get a job

So my housekeeping boss fired me over the Invisalign braces, over email since he was vacationing in New York at the time. Then in the same email, he asks me why I threw away the trash off-site.

Isn’t firing usually the end of the conversation?

I tell him why, and he emails me: maybe I don’t deserve to be fired.

Uff dah.

I think about it, I decide, and I email him saying I’m still interested.

He emails me two days later, basically directing me to seriously calm down, and then if I’m still interested, to email him.

I realize in this process, my boss’s communication style is very informal. I’m a former desk jockey, and I have lots of formal communication training and experience. Also, I am really wound up. So I have to accept that what I read in his informal style, probably is not at all what he intends to say.

Calming down would be very good for me. So I think I’m going to continue with the job – and with an exercise routine.

I have one job now – sort of. Housekeeper with occasional day labor. I’m poor. I’ve never been poor before this year. Well, other than when I was a kid, but that’s different. So I have a plan, about finances and getting a new real job, and, well, so far so good. I’m getting into liberal religion, and I’m staying away from people who want to muck around in my personal business.

Still, things aren’t going great quite yet with my housekeeping job. I’ve been in office jobs for so long prior to now that my customer service skills are lacking. So when a c.s. problem happens as a housekeeper, I struggle to handle it appropriately.

I’m in a fight with my mother, about being gay – and it’s gotten nasty. Of course, it has a lot to do with the conservative religion she was raised in, but that doesn’t have any real bearing on the very real grief that, when a customer service situation arises, I struggle to differentiate out of my work life.

A client has $7,000 in Invisalign braces in her house. They’re not in a cupboard, they’re in an unmarked paper bag next to her nightstand, where a trash can would normally be. It looks like trash. It’s my job to take out the trash. When initially questioned about the Invisalign braces, I had and still have no clear memory of throwing out such a bag, but even I can see that it stands to reason that, hey, maybe the housekeeper threw out the braces thinking they were trash. It’s reasonable.

Of course, I broke an unwritten rule of housekeeping: Never, Never, NEVER remove the refuse from the premises. Crows in the trash cans be damned. So I get up at 4:30 in the morning to sort through other people’s trash, thinking, although I look like a bad person right now, I’m doing this so that I will know I’m not a bad person.

i rearranged 2 days of housekeeping into one day – friday – so i could show up at their office at 5 a.m. to do day labor for a company i worked for for 2 employment terms, 4 years cumulatively in the corporate office, and that fired me for “violating company policy” after I came out of the closet. I’ve probably already posted the story.

so, against the little voice in my head saying, no way will i work for those S.O.B.’s, i agreed to take the job. so then i get anxious all day – anticipating replays of the harassment i took there – anticipating the teasing of people telling me ‘they want you back,’ as though i don’t know they only want me to take all the blame for the harassment and then bend over and let them brain rape me with my own words. so i can’t sleep.

so i say, fuck it. a shot at $50 day labor is not worth the headache of ruining my day off, and is not worth the risk of me getting so mad at them that i take it out on my housekeeping boss or somehow otherwise sabotage my housekeeping job. so i shut off my alarm.

now I have one job again.

“COMING OUT HORROR STORY”

Painting turned out to be a bit of a “nightmare,” as my kindly co-worker was fond of putting it. We came to a confrontation – I confronted her – about intimidating comments she was making – she was my manager. She called my confrontation harassment and called our boss. In the ensuing street-corner discussion with said boss, she refused to explain her intimidating comments and yelled at me, “I’m disgusted,” five or six times. At the gay guy. She then told me she didn’t trust me and she “don’t want to know” me and stormed off. I then broke down crying (in public – totally humiliating.) My ‘boss’ then emailed me telling me I was off base and that her reaction of being harassed was reasonable. And so – because my boss, a.k.a. straight friend of 14 years, is dumb and doesn’t get how painful real harassment really is – I chose to stop working there.

Hm… so much for coming out of the closet at work, right? As much as people will resent my typing this – the coworker is religious person in her 50’s. In terms of my experience, the moment I came out at that job was the moment she and her ex-boyfriend (who quit the job himself) started the game of “I’m going to say all the right things and yet treat you with zero respect while smiling at you and dare you to prove I’m disrespecting you while simultaneously building a case to defend myself from you because you fags always attack us normal people don’t you you sick fuck” popular with no-class self-righteous fuckwits who think Jesus was born to destroy the infidels.

I had no way of knowing what their REAL opinions were prior to coming out to them.

Whoever said homosexuality degenerates society should be subjected to forced psychiatric conversion techniques. ON TOP of that religious bullshit they got forced down their throats as children. It’s freaked out BREEDERS who DEGENERATE HOMOSEXUALS with their 49 flavors of fabricated fears.

Way to hold the light of hope. What if it was you?? Where are the good religious people???

READ A BOOK, HOMOPHOBE!

Advice: from the NW Women’s Law Center on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: and take it seriously. Confide in people you only know for CERTAIN you can trust. ...and from me: DO NOT listen to the HRC or GAYRIGHTSNOW or whoever tells you life’s a fairytale and tell everyone. Take care of yourself first and KNOW who your real friends are.

EDIT: The most offensively homophobic people I’ve met who have used religion as their excuse have been Catholic and Southern Baptist. Most likely, though, if people want to hate on gays, they’ll use any excuse available to them.

Got right back to work at Day Labor on the second day. I’m scheduled to work all next week. 2 FT Janitorial positions have become available, and on-site supervisors have suggested I apply. Janitorial isn’t great, I know, and it is embarrassing, but it’s not as embarrassing as homelessness would be.

I have skills that I could use to earn more money. And I have issues. And I can’t solve my issues without money. I can’t solve my issues without paying my bills, so.

I’m gay and I live with 2 hetero. housemates who are clearly afraid of me. 95% of my coworkers are afraid of me. One fact about my life is said and people write me off, people go on crusades to save me from what they fear, people set themselves up to protect others from what they fear in me.

The Christian Right really is closed minded about little things like verifiable facts. Evolution? Global warming? These things have nothing to do with your pants.

Back at Day Labor today. How lame. No work today.

a double shift yesterday

flagging in the morning and hospitality in the evening

flagging is boring. the event was a 5k run held by a ministry supported in part by the Catholic Church fundraising to fight to end human trafficking. The way a walker explained it to me: ‘These people come into these poor towns, they promise a “something something,” and the kids go off to the city never to be seen again.’ She didn’t explain it in terms of the crimes done to the people who are trafficked, such as slave labor, forced sex labor, and medical body-part supply: no. She described the problem of human trafficking in terms of children being lured away from their homes, as we stood discussing the topic in a suburban intersection. Now, is it me, or is it just a coincidence that the Catholic Church is going through tough times when it comes to attracting and retaining younger parishoners? At least, that’s the word on NPR. But don’t mind me, I’m just “a heathen.” Or, in the words of John Paul II, an “intrinsic moral evil.” on the other hand, they fed all the flaggers and played vacuous Christian rock music for the event.

I talked to Jerry quite a bit, and things were totally fine. We even talked about my being gay, and he was totally cool about it. I was relieved. It turns out, one of my other coworkers, David, is also gay. It came up after I’d made a snide remark about being a heathen. He’s in the closet at work though, so I’m not going to say anything. I had a notion he might be, but I’d let it go after my first day on the job.

A white coworker walked up to a black coworker and said, ‘you look just like Dave Chappelle!’ And he doesn’t look like Dave Chappelle except that he’s black. A few of us were scheduled to work at Quest Field later in the day, so one of them said to me something about “The Q.” I was on my toes all morning being gay at a Catholic event, so I wondered, ‘The queer?’ All the talk on the way to the event of ‘going straight at the intersection’ was enough to get me to stop listening.

At Qwest Feild, my direct supervisor was a black woman. At one point she said, ‘Are Doug and Ken down there?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know who they are.’ / ‘What?’ / ‘I don’t know who Doug and Ken are.’ / ‘Ok.’ She was super nice. Hospitality is also boring.

In the first hour I was there, I walked by two 60-ish y.o. ushers who were looking in my direction, talking and laughing, and who I heard say “straight as an arrow.” I got a real negative vibe from them, so I turned in to it. I took them as mocking what was probably an obvious lilt in my walk, since I wasn’t trying to hide it. As I walked away, I forced myself to look up and to my left – the moment I did that, one of them said “that’s good.” I was shaking with rage. I told myself, there will be bigots everywhere you go. I did my round and came back, this time resolve to speak to them. I walked up to them, focusing on my breath, and said hello. I asked if I’d heard one of them say “straight as an arrow” a moment ago. One of them just said no, to his right. I as asked, ‘I didn’t hear any gay jokes then, did I?’ He said no twice to his right again. When I said “gay,” I saw the animosity in his eyes. I took him to be lying, but he did say no three times, and I know he saw the anger in my face. I said alright to my left and went left about my business. I wish I said this next instead of just saying alright: ‘Good, because that would have been offensive and unwelcome behavior and I would have to ask you to stop.’ I guess the problem is, do I say ‘ask them to stop,’ or do I say ‘I wouldn’t want to have to report it to my supervisor.’ Ice-T is so clear on these points on LAW & ORDER. He just doesn’t fuck around with it, he gets right in their faces with a just and rightly threatening question. I know I heard “straight as an arrow.” I wish I’d said, “no, I know what I heard.”

What a blog entry. I gave this web address to two flesh-and-blood people, now I can’t help thinking they or any f.&b.peeps I could meet might be reading. The privacy kind of goes away, and the performance aspect increases. I kind of wish I hadn’t mentioned it. :(

this morning i had a kind of incident with one of my co-workers, a black guy i’ll call Roger. I was walking into the parking lot, 5:30am, and I feel myself do a kind of kick stomp in his direction and I try to take it back, but I don’t entirely know how yet. I knew the moment I did it I was being jumpy because I’m gay and closeted and they’re straight. I didn’t mean anything by it.

Backstory: One of my roomates, who I’ll call Gary, is an older black man from Virginia. He lived there all his life but for the last 2 years here in Seattle. One night months ago, after he gets back from a trip to Virginia, he got drunk and confronted me. He told me I wasn’t gay, that I was confused, that I hadn’t met the right girl yet, that he knew what gay was and I wasn’t it, that I was sexually abused as a child, that I was ridiculous, that I needed Jesus in my heart, that he pitied me, that he’s praying for me, and that he wanted to show me the light. That was real threatening to hear. I called him homophobic and he called me racist. the next day i told him he had no right to speak to me that way, but he just called me a fool and told me it was his opinion. he still hasn’t apologized.

Backstory’s backstory: 18 mo. – 2 years ago. I’m getting bullied at work by my boss, a Catholic woman who is either mad I won’t sleep with her or just sadistic, and anyway I’m in the closet and denial. Wound tighter than shit. We have a house meeting to address the fact that Gary won’t do his dishes. Three 20’s / early 30’s white guys and a 50’s black guy. The other two guys are asking Gary nicely, quietly, three and four times to just do his dishes. Gary is drunk and laughing at all of us. I lose my temper and yell at him to “Listen,” one of the other guys immediately leaves, Gary caves and leaves, it wasn’t cool at all. I totally crossed the line, and I apologized to Gary three times. I came out of the closet to him later.

In any event, now I’m way more conscious of how I act when I meet black people since I don’t want to get the ‘gays are possessed by the devil’ speech. I do know from my friend M. who is gay and black that gays are not well accepted in the black community. M. has a degree in American-Ethnic Studies.

Can my co-day-laborers tell that I’m gay? I’ve told three of them – do they all know? does Roger know? He sat down and talked to me for a while today, and he made it clear that what I did, which I figure was basically a ‘black bottom stomp,’ was noticed and was not ok. and he’s right.

but from my point of view, I’m jumpy when I’m there not because of Roger. there’s an old white guy there named John who served 18 years on a submarine and is “forceful” with his opinions, as they say. The first person I came out to was a co-laborer named Ben. We were painting a older gay guy’s house – the older gay guy was hitting on me – I didn’t like it, Ben saw the whole thing, so I really had no choice but to talk to him about it, since he got the manager involved. Then next day I go in, John and his buddies are making jokes with each other, “I’m gay,” hahaha, “I’m gay,” hahaha. John, in holding court about the Jordanian Diplomat who was suspected of being a terrorist, he said the word “hate.” His buddy made a snide remark about “San Francisco” the other day that he and his buddies all laughed at.

So really, I don’t want to bring gay into it, as I’m talking to Roger, but gay is part of the situation. talking about it is bringing explanation to the weirdness. yet I don’t want to give them a reason to fire me. yet as he’s talking to me, it sounds as though he knows my entire situation already.

it seems like when there’s an act of fear, such as my ‘black bottom stomp’ this morning, people go to their insecurities for explanation.

i’ve been an office worker for 8 years. i come out to a conservative co-worker, i get harassed for 6 months – i tell HR about it and they find a reason to fire me. my mother shames me for getting harassed, shames me for doing day-labor – so it’s also a class issue and a sexual-orientation issue just in the family! – i used to make 2 1/2 times what i’m making now – i have a college degree – i could teach Shakespeare. i should be teaching Shakespeare. I’m trying to come to terms with the new information that my parents and really my entire family have a few really bigoted ideas about gays that they consider – of course they consider it wrong of me to confront them with their bigoted ideas… lost most of my friends, so hey. day labor is what i have right now. do i have to risk getting harassed and fired everywhere?

Roger said he’d give me the name of a temp-agency tomorrow. I’m kind of getting the message that maybe I’m not so welcome there. How do I repay him? Should I tell him I’m gay? If he helped a gay man – if anyone did – and then found out about the gayness later…? I want to be honest, I want to represent to people who I am, but I don’t want to endanger myself. If I were drawn into a confrontation with John, I might not have the strength / presence of mind to be civil or fair or to speak in legal terms.

it seems like the only people who’ll support me are (1) support groups, (2) churches, (3) other gays who are foremost interested in sex.

I am now a certified flagger. wtf? now i have to buy a bunch of gear before i can get a job flagging. it’s so beneath my skill level – but hey – who gives a shit about skill level they’ve fucked you over for crying “harassment” to anyone besides your own lawyer.

well meaning parents – you can’t live with them, you can’t kill them.

began the collecting of documents about my old employer today.

angry