Day 11

What have you complained about recently? Why?

oh this could go so many ways...the difficulty of finding the "times square" earl of sandwich (hint: it's not in times square), the fucked-upness of the mta this evening, the rain tonight, the probably weather for next weekend's race, etc.

but i'm going with the one that really is irking me.

a lack of cultural understanding and a power trip. my boss - i'll call her umbridge (yes, THAT umbridge, and yes it fits) - was at my workplace monday and went on a rampage giving four of us "awards" as we jokingly called them and having "celebrations" with us each this afternoon. (and by "celebration" i mean disciplinary chat). she is - you can tell from the accent - born and bred here. i was raised in the south. at one point during my meeting, i responded "yes ma'am" as my upbringing taught me. it's showing respect to someone in a position above me. even my managers at my other job who are younger than me get "yes ma'am" or "yes sir" when necessary. it's a sign of respect where i'm from.

but up here, there are a lot of people who use it in a snippy, sarcastic way. and despite my tone being very respectful and conciliatory, she literally came out of her chair and screeched "DON'T MA'AM ME!" my chapter leader, who was with me in the meeting, motioned for me to not respond and potentially make things worse when she saw me tense up.

the end result was a verbal warning. the whole complaint issue umbridge had has already been resolved and i've worked with a colleague to find a solution. so it's really all good.

but it's annoying that she won't even acknowledge that culturally there are differences between a lot of us who work there in a small sense and in the world in a larger sense. just because some people use something in a snippy sarcastic way doesn't mean that everyone does. it's just annoying to be screeched at simply for doing something that's a part of who I am.