raybear | Call me Norma Rae. But not.

I work for a non-profit. A non-profit who does good work I can stand behind and generally be proud of my affiliation with the organization. A pretty well-known non-profit, at least within the civil rights and queer community, though heavily misunderstood and underestimated. The pay is decent, but not great. But I don't mind too much because I can do things like wear sandals and shorts, get 4 weeks of vacation plus sick time per year, transition on the job, have a mohawk, and work with groundbreaking genius attorneys. And normally, it's an organization that if a holiday falls on a Thursday or a Tuesday, they generally throw in the Friday or Monday as a gift of a paid holiday. This year, they did NOT do this with July 4th, because the holiday fell very close to our "Day After Pride" paid holiday - instead they offered us the 'choice' of taking the day after pride OR taking off July 5th. Headquarters selected Friday. Our office selected Monday. I figured if I worked on Friday it would be quiet and boring and a near holiday.

I was slightly irked by their lack of generosity, but you can't really be mad at someone for not giving you something they're under no obligation to offer.

Another nicety of the office is that generally the day before a holiday or holiday weekend, they close the offices early, usually we'll get a call around noon saying we can go home at 3 pm. It's 3:45 and we haven't gotten that call yet. So as a silent protest, I decided to stop working at 3 pm. Sure, you may wonder whether I generally do work after 3 pm anyway, but yes, I sometimes do. In fact my current pattern is to get the most work done between 3 and 5 because it makes the latter half of the workday go faster. But not today. Today I'm cleaning out my e-mailbox and losing tournament games online.

I'm also drinking an iced mocha from Starbucks. I pretty much hate Starbucks. Partly for political and economic reason, but possibly more because I generally hate the clientale. I always got a creeped out feeling about the place, before I even learned about the whole free-trade coffee issues as well as the whole mass corporate takeover of every mall, town and city in America. I sometimes use political reasons as an excuse as to why I just feel weird going there. Plus, I only think they're coffee is okay. I'm more of a diner coffee drinker -- a good strong cup of folgers with some half-and-half can please me.

But my co-worker went out for coffee treats and offered to pay, so I decided to get one -- hey, it's not my money going to them. I learned this trick from Geek Friend who used to eat my cheetos and drink my Pepsi during class breaks of our sculpture class. She wouldn't use her money to support Pepsicola, but she would take a swig of the one my money purchased. Interesting theory.

She's probably found her way into Seattle now. I'll miss seeing her around. When my other Lesbian Friends moved out to Seattle I could sort of pretend they were still around but we just hadn't called each other in awhile (even though I used to have lunch with one of them a couple times a month). But now I can't really keep up the charade. I miss them a lot and need to find a way to Seattle sometime very soon so I can visit all of them. Geek Friend, if you're reading this, you need to get a livejournal NOW.