Then and now
Last Labor Day, when I was still freelancing, I thought I’d get a head start on filling the Web site of a new project I had joined (and had quit a very rewarding gig to do this full time) with content.
I remember getting very nasty e-mails INSTANTLY from VaJayJay telling me that I was producing “Sloppy Copy.” Like her sloppy-ass cunt, no doubt.
I was the victim of several e-mail chains between her, VaGina (who has no experience in our field. Or with grammar, for that matter) and the other Twunt who owned the business. The word Greenhouse was part of the company name. I call it Outhouse.
Anyway, that was such a frustrating day, and one that was foreboding. It was my mom’s birthday and I should have been celebrating it with her instead of getting into e-mail battles about proper verb conjugations and where to put apostrophes in phrases that everyone in my field knows (that these bitches didn’t and they thought I was full of shit).
I knew that day that the gig was going to end in disaster. Which it did not even a month later. Luckily an old employer swooped in and offered me part-time work to tide me over till I got the job I have today.
I don’t say all of this to dredge up horrific memories. But to remind myself, as I have a shitpile of work to do before tomorrow (after 70 hours last week and 12 hours of commuting) that this is what I asked for.
I asked the universe for a fulfilling full-time job that treated me well. To never have to deal with people like the “Va” twins and the rest of the Outhouse gang that was simply trying to make me feel like I didn’t deserve to be paid (to justify them NOT PAYING).
I’ve avoided that whole group for a year, but I did hear from an old friend who knows all the parties involved. I hear VaJayJay is still working for him, and I made it a point to caution him against her … that she’s still friends with Twunt … that they may be in business together … and that he’d better watch his back because she’s a big enough bitch to screw him over.
I didn’t provide details. Not my place to. But I couldn’t live with myself if she screwed him over the way she was planning to.
It tells me, since she’s working for him still, that she didn’t manage to get the Outhouse off the ground. That she’s still seething, freelancing for someone she hates, to make ends meet. I heard something else unfortunate was happening to her. And while I’d never wish ill on anybody, it’s good to know that Karma doesn’t take a holiday just because the rest of the world does.
With that, I will attack my projects today with a little more enthusiasm, as I am happy to have a job where my colleagues value my skills and would never be insane enough to challenge them. It ain’t always easy, but as I’ve said before with my love life, my passport has been stamped in hell and I do not plan on repeating the journey.
I just need to get past the anxiety of remembering this day last year, because my heart is pounding and I don’t like how I felt and I pray — oh God how I pray — to never feel be at anyone’s mercy like that again.