not so great day... venting
Jul. 15th, 2008 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transpaoI wont go as far as to say it was a bad day, and in matter of fact some of it didn't actually start bothering me until several hours afterward.
First a guy in the break room this morning asks me if I speak French. I replied that no, I speak English some Spanish and a few words in German, Italian and Greek. I believe that this is the point where he said something I didn't understand and when I said "Pardon?" He just laughed. at some point and I think it was at the end he said "So there's no Cajun in you?" I didn't think about the provocativeness of the line until later, but he had me suspicious when he immidietly started talking in French as soon as he knew I couldn't understand it.
Then there is the fact that I don't get a locker or a shower because the only facilities available to the female staff are a single restroom with one toilet and one sink in the office complex. So I have to store anything I bring with me like sun screen, change of clothes, the poison Ivy cream I've had to get, and the like in the secretaries office. This works fine except A. I have to ask permission every time I enter the cubicle, and B. She locks the cubicle whenever she leaves it. Today she took off to a meeting just before my 10am break where I planned to change into my long sleeve shirt, hat, and rub down with sun screen for the worst of the day. She was not back by the time we were off break, and I had to go back to work for two hours from 10am to noon without sunscreen, hat or long sleeves.
Luke likes the radio on in his truck. and I really try to be understanding and everything, and I've not said anything about it, but he listens to a hiphop station and quite often the songs make me extremely uncomfortable. For instance there was one today that said (I looked it up)
"Lollipop lollipop breasts just like Dolly Part-en
She buy my spaceship til he hit the top
That hit the spot
Til she ask how many li li licks do it take
Til she get to shop
Dont worry why my wrist got so freeze
Tell ya girl like Doritos thats not yo (Nacho) cheese"
I'm sorry but how fucking derogatory are those lyrics, and um.. work appropriate I think not.
I apparently lost my newly bought tube of spf 15 chapstick.
After going back to work on this horrible pointless hill we have to strip vegitation off of so it will become a mudslide into the back parking lot of a very prestigious and important building, we discover that all of the tools we need have been taken by another crew that worked with us yesterday, and we don't know where they are. While Luke went back to the shop to try and figure some stuff out, I was talking to my Ethiopian coworker, who I could have sworn told me he was a Somalian refugee... and asked him what language they speak in Somalia... He was offended which I really felt bad about, but then goes on this lecture about how the Ethiopian people are better than other Africans because other Africans are criminals, thieves, murders, and Muslims. That Ethiopians are more like Europeans in this respect and that I should not confuse Ethiopia with the rest of Africa. Trying my best to avoid conflict I just sort of laughed nervously and said "Well I understand what you are saying."
Then later in the day... literally 20 minutes before we have to head back to the shop for the end of the day, we were talking about languages and dialects, and I mentioned about my mom living in Greece for a while, and Belay turns to me and says you know Greece is a Christian country, they are Orthodox, do you know Orthodox? and I said yes that my mother had deiced for a while that we would attend the Greek Orthodox church, and he says "Oh you are Orthodox?" and I said no, and then he asks what I am. and cornered I blurted out that I'm not Christian. This caused an onslaught of questions like do you believe in god, and I tried to answer them in as noninflammatory ways as possible, but I said I believe in many gods... That I'm UU and that means I believe all the religions are are part of us trying to understand soemthing that is not fathomable to us. That Christians are good, Buddhist are good, Hindu are good, Muslims are good; but that was so the wrong thing to say... and I got to hear some wonderfully bigoted talk about how the Muslims kill people, and the Hindu worship the sun, moon, and animals (all said as if it was a despicable thing to do) and when I said that they were not bad, and no atrocity committed by any other religious group has not been committed by the Christians as well. Then I got to here about how the Muslims caused Sept. 11th!
and I said yes but we only think that's important because it happened to us, and no one pays attention in history class and realized it's happened before but the opposite way around. And I'm not saying Sept 11th wasn't a huge tragedy, but it's not the only tragedy. and I just wished more than anything that captain Carrot was alive to some how explain to people that "Personal is NOT the same as IMPORTANT!"
First a guy in the break room this morning asks me if I speak French. I replied that no, I speak English some Spanish and a few words in German, Italian and Greek. I believe that this is the point where he said something I didn't understand and when I said "Pardon?" He just laughed. at some point and I think it was at the end he said "So there's no Cajun in you?" I didn't think about the provocativeness of the line until later, but he had me suspicious when he immidietly started talking in French as soon as he knew I couldn't understand it.
Then there is the fact that I don't get a locker or a shower because the only facilities available to the female staff are a single restroom with one toilet and one sink in the office complex. So I have to store anything I bring with me like sun screen, change of clothes, the poison Ivy cream I've had to get, and the like in the secretaries office. This works fine except A. I have to ask permission every time I enter the cubicle, and B. She locks the cubicle whenever she leaves it. Today she took off to a meeting just before my 10am break where I planned to change into my long sleeve shirt, hat, and rub down with sun screen for the worst of the day. She was not back by the time we were off break, and I had to go back to work for two hours from 10am to noon without sunscreen, hat or long sleeves.
Luke likes the radio on in his truck. and I really try to be understanding and everything, and I've not said anything about it, but he listens to a hiphop station and quite often the songs make me extremely uncomfortable. For instance there was one today that said (I looked it up)
"Lollipop lollipop breasts just like Dolly Part-en
She buy my spaceship til he hit the top
That hit the spot
Til she ask how many li li licks do it take
Til she get to shop
Dont worry why my wrist got so freeze
Tell ya girl like Doritos thats not yo (Nacho) cheese"
I'm sorry but how fucking derogatory are those lyrics, and um.. work appropriate I think not.
I apparently lost my newly bought tube of spf 15 chapstick.
After going back to work on this horrible pointless hill we have to strip vegitation off of so it will become a mudslide into the back parking lot of a very prestigious and important building, we discover that all of the tools we need have been taken by another crew that worked with us yesterday, and we don't know where they are. While Luke went back to the shop to try and figure some stuff out, I was talking to my Ethiopian coworker, who I could have sworn told me he was a Somalian refugee... and asked him what language they speak in Somalia... He was offended which I really felt bad about, but then goes on this lecture about how the Ethiopian people are better than other Africans because other Africans are criminals, thieves, murders, and Muslims. That Ethiopians are more like Europeans in this respect and that I should not confuse Ethiopia with the rest of Africa. Trying my best to avoid conflict I just sort of laughed nervously and said "Well I understand what you are saying."
Then later in the day... literally 20 minutes before we have to head back to the shop for the end of the day, we were talking about languages and dialects, and I mentioned about my mom living in Greece for a while, and Belay turns to me and says you know Greece is a Christian country, they are Orthodox, do you know Orthodox? and I said yes that my mother had deiced for a while that we would attend the Greek Orthodox church, and he says "Oh you are Orthodox?" and I said no, and then he asks what I am. and cornered I blurted out that I'm not Christian. This caused an onslaught of questions like do you believe in god, and I tried to answer them in as noninflammatory ways as possible, but I said I believe in many gods... That I'm UU and that means I believe all the religions are are part of us trying to understand soemthing that is not fathomable to us. That Christians are good, Buddhist are good, Hindu are good, Muslims are good; but that was so the wrong thing to say... and I got to hear some wonderfully bigoted talk about how the Muslims kill people, and the Hindu worship the sun, moon, and animals (all said as if it was a despicable thing to do) and when I said that they were not bad, and no atrocity committed by any other religious group has not been committed by the Christians as well. Then I got to here about how the Muslims caused Sept. 11th!
and I said yes but we only think that's important because it happened to us, and no one pays attention in history class and realized it's happened before but the opposite way around. And I'm not saying Sept 11th wasn't a huge tragedy, but it's not the only tragedy. and I just wished more than anything that captain Carrot was alive to some how explain to people that "Personal is NOT the same as IMPORTANT!"
