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Identity Crisis

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Today was my third day at my Brand New Job. At this job, I get to be in a high security area, which means badges, a whole mess of keys and restrictions on objects you can bring in/out. The job is filled with colorful characters, and I’m already developing a stash of stories to tell.

This is one of them.

Though this story doesn’t deal with the colorful individuals that are the consumers at this social service agency (ie. forensic ward at a hospital.) This story deals with the people in Human Resources that fail to understand what proof I need for being eligable for employment.

Let’s back up. As with most jobs at most places (and every job at every place I’ve worked) I was required to fill out a stack of papers for things such as my mandatory sign up for the Union (AFL-CIO), retirement benefits, confidentiality agreement, W-4 and the ubiquitous I-9. The I-9 is the form that proves your eligability to work in the U.S. and requires you to submit documents to prove this. Usually these documents are in the form of a lone U.S. passport (my document of choice) or two other documents combined, usually being the state ID or Driver’s License and a Social Security Card. I’ve gotten out of the habit of carrying my SS card with me on a regular basis, so given that one document, my Passport, should suffice, that is what I choose to bring.

My coworker warned me that it may not be enough. There is, however, no document in the packet that requires any documentation aside from the aforementioned. So, I told her, I should be fine.

Apparently the HR people don’t understand what the I-9 requires. The first woman I spoke to was determined that I should have my Social Security card included in the file, despite none of the information I was handed stating that to be the case. I told her that according the the form, my passport was all that was required. She didn’t take that as an answer and referrerd to her coworkers. Another woman came to me and read over the I-9, with me pointing out to her that my passport was sufficient. She looked over it in a very bureucratic, matter of fact way, reading the headers and eventually stating that (well, I can only interpret what she said for myself) I was correct. She then requested my Driver’s License. I asked her what form stated that she needed my Driver’s License. She looked at me and said she didn’t understand what I was talking about. I then said to her, “What form can you show me states the requirement that I give you my Driver’s License to photocopy?” She said she would have to look into it, and was getting this aire of “I’m so leaving this conversation now!” She then mumbled something about how they needed it in case they have to prove my residency, update where I live, because they get reports… blah blah blah.

Given the fact that I’m shitty at updating my own address for my Driver’s License, I don’t know how that would do them one bit of good.

Besides, they already have my SSN on numerous documents already. They could try to get my credit report if they *really wanted.* Also consider I already authorized a criminal background check in order to take the job.

They do NOT need any more forms of ID and they were unable to give me any information stating as to why they needed additional ID.

This all happened in front of my coworker, who is training me. I later explained to her, after I got the “Well, we’ll contact you if we need more information.” crap from the HR people, that in the end, this was a fight for civil liberties.

Maybe not really, but that’s what it felt like. I mean, there was no documentation there that they could give me that required any more information than they already had.

I believe it’s my right to withhold that information if i so choose.

As it is, they know a lot more about me than I likely do about myself.

I’m just waiting to see if I don’t get my paycheck on payday because of this. 🙂 This could get fun!

[comments turned off 08/05/09 due to spam]

The Life I Live

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Much has happened since I last updated. I will attempt to summarize to the best of my ability.

Around mid-November I passively gave up on NaNoWriMo. Turns out that the process wasn’t all for naught, in that I spurred me to figure out what I really wanted to work on, which was art. Since then, I’ve been slowly getting things together to work on a project that is coming together at a snail’s pace. It’s a good project, though (entailing water based media and collage), and I intend to follow through, even if it takes awhile.

Meanwhile, I had a few other epiphanies thanks to listening to the Pema Chodron Getting Unstuck cds that a dear friend got for me a few months ago. I think that I really should invest a solid block of time for meditation daily. It’s on my to-do list.

If I had one, at least, it would be on it.

I turned 28 at the end of the month of November. It’s quite weird for me to not be all ecstatic about a birthday, but maybe this just means I’m getting older. That’s hopefully not a bad thing. I received a ton of gifts for the occasion, including a fabulous digital camera (that I’ve since used and posted photos to my flickr page.) I was able to splurge at my favorite cosmetic store, Sephora, thanks to a gift card. I swear, I’m not that girly, nor that stuck-up. I do love the shiney, though.

(and wrt cosmetics/skin-care, an update on my previous post re: skin care, I ended up going to Aveda and have been quite pleased with their skin care line.)

And then there’s the big news – I got a job. A real, live, social work job. It’s my first social work job out of grad school, and I’m terrified and excited at the same time. It’s a tough commute, promises to be a tough job (working with psychiatrically committed criminals), and will at least be rewarding in the fact that, should I survive, I should be able to start paying the federal government back for those oh-so-generous loans during my schooling.

It figures that by the time I actually figure what to do with my time away from work that I actually get a job.

I still intend to do volunteering w/ the LGBT Community Center here in Seattle, as well as fill-in shifts as a sex-education retailer.

That’s my life now. Within a few weeks, I will have worked 2 weeks at my new job *and* be on my way to sunny Florida for a family vacation to Disney World.

Ugh. This is a great public impression for the web. I’m a girl who a) loves make-up, shopping and shineys, b) goes to Disney World for vacation. Please don’t judge me!! 🙂

I’m a hard working, smart girl. I swear.

And that’s the story for now. Good afternoon!

Thanksgiving.

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I was just going to copy and paste the William S. Burroughs “A Thanksgiving Prayer”, but instead I’m just linking to it.

Thanks, BoingBoing for reminding me of that. I believe they posted that last year. It’s really a brilliant piece.

As for me and my T-day celebration, I’m spending it thousands of miles from my family, feeling a bit homesick for Chicago, and even Kentucky (I was reading Kentucky related things on Wikipedia yesterday). Jon and I will be making some tastey food and bringing it to our friend’s house. Mostly, all I want is a relaxing day.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Procrastination! Theme: Skin care! Shopping! Organics!

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The internet is great for continuing to procrastinate writing NaNoWriMo related stuff. Most recently I’ve been researching skin care products for these annoying dry patches I get on my face and body during the winter. Part of me wonders if it’s like a mild eczema, though I doubt it’s anything more than flakey, dry skin.

Years of working at Whole Foods Market (mostly during grad school) has made me more aware of the contents of my food, cleaning and bodycare products. It’s a snobbery that is almost warranted at some times, given that there is a LOT of crap in everyday products that are either unnecessary, possibly toxic, and at other times, just gross. (Have you even SEEN the guacamole dip sold in the cold case at some of the large grocery chains? Look for the avacado content. Shudder when you realize it’s not there, or at the end of the list, under sour cream and a whole bunch of hydrolyzed, autolyzed and otherwise manipulated contents.) It’s not so much that I fear death or cancer at the hands of these products, but feel rather that if guacamole can be made at home using 5-8 ingredients, mostly containing avocado, then why make it out of mostly sour cream and a few dozen other things. Beyond that, it would be nice to be able to not only purchase less-toxic products, but also products that come from sustainable sources. When it gets down to the nitty-gritty, I’ve started to have a real distaste for the artificial and now prefer the real thing.

Body care is a special issue, though, when it comes to natural and organic products. There is no FDA standard or regulation that specifies what the words “natural” and “organic” mean with body care. They definitely mean something for foods, but you can seriously make a product that’s chock-full of synthetic detergents, artificial colors and fragrances, and maybe throw in some organic aloe vera and organic lavander and call your product “Organic Spring Shampoo” or whatever you want to call it. This means if you actually care about the contents of your bodycare products, you must read labels and not go by flashy packaging or ad copy. Then you have to have some sense of organic chemistry and the taxonomy of herbs to decipher what’s naturally derived and what’s synthetically produced. Yay! The end result is that in a normal grocery/drug store you might be lucky to find one brand that is actually as organic and natural as it claims. Here in the Northwest, Burt’s Bees is happily ubiquitous in the regular stores. Not so, I’m sure, in middle America.

Natural bodycare, of course, beyond being hard to find, is costly. And lucky for me, last winter I got hooked on products by evanhealy which I purchased in Chicago. They were rather pricey, though, and required me to order them online… so I used it up and tried to find better options. Since then, I’ve tried Better Botanicals semi-Ayurvedic based face care and have been relatively unimpressed. I’ve also tried MyChelle, which has GREAT cleansers and a fabulous exfoliant and night creme, but doesn’t really have a day cream that I really love.

The only thing I remember liking, and pretty much using up, was the TimeWise cleanser and lotion by Mary Kay which I had bought from a coworker while I was interning for my MSW in Chicago. Hardly a bastion of natural skin care, it did leave my skin feeling pretty nice and hydrated without feeling weighted down by thick emollients.

I keep thinking that if I’m going to go the Mary Kay route, I should just use up the UV-protecting, Sensitive Formula Oil of Olay that I bought for BurningMan 2K4. I can’t bring myself to do it, though, and I’m not sure why.

Tonight I will be turning in two free coupons for free swag at the local Aveda store. Aveda, along with The Body Shop, have long promoted a natural, sometimes organic, cruelty free and/or earth-friendly facade for their bodycare products. Through the years, though, I’ve found some of their products hard to distinguish from the contents of other supermarket bodycare. Maybe the plus is that they’re done w/ more sensitivity to the environment, or maybe they provide better paying jobs from some of the less industrialized countries that they get their materials from, maybe they offer their employees a 401-K and stock options. It’s really hard to know what is marketing, what is actually doing some good and what is just poisoning the earth like every other corporation (unavoidable in some cases, but at least let’s be upfront about it.)

Tonight I will see what Aveda, and possibly also the Body Shop (or one of the other mall bodycare specialty shops) has to offer for my fickle, no-nonsense, just wash-and-moisturize-me skin.

And now… back to attempting to write fiction.

* One last thing – I’m also shopping for less-toxic toxic-mold killing cleaning products. I’m tempted to just dilute bleach and say to hell w/ it, but I really want a better option.

Belated Halloween Thoughts

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Over the Halloween weekend I had intended to write this grand piece on what other bloggers and people in the straight world have noted: Halloween brings out the sexy and kinky in people who normally don’t take these personas out of the bedroom, if they were ever existent in the bedroom in the first place. More than a few people were seen walking around Halloween weekend in super-sexy, shiney and even perverted costumes. While some of these people are likely the type to feel relatively shameless wearing that gear any other time of the year, it’s the rest of the people who would judge them any other time of the year turning the other way and dressing up all crazy themselves. What is it about Halloween that brings out the freak in everyone?

It’s kind of like my memories of growing up in conservative Northern Kentucky. I remember being in elementary school and witnessing on more than a few Halloweens, with more than a few different boys dressing up in drag. In such a heterocentrist (and dare I say, violently homophobic culture) that was that area in the 1980’s, I wonder just how these “good”, Republican, gay-bashing parents and their mimicking kids embraced the gender-bending taboo of cross-dressing. While I’m not one to make sweeping generalizations all the time, I do wonder if this is something that is seen all through the “good” evangelically Christian red-states. Is this the twisted embrace of dressing up as the thing that most scares you or is this the bright light shining on hypocrisy?

I’ll let all this musing go for now and just rest comfortably knowing that my identity as “goth” entitles me to celebrate everyday as Halloween. I think it just might be more honest that way.