Wait, What?

Today is the 2 year anniversary of me walking out of a “volunteer” program that I was in. 

Some background: if you’re single with no kids, and you need food stamps or cash assistance, you’re made to sign up with a B2W (Back to Work) vendor, and you’re given a WEP (Work Experience Program) assignment. The B2W program consists of 3 days a week, 6 hours a day sitting in stupid, pointless workshops where you’re taught job skills by people who barely have skills themselves. You’re told to “just apply for whatever and see what happens”. The job leads they give you are usually call center jobs or maintenance jobs. It’s disheartening, and I had to deal with that shit from December 2014 to April 2016 (I was still stuck on benefits until May 2017, though, when I finally got hired for a 9-5).

Anyhoo. I was fortunate enough to get clerical WEP assignments. Many people were unfortunate enough to get crummy maintenance ones where they were forced to work in city agencies, emptying garbage bins and cleaning bathrooms. Those kinds of jobs are fine, if you are getting a paycheck, but when you’re getting $91.50 EVERY 2 WEEKS, it’s degrading and awful. Not to mention, the people you work with, treat you like trash because they know that you’re a WEP worker.

I was sent to the Housing Preservation Dept, which wasn’t too  bad. Mostly filing, sorting mail, whatever. Then, I got sent to a shitty senior center, in November 2015. It was a center that provided activities and free lunch for seniors. The food was Meals on Wheels provided, so the quality was lousy. My job was to stuff envelopes, and help sign people in for the day. But here’s where it got dreadful.

1) The Smell. The center smelled like straight up piss and a dusty boiler room. It practically made me gag.

2) The music. They played oldies, but not even good oldies like Curtis Mayfield or anything. They were playing shit from the 1930s. WTF. 

3) They kept getting my name wrong and not caring. I was called Zindi, Zindel, all kinds of shit, and once told “Look, I’m never going to remember your name”. 

4) The food. They served the seniors first, then the staff, THEN the WEP workers got whatever was left. Half the time there was barely anything but rice or vegetables. If you wanted to bring outside food, they made a fuss, claiming that only “kosher food was allowed at the center”. If I wanted to use the microwave, it was an issue. 

I dealt with this from November 2015 to one sunny day in April, when I overheard my supervisor complaining bitterly about me because I refused to help serve food and clean tables. “She thinks she’s too good to help” was part of what I heard before I gathered up my things and walked out two hours early. I couldn’t take it anymore. 

Fast forward: I now work for a city agency. I’ve actually come across the files of two of the women I “volunteered” with at the WEP and, um, I make more than both of them ^_^ I’ve definitely come a very, very long way.

On Being Too Much to Handle

There are people who brag about being “too much” for others to handle. You can usually spot these types because they are usually the ones loudly bragging about having “strong” personalities and that “people either love them or hate them”. They go on about how they’re “unapologetically [enter negative adjective here]”.  These people are annoying.

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to change who you are for anyone. Feel free to be yourself 100%. But when you start noticing that people avoid you when they see you coming, or they never answer your phone calls or texts, you should probably start wondering why.

It’s okay to apologize for your flaws. It’s okay to recognize that there may be parts of you that are a huge turnoff to other people. It’s not okay to be obnoxious and overbearing, and expect people to put up with that.

Sometimes, YOU are the problem. It’s not always that other people aren’t strong enough to handle you. Maybe they really and truly just don’t care enough to deal with you and your bullshit. You live in this world with other people. You HAVE to learn how to at least get along with other people, or else you will find yourself alone, muttering to yourself about how people “just can’t handle your big personality”.

I Love Mondays.

I really do. After 3+ years of being unemployed/under employed, I love working. Of course, I have my down days (especially because of my depression). I have days where I’m overwhelmed at work. I have a shit ton of extroverted coworkers who don’t understand the concept of personal space or not bothering people when they’re in their own zone.

But getting up early and joining the 9-5ers on the subway? Love it. Groaning as the conductor announces yet ANOTHER delay? Love it. I love working. Love feeling like I have a purpose. I’m just a file clerk. But the office relies on me to keep shit in order. If I don’t do my part, everyone is fucked up. I need to feel necessary, to feel as if I’m contributing SOMETHING.

So, here’s to Mondays.

Ghosted!

Ugggh. I haven’t posted here in ages because, quite frankly, Tumblr was one big trigger for me. Reminded me of too many things, too many people…so I stepped back a bit.

So. Ghosting. It’s the term for when you drop out of someone’s life completely and you’re basically unreachable. In some cases, it’s necessary, like if the person you’re ghosting is abusive or manipulative or downright awful in any other way. But a lot of times, it’s a cowardly way for people to walk out of your life without speaking to you directly or without allowing you to have a real say. The latter happened to me, in 2014.

I had a friend. We were cool in HS, but didn’t really hang out until a few years after we graduated (we were class of 2003). Our friendship was cool. We had a lot in common, personality-wise (we’re both Earth signs), similar backgrounds (both from West Indian families, well, half of my fam is, anyway), and both into arts, writing, etc. In the 9 years of our friendship, we never even argued. We disagreed on things, of course, but we never had a falling out. In fact, she would always tell me what a wonderful and great friend I was. In fact, a few months before she ghosted, she told me that whenever she meets new people, she compares me to them to see if they’ll be as good of a friend as I was. Pretty dope,  huh?

I ignored a huge red flag: her tendency to cut people off over the silliest, most trivial things. She was very good at cutting people off, and the reasons were never really valid. It’s almost as if she just enjoyed cleaning house. She cut off a mutual friend of ours for no real reason whatsoever, and even cut off her own sister. I should’ve known that ANYONE could be next.

In October 2014, she invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her and her mom. I was happy because my family dynamic was (and still is) lousy, and I didn’t want to spend the day with them. Then, a week before Thanksgiving, she canceled, claiming that her mom had “already budgeted for the food” and “didn't’ have enough for an extra person” (there were only going to be 4 people). I thought that was strange, but didn’t push the issue. I also noticed that we didn’t talk nearly as often as we used to. Also, any time I would mention anything like a potential job, the response was usually negative, like “are you even sure you’re ready for that yet?” 

Anyway, Christmas Day 2014, which was also my 29th birthday. She hadn’t called me at ALL. I went on Facebook and saw that she wasn’t even following me anymore. Then later that evening, she made me a birthday post on Tumblr, wishing me a great day and added a bunch of GIFs and pics of things that I’d shown interest in before. Sounds like a real friend, right?

Then, around 12-something AM December 26th, I get an email from her. I’ve since deleted it because I got so angry at the audacious bullshit in it that I had to get rid of it.

Basically, she said she was tired of being my friend. Tired of dealing with my depression, which, according to her, “didn’t seem as real as I said it was”. Said she was tired of me “talking about things that weren’t going to happen” and that she always felt that she couldn’t tell me good news because I wasn’t accomplishing anything at the time. The last one stung me the most because I always cheered on everything she did. I was always positive. Complimented her artwork (there’s a drawing she did that I STILL love), and actually talked her OUT of being too hard on herself whenever she would make a mistake. 

I’ll never know 100% what her ACTUAL reasons were, because, according to her for all the years we’ve been friends, I was the ideal friend. So either she was lying the whole time, or there’s some other reason she ended things. Who knows.

Fast forward to March 2018. I still have a hard time forming friendships. Still find it hard to open up to people. I always feel as if I’m bothering people. If I speak to someone and they seem distracted or annoyed (may not even be about me), I’m like “omg let me leave them alone, what if I’m overwhelming them or bothering them”. She did this to me. The after effects of this may go away, but they’re still here right now.

It took me years to write this, but I had to let it out. I got tired of keeping the hurt to myself (or just telling my counselor).

Moral of the story: “Ghosting” isn’t cute. It’s not cool, it doesn’t make you seem tough or “unbothered”. It makes you a coward. She is a coward (a coward who blocked me on IG recently, so apparently I am still on her mind). And unfortunately, a powerful coward, because this shit STILL has me fucked up.

Anyway, see ya.

You know what’s annoying as HELL?

When your stomach is a hot mess, and you’re like, I am going to DESTROY the bathroom when I get home

So you get prepared. You get home, got your phone charged to 100%, got all your thick magazines ready to read

You get on the toilet, just READY to go.

And

Nothing

Happens.

You pass gas, maybe. But that’s IT. You had your day planned around this epic moment and NOTHING happens. 

Ugh. The worst.

Anonymous asked: I'm going through something similar in regards to losing a best/good friend. I want to make new friends but I also don't. I'm scared of the same thing happening again and also building new relationships takes time (which makes me a bit anxious).

It’s really hard to work through. If possible, therapy can definitely help. I have to remind myself that not all of my friendships are gonna end up like that one.