Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Always thwarted

Currently: Beyond fuming

The insurance company is supposed to f*ck with you; that's its job. You pretend to be low risk, the underwriter pretends to be convinced, and the claims person pretends to be sympathetic. It's all a big game of three-way chicken, trying to see who will blink (i.e., give up trying to convince the others) first, and the company lives to insure another day. That is to say, you expect the runaround from the insurance folks. You can expect to be denied insurability, or thwarted in collecting claim after reasonable (in your mind, anyway), claim. As long as you expect them to be a**hats, everyone can manage to rise to expectation.

People at the gym are annoying. They are helping to create the general stinky miasma, they steal your machine when it's busy, and they leave sweat everywhere for others to touch (ew), clean up, or fall on. But it's okay, because that's what you sign up for when you join the worlds largest! co-ed! gym!

Copiers, work computers, and other workplace machinery (evil staplers!), exist almost purely to break down at inopportune moments. The Force of Murphy's Law is strong in the world of Xerox. But anyone who has experience of begging, crying, and/or hurling invectives (i.e., anyone who has worked in an office for more than a month) in cubicleland knows that these tactics do little to move the petty stone office gods.

And, classically, girls confessing anger and frustration to their menfolk (unless the boys are very well trained) do not get the simple, "That sucks!," or "Let me at 'em!" support that we need. Instead, we are subjected to "reason," and "helpful suggestions," or, better yet, "Well, this is what you did wrong...," when all we wanted was an unreasoning and unwavering, "That shouldn't have happened to you!" We continue to hope for change, and yet do not expect it...

BUT.

One really does not expect, when confessing anger and frustration, on getting, "Well, you have no right to want that and are, in fact, an unreasonable brat."

SHUT. UP.

(even if it's true I really can't hear that right now because I am scared and angry why can't you see that)

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Heh, I just realized that this could also apply to most conversations with my parents. My bad, generalization period over.

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