harassment humor

people i dont know and don't work with but see every few weeks at work have been asking me about a relationship between my boss and a coworker. a relationship that is a major factor in my harassment complaint and denied by management.

Goe, because when strangers know, it's not a secret.

harassment again

got a new manager, part of the reason things have been better. saw some coworkers being ... less than sincere. left him a note to that effect, and he gave that note to one of them. now they're all mad at me. and the new manager has forbidden me to talk to hr. :(

Goe, stressed.

stories

storyblogging carnival is looking for some.

Goe, been too busy to write.

today

same distance in 20:52

could have been faster but am trying to not push myself hard. it seems that overachieving at even menial things alienates a lot of people. the problems caused by alienating people via overachieving outweigh the benefits of overachieving.

Goe, becoming a big fan of his new boss.

jogging again

restarted jogging now that the weather is getting nice again.

two miles in 23:15. really bad, mostly because i walked about half of it. will do better next time. took me a week to get to four miles last summer, so not a bad re-start.

Goe, cookin' dinner.

Zimbabwe

Mugabe's party lost control of the zimbabwe parliament. this is a good thing. now to see if the new guys can avoid the greed and powerlust that dominates and decimates africa.

Goe, saddened to see so much potential crushed under tyrants.

leggo my lego

found obi-wan kenobi, will take him and darth maul to omsi whenever i get around to going. had lost darth maul a few days ago and found obi-wan while cleaning yesterday.

legos + dinosaurs = good times.

and a big head-honcho type guy stepped into the mess at work, spoke softly to a few people, and put a stop to it, so work is fun again!

Goe, wishes he were more constructively creative.

food

for some strange reason, i eat more when i'm not working than when i do. it's not that i just eat when i'm bored like in the ago, or that i eat only because i need to like in the long ago and the time before the long ago. i actually get hungry now. have been eating twice a day for most of the last month. how people can eat three times every day still eludes me though.

Goe, doesn't understand how he's not anorexic either.

more zoo pics

Darth Maul with an elephant



Three grown men "washing an elephant" in public



Nick Nolte-mugshot goodness



Goe, still planning on taking Darth Maul to OMSI.

chuck and larry

rented it. it's okay, it's like a remake of an older film. seen a lot of those lately, where it's a whole new film, but the main and most subplots parallel an older film. "I want someone to eat cheese with" is like a remake (and references) "Marty", and "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" is like a remake of "A Gentleman's Agreement", but in each case, the new one is funnier but missing much of the poignancy of the original. a lot of the discrimination from "a gentleman's agreement" didn't get carried forward to the new story.

Goe, should get some sleep now.

darth at the zoo

He's so vain, he probably thinks the zoo is about him.




This is Darth with some hippos that he'd subdued. Apparently, they're accomplished sumo wrestlers on some worlds. not this one though.





A penguin tries to eyeball Darth, not good thinking.

Zoo today

Went to the zoo today. lots of people with small children in strollers. some of the animals look underfed and underexercised. noticed a lot of electric fencing inside the regular fencing. it's probably always been there, but i'd never noticed it before. also saw three grown men scrubbing and rinsing an elephant. not something you see everyday. the elephant seemed happy about it.

Goe, was at the zoo, didn't see it all happening.

harassment "solution"

the company solution to my discrimination complaint is that i'll be fired if i work too hard, if i don't work hard enough, or if any co-workers think i'm scary looking. i fail to see how this is a solution to anything other than my continuing to work there.

Goe, baffled but glad he already filed the eeoc complaint.

woot

people who know absolutely nothing about my work-related problems are giving me job leads elsewhere for higher-paying positions. woot! the work-related problems are, thanks to a union rep who takes names (no ass-kicking, goe does not abide workplace violence) probably at an end. so woot!

will be nice of one of the other jobs pans out. would be nice to win the lottery too. =-]

Goe, has hope for nice things.

stories

someone expressed interest in the generic adventure, so i went back and reread what i'd written. needs some re-writing but im thinking about picking up the story again. granted, i've already got a half-dozen or more unfinished stories, but what's the downside?

Goe, up too late.

union does good

heard back from the union rep, who was confused, asked a lot of questions, and was very supportive. they're going to follow up on what's been going on since management chose to negate an understanding that they had about me. no 'get over it' from them, so yay! this is good news.

Goe, has some hope for the future.

if it's not one thing

it's another. am sick. work stress isn't helping, but i don't think that's what made me sick. oh well. heard back from a couple of people i really wanted to hear back from on the work thing, but they didn't have anything new to tell me, just asked some questions to clarify their understanding of what's been happening. maybe a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe a train... dunno.

Goe, not well enough to eat.

harassment redux

Thanks to a link provided by Kate, I've filed a complaint with the EEOC about the reprisals/retaliation that my managers have embarked upon. Not supposed to hear back for close to a month though. Tried to call my Union Rep to see if they had something more substantial to say than 'get over it', but no answer. Sent an e-mail to the company mailbox for harassment complaints since calling the phone number doesn't get you anywhere. On the plus side, got a tip on a job that pays better. One of those jobs where you have to know someone who already works there and only find out about from them.

Goe, gratz to Kate and Sanya on their respective babies.

writers strike

speaking of useless unions, now that the writers strike is over and production on tv shows and movies will resume after months of nothing new, how many people won't notice a difference? so last week every tv show was a rerun of something made several years ago, and next week every tv show is a rerun of something made several years ago but with different actors and character names. except of course for the Dali Network, where plate ferret moose.

Goe, chillin' betwixt Kafka and Dali.

harassment reprisal

okay, so i made a sexual discrimination complaint which it turns out isn't considered an issue where i work, but just a form of harassment, so it became a harassment complaint. this annoyed a lot of the people i work with. management said they'd look into it, then told me that there was nothing worth following up on. then they told me that i just needed to get over it and would be fired if i harassed anyone, did anything that could be construed as harassment, or made any reprisals against my coworkers or management (such as making another harassment complaint because it hasn't stopped).

Goe, noticed that more work = more threats of being fired, less work = managers drinking buddy.

whee i guess

work nights. cant sleep today. made a sexual discrimination complaint over three months ago at work. was blown off by pretty much everyone because i'm not what could be described as one of the cool kids. since everyone knows i made the complaint, they've changed it from being heavily preferential treatment to the women who work there, to being detrimental treatment of just me. i'm not happy. only one person i work with can manage more than half my workload and they are leaving in a few weeks, but everyone else gets breaks twice as long as mine and is praised for doing a fraction of the work (one person can't manage a third but is sleeping with one of the managers, so everyone but me thinks it's okay that they don't do much work, write their own schedule, and take breaks of extra length and frequency). what really sucks is that we're a union shop, we pay union dues, and the union's position is 'so what?'.

Goe, needs a new job.

Bob and the Pool

Bob swayed. He didn't sway like a drunk or dizzy person but in the fashion of a tree swaying in the breeze. There was no breeze, but Bob swayed gently, trying to cool himself off in the warm, still air. The wind had not blown noticably for two weeks and the last rain was three weeks before that. The elephant stared at the inactive sprinklers recessed in the withered brown grass on either sode of the pair, moping.
Bob observed the elephant carefully. He'd never had a pet before, a few excessive squirrel families and once a pigeon consortium, but never an actual pet. He had developed some affection for the animal. He found its habits interesting and its dietary intake astonishing. If it weren't for the truckloads of hay that the daycare provided daily, it might even have been possible for the elephant to be malnuirished. Growing their own foliage would reduce any animals need for food, but Bob understood that people and elephants were far too obtuse to understand such things.
They also didn't have the sense to grow roots, something even the most idiotic ferns can manage with ease. This left the elephant in his rather morose and parched state. Bob tried to think of ways to improve the animal's spirits and even tried singing to it several of the songs they had overheard from the children of the daycare. Bob surmised that nothing would work until the rains came back, and even then the elephant would only be pleased for a few weeks before it wanted the sunshine to return.
Bob forced his attention to a more pressing issue: water. The elephant needed some and he could use some more himself. There was a river on the other side of town, but it was difficult to navigate both traffic and powerlines with an independently minded elephant in tow. There was a fountain nearby, with a basin large enough for both he and the elephant to soak. He watched the elephant shift about in its melancholic state and then Bob began to uproot himself.
Traffic was disrupted in the usual manner, in accordance with what one might expect with a tree and its elephant walking down the street. Bob was careful to wait at red lights, having had several close calls between the elephant and large trucks, but the journey was only a few dozen blocks and over with shortly. Some people gawked and others took photographs, some cursed the congestion and were quietly pleased to see the elephant and tree moving out of sight.
When Bob and the elephant reached the fountain, they found it infested with small children, similar in size and shape to those of the daycare, even if none of them were familiar as individuals. With some nudging, jostling, coaxing, and a generous distrubution of balloons, Bob and the elephant were able to secure for themselves some space in the water, with each of them splashed upon by jets spraying from the fountain.
The fountain was a pool, about thirty or so feet across, give or take, and about a foot and a half deep, taking or giving whatever had been given or taken from the aforementioned diameter. Water would spray up from jets cleverly concealed as small holes int he floor of the pool, in a pattern than changed rhythmically, but slowly enough to not startle the small children prone to playing in such places.
Bob eased himself into the pool and began to absorb water, while the elephant hopped about in circles, first counterclockwise and then the other way round. This hoping action, which Bob surmised was not beneficial to the pool, came to a slow stop as the elephant dsicovered another way to play. He began to suck up water with his turck and spray it on his back. The children laughed and cheered as the elephant showered himself. Being desirous of such adulations, the eelphant began to shower the children as well. Each spray yielded screeches and screams of joy. The children laughed and encircled the elephant, yarn balloons bobbing all around him.
As the others played, Bob studied his environs. The buildings nearby were taller than most. Most were taller than anything Bob had seen before moving into town. People gathered and stared. Some took pictures of the elephant, some of Bob, and some of the children. A short, skinny man with irridescent yellow eyes even poured some sort of powder into the pool. This didn't strike Bob as any stranger than what everyone else was doing, but it was very strange.
As Bob watched, large bubbles began to appear around the base of each of the jets of water. Large irridescent bubbles with a yellow tinge and an exquisite reflection of their environs. Bob tried to pop one with a low branch, but instead of bursting, it slowly collapsed and vanished into the foam. Bob reached for another only to see the bubbles shift away from him. He tried again at another jet and again the bubbles shifted away. This struck him as odd behavior for a bunch of bubbles, but odd behavior in things that shouldn't have any behavior was far too common around people.
Bob leaned over one of the jets and encircled it with larger branches. This kept the bubbles from getting away while giving him a chance to look at them up close. He realized two things very quickly. The first was that the bubbles weren't reflecting part of their environment, specifically the tree reaching over them. Instead of a reflection of his trunk, each bubble had what appeared to be an iris, the foam was a multitude of unblinking eyes staring at him. The second thing he realized was that his roots were losing their strength, making it harder for him to stay upright.
Fortunately for Bob, something he had not anticipated but should have known would happen did happen. The elephant, having filled its belly with water and in a cheery mood more typical of Michelle, the daycare manager, needed to void its bladder. Being an animal, it did so where it stood, in the fountain. The children laughed, screamed, cheered, and vacated the pool in short order. The bubbles staring at Bob began to dissolve near the elephant and Bob's root strength began to come back as well. Bob waited until the pool had returned to normal and then went home with a disconcerted feeling of having just encoutered something conifivorous.

Goe, bigger than a breadbasket.

it grates

actual conversation about favoritism by managers.

me: the shit grates.
bossman: yeah
me: i mean the shit grates. i don't know how because shit is actually kind of gooey and it shouldn't grate.
bossman: not if you eat a lot of corn.
me: even then, it's still gooey.
bossman: what about a lot of fiber?
me: even then. maybe if you were dehydrated and ate a lot of fiber.
bossman: what if you ate glass?
(5 minutes later)
me (to bosslady): bossman and i were discussing the viscosity of feces.
bosslady: that's disgusting. ewww. gross. eww.

Goe, will panacea for fun and profit.

bob

trying to write a new bob story.

Goe, very stressed.

more stories

werewolf one is cool. you can find a link here.

you can't find one here though.

Goe, just pointing out the obvious.