Cafe Hitch-hike

2021-11-23

On and off the shelf

To prepare for the upcoming holiday travels, I got the booster shot. I was glad I did it on Sunday so I could spend the next 36 hours feeling flu-like. Cannabis actually helped the body aches and with relaxing, but I still felt feverish even after taking Tylenol. I took a day off work (and it was already going to be a short and almost silent week) and languished. It made me recall that I really haven't been this sick in years. Whenever I've been laid up, it was usually allergies or something mental or emotional. Gesundheit to me!

I found a new lady doc nearby. She was pleased (and almost surprised) to see my current state of health (thanks to a kind of healthy lifestyle along with no kids or lingering men). She also looked at my abdominal issues, and yep, I have a hernia. My next step is to go to a surgeon to check to see if it needs to be fixed.

It was weird to see how many people were not at the worksite. It's our (American) Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday and people often take the whole week off, but it's been this way since October. We have classes in-person, online, and both. Surprisingly, we did not have a spike in infections, but every time a student tested positive, a class was put online for so many days before meeting in person again. I guess if one or 2 students in multiple classes is sick at any given time, then it could add up. At a recent meeting, one of our grand pubahs (my word for big boss) noticed fewer students on campus and their involvement in team sports and other activities. No one has no fucking clue what is going to happen next, except that we will see fewer enrollments from the baby bust of the 2000s. Everyone's making guesses and trying this and that, but it's all really bets.

My building has been so short-staffed for so long that I'm thinking maybe no one will get laid off (or at least I hope). A lot of people signed up for a deferred retirement under our building's former (and toxic) GP and literally counting the days until they retire, and then our second wave of retirements will happen after the new year. My current boss will retire in 2 years and my former one just 6 months after that. They chirp about being happy to leave this mess and I moan inside. Thanks for leaving yet another one for the next generations to clean up. I wonder if I'll be one of the last professionals standing in the building, thanks to my ability to either stay on my feet or get back on them after a knock-down. I'm not that old, but we've had so many long-timers leave that I may soon become one.

Someone mentioned maybe I'd get promoted to leadership. I have too much negative history in the building, people hate when I give them feedback or tell them what to do, and gosh, I usually had to do more to defend myself than my damn job whenever I was in a professional leadership position. There's also the issue of the glass cliff, and even if an opportunity sounds great, every 'opportunity' I've had came with its share of peril.

I can't forget that my institution loves to pile additional titles and assignments on others without giving them salary increases or other forms of support to their units. I used to admire when I'd see someone was an assistant director for this and also a full professor in that, but now I feel sorry for them and wonder how long they ccan carry on.

Oh, yeah, and there's vacancy for my building's GP. We need a savior to take the helm. A healer, a master organizer, a brilliant empath who can also secure grants, influence, and esteem. I have so little confidence in my profession's leadership, however. I jumped to the conclusion that all females who become GPs in my field are psychotic and rageful, or at least they turn into that because of the position (and that was why I changed my mind about wanting to go into administration). The GPs above us actually took my building's advice when we pleaded to get a professional search firm to help find a good candidate, but since Florida is so bat-shit weird and our institution is underfunded, we're nervous about whether or not we'd have a good selection of people who'd be willing to take on this challenge. Maybe we can get some champ who wants a second (or third) win before retirement.

Within my field, there's been much more talk about its lack of diversity and especially of how many people leave the profession (especially those of color). I heard people have been leaving it for the past 5 years, and I was at a convention in 2017 when lots of programs were gripes about it. I have to admit I feel fatigued by the talks, mainly because I wonder how much change is possible. At least I can say all the frustrations and shit I faced on the job were not anomalies; finally, many other people of color are speaking out against the marginalization and treatment they get, and it's pretty damn close to what I've encountered. I thought it was because people was awful, but I never really thought it was because I was off-white and with an atypical last name. Finally, the fact that finally those voices and points were more public also says a lot. No one ever wanted to talk about this stuff in this way 20 years ago.

I know some of Timmy's acquaintances, and he invited me to hang out with them even when he wasn't around. I got on with them pretty well along with their wives and girlfriends. One of them, Jay, asked Timmy if he could take me for a ride on his motorcycle and Timmy said he didn't have to ask. Jay is here during the winter, and I saw him again a month ago when I hung out with the group. I told him I'd be glad to take a ride and grab a cup of coffee. I also said Timmy and I didn't have claims on each other (true). The guy is all right, but I'm not very interested in him more than that. Well, Timmy has been mute since then. I hung around with the group once after I had coffee with Jay and T. wouldn't say anything to me until I said hello to him.

I was invited to the group's Thanksgiving dinner, and multiple people said not to worry about Timmy; they don't care that Jay and I talk, or about the dynamics between T. and I. One of the women in the group finally said she didn't want to hear about T's exploits about online dating; I guess he boasts about the women he meets and screws. I was a little upset when I heard about that, though I figured my intuition was on the money because I always figured his fade- and flake-outs were because he met someone. After having that happen for the year we dated and the wisps of times we've been in contact, it led me to never take him seriously, especially when he tried claiming he wanted a relationship this year, which I didn't believe for a moment. I apologized to Jay and the group for causing any drama, but they said they didn't mind and still wanted me to come to their dinner.

Just as what usually happened, I felt a comfortable fadeout. When I stopped dating T. in the spring of 2019, I felt much better. It felt like a foul air left my condo, and I planned my cool strip that summer. One of the strange things I got from the group was the way they'd look at me and T. when we'd talk. I noticed they liked our companionship (yes, we are good company to each other and make a fairly attractive couple) but they had a much different expression when he spoke rudely or negligently towards me. Their look almost said, 'why is he doing that to her?' I must admit it made me look much differently at our interactions, and maybe it took others to show me what I've been missing. He really was rude and ignorant towards me a lot of times. I suppose he's been doing that to me because he's gotten away with it for so long. At the end of our relationship in 2019, I also supposed he met a lot of women because they got sick of it and ditched him, assuming he was the same to them as he was towards me.

Wow, I can't help but shake my head at the fact that I had to choose between him and the professor and how much the 2 relationships were identical. Both turned out to be 2 fuck boys who just want to put me on and off the self.

downwind | upstream