scene from Utica

Here is my favorite personal story about Utica which I think about sometimes. We walk our dogs every day on city sidewalks past a light pole. One day as we are walking toward this particular pole, we notice a pair of pants wrapped around the base of the pole. There's lots of discarded clothes and shoes and purses on the streets and sidewalks of Utica, why I don't know. The purses are easy as they are clearly the discards of a robbery but the clothing and shoes I just don't get.

Anyway, as we get closer to the pole there is a smell. An awesome, monumental, physical impediment of a smell. We walk faster but it just gets stronger until its clear that the smell is coming from the pants. They are completely covered in shit. Human shit. Encrusting the pants all over. The pants which are wrapped around the pole. This is a part of the sidewalk where there are overgrown trees and bushes on the left of the sidewalk and the shitpants pole on the right so there is no way to give it a wide berth. We hustle the dogs past the shitpants and even they seem grossed out. The next day we forget about the shitpants wrapped around the pole and so are unpleasantly reminded at dog walk time. This goes on for a week. Sometimes we remember to walk a different block and sometimes sheer curiosity demands that we check in on the shitpants. And the pole. One day we walk up the block and we don't see the pole. The entire pole is gone like it was never there, and with it the shitpants. Sometimes I try to picture the scene of the shitpants pole removal. Were there five or six Utica City workers standing around while some poor new hire tonged the shitpants away from the pole, or did the whole pole come out with the shitpants attached. Is there a special procedure for this? Did they get hazard pay? Was the pole due to come out anyway and when they got there there was an unfortunate surprise?

Now that I have written this out it seems less amusing to me and more a sad allegory of Utica but there you go. The shitpants pole story.

up down and all around

Welp. So I got laid off from my job. It's taken me a while to feel like I could write about it but I think maybe it would help. We are actually not doing too badly. The boy amazed me by going out and finding a job within a relatively small amount of time. I am doing some temp work part time until I can find something else. This is something that I have been reading about happening to people all across the country but I really honestly never thought it would happen to me. Our lives were so settled and now everything is different.
The first week was really hard and even now if I think about it too hard I get emotional. One of the ladies at my temp job said that losing a long time job was like grieving and I thought EXACTLY! It really is although not as severe. I have actually lost a parent and this is no where near as bad.

I worked at this place for ten years. They purported to call themselves 'family' and I went to parties and events in my coworkers and bosses homes. Birthday parties, baby showers, holiday parties. I knew intimate details of their lives and they mine. One day I go into work like normal, expecting a normal day and by 1:30 I am out on the street with all my things in a cardboard box. Stunning. I am still stunned.
They said it wasn't performance based and I fully believe that because I performed. I went to foreign countries where I had no hope of understanding the language and fulfilled contractual obligations in spectacularly successful ways. I took all half formed ideas and projects and made them happen for multiple bosses every time and always to the good. I came in under budget every year and went with out a pay raise for five years. I had good relations with all my coworkers and everyone knew they could depend on me. I had all my vacation time maxed out because I never went on vacation. Hell, I even did other people's jobs. And I did it all in a no carrots, all sticks environment.

I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes. I can think if at least three in my ten years that were serious enough that I needed help in fixing them, but they didn't cost money to fix and no one was injured and no property was damaged. They just didn't happen right the first time. The problem with being really good at your job is that when you do make a mistake, it is like the end of the frigging world. At least that is my experience. My successes may have gained me a careless 'thanks' but my few mistakes earned me the thunderbolts of Zeus. Anything from being screamed at and humiliated to actual homework wherein I was supposed to write out reports detailing my errors and my plans for not being a screwup in the future. That is why I am not actually to upset not to work there anymore. The upsetting part is being used up and tossed out with no further thought like a wadded up disposable paper cup.

Here are the good things that happened almost immediately. Within two days my back stopped hurting, so far for good. I had some pretty severe chronic back pain and it's just gone now. I don't know if it's not having to go to a stressful environment every day or just not having to sit at the second hand desk and chair that I scrounged together at work. So that's nice.

I got a message out to my network of colleagues in my field all across the county and there was an overwhelming outpouring of support for me and outrage at what happened. A lot of people I had worked with over the years came out to say publicly that I am good a what I do and that I will be missed. At a time when I was feeling pretty low about myself and my ability, this was nice to hear.

I got a lot of support and love from the boy. His life has changed dramatically too but he was able to put this aside and care for me. I love him so much.

There's more but I have to get to work.