Assholes and apologies.

If you are an asshole, apologize.

The longer that you wait to apologize, the more apology that’s due. Sorry, you thought leaving it for several days or weeks meant that the hurt you caused would lessen? It doesn’t work that way. When you leave an apology for several days or weeks, it only causes more distress and unease for the person you aren’t treating fairly.

If you think that you have free reign to be an asshole so much as you damn well please, you need to realign your perspectives. You also need to ask yourself why you’re so okay with treating the people in your life so poorly. I think some soul searching is on order, on your behalf.

On the flip side…

If you are someone at the receiving end of an asshole’s shiteous behaviour, don’t let them off the hook.

An apology is due. Expect it. No matter how many days go by, do not tell yourself they’re sorry without them telling you they’re sorry. Do not make excuses for them. There are no excuses for unfair treatment. Full stop. Not if they’re stressed, not if they’re sad, not if they’re scared, not if… anything. You deserve an apology. Hold their feet to the fire until they recognize that they’re being an asshole and that it’s not fair to you.

Lastly….

“I’m sorry you feel that way” or “I’m sorry you are offended” or “I’m sorry you think that” are not apologies. Someone needs to feel bad about their own behaviour, not for the way their behaviour was interpreted.

“Yeah well, imagine how I feel” is not an apology. It feeds a notion that if someone knew how an asshole felt, they’d be more accepting of the behaviour. The truth is, it doesn’t fucking matter how an asshole feels. No feeling warrants someone being an asshole. Also, they’re probably already well aware of how an asshole feels.

A note for the hospital protests today

There are scheduled protests in front of hospitals in every major city in this country today and I’m just so fucking angry.

So, let’s teach the important distinction between two words:

RIGHT – a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way. Example: You have a right to not get vaccinated against COVID.

PRIVILEGE – advantage granted or available only to a particular person or group. Example: You have a privilege to eat at a restaurant. If you do not follow the rules, they can deny you entry. You don’t want to wear a shirt? They can deny you the privilege of eating there. You don’t want to pay for your food? They can deny you the privilege of eating there. You don’t want to show proof of vaccination? They can absolutely deny you the privilege of eating there.

A right for everyone is not the same as a privilege for those that comply to the rules in place to create a free and safe society.

You don’t have a right to a driver’s license. You have the privilege to obtain it, if you study for the test, follow the rules of the road, wear your seatbelt, insure your vehicle, etc, etc…

You don’t have a privilege to eat at a restaurant if there’s a potential you walk in with the bubonic plague and could spread it throughout everyone in the building. The restaurant can accommodate you, if you have the bubonic plague, by offering to have your food delivered to your front door.

You follow me?

This morning whilst scrolling Twitter before work, I saw a note from a Doctor in which he was pleading with people to not protest in front of a hospital. Why? Because the people in there being treated deserve to heal, or die, in peace. Another comment noted that health care workers, who’ve largely been carrying society as a whole for the past year and a half, have really difficult jobs. Really, really difficult jobs. And standing in their way, is going to make it so much harder for them to protect all of us, like they’ve been doing for so long now.

In Ontario, the Premier actually had to threaten the general pop to not block ambulances trying to get into the hospital today because he’s so damn worried these protests he cannot stop will block someone from being able to get life-saving treatment.

If someone is in the hospital, for COVID or other reasons, regardless of what brought them there, they deserve the privilege of medical treatment. They need the privilege of medical treatment. They don’t need a bunch of assholes who don’t understand infectious disease, our health care system, the economy, or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, trying to block them from someone who could save their life.

If you want to protest because your privileges might not be as plentiful due to COVID, go to a government building. Stand outside your MLAs office and protest. These are the people who can actually shape the way in which our country responds to this crisis. A doctor doesn’t make policy. A nurse cannot dictate laws. They can save your life, though. So protesting the very people who are, or will be responsible for saving you, just makes you an uneducated, inconsiderate donkey.

While we’re here, let’s talk about discrimination.

DISCRIMINATION – the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

I hear a lot of people saying that those who are unvaccinated are being given unjust treatment because they’re choosing to not be vaccinated. What exactly is unjust about what’s happening right now? An unvaccinated person cannot go to a hockey game? It’s not as if you can’t watch the hockey game on television. An unvaccinated person cannot get on an airplane? Why don’t you drive your personal car there. An unvaccinated person cannot eat in a restaurant? Well, if you like the food that much, why don’t you order it to be delivered?

There’s a giant fucking chasm between centuries of discrimination of people because of who they are (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc) and some entitled assholes in 2021 who think that society owes them the privilege to spread disease freely, without restraint.

Your privileges will never be rights. NEVER. EVER. EVER.

My privileges will never be rights. Privileges are privileges, whether you’re vaccinated or not.

You are not being discriminated against for choosing to not get a vaccine. You can still eat restaurant food, you just can’t eat it in the restaurant. You can still go on your trip, you just have to drive instead of taking a plane. You can still protest, please just smarten the fuck up and don’t do it in front of a hospital. If you catch COVID, you’re going to need to rely on those very doctors and nurses you’re so vehemently, grossly, disrespecting by protesting in front of their place of work.

If you want to protest because you feel that your privileges should be rights, well I’ve been alive 32 years and you didn’t seem to care about it before 2020, but hey, please go to the office of your local MLA.

Or you could, you know, just stay home and not be a selfish C***.

While you’re at home, maybe you could even read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s some good stuff. Possibly consider putting your money where your mouth is. If you want to protest the altering of privileges because of vaccination status, take a look at your other privileges while you’re at it. Because if this is that important to you, you might as well swing for the fences – get a lawyer. Fight the rules in place that say you have to insure your vehicle to have the privilege of driving. Fight the rules in place that say you cannot drink alcohol before you drive. Fight the rules that say you have to put on clothing to cover your genitalia before you go for a run through your neigbourhood.

Do I sound ridiculous? Good. So does protesting in front of a fucking hospital in the middle of a pandemic.

Society does not owe you anything if you’re unvaccinated.

Society does not owe me anything for being vaccinated.

Society is merely trying to adjust privileges to protect the masses as best as humanly possible through a global pandemic, in hopes of being able to operate as openly as possible. This is not 2019. The world has changed and we need to change with it.

If you’re going to a hospital to protest today, how about you just move the protest to an MLA office. Or, just stay home. Those doctors and nurses and health care workers don’t need your idiotic, selfish arrogance disrupting their ability to save lives. And the people who are being treated deserve to heal, or die, in peace.

I just… a rant.

I am trying to explain to my employer why an ‘Anonymous Survey’ asking for feedback on each of my coworkers isn’t anonymous when I am the only female being asked to fill out the survey.

You might as well ask me to stand up in front of each of them and point out their faults and failures. First off, an environment is not safe for criticism when made anonymous. From a psychological standpoint, anonymous criticisms are perhaps taken even more offensively than open criticisms, ESPECIALLY from peers where those peer coworkers are abundantly aware that some are making more money then others.

Furthermore, not signing your name to the bottom of your comments does not make the comments anonymous. As the lone female in the room, and seemingly the only person with the true understanding of this scenario they’re creating, I think differently then men, I speak differently then men and I convey my thoughts differently then men. My feedback provided would stick out like the metaphorical sore thumb.

Lastly, but certainly not least, it’s insulting to suggest that people who communicate with one another every day, multiple times per day, aren’t able to differentiate the ways in which their peers communicate. Some of the men being asked to fill out this survey have been working together for fifteen years. I 100% GUARANTEE they know exactly how their coworkers write. Just like I know exactly who adds extra capital letters where they’re not necessary, throws ‘…’ into sentences they are still trying to form in their mind whilst they’re typing, or starts the majority of their sentences with the words ‘thoughtfully’, or ‘respectively’ or ‘importantly’, so do each of them. I know how they write, and they know how I write. Much like we have clear differentiators in the way we speak, we have differentiators in the way which we write.

This survey is not anonymous.

It’s going to start conflict.

My employer trying to tell me that I’m not being a team player if I refuse to fill this out truthfully is coercion.

In the hierarchy that is 95% of companies in this world, holding employees responsible to other employees (who are at their same level on the company hierarchy, such as my company is trying to implement here) is an abdication of responsibility on behalf of the managers. If they’re not going to manage, why are they being paid extra to be managers? Implementing this change under the guise of being ‘anonymous’ is dangerously misleading.

Are my coworkers going to say mean things about me? Probably. Am I going to be offended by it? I guess we’ll find out when I see it. Am I going to provide honest feedback? Absolutely not. This is not anonymous, I’m not paid management salary and I know better than to walk into a hornets nest. The men in my office hold grudges. You could argue that’s bad company culture, I’d argue that’s human nature. It’s specific to the men in my office (because there are so few females at my company), but it’s a generalization I believe applicable to the human race as a whole.

Companies that are actually interested in honest feedback from employees need to provide a safe-space for employees to provide said feedback. An ‘anonymous survey’ just isn’t that. If they cannot provide a safe-space for people to provide honest feedback, they shouldn’t be asking for it.

Let the in-fighting begin.

I can’t, volume 2.

If any of you remember last time I went sad-fishing, I’m here to do it again.

I have a relatively fancy Ninja Blender. It’s nothing near expensive as a Vitamix, but it did cost me a pretty penny. It has these individual sized cups for when you don’t want to use the giant blender and just want a personal smoothie.

Two days ago I made a smoothie and I put the lid on it, as I always do, to ensure nothing spilled while I drank it. Now I cannot get the lid off.

I cannot physically do it. It’s stuck. I’m not strong enough. It’s getting gross. I cannot clean it.

I’ve actually contemplated walking next door to ask my neighbour if he can get the lid off for me because I cannot physically do it. He already thinks I’m loony, so I might as well add to the fervor.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for stubborn water bottle/smoothie cup lids? Does anyone have a Ninja Blender with some tips?

The way Ninja is, replacing these cups ain’t cheap. I don’t want to just throw it away.

I don’t know what to do. I just can’t.

I can’t. I can’t. I cannot.

I consider myself a relatively not-stupid individual. By that I mean, if a situation is dropped in front of me, 9.8 times out of 10, I can do it, figure it out, or solve it. I’m pretty not-sucky when it comes to words (though I admit my editing is sub-par). I’m also pretty creative. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’m going to brag about the fact that the three times in my life that I’ve taken part in an escape room, I was a part of the pair who got out first. We didn’t just escape the escape room first, we escaped the escape room with a wide margin between us and the next pair in line. So wide that we were already drinking beers by the time the next pair came along.

What does any of this have to do with what I’m about to complain about? Nothing, really. I just wanted to make myself sound painstakingly average to set the scene.

Why are duvet covers so fucking hard?

I invested in a king-sized weighted blanket about two months ago, and I’ve loved it ever since. My sleep has forever changed. To anyone who’s invested in a weighted blanket, you know there’s a giant jump in price between the Queen size (what I previously owned) and the King size. Given this jump in price, and the difficulty that comes from washing weighted blankets (because they cannot be put in a traditional washing machine) that only gets more difficult with the bigger, and heavier that they get, I purchased my stupidest purchase of 2021. I bought a duvet cover for my weighted blanket.

I know. I know. I know, don’t tell me. I’ve complained MANY times about how much I hate duvet covers. And I do. I still do. I spent $100 on a Duvet Cover (Don’t ask me why I spent $100 on it when you can literally get them at WalMart for $20) and it’s been sitting in my linen closet since the day that I got it.

I CAN’T DO IT.

I CAN’T.

I can escape the escape rooms. I can negotiate contracts with multi-billion dollar corporations. I can even eat Carolina Reapers when dared. I literally can’t think of anything else I’ve done in my life worth bragging about, but you get the point. I cannot, for the life of me, get a fucking duvet cover over my blanket. I feel like I need a degree in engineering.

I will literally pay someone $1,000,000 to come to my house and put it on. Okay, I can’t because I don’t actually have a million dollars.

See what I mean? Painstakingly average.

The entire concept of a Duvet Cover is stupid. Every time I open my linen closet I can see it there, folded so neatly, just laughing at my mediocrity.

I see you, stupid $100 that I’ll never get use from. I see you there, I see you laughing at me. You can just live there, in the closet.

Perhaps the silliest thing about this is the fact that mom used to work at a drycleaner and told me that I could probably just get the blanket cleaned for less than the Duvet Cover cost. Why am I still capitalizing Duvet Cover? I don’t know. I make a lot of poor decisions, not the least of which being my lack of desire to edit… or even use proper spelling and grammar to start with.

I’m going to go.

(*Slowly crawls back under bridge to live with the trolls where I belong)

People that annoy me

People who say ‘we should do coffee’. No, no we shouldn’t. There’s a reason why we haven’t seen each other in years. If I wanted to go for coffee with you, I would have at any point in the past [x] amount of time in which we haven’t communicated.

Parents who exploit their children on the internet for cash. I’m not talking the mom’s or dad’s who post pictures of their kids just because. I’m talking about the parents who post pictures or videos of their children and go into very detailed descriptions of their physical or mental health issues or tell their child’s personal stories for things like Mr. Clean Advertisements (because yes, this does happen on Instagram all of the time).

People who are unwilling to do their job. If you’re being paid to do a job, please do said job. If you don’t like it, if you don’t want to be there, if you think you’re too good for the job, whatever the reason might be… you don’t need to make everyone else’s lives difficult because it

Guys that don’t call you when they say they’re going to. Don’t say you’re going to call if you’re not going to call. No woman, myself included, wants to be sitting around waiting for a man to call.

People who make everything about them. When you’re telling a story or reading or a story or simply minding your own damn business and that person always has to speak up about something that happened to them, or someone they knew, or something they did… yeah those people.

Drivers that hold up all the traffic in a parking lot so that they can wait 20 minutes for a spot close to the door. Heaven forbid they’re forced to park two rows away and walk an extra 200 feet to get into the store.

People who take all but the last two sips worth of the coffee, or the orange juice, or the milk, so they don’t have to replace it. If you drink the end of the coffee, make another pot. If you drink the end of the juice, get more juice.

People don’t care abut something until it happens to them. It shouldn’t have to happen to you for it to matter to you. Period.

Nosy neighbours that need to mind their own business. Nuf Said.

Litterers.

People that pretend to care. At least when people don’t fucking care and are honest about it, they have the guts to be honest about it. Someone pretending to care is such a waste. A waste of effort, a waste of thought, a waste of emotion. Just a waste.

Air conditioning is a luxury – a rant

The past few days I’ve seen quite a few people around the internet stating that people in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada are stupid for not having air conditioning.

I’d like to remind those people that air conditioning is a luxury. It’s not automatically installed in every home that’s built.

Why? Why should it be?

We don’t all live in Arizona. I say that jokingly, but also truthfully. The Pacific Northwest is the rainiest place in the continental USA. Western Canada is covered with snow 6-8 months of the year, and the rest of the year, barely manages to reach 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). It’s not normal for the weather to be this hot. Nor should it be.

Fewer than 50% of homes in Canada are built with air conditioning. Actually, it’s probably closer to 30%.

I’m not as familiar with the warmer states, but I have a hunch that air conditioning is not as likely of a regular feature there as well. Air conditioning costs money. A lot of money. To install. To run. To maintain. With so many people at, or below, the poverty line, air conditioning isn’t likely something accessible to them.

Please don’t call people stupid for not having air conditioning.

Be grateful that you have air condition and recognize it for the luxury that it is. Then, understand that not everyone in the world does, and that’s okay. Heat waves like this make life unnaturally difficult to bear in this part of the world. But, there are people who deal with this heat regularly where no one has air conditioning at all! Have some compassion. It’ll take you a lot farther in life.

End Rant.

No words.

The fact that the remains of 215 children were found in a mass grave site that no one knew about and there are people in this country who are trying to draw excuses for that shows that we’ve got bigger problems with racism in this country than anyone is willing to admit to.

The fact that the remains of 215 children were found in a mass grave site proves that present day Canadians have NO IDEA the extent of the horrors Indigenous Communities have lived through at the hands of white people. 215 children died and were buried together in a giant hole. Think about that. There’s no records. No one knows when this happened, or how this happened. 215 children died and no one was held accountable for that.

At what point in time will our country stop propping up these ‘white saviours’ of the past and start to realize that cultural genocide is not something we should be celebrating? These people don’t deserve to have schools, churches, roads and infrastructure named after them. These people deserve to be looked back upon with disgrace. These 215 children deserve justice.

At what point do we stop turning a blind eye to the deep, dark and disgusting history Canada created?

How many people died? How many more mass grave sites are around this country? How many unlabeled grave sites are around this world representing the Indigenous children who were ripped from their home and adopted out without the permission of their parents, without record of where they were sent or who they were sent to live with? We, the present generation, may not have done this. But we, the present generation, shouldn’t be turning a blind eye to this.

No one, and I mean that in its entirety, no one on this planet can make excuse for the fact that human remains of 215 children were buried in a mass grave site near a former residential school. That is un-fucking-believable to me. The fact that there are people in positions of political power in this country who don’t see anything wrong with the history of residential schools is doing so, so, so much harm.

White people in Canada spent the better part of the 20th century doing irreparable harm.

Saturday Morning

Shout out to the neighbour’s roofing crew who started replacing the roof at six-o-clock this morning. You know what’s not quiet? Replacing a roof. You know what’s not conducive to sleep? Listening to a roof being replaced, shingles being torn off and ten men shouting barbaric things at one another(that are not, and will never be funny) at six am.

Am I short on patience today? Sure am.

#FirstWorldProblems

ENOUGH with the mansplaining already – a rant.

Every time, EVERY TIME, that I go into speaking about any subject, there seems to be a man right there ready and waiting to interrupt me so that he can explain to me just what it is I am talking about.

All day.

Every day.

Justin, from our Texas office, is particularly bad with this. Actually, all the men at my company are. If I’m being completely honest, I think they see their advanced degrees in specialized subject areas as a classification that they’re ultimately smarter than everyone with respect to every subject. Axel doesn’t just think he’s smarter with respect to everything, he KNOWS with his whole heart and every fiber of his being that he’s smarter than everyone else on earth with respect to every subject matter.

During our meeting this morning, I was drinking a smoothie. After being asked what was in my smoothie and not making it past the ingredient ‘protein powder’ I was promptly cut off so that I could listen to a tangent about what proteins are best for me as I’m female and I can’t just go to the store and pick a protein powder because the packaging is cute.

Apparently that’s all females do, select any and every product they buy based off what the packaging looks like. At least that’s what I got out of the 20 minute tangent I listened to this morning.

It’s getting to the point where I’ll avoid conversations outright and make up excuses to get out of conversations so that I don’t have to listen to people mansplain. I think I’ll be okay if you don’t interrupt me today. How about you go back to your own job and leave me alone.

My coworker, Kat, says ‘You just get used to it after a while’. Kat, I don’t really want to get used to it.

There’s a BIG difference between making a suggestion, telling me how to do my job and telling me why I’m doing my job wrong. There’s a BIG difference between asking me what I’m drinking and telling me that I shop based on what the package of a product looks like.

I’m annoyed.