"What's Going On?" sing it, Marvin Gaye
My heart has been distressed the last couple of days. All of this happening at Virginia Tech has left me feeling unsettled, and I'm not sure why. I didn't know anyone there. Worse things happen every day, though I know that's a very passive way of looking at it. A very "me" approach. I feel horrible for the people there. Perhaps because I've always thought that college campuses were almost sacred places. I love learning, and a place where you can learn anything you want is...my temple. And now someone has come in and killed a group of people who may or may not have felt the same way I did. But they were still in a "safe zone". And it stresses me.
On a slightly related but not really related note, I'm going to tell a back story that has nothing to do with VT. I had a manager at Friday's who used to play the following mind game a lot, illustrated with an example: One day I asked her to run my financial (the strip of paper about my sales & transactions that I need to cash out at the end of my shift). Now, most servers would use their own personal swipe (which we use for everything from clocking in, to ringing in food) to get to the page on the computer, then would push the button labeled "Server Financial", and a manager would then have to use their swipe to give authorization for it to actually print out. Every employee, whether or not they have a swipe assigned to them, also has a number. Mine happens to be 31. On this day, I asked Brooke if she could swipe my financial, and as I was doing something several feet away, I assumed she would run it for me. The managers also have the capabilities of, while on their own screen in the computers, and run a server's financial for them using the servers assigned number rather than the server swiping in first.) After a few moments, I realized she hadn't done it and that she was standing by the computer looking at me, and I asked, "Can't you run it from yours?" (I had already told her my number.) "What do you mean?" she asks. "You can run it from your swipe; my number is 31." She asks, "How do you do that?" So I walk over and show her. This isn't something most servers know you can do, and I know that. Though I thought it was weird that she didn't know how to do it, I knew it wasn't out of the realm of possibility because it's not something you would have to know for anything. After I show her how to do, she asked me why I knew how to do it and I explained that another manager had taught me how to do a lot of that stuff 16 months before so I could help out and make things easier for everyone. Then Brooke established that she had in fact known exactly how to do it, she had apparently just wanted to see if I knew how. It annoyed me that she had done that. Not because it took any extra time, or stopped me from what I was doing. That she had thought it was acceptable to use mind tricks and manipulation for something so trivial. I never liked her quite as much after that, and never trusted anything she said or did afterwards either.
I only tell this story because I just had an interaction that reminded me of the same manipulation techniques. I will be the first to support manipulation. But I like to use it A. when it's worth something, B. when it's clever. At least those 2 criteria must be met. Just now, neither was met, as was the case at Friday's, and I think that's why I felt so annoyed afterwards. A simple statement, turned into a "why's that", and after explanation turned into a "I knew the right answer already, I just let you talk for a long time for no reason." Sweet.
Office Max is a good time. I'm trying to find a different position for the summer and fall. I start classes at Davenport in May; right now I'm trying to secure enough loan money to not be poor all summer, so we'll see how that works out for me. I've got to talk to Chase about private money I think. Andrea, Cassidy, & I have a lot to do before London. For me, it's mainly money-related (another reason I have to get enough from school to cover living expenses). And I need to get on getting my passport. It will be fine though; as long as we have our plane tickets by the end of June, we'll be in good shape.
I want things to be right for the students in Virginia. I want the ones who never did anything to that kid to have this wiped away from them. I'm cynical enough to feel like, out of the 32 people who died, maybe 3 of them were genuinely nice people who had a lot going for them. And of all the people who were injured and who will never be the same...how many of them will look back on this bitterly for the rest of their lives, and wonder where benevolence was that day? Columbine victims still do. Always will. Likewise with September 11th. Shit, I feel that way every day that I have trouble walking, and that only effects me, as selfish as that is.
It was described as "the first real tragedy of The MySpace Era". Thank you, Baby-boomers for A. downplaying what my generation has to go through and generalizing it so inadequately, and B. pointing it out. (I know, those are 2 opposite reactions, but go with it...it's an accurate portrayal of how I feel right now.) One side of me thinks...yes, it kind of is the first real tragedy. Even in 2001 we were a little young to feel that burn. This is the most recent cultural benchmark since 9/11 that might be talked about by a wide range of people as a "Where Were You When..." kind of incident. In my mind, I feel like 9/11 had more of an impact, but I am a couple of years older than most of "my generation", and it's not really right to lump the two together. Virginia Tech wasn't an act of terror, it was an act of a fucked up kid.
That's what scares me.
On a slightly related but not really related note, I'm going to tell a back story that has nothing to do with VT. I had a manager at Friday's who used to play the following mind game a lot, illustrated with an example: One day I asked her to run my financial (the strip of paper about my sales & transactions that I need to cash out at the end of my shift). Now, most servers would use their own personal swipe (which we use for everything from clocking in, to ringing in food) to get to the page on the computer, then would push the button labeled "Server Financial", and a manager would then have to use their swipe to give authorization for it to actually print out. Every employee, whether or not they have a swipe assigned to them, also has a number. Mine happens to be 31. On this day, I asked Brooke if she could swipe my financial, and as I was doing something several feet away, I assumed she would run it for me. The managers also have the capabilities of, while on their own screen in the computers, and run a server's financial for them using the servers assigned number rather than the server swiping in first.) After a few moments, I realized she hadn't done it and that she was standing by the computer looking at me, and I asked, "Can't you run it from yours?" (I had already told her my number.) "What do you mean?" she asks. "You can run it from your swipe; my number is 31." She asks, "How do you do that?" So I walk over and show her. This isn't something most servers know you can do, and I know that. Though I thought it was weird that she didn't know how to do it, I knew it wasn't out of the realm of possibility because it's not something you would have to know for anything. After I show her how to do, she asked me why I knew how to do it and I explained that another manager had taught me how to do a lot of that stuff 16 months before so I could help out and make things easier for everyone. Then Brooke established that she had in fact known exactly how to do it, she had apparently just wanted to see if I knew how. It annoyed me that she had done that. Not because it took any extra time, or stopped me from what I was doing. That she had thought it was acceptable to use mind tricks and manipulation for something so trivial. I never liked her quite as much after that, and never trusted anything she said or did afterwards either.
I only tell this story because I just had an interaction that reminded me of the same manipulation techniques. I will be the first to support manipulation. But I like to use it A. when it's worth something, B. when it's clever. At least those 2 criteria must be met. Just now, neither was met, as was the case at Friday's, and I think that's why I felt so annoyed afterwards. A simple statement, turned into a "why's that", and after explanation turned into a "I knew the right answer already, I just let you talk for a long time for no reason." Sweet.
Office Max is a good time. I'm trying to find a different position for the summer and fall. I start classes at Davenport in May; right now I'm trying to secure enough loan money to not be poor all summer, so we'll see how that works out for me. I've got to talk to Chase about private money I think. Andrea, Cassidy, & I have a lot to do before London. For me, it's mainly money-related (another reason I have to get enough from school to cover living expenses). And I need to get on getting my passport. It will be fine though; as long as we have our plane tickets by the end of June, we'll be in good shape.
I want things to be right for the students in Virginia. I want the ones who never did anything to that kid to have this wiped away from them. I'm cynical enough to feel like, out of the 32 people who died, maybe 3 of them were genuinely nice people who had a lot going for them. And of all the people who were injured and who will never be the same...how many of them will look back on this bitterly for the rest of their lives, and wonder where benevolence was that day? Columbine victims still do. Always will. Likewise with September 11th. Shit, I feel that way every day that I have trouble walking, and that only effects me, as selfish as that is.
It was described as "the first real tragedy of The MySpace Era". Thank you, Baby-boomers for A. downplaying what my generation has to go through and generalizing it so inadequately, and B. pointing it out. (I know, those are 2 opposite reactions, but go with it...it's an accurate portrayal of how I feel right now.) One side of me thinks...yes, it kind of is the first real tragedy. Even in 2001 we were a little young to feel that burn. This is the most recent cultural benchmark since 9/11 that might be talked about by a wide range of people as a "Where Were You When..." kind of incident. In my mind, I feel like 9/11 had more of an impact, but I am a couple of years older than most of "my generation", and it's not really right to lump the two together. Virginia Tech wasn't an act of terror, it was an act of a fucked up kid.
That's what scares me.
posted by Alesheia @ 8:03 PM
0 comments
