work has been draining mentally and i’ve been coping by falling deep down the rabbit hole of a kpop group with my best friend of 13 years... all i wanna do is sleep nowadays, it’s kind of funny that i miss school now that it’s finally over. i guess it’s just in human nature to yearn for things that we don’t have :\

I felt owned by an employer once. He was sexist and baited me into working for him only to turn the tables and gaslight me. And to be honest I’ve never pin pointed the feeling that has sat in my gut about him until recently; until watching my idol go through the same thing on a large scale in front of the world, until what has happened, what has been happening to Taylor Swift in her industry.

Mine was a veterinary surgeon whom I worked with in the past. I left the veterinary field and started a new career. The Vet (we will call him) moved away and when he came back he contacted me with a new idea to start his own practice.

He painted me a beautiful picture of what this clinic would be like. He said he couldn’t do it without me and promised me the world. I still remember the phone call where he said the words- “you will be my practice manager, my right hand, you could run the show and have a handsome career, I’ll make sure you are set for life, you will have an opportunity to buy into the company as well, to profit share.

He offered to pay me whatever my current job paid me. I didn’t jump at saying yes. I worked so hard to be where I was and this was a big risk. My now husband was hesitant and didn’t trust him 🚩 but supportive of whatever I chose (love him). Well, im the only one of me so a month later I took the jump and put in my notice. I trusted him.

I was hired on with one other person. A male, roughly my same age, overall a nice dude. We will call him Sam. I was in charge of all operations of the front desk and all aspects of the business side of things. I started every excel sheet for income tracking, taxes, inventory. I created every document, I created the scheduling program, I set up every vendor accounts. I scanned every piece of paper that came into the clinic doors, I set up our benefits. I answered phones I handled every single client. I visited clinics and preached to people our vision, so they would refer to us (we were a referral based clinic) on my days off. I did it ALL. I also scrubbed into surgery with the Vet and Sam, as there were only 3 of us running the entire show. If the phone rang, I would answer on a headset under my face mask and handle a client or clinic call right there, scrubbed in. I didn’t mind, I felt proud to show off my multitasking skills. He would give a little wink and a joke and the validation felt nice, like I earned his approval 🚩 when I did something above and beyond.

About a year went by and I was rolling in hard earned money, that’s for sure. I was working 7 am to 10 pm some days so I always had overtime. Sam was responsible for 1 thing- patient care, and I was responsible for LITERALLY everything else you could possibly think of. 🚩Needless to say I was getting worked to the BONE 🚩 . I was cool with it tho, this is what I signed up for right? We were growing and successful and getting BUSY!

One day I accidentally found out the pay gap 🚩between myself and Sam. I had been completely naive to the fact that we were not equals, nor was I getting paid “management” but that he made SUBSTANTIALLY more than me. I gave it some energy for a couple days and vented to my husband, then I let it go. Sam was nice, it’s not his fault. 🚩Maybe he’s just worth more than I am to the company, I told myself. 🚩Maybe he has a past history I didn’t know about that made him more valuable. It definitely should have been my red flag 🚩

My relationship with the Vet was kind of like a daughter and father but 🚩 only on his terms. Fun and playful and lots of “your our boss lady!”. It would also take very odd turns, 🚩 having to do small tasks outside my morals. In the office he would call me “the office manager, the boss, it’s all up to you, hospital administrator!” yet on the phone would call me 🚩 “the front desk person” 🚩“my receptionist” to other veterinarians. It bothered me, a lot, but I pushed it away. 🚩Who am I to be that nit picky over a title? 🚩He probably didn’t mean it or misspoke, I thought.

The tricky part is that I only have little under the radar examples of his abuse. 🚩 The ones you can’t QUITE put your finger on, that you can’t QUITE justify quitting on the spot but make you feel 🚩 worthless. They continued every day. He was incredibly sweet and funny, and then 🚩condescending and cruel. It was a roller coaster to try to please him constantly. It wore on me. I came to work and to deal with it I would make lists on scratch paper. Lists of why I was starting to hate my job. Lists that I would read in the car and cry. If I wasn’t cheerful he’d come in with 🚩“PMSING TODAY?” .... I’d laugh n bite my tongue. 🚩 That’s just being friendly playful right, he knows me well enough to say that to me, we’re like family, right? But every day I felt awful. And I needed my job now, more than ever. 🚩 He knew I needed this job, too. We had just put an offer on a house and surprise! we’re now expecting a baby.

Being pregnant changed things. I couldn’t assist in surgery and xrays like I used to. 🚩He would scoff when I would have to leave for prenatal appointments. 🚩 He would be caring and kind one minute, giving me hand me down baby clothes and gifts, and then cold and dry the next. 🚩Sam could and often would sleep in and no call/no show. He would roll in at noon and jump into surgery, acting like nothing happened, they’d joke together about women in front of me and being hung over. I was 5 min late once because of a traffic jam and had to have a “sit down meeting” about attendance. 🚩 I felt so ASHAMED and EMBARRASSED. 🚩 I had never once, NOT EVER, had work problems, attendance problems, behavioral problems, in my entire history of working. This job was my LIFE. 🚩 Was something seriously wrong with me???

The last straw came when I was 6 months pregnant. He claimed that everyone was having a private “check in meeting”. He told me at mine that 🚩him and Sam talked 🚩 and agreed that I’m not the happy bubbly girl I used to be. I sat with him in the shade of a big oak tree in the grass that has since fallen in a wind storm (ironically. He said I would be getting a $1 raise and that he wanted me to take on MORE responsibility since I could no longer assist in surgery and listed basically anything he could possibly think of to tack on to my job to make up for that $1. 🚩 all I could think was... how???? I was already drowning. I finally got courage this time and said NO. My lip quivered and tears ran down my face with 🚩 stress. I brought up valid arguments but looking back I wish my voice wasnt so timid. Or that I had the courage to call out just one, ONE instance of his inappropriate behavior. But lastly, 🚩 I asked why is my title “FRONT DESK PERSON” when Sam is now “Lead Surgery Operations Director (Who Does No Wrong)??

His response sticks with me to this day. It was painful and degrading and I will never forget it. After working my ass off and building this place from the bottom, the long nights and everything I gave them... I also will never forget his 🚩 smirk . “Well you see, giving you a title like that would be like rewarding a BAD DOG with a BONE” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

🚩I was devastated. 🚩And confused. 🚩I’m a BAD DOG???

I stuck it out for the remainder of my pregnancy, working the 12 hour days up until I went into labor at work. I trained a new girl on every process, excel spread, schedule I had developed and created. I put on a fake smile and wrote my scratch lists and re-read my lists on the way home and cried. I couldn’t just quit. I couldn’t let my family down.

We had our baby and stared at his tiny toes and fingers and cried every single day that I may have to go back to my hell job. I interviewed for different clinics while on leave. I was desperate. The vet was on a sweet streak- 🚩 sending us gifts, having his wife cook us meals and checking in on us all the time. He frequently asked what date I was coming back. He informed me that when I came back I would need to take the later shift and give the new girl my current shift. 🚩She needed it, he said. He said we could discuss the title of “lead receptionist” now and could 🚩 continue to work towards my goal of hospital manager. 🚩 I accepted but I felt sick. 🚩 I felt like I had to go back to work for someone who I couldn’t trust. I felt like he owned me in the worst possible way. (At one time he even tried to tell me I had half of the PTO that I actually had saved up for maternity leave, another 🚩🚩🚩 but I saved my paystubs as PROOF)

Today I work for the clinic that we shared the building with. When they heard I left they immediately offered me a position. The Vet left to purchase his own facility. He acted shocked and surprised and in disbelief that I wasn’t returning. At first it was tough, not gonna lie. We literally ate noodles for a year because I went down to part time. But the bravest thing I ever did was RUN ♥️ I now LOVE my job and they treat their employees wonderfully and equally and have real life morals.

I actually didn’t intend for this to be a novel LOL but even if not a single soul reads this, it’s therapeutic for me to actually get my thoughts down after almost 6 years now. My advice is to ALWAYS trust your gut. TRUST THE 🚩 RED 🚩 FLAGS. Don’t let anyone make you question your character. Never EVER ACCEPT being controlled and manipulated against your morals. Choose the future over time spent in the past (thanks T @taylorswift) and work somewhere that respects you. That pays you FAIRLY. Don’t be afraid to TELL your story too because this has to STOP (I’ve almost deleted this whole thing 13x) If it happened to me I can’t imagine how many other women it happens to. Anyway if you read this then holy shit here’s a hug and CHIN UP YOU ARE WORTHY, YOU ARE NOT A BAD DOG. ♥️

Year-In-Life | 2018

Or that annual New Year’s meme about yours truly.

1. What did you do in 2018 that you’d never done before? Got a big girl job! Got insurance! Made my very own eye doctor appointment! Got an apartment all on my own with my boyfriend! And this all happened since October! Basically I haven’t had time to do more than sleep in like two months!!!!!

But like. I’m making good money now, I can actually do things like go to the freaking doctor when I’m sick and not completely bankrupt myself if I get hit by a truck or something. Oh, and my new job has PTO! How rad is that, I can get paid for taking vacations now? The only downside is my eyes are not taking the staring at a computer screen all day very well and ache ALL the time now. But hey! Things are looking up other than my eyes being stabbed out of my skull?!

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Ugh I never remember what resolutions I actually made though! I mean, I know one of them was get a better job, which I did. I started smoking again for like two months and then quit again in November because holy shit I don’t need that in my life. I... briefly lost weight and then gained it all back because I stopped caring.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Couple high school people, I think. One of my best friend’s from middle school had her second kid. Another friend from middle school is expecting a third next year. But nobody particularly close, no. 4. Did anyone close to you die? I don’t think so.

5. What countries did you visit? Alternatively, what is your favorite place that you did go this year? Ugh, no countries. Nick got to go to Germany for his job training but I had to stay here because y’know, money, and also, money. Didn’t have the big girl job at the time and he went to Germany the week before we were due to go to North Carolina and I’m sorry, but I can’t freaking afford two weeks off of work. Couldn’t? Eh, still probably can’t unless I work crazy overtime to obtain more PTO. 

That said, I had lots of fun on our annual trip down to North Carolina. Once again I got to read a lot of books in the pool, chill on the beach, and play dumb drinking games with people five years younger than me. We also had an added date night, which I think I’m going to require every year.

6. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018? Oh hey, I basically got everything that I wanted from last year. More steady job with insurance, apartment, not doing the college thing yet, but I’m going to have to think long and hard about how I want to proceed from here. This job opened up a LOT of opportunities for me, and I may pursue some of those instead of college. I just have to decide if that’s what I want.

Only thing that I didn’t get was, y’know, the ring thing. So here’s to hoping for next year? 

Also, ideally, we’re looking to buy a house sometime in either 2020 or 2021, so here’s to hoping we save up enough to make that happen.

7. What date from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? October 15th is when I started my new job. November 9th was when we moved out. Not many big events this year other than those. 8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Got new job! Got apartment! Read a metric crapton of books! Bought a nice couch that is all ours!

9. What was your biggest failure? Honestly? I’m not really sure. This year was kind of a good one. I’ve been very patient with Nick’s mom whenever we go on our weekly outing to one of the bars in our hometown and haven’t dropkicked her into the street whenever she gets too drunk. 10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Since moving out of the old house last month my weird allergy thing has improved wildly. We’re still using the sensitive skin detergent and I’m using very mildly scented soaps, but all in all the itching is so much less. I got really sick and missed Thanksgiving because I got some kind of stomach flu, and I think I had another stomach issue a few months back, but it’s been mostly mild. 11. What was the best thing you bought? I got new glasses at a vastly discounted rate because my vision insurance is apparently really good? We also bought a huge new sectional that is bigger, comfier, and LESS EXPENSIVE than all of the other couches we were looking at. I got Nick a sit/stand desk for Christmas and got upgraded to his old one by proxy. Got new books and a new painting for our living room. We also bought a new TV, because my old one was fucked and since we were moving out we didn’t have Seth’s to watch. 12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Mine. I was so good this year. 13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Eh. Nick’s mom drives me nuts, my mom drives me nuts, the roommates aren’t as bad now because we aren’t there, but it got a little spotty near the end there.

14. Where did most of your money go? Mostly things like bills, car payments, groceries, plane ticket to South Carolina to see my family, Christmas presents. While I got a reasonably good big girl job Nick got a reasonably good computer engineering job which means even if he is just a starting salary it’s still about 30k more than I make. Which just, blows my mind to say? Because I’m not making less than 15k a year now?  15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I’m sorry that you have to hear it again, but new job! New apartment! New books and new things and hopefully a new chapter of our life. I’ve been trying to not get too psyched about things just in case the bottom drops out, but for now I’m letting myself enjoy this.

16. What song will always remind you of 2018? Paradise Valley. The Sailor Song. Daddy. Smallest Light. Lots of things off the Stranger Things soundtrack. 17. Compared to this time last year, are you: i. happier or sadder? Happier? Yeah, happier. ii. thinner or fatter? Little more, maybe? Again, lost a bunch but gained it back. iii. richer or poorer? Richer. With both of us having good jobs it’s so much easier to save. I dumped a little more than I should have into Christmas presents, but I’m still okay.  18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Write. I’ve been really bad about it, but I’m hoping that this year I’ll find my stride. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Still pretty chill this year. Maybe gotten my head out of my ass and tried to get a good job earlier, but I can’t regret it too much. 20. How will you be spending Christmas? Spent Christmas Eve listening to Nick’s mom bitch about things and eating food that kind of turned my stomach. Spent Christmas Day at his mom’s in the morning and then his grandparents’ all afternoon. Only managed to squeeze a tiny amount of time for ourselves this year, but we had breakfast together and opened our presents. Hopefully next year we get Christmas Eve to ourselves again. 21. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve? So, last year we spent New Year’s cooking curry (him) and pirozki (me) and watching Planet Earth. I’m hoping to do something similar this year, but we might end up at his mom’s place getting trashed since we’re both off the next day. We’ll see. 22. Did you fall in love in 2018? Maybe a little more. 23. Best month for you this year? October? November? August? April-ish? Honestly most of my months this year were pretty okay. Like, I’m so sorry for all of you that had shitty years, but mine was so much better than basically anything from the past goddamn decade.

24. What was your favorite TV program? Of just 2018? Didn’t watch too much this year? Watched the second season of Westworld, Voltron, the Sense8 series finale, Killing Eve, Castlevania, The Haunting of Hill House, Bride of the Ancient Magus, Lost In Space... But honestly, most of them were good but not fantastic. I really liked the Sense8 finale and Hill House. Oooh, also, She-Ra. And Little Witch Academia! Those were good ones. 25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Eh.

26. What was the best book you read? Spinning Silver was so good, guys. The Goblin Emperor, A Tale For the Time Being, the Queen’s Thief series, the Kingkiller Chronicle, and the Nightrunner series were highlights too. It was a real good year for books, okay. 27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Paradise Valley. Holy shit that song is the best. 28. What did you want and got? I got a lot of stuff I wanted this year. The job, the apartment, books, games. Nick got me a fucking switch for Christmas and this really pretty teardrop necklace made of green glass that’s just fucking gorgeous. And I got the glasses, the stupid tv, the better couch... ugh, we spent so much money this year, but I mean, it’s kind of about time that we had the money to splurge a little?

29. What did you want but didn’t get? A... ring? I mean, we’ve talked about it and we’ve both been moving steadily in this direction, but it didn’t happen this year. I foolishly made a bet with one of his brother’s friends while I was drunk. He thought that he’d propose before December of 2020, I thought he’d propose before the end of 2019, so now even if I’m right I’m wrong and I know he is going to give me shit about it.

Also. I think I might actively want kids now? Like, not in a nebulous eventually kind of way, but I think I might want to start trying? I don’t know. More on that next year. 30. What was your favorite film of this year? The Greatest Showman was really great. Other than that though, I didn’t watch that many. 31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 29 went a lot like 28 and 27. Had lunch with Nick at the Lantern, and then lazed around until we went out to Old Bag of Nails with a few of our friends. It was nice. Nick got me knitting supplies because I mentioned a million years ago that I kind of wanted to learn so I could do something while listening to audiobooks.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Hah! A better president and a ring is the only thing that I didn’t get from my wishes last year. 33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018? Honestly until I started having to dress for an office job my personal fashion concept was PJs all the time except for when I had to go wait tables for a few hours. Now that I have the office job I’ve been wearing lots of sweaters, scarves, and skirts with tall boots when it’s not too cold for them. My bet is next year I’m going to give up and buy scrubs like everybody else in the nursing department. 34. What kept you sane? Reading was really, really great this year. - STILL leaving this answer 35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Eh. Amber Heard was recently very pretty on my tumblr dashboard? 36. What political issue stirred you the most? FUCK DONALD TRUMP IN THE EAR 2015678. —– Ayyyyy, this was my response from last year, and apparently also the year before and the one before! Hello past me’s, don’t worry, it’s still getting worse. 37. Who did you miss? Nick, while he was in Germany and when I was in South Carolina. It was dumb. I wanted to smooch his forehead gently. 38. Who was the best new person you met? I have lots of new coworkers, but Bryan is my favorite. He’s pretty cool and I could see myself being good friends with him if he doesn’t fuck off to a different state. 

39. Talk about a new friend that you made this year: *Sherlock voice* I don’t have friends. ---- I’m just going to leave this here. 

40. Post a picture from the beginning of the year:

Took this one in... early March, but it’s technically the earliest photo I took of myself that wasn’t technically from December of 2017. I really miss the dark hair.

41. Post a picture from the end of the year:

This was taken a couple days ago when I got new glasses. I am 100% not naked, I’m wearing a tanktop.

42. A memorable meal discovered this year? Uh. I don’t know if I actually tried any new recipes this year? Most things that I cooked were repeat favorites from last year and Nick hasn’t cooked too terribly much either. The new jobs thing has been nice, but also we have SO MUCH LESS TIME.

43. What was your favorite memory this year? I don’t know. There have been a few of them. I had a night that was kind of shitty and empty, and ended up reading that Cornstalk Fiddle fic that I’ve talked about and it turned into one of my favorite memories. The vacation and moving was pretty nice.

44. What are you excited for next year? Still wanna try for that trip that’s just me and Nick, but I’ve got my little brother’s graduation to go to in May and the North Carolina trip in August, which basically wipes out my PTO for the year, but we’ll see. Maybe we can take a weekend trip somewhere nice.

Oh. Also, I’m freaking excited for KINGDOM HEARTS 3?!

45. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018: Things can get better? Your life isn’t over if you don’t make it to college? Just. Things get better. We’ll go with that one. 46. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: I’m singin’ in the rain Just singin’ in the rain What a glorious feeling I’m happy again

First Fandom of 2018: January seemed to be an ecclectic mixture of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Captive Prince, The Exorcist, and Teen Wolf before I settled into Stranger Things at the end of the month. Favorite Main Character of 2018: Ahhhh. Fuck, I don’t know. Ryan Dalias or Doug Eiffel, probably. Favorite Villain of 2018: Damien, from the Bright Sessions. He’s not... exactly a big bad, but he certainly isn’t good. Also, Billy Hargrove. Favorite M/F Couple of 2018: I actually read a lot of Jaime/Brienne this year because astolat started writing it and it was just really solidly good. Oh, Miryem and the Staryk Lord was also A++ Favorite F/F Couple of 2018: I did not read or write any, but let me tell you, I felt Isabelle Lovelace and Renee Minkowski on a fucking galactic scale. Favorite M/M Couple of 2018: Mark/Damien and Billy/Steve absolutely dominated all of my other fandoms this year. But also, Ryan/Akmazian hurts my entire heart. Fandom That You Never Expected To Get Into: The Bright Sessions? I did not expect to actually have feelings about these characters. Fandom That Made An Unexpected Comeback: Read some Harry Potter and Thor fic sporadically throughout the year. And Pacific Rim 2 hit my like a freight train. Fandom That Inspired The Most Crack: Uh. Stranger Things, I guess? Last Fandom of 2018: I mean, technically I’ve been reading more Harringrove because of the holiday exchange, but I’m still pretty hung up on Wolf 359 and the Bright Sessions. Unfortunately, neither of them really have fic? Favorite Fandom of 2018: I liked all of them, but Stranger Things and The Bright Sessions was so much of my year I’m gonna have to go with those two.

This is a story about farming. It is quite long. I think it may be worth reading anyway, but unfortunately I have no way to prove it. I’ve also tried my best but I still don’t know if it actually makes perfect sense in every way? But it did all actually happen; so it all kind of has to make at least a little bit of sense, even if doesn’t really seem like it.

The trouble all started in 1901, when my great great grandfather emigrated to the United States from the modern-day Czech Republic and later, in 1911, bought a 90-acre farm there. Many years later, most of that farm came to belong to my grandfather, and roughly 10 years back he retired from his job selling tires at the tire store and started making the 40 mile drive north to the farm to spend his summer days there and plant a garden (in the area that wasn’t already rented out to be planted with soybeans.) Not long after that, he had enough produce to start selling stuff at a nearby farmers’ market in an upscale town, physically not far from the farm, although psychogeographically immensely distant from that chunk of desolate, isolated, fairly representative rural Ohio.

I was dragged in in the summer of 2015, from the end of June to the beginning of July, mostly pounding stakes into the ground so that the roughly 1000-1500 tomato plants that my grandfather had planted that year (with occasional help from my grandmother and uncle) could be tied up between them and the fruit wouldn’t lay on the ground and rot easily. I hated it there (in fairness, I probably would’ve hated anything that involved leaving the house during that time in my life) and when my dad got me out of it (by hiring me to help him paint a house) I quickly divested myself of the money I’d received there to wash my hands of the place and resolved never to go back. My dad was never in favor of me going to the farm, knowing as he did that the work could be dangerous (operating old, large, and unreliable tractors and backhoe with minimal training or safety precautions; running large, dangerous power saws in creative ways without the proper guards, gear, or safety precautions, mostly to put points on stakes; operating saws in an unsafe manner while standing in the raised bucket of the old and unreliable backhoe in order to trim trees; etc) and probably also suspected that I personally (especially then) was fairly vulnerable to being psychologically manipulated into performing difficult tasks that I was unhappy doing over a long period of time while being underpaid under some circumstances. Hmm.

I returned to the farm for the entirety of the summer of 2016. After barely surviving/graduating my senior year of high school that year I had given up on life and settled pretty quickly back into the routine of the daily back-and-forth farm trips. It is true that I was getting paid; it was also true that I was being challenged and learning things, mostly the basics of planting vegetables, like which plants were cold-season crops and which were warm-season and how far apart to space the transplants, and how a PTO works on a tractor; and it’s certainly a fact that on a personal level, I was still completely taken in by my grandfather’s wit and farm wisdom and overpowering managerial confidence. I made myself completely subordinate to him, and blamed myself when his ideas for what we should be doing next were completely obvious to him but rather opaque to me; I remember it frequently happening that he would tell me what to do and I would reflexively go off to do it, and then realize I was unclear on what he meant and have to timidly re-approach him for further instructions. This kind of slowed down the learning process. Much later I would also realize how superficial his constant confidence could be, and how it was often less the natural attitude of someone who knew what they were doing and more a tool he used to impress people into doing things without thinking too much about any of the potential alternatives. Also, according to my admittedly fallible memories, I was getting paid $35 per day for what were generally between 7 and 8 hour days. I was, in fact, 18 years old that year and probably could have gotten a different job that for one thing paid a better hourly wage and for another left me less reliant on the caprices of my family; but this was neither a thing that happened nor a thing that was expected from me, least of all by me. My internal world hadn’t expanded as I’d grown older; my universe of possibilities was limited to the things that were already present in my somewhat simple life. This was probably symptomatic of some larger problem or problems with the functionality of my brain at that point in my life.

One can become trapped in many different ways. You can be trapped in a specific city, or a zip code, or in a geographic region sorely lacking in cities, or one which they are considered entirely strange and outlandish things; in a job, in a career, in a lifestyle, or in a set of lifestyles considered realistic given your high school grades, ability to connect with others, and standing in society and life; in a friend group, or in an identity, or in a lack thereof, or in any number of the various rules and regulations that govern how one is allowed to interact with the rest of the human race; in a comedy, a tragedy, a pastoral narrative, or in any combination of the above kinds of story that one no longer wishes to be part of. For all I know, thanks to the stereotypical farm benefits of character building, meaningful work experiencing, and nature connecting-with, working at the farm for that year may have actually been good for me; nevertheless, I wish that it had been my last full summer there. I had showed up, learned some stuff, earned a small amount of money, and, in retrospect experienced at least the majority of what this particular 90 acre area of the planet had had to offer. Alas.

2017! This year, we had a pretty consistent schedule that I can remember clearly to this day: we left at 9:30 AM, when my grandfather would pull into my driveway and blow his horn, and got back between 7 and 8 o’clock at night. Built into that schedule is a one hour commute each way (we both lived about 40 miles away from the farm, which was actually inhabited by my uncle, who was often around and occasionally helped with the work but frequently made fairly abrasive and critical comments (if often correct) comments about it (for example, about the fact that our work day started so late in the morning)) and a daily grocery store stop for drinks for the cooler. I was the driver (once my grandfather’s problems with what I suspect is undiagnosed narcolepsy had almost killed us a couple of times) which you would think give me control over the stereo, but I quickly learned that my grandfather had pretty specific taste in music (country from the 50s and 60s) and a temperament unsuited to most podcasts. Obviously, most of that time in the daily schedule was taken up by the work day (so generally either planting tomatoes (which gets a little less rewarding after about the 500th one, which that year only put us at about a quarter of the way through the tomato plants, not counting the hundreds of eggplant, cabbage, and zucchini plants or the miscellaneous corn, squash, and beans), pounding stakes and tying string for the tomatoes, or harvesting tomatoes) which lay at the end of the lonely highway on a lonely work site at which the same 2-4 people showed up every day. (It became four people once you counted my younger brother, who came up to the farm that year until the start of marching band season got him out of it, and who fortunately made it his main job to get everyone to pack up and leave promptly at the end of the day. Once he stopped showing up, and even though I persuaded my grandfather to move the schedule up an hour so that we could get home earlier, we never left as consistently as we did when he was there; I didn’t have the stamina to find my grandfather (who didn’t carry a phone or a watch) and tell him what time it was at the end of the day every single day so that he could start to think about leaving.) I was being paid $40 a day, with a $20 bonus for market days once they started, which with our theoretically 35-hour work week ends up being about $6.29 an hour? Huh. In addition to the extra $20, the market season was nice because picking stuff is less tiring and more rewarding than planting stuff, and because I got to see way more people every day in the form of our market customers, even if I was interacting with them mainly through the intermediary of my grandfather.

Another nice thing is that this is the first year I have a decent photo album for! I started experimenting with old 35mm film cameras in late June and by early July I had my first interchangeable-lens digital camera, which I relied upon to keep my brain alive for large parts of the summer. I have… a lot of pictures from this season.

Finally, at the end of the year, I ended up in college. Any criticisms of my grandfather that I might offer up here have to be tempered by the fact that he did in fact drive me to the local (relatively) cheap higher-education dispenser and basically registered me for me (technically, I applied but there’s a 100% acceptance rate.) This was something I desperately wanted to do but was unable to make happen by myself. I won’t say that my grandfather every really understood the problems I went through while experiencing formal education, but as perhaps the member of my family least comfortable himself with the concept and culture of higher education, he was the most willing to notice and accept that I needed help getting started with it.

However, I did do quite badly that semester (I started out enrolled in 4.5 classes and ended enrolled in 2, with a C average) and going to the farm to work 4 days a week still (after morning classes and also on Saturday) did not help that except in that it provided a convenient distraction from it; an opportunity for me to distract myself from my frustrations by wearing myself out.

Why did I come back to the farm for 2018? I wasn’t happy there in 2017, I have the journal entries to prove it. Reasons: it was the path of least resistance, it was something I was more already familiar with than any other job, and my grandfather remained a very difficult person for me to say no to. (Also, he asked me (and my brother) to commit in midwinter, when it still seemed non-threatening and pretty far away.) The schedule was pretty much the same as I described for last year except that for some reason we went up 6 days a week as often as 5 (weather permitting.) My brother went up with us for the same period of time as he had previously, but was even more ornery this year than he was the last, which was an accomplishment; this didn’t stop me from being grateful for his presence. Mostly, I recruited him to work on whatever I was working on during the day, whenever I had a specific project: like building a fence around the second patch, or digging drainage ditches on the lawn, or moving the rainwater collection tank trailer to water stuff before Grandpa could realize that something that he didn’t plan for us was happening. My uncle became extremely fond of complaining that we were getting less done working on the same thing together than we might have working on different things far apart; this may have been true, but I was unwilling to test the theory.

As I implied above, I had a lot more freedom this year to pick projects that I thought needed to be done instead of following instructions all day, as long as I could seem confident about it under scrutiny later. I responded in two ways: I started wearing earbuds and listened to music and occasionally podcasts for most of the day, which was great except that it ruined earbuds and made me feel slightly spacey like I wasn’t even physically there sometimes, given that it was the main input that was actually making it to my brain, and I gave myself three new jobs. The first was to pick, display, and sell produce at a roadside stand that I set up back home (ideally without attracting too much attention from my uncle, who was doing the same thing); the second was to start picking for and selling at a new weekday farmers’ market; and the third was to fix an old dump truck that had been sitting in the back barn for the better part of the decade with a broken brake line, with the help of my dad, who came up to the farm a few days to show me what to actually do. The stand was very successful but 20% went to my mom for stocking it during the day and another 20% went to my grandfather for owning the farm; the new farmers’ market only required me to pay off my grandfather but had too many vendors for the customer base and was generally very slow; and the truck project was a huge disaster that consumed countless hours and brain cells: one brake line burst after another, we ended up having to remove and replace the two brake cylinders in each of the back wheels (which necessitated jacking the 12.5 ton vehicle up and removing both rear wheels and axles), the wiring for the lights was fucked from a previous botched repair job by a person or persons unknown, the bed needed to be attacked with the farm’s one working boom truck to get it to even move, and even after it was going up and down smoothly the hydraulic pump was occasionally leaking fluid, which I was neither qualified for or willing to try to fix; then, during the first test drive with a potential buyer, the radiator apparently exploded, and he convinced my grandfather to sell it to him for $1000, which was split between him, me, and my dad and uncle for helping (more or less.) I eventually calculated that with those three extra projects in addition to my regular salary (up $5 a day but without the weekly bonus, resulting in a net raise of $5 a week) I nearly made minimum wage working there that summer. (Hey, if Quinn is going to read this, I should probably note that minimum wage in Ohio was $8.15 an hour, at least when I wrote this, it’s up to $8.55 an hour now.)

Also, after going on three years of the whole “pull into Mitch’s driveway and blow the horn for a while” routine, the horn on my grandfather’s F-150 finally gave out and he locked the keys in my car while climbing inside of it to use its. (He did admit to this but also told me that I should never have left the keys inside of a car with “automatic locks.”) I had a much better spring semester this year, but it still wasn’t made easier by my 28 hours a week at the farm (plus the commute) right up until October 25th, when I finally quit.

Performance review:

Another part of my feelings about the farm that I have to mention is that the whole time I was there, I was pretty well aware that it was not nearly as productive as it should have been. One large part of this was just flawed soil management practices; by the time I got there, my grandfather had been planting mostly the same plants in mostly exactly the same spots for nearly 10 years, which is absolutely not how any of that is ever supposed to work. He sent soil samples away for analysis, got back reports prescribing long lists of fertilizers to be applied in massive quantities to help production, and then went back to using what he was planning on putting down anyway (mostly starting fertilizer (which we dragged around in 5 gallon buckets for the entire planting season), calcium spray to try to prevent previous years’ blossom end rot epidemics, and some poorly labeled sacks of miscellaneous stuff that he had gotten at a farm auction and that had been taking up space in a barn for years.) My grandfather’s managerial attitude was that all ideas were suspect unless they occurred to him first, which meant it sometimes required some stamina to get certain things done; he would ride up on the lawn mower and stare at you suspiciously if he wasn’t sure of exactly what you were doing.

Like this.

(Of course, the farm was not really run with the purpose of maximizing production, anyway. My grandfather kept it going year after year initially because he was retired, and wanted something to take up his time, and because he wanted to turn himself into a farmer; later, he got the idea that he was going to turn me into one.)

The other main obstacle to growth was the fact that we were surrounded by 80 acres of soybean fields that were at a slightly higher elevation than our plants, which meant that 2 inches of rainfall was more than enough to flood the place. This is not actually a good thing for any plant’s growth (except for cucumbers, and I guess sometimes zucchini.) I ended up (with my brother) digging hundreds of feet of drainage ditches in 2018 to try to combat this. Like, with a shovel. We had a trencher, but its hydraulic pump leaked fluid like a sieve, which had prevented it from being used for years, kind of like that dump truck I mentioned fixing earlier. Other broken down equipment included two boom trucks (one of which was specifically designed just to lay railroad ties), two full-size tractors (an Oliver and a Farm-All), a handful of mechanical tractor attachments that lay scattered throughout the barn-adjacent grass, a smallish red Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower, and a 1963 Buick Riviera.

On a personal level, going to the farm every day felt like dying? It was long hours of difficult, tedious, low-paid work in a desolate and isolated location. It was sort of like a sensory deprivation chamber, but for thoughts and feelings instead of for senses. On one hand, I regret every single miserable second of it, and hope to never see the place again for as long as I somehow manage to live (sadly unlikely); on the other hand, I do think it made me more appreciative of the moments when I do feel like I’m alive in the world, even when they’re not exactly easy ones. I have more enthusiasm for certain types of fear now, like driving to a strange and distant city to see a band play by myself, actually talking to the host in the AirBNB there, and descending into a strange subway system without really knowing how I’m going to get anywhere I’m trying to go from there; or signing up for classes for next semester without knowing exactly what they’ll be like, and talking to the strange person sitting next to me, or even just emailing the professor to ask for an explanation of an assignment that I don’t understand. It reminds me that I’m not as trapped anymore.

This contradicts what I want to be true, which is that the farm was just a background event in my life, instead of something that defined it for all of those years. The things that I was doing in the background of this, the story about farming, were the things I now realize were actually important to me at the time: taking those pictures, going back to school, the music I was listening to while I was out in the field, pounding in tomato stakes… I was also re-learning the piano in the evenings when I still had the energy. Unfortunately, the farm did define that part of my life to a large extent because of the way it served as an obstacle to me pursuing those things. The thing is, I wasn’t really trapped there, in any real physical or consequential sense; the farm took over my life because I was unable to recognize and act on the fact that I did have access to real sources of happiness.

Also, I guess the whole time I was technically committing tax evasion?

Anyway, whenever I see one of those posts about how nice it would be just to leave society and go live on a farm or something, this is what I’m thinking of.

Final Endings and New Beginnings.

Hello everyone, It’s been a while since I devoted time to writing my thoughts on my life lately and I thought now’s a pretty good time. The tail end of 2018 was rough for me.I had been having lots of trouble at my job. Just being thrown at every little thing left me worn thin not to mention dealing with the fact that my friend, Stacy was going to die “Any Day Now” for....what seemed to be about six months. I ended up losing my job when my Aunt (who’s fought cancer twice in recent memory) had a heart attack after her last bit of chemo. We were under the impression she was going to be dead by some point in the next week so my other aunt who moved to Florida came up and her husband who lives in Jordan came back to the US (He was just taken off the no fly list) to see her. This all happened early on Wednesday morning so I called out of work on Wednesday and told them I’d figure out what’s going on and get back to them. I told them I would likely need a week, give or take. And at least until Friday, which I will take unpaid once my PTO runs out. My PTO would have run out at 1 PM on Friday and I was told if I wasn’t in at 1 PM on Friday that it would be considered job abandonment since they have a policy of no time off if you don’t have PTO. So Thursday morning I come in.grab my shit, let them count my box out and leave. Thankfully as the week continued she woke up early the next week and while far from good (she still can’t walk). She’s not dying. (Though we were told she was still likely not to make a year if the cancer comes back. And about a month ago she was cancer free!). Which leads me to my new problem. Finding work. This sort of thing has always been a bit of an issue for me. Because as much as I disliked my job I also knew I had it pretty good there. I worked a mile away. I got paid good money (For a teller. As I got more responsibilities...not so much) and for the most part I liked my coworkers and managers. But I also had a feeling I knew I was going to have an issue given they made a woman with stage 4 cancer work to keep her health insurance.....while the CEO saw her every day. She died 3 weeks into me being out of work. My unemployment wasn’t/isn’t as bad as it was last time I was out of work. All in all I’ll be out about 4 months total. Last time it was 8 and I spend my first month and a half trying things besides banking. I worked at a Printing Press and UPS. Didn’t last longer then a week at either of them. So I started back into banking and interviewed a lot. I had at least 6 in a 3 week span. Which given it was the Holiday season was quite a lot. But having issues finding work, and having friends pay for thing for me was taking it’s toll mentally. I did something I had never done before. I had intentionally cut myself. Not deep. But on my face. People asked me about it and I would steer the conversation elsewhere and I think people assumed it was a cat or fingernail. I’m.....not good about asking for help. Also during this time Stacy ended up passing and we dealt with the day off. The memorial. And supporting each other as best we could. but even knowing what was coming it was still a major blow with everything else going on and I think that was the straw that pushed me.I think I did a good job at not showing how I was struggling to keep going. But a week ago I finally got a bit of a light. One of my interviews bore fruit and they made me an offer. Almost exactly my hourly rate. Sadly only half the hours. But it’s maybe 2-3 miles away. In good weather I’ve walked worse. In doing some research I found a (current) real estate listing the property for sale and they asked me about my experience closing a branch in my interview. And in two out of three conversations with the branch manager she mentioned budget cuts to the branches budget in 2019.....So I’m not stupid. This is a branch with an expectation to close within the next few years and I was hired to help with that. Even if that hasn’t and likely won’t be communicated to me. The new bank has a back office in the next town over. So there’s hope and really I plan to knuckle down. And give this place everything I have. At least until it shows me otherwise. Having a lot of time to think during everything has shown me that for me to have a “future” all I really will need is enough to keep the property tax and utilities paid because we’re a year until the end of out mortgage.  Which to be honest takes a huge mental weight off. I mean I want to work full time and do well for myself. And will keep my eyes open for opportunities....and in all honesty I have a life plan/goal but it’s currently dependent on someone else’s choices. But all in all I’m looking forward to the challenges of it. And i made it through to the other side of this a little more beaten and broken. But a little wiser. And I know what I’m worth and I’m going out to get what I’m worth. I want to thank @nutellamolotov, @ingdamnit @aviviavai @shounensoul Nice Lady, John, and Jewels (Who’s Blog name I can’t remember) who have all been there for me during all this. Even if I didn’t let them in to know how bad I had been getting. And I’m iffy on if I would have continued going if not for them and their physical and mental support. Thank you so much. I want to thank a few other people. Shocktress who was really good to me during all this and sent me a whole of little presents and merch of their stuff. A blanket, mug, prints, calendar, and CDs. I wish they were SFW enough for me to have something on my desk to remind me of all the help you gave and sent. And finally Katie. Who again I’m not sure is on here because besides of some random reblogs I use this to write very sparingly. But you were always checking in and showing up to as many streams as you could. You were someone who I knew 9/10 was going to be there. Even if it was just sitting in the chat. Thank you. 2019 is a new beginning for me. Let’s go on it together.

11/7/19 3:27am - Three Dates, Three Girls, Three Days

So after me and Jill had a nice night out and fucked again I had to go home to play poker with Velli and get ready for my date with Maria that day.

We had a score to settle, after the night we spent watching kakegurui he was obsessed and wanted to get her as a waifu from me in the stupid discord waifu game if I’ve mentioned that. So I told him I’d give him the main character for all of undertale and he said I was on some shit. I told him we could gamble for it, since that’s what yumeko would do. So we made these plans to play texas hold’em until someone lost. 

Of course he did. It kind of came down to the first hand, tbh. He hit a pair off the flop but I hit a three of a kind and he didn’t want to believe I’d have a 4 in my opening hand and bet on it, so he started raising ME and gave me almost all his chips right off the bat. So I won waifus. And we watched more kakegurui until it was time for Maria to come pick me up for a date that we’d arranged.

We went out to raleigh times and got tacos, and went to boxcar and played some games. She’s pretty competitive, but I kicked her ass at galaga :3 turns out she likes the same arcade games as me. We played some air hockey, and she fucking railed me at skee ball. We played some space invaders and then bounced out to karaoke. Skylar finally sang for the first time! but I missed it and he said he was pumped to do another though, so I ended up singing She Bangs by Ricky Martin with him lol. Also sang Maria by green day because I wanted to embarrass her a bit. Or make her heart flutter. Same difference, right? we’d already kissed a few times before we made it over to Neptune’s, so things were going swimmingly. We had already discussed going back to my place to drink after bars before she picked me up for the date, but it was locked in after she met all my friends.

This cutey was saying this stuff on the walk back. She proclaimed that I was the male version of her, and I loved that because we’re both narcissistic as fuck. She was also telling me how she loved seeing me interact with everyone and that I was so cute and that if I had gone home with someone else instead of her she wouldn’t have even minded just as a friend. And I was like wow. Man. Perfect! Wow. That’s a lot but I dig it. And then we talked about having a threesome with her guy friend that doesn’t wanna do anything more than kiss a dude. She said she loves how open I am and how willing I am to experiment with things. We made it back to my place and she loved my room and my house and we fucked. Real. Hard. It was great. Started nice and slow, warmed up everything, ate her out for a while, fucked for a bit, came, explained how I could go for a round two without refractory period and she was like “wow. You’re woman’s best friend.” Then she wanted me to actually pound on her for a while which felt exxxxcellent, but eventually we needed to take a food break lol. I damn near set my house on fire trying to bake these sammies in the oven and pick them up with a paper towel. I was drunk enough that I touched the heating elements or some shit and just lit the shit on fire and was like flapping trying to put it out until I threw it in the sink lmfao. Luckily no harm no foul but I’ve gotta use spatulas more hahaha. Why the fuck don’t I have a pair of tongs in my house. She actually wanted me to fuck her in the kitchen while I cooked the sandwiches. Perfect. Checked that one off, but had to cut it off pretty quick since they were done fast. Watched some parks and rec naked on the couch. Went back to my room when the sandwiches were done and fucked more until I could finally get off again and then we collapsed in a hot sweaty puddle and curled up to sleep for the night. 

Woke up in the morning at like 11, was maybe supposed to meet Elyse at 11 or 4, so I was like oh shit, but it turned out she didn’t want to hang until 2. So me and Maria fucked again, “2 for 2″ she said. Not sure if it was sexing or her cumming, but seemed approving lmao, and she left me to enjoy her day off and let me get some sleep before work. 

Instead I took a shower, tried to get a new CRT from my buddy, it wouldn’t fit in my car. 

Then I met up with Elyse at Umstead Park and we went on a run together. I haven’t exercised with someone in fucking years, but I’d do it for her. We kept pace together pretty well, had a nice little 3 mile run, then hung out by these cabins touching each others’ arms and backs and hair and chit chatting about each other. I kissed her a little, but she seemed very tentative. Though she did kiss me back a second time. We rode off and got a beer down the road from the park, talked about some ideas for fetish stuff and our interests and how things have developed a little bit. I really wanna see what her take on primal play is; that’s where she says she gets her kitty nature. Its pretty sexciting.

We went off to target to try and get me some pore cleanser (pork rinds? Pork lenser? lol) but couldn’t find it, and I had to run off to a JKCF scholarship meetup dinner, so she kissed me goodbye and we parted ways.

Not quite as exciting as my date with Mariah, and a lot less moaning involved. Though I did hear a lot of the same panting noises during the run. Jogging with someone definitely is kinda sexy lmfao. I’m just glad she got me off my ass and exercised this week, because I’ve been slacking. I’m stuck at 165 because I keep eating and drinking too much. Apparently it’s not hurting me much though ;)

But yeah still a good date though. Excited to see what’s to come!

Also it was a pleasure seeing all the cute JKCF people. I almost wish I could tell them the weird shit I’m into now. Some of the ladies who work for them have known me since I was in like 8th grade. Pretty fucking wild. 

How things change. 

So BOOM! here I am, all caught up. Eventually I’ll post some goofy stories from Hawaii, but that’s not gonna be too hard or long. hehehe Seems like things are just gonna keep being crazy for me though, so maybe I’ll blog more frequently so I don’t really fall behind as much.

Though Weilin’s really vested in me trying to work for Google, so that’s a project I have to actually do some work on. And there’s a handful of work assignments that I’ve been putting off for the last month and a half to finish this project lolol.

So maybe I take another month break and catch back up? We’ll see. Just know that things have never been better.

I am slightly in debt from drinking too much and fixing my car and getting a brand new phone and buying too many clothes and sex toys. But it’s hella manageable. Really the only reason I’m a Little behind is because I’ve been pressured to take some days off work to use up my PTO so I haven’t been seeing as many patients. Which also means spending a little more. And I’ve had a lot of no shows. So it’s no big deal. I’m making so much more money now I don’t even need to worry about it, it’ll sort itself out over time. Feels so fucking good man. 

We’ll see about my goal weight. I would like to crush this last 10-15 pounds and get rid of the tummy and maybe even get a six pack on. That’d be dope. Kind of a goal by next lake week.

Last I wanted to talk about how I talked to my dad before slosh on monday. He asked about my facebook post so I talked about how I came out as bi and he wanted to tell me that he supported me and wanted me to be happy no matter what. I love him so fucking much lol he had this little anecdote about how he had a trans mtf mechanic and he was just like “well you’re still gonna work on my motorcycle, right? Then you’re all good by me.” He also told me the BDSM polyamory stuff I’m getting into is wild and that I’ve officially one upped him on that. SO BOOYAAAAAAAAAAA WE’RE IN THERE, FAM. <3 love ya daddy-o

So I’m. Fucking. Goooood.

Love you guys <3

Work/(Fertility) Life Balance.

Balancing our personal struggles with work has definitely been an area of stress for me. With my personality having the need to be in control coupled with the high achievement traits makes it challenging when work is busy but I’m trying to coordinate doctor & procedure appointments. Sometimes I wonder if I had an “easier” job that was more relaxing would I have gotten pregnant sooner. But then I think taking a pay cut would add a different type of stress.

So then you think, what if I’m open with my manager/work about going through fertility treatment so that they know why I have so many appointments and are sympathetic to my stress level? Well, this only works in your favor when you have a management team that actually has a heart, or sympathy, or a genuine caring bone in their body. 

Time and time again I fall naive to thinking my management team is caring but really, at the end of the day, they put themselves and the company first. They put on the heartfelt facade of actually sympathizing with your plight for a good ten minutes and then you can see and hear the little gears running of how to manipulate your situation. 

Example #1: When we had a miscarriage

We loss our first baby last year (I’ll save the details for another post) and I was extremely distraught. We had a D&C scheduled so because of that I would miss 1 day of work (a Friday). At the time we were working diligently at trying to acquire a very high maintenance client. I called my manager (trying to hold back tears and failing miserably) to let her know why I would be offline on Friday. I didn’t want them thinking that I was flaking on the job since I had all these other appointments within a very short time span. So the first 10 minutes of the conversation was “Oh I’m so sorry...I heard you guys have been trying (I never told her so obviously nothing stays a secret in the office), so and so had this happen too..let me know what you need, oh I’m so sorry...” I tried to stay as professional as possible and said I’d only be out 1 day and can spend the weekend recovering and would be back online on Monday. Then my manager said “Don’t worry we got it handled....OR...if you want something to take your mind off of things, I HAVE LOTS OF MY PROJECTS I CAN GIVE TO YOU.”

Excuse me? Did I just hear you right? Wow. No, thanks, I’ll pass. I’m just going to mourn the death of my child.

On top of that, my manager emailed me on Friday (the day of the surgery, I even texted her a pic of me in my hospital bed) asking me to work on a task (that was due on Monday) that day or over the weekend. When I didn’t respond to the email she texted me on Sunday morning. Rather than text back and forth with her and everything get all f*cked up, I logged on and spent an hour working on it, in pain, physically and emotionally. I sent it off to the client who didn’t even review it until noon on Monday. I could have just worked on it first thing Monday morning. FML.

Example #2: When said high maintenance client was coming down to the office and work was worried that they’d question why I wasn’t there being the lead rep and all not knowing that I actually don’t work out of the main corporate office. 

I was talking to my sales exec about having to travel down when the client visits and if it was really necessary for me to go. (There are plenty of other team members who can fill in. The only reason why it’s an issue was because of the lack of disclosure of my residence.) I told him I could possibly fly down in April but May’s visit was out of the question. So he asked why. Here’s where you have a choice: to disclose or not disclose? Silly naive me disclosed!! I told him that I was most likely starting IVF at that time and therefore cannot travel. Thus begins the 10 minutes of sympathy “I’m sorry, I know so and so who’s had trouble getting pregnant blah blah blah blah....” This is then followed by “Hmm, how do we explain to the client you’re not here? Maybe we be honest with them and tell them that you’re trying to start a family and you have fertility treatments so you’ll be in and out of the office a lot.”

Excuse me? Did I just hear you right? Wow. I’m pretty sure that would be an HR violation. Instead of disclosing my medical history, how about you just be honest with them and tell them I don’t live in CA? 

So why do I stay with this company? Well for one, I have a lot of seniority, flexibility and a good amount of PTO saved up. Also to qualify for FMLA, you have to have worked at least 1 year with a company. There’s also the added stress of job hunting, interviewing, and taking a new position all the while trying to get pregnant. I had to prioritize what’s important to me and having a child is my #1 priority right now. I just wish I had better support from management but like they say in Corporate America, it’s just business.