, I KNOW!
My time and precious tuition money went to that? Listen up: there are very wonderful people with big hearts who went to college specifically to help those in need and they do a very good job at it; yooz are all under-appreciated but not by me. Listening and caring is WHAT THESE AMAZING COUNSELORS DO! For those of you who may have recognized some over-sharing symptoms in themselves I strongly encourage yooz to seek an empathic ear. Help is out there; no stigma attached, medication optional.
During my futile quest for employment I applied at Rezberry's Day Labor Program. I ain't proud, heck nah! When I managed the Rez museum I had to clean the whole place and the toilets. Did I crab about it? You bet I did. Did anything I say make a difference? No, but I wasn't surprised, Tribal politics yanno?
What is pissing me off is that I can't even get a low-level office job I can do, have done and did very well in all functions and capacities since I was a kid. A 12-year old kid!
A couple years ago my Unk Koon asked me if I knew how to lean on a broom; this was during the time the new Rezberry Kasino was being constructed. I said sure, with the proper training and practice I will be able to handle even that. What's a broom now?
Yeah. Then there are unadvertised jobs here in Rezberry that go to tribal members who are literally useless. Their skill is limited to sitting on soft office chairs looking blank all the while thinking up lies for when they're hung-over again. They call in every other day with some sad excuse, "My baby has boogers! I have to stay home and suck them all out!" I juss betcha some of ya'll Indians out there know what I'm talking about; for sure it's not limited to this one Rezberry.
It ain't easy being Indian…especially when you actually want to work, which is an obvious anomaly Up in Heah! Up in Heah! Yikes! Dunno where that came from…..
Back to the issue at hand. I like to keep "sharing" my personal life in my professional life to a minimum. I have long been aware of the American culture's weakness of over-sharing their 'owie's', personal conundrums and calamities when I was back in college. In the most scientific, sterile of labs on campus there was always a few weepy stories from unkempt, navel-gazing students and sometimes even professors about their last relationship breakup, their distant mother and their inability to talk about it to the relevant aforementioned parties'. Gawwwww! One idiot used to whine that "part of me wants to do this…and the other part of me wants to do that". I know! I KNOW PEOPLE, I KNOW!
My time and precious tuition money went to that? Listen up: there are very wonderful people with big hearts who went to college specifically to help those in need and they do a very good job at it; yooz are all under-appreciated but not by me. Listening and caring is WHAT THESE AMAZING COUNSELORS DO! For those of you who may have recognized some over-sharing symptoms in themselves I strongly encourage yooz to seek an empathic ear. Help is out there; no stigma attached, medication optional.
During my futile quest for employment I applied at Rezberry's Day Labor Program. I ain't proud, heck nah! When I managed the Rez museum I had to clean the whole place and the toilets. Did I crab about it? You bet I did. Did anything I say make a difference? No, but I wasn't surprised, Tribal politics yanno?
What is pissing me off is that I can't even get a low-level office job I can do, have done and did very well in all functions and capacities since I was a kid. A 12-year old kid!
A couple years ago my Unk Koon asked me if I knew how to lean on a broom; this was during the time the new Rezberry Kasino was being constructed. I said sure, with the proper training and practice I will be able to handle even that. What's a broom now?
Yeah. Then there are unadvertised jobs here in Rezberry that go to tribal members who are literally useless. Their skill is limited to sitting on soft office chairs looking blank all the while thinking up lies for when they're hung-over again. They call in every other day with some sad excuse, "My baby has boogers! I have to stay home and suck them all out!" I juss betcha some of ya'll Indians out there know what I'm talking about; for sure it's not limited to this one Rezberry.
It ain't easy being Indian…especially when you actually want to work, which is an obvious anomaly Up in Heah! Up in Heah! Yikes! Dunno where that came from…..
