Firing Your Boss
Dearest darlingest Dingers, Dingerites and uh Dinguses.
Dr. Ding has had teh drama lately. As some of you may know, I fired my old employer in May 2008, got a new job and then fired said new employer. In the meantime I applied for a longshot “dream” job back in Denver, got it, and after much consternation turned it down because it didn’t pay what my services are worth. I now have an entirely new job. Seems I’m living the Buddhist blessing-curse of “May you live in interesting times” here lately in regards to work.
This post was inspired by a recent discussion with JJ4TLR here in Houston where she talked about being accountable for one’s gifts and about accepting responsibility for maintaining one’s prosperity. Check out this article for more on that notion.
Back 10 years ago when I was but a fledgling shrinklet, I would undercharge for my services, thinking myself lucky just to have the bidness. Not so anymore. I’m no longer willing to accept anything less than what my services are worth, period. That doesn’t mean I won’t do some pro-bono work or that I won’t occasionally donate my time to provide inservice trainings to agencies with true needs; in fact I do both. But I no longer undercut myself financially due to a continual existential mood of spiritual inadequacy, feeling like “I owe” everyone somehow.
Nor do I suffer fools anymore, gladly or otherwise. If someone can’t communicate in an upfront, timely, and respectful manner with me within the first week of the job, then they’re sure as helly helle not going to be able to do so later on. A work relationship is like any other relationship in that regard, and it’s important to establish mutually beneficial communication patterns and boundaries early on, because they’re only going to worsen with time if left unattended.
I’m getting to the point where I regard not just job interviews but also employment itself as a two-way partnership street: you have the right to terminate me if you see fit, but the same applies for me. If you as my employer aren’t meeting my needs, expectations and plans after I’ve made them abundantly clear, then your ass is politely fired. It’s not quite the same as quitting because it comes from a sense of empowerment. Firing one’s employer feels very different — it feels MUCH better than quitting. Trust.
Today marks the festival of Lugh, Celtic sun god. It’s traditionally a time of celebrating the first harvest, dancing around bonfires, and, strangely, horse-racing. Dr. Ding has never been very good at any sort of organized religion, whether mainstream or pagan or Buddhist, but I like Lughnasadh because a) you don’t have to wear pants* if you don’t want to and b) no one’s going to look at you funny, even if, say, you would happen to comically singe your naked buttcheeks jumping over a bonfire. Sure they’d laugh, but there would be absolutely zero funny looks.
To celebrate my new job (which I forgot to mention) and in honor of the holiday, I’m embarking today upon a marathon of Hulu.com crime drama-watching, diet Pepsi-drinking, and generally reposing on my benefice.
*Some would call this “pantsless” but I prefer the less pejorative term of “pants-free” or even the French “sans britches“. It’s a well-known fact that italicizing makes stuff French.
Addenda To “Margaret Cho’s Bergina” Post
9. That last exit was actually a squirrel.
10. We’re going to run out of gas about 25 miles from now, and rather than fill the tank with more gas, you’ve been elected to get out and push. Altneratively, you may choose to punch your feet through the floorboards, all Flintstones-style, and use the awesome power of your footspeed to propel this here car.
11. We think you’re just the best driver we’ve ever had and that you have no personal limits. You can drive for months on end with no relief, can’t you? You’d really like to drive on only two tires like them Duke boys, right? Right? Can I at least get a “yee-haw”? No? Oh. That’s okay…no really. We still think you’re super.
12. Sotto voce: bitch.
I’m As Tore Up As Margaret Cho’s Bergina
Peeps.
Dr. Ding is seriously whupped. Luckily, not in the bedpans-flying-at-my-head sense, as is customary for a Thursday afternoon in my current line of work. Rather, it’s more along the lines of being taken for a tedious, wildly circuituitous, flatus-filled, and phenomenally ass-puckering automobile ride by my employer where suddenly we pull over for an unplanned tour of a rubber crutch factory and I’m told the following:
1. We’re diverting to West Bumblefuck instead of East Jesus Junction.
2. A map? You want to see the map? Well. I hardly think that’s called for.
3. You’re not allowed to drive despite being the only person in the car who can operate the pedals and talk at the same time.
4. The air-conditioner only works when you’re not in the car. Don’t tell the folks in the backseat and they won’t notice. Please stop looking directly at me. But I want you to keep listening to me anyway.
5. There will be no rest stops. Just fart extra hard. Same thing.
6. Where are we again?
7. Despite what you may have heard, there are no bodies in the trunk of this car.
8. Don’t worry, it’s all going to work out just fine. Just close your eyes.
You get the general idea.
Snoop Dingg E. Dingg need to get a new jobby job.
And now, what you’ve all been waiting for. Margaret Cho’s bergina.
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding:
I hope to Goddess you can help me.
I practice Wicca and have done so since my early teens…I work as a receptionist/transcriptionist in an office where we’re supposed to be in the business of helping people with drug and alcohol problems. (I have noticed that some of your other “Dingers” whove wrote in work for these kinds of agencies, so maybe they could comment too for added input - I would totally welcome it!!) I am 28 years old, have a college degree in theater, and as I mentioned I am a practicing pagan, and not just on weekends! I am not what you would call a fluffy bunny pagan. I don’t advertise my faith, but also I don’t keep it a secret. There are a couple of inconspicuous altar items on my desk, and sometimes I wear faerie earrings, but other that those things, you’d really have to look hard. I take Goddess-worship seriously, I don’t do it for fashion reasons or to show off my feminist cred.
My problem is that my boss — a recovering alcoholic with like (more…)
Looky Looky
Dr. Ding can now be found here on the Chron.com. I do a mixture of cross-posting and original stuff, so the content is basically Ding Lite: 50% less filling, but still tastes great.
Chron-style AskDrDing is reasonably suitable for work and/or teenage audiences, as there is a marked lack of cursing, apoplectic profanity-spewing, pictures of assless leather chaps, and general oath-taking, which has forced me to be clever. Very clever indeed. Fiendishly clever, one might say.
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Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
Wow! When I arrived at work last week I was excited because it was
announced we were to have a Mardi Gras party sponsored by our cultural
diversity work group. They said the food would be provided. Then I
noticed the date of said party: Ash Wednesday! I am not a Catholic and had
no idea if any of my coworkers were Christian and celebrated the day with
the traditional fast to begin the season of Lent. I only am aware of these
things due to friends who are Catholic, lapsed or otherwise. I am not on
this committee because I believe that it is nearly impossible to develop a
cultural culture. Just saying it makes my ass pucker because I am just
waiting for an event like the one on Ash Wednesday to occur. These groups
tend to try to hard to make culture fun and put their head up their own ass
by trying to educate someone on a culture they know nothing about. My
concern with this whole issue is that my Not-For-Profit agency who is
telling us we don’t have enough $$ to pay our grocery bills is paying a
consultant to develop and organize this circus. One, I need to watch my
attitude and two, as a manager I can’t ignore staff who tell me they can’t
participate in the staff party because it goes against their beliefs and
those are the very beliefs we are supposed to being aware and sensitive to
by throwing the party in the first place.
The party was planned by a committee of volunteers who gave up their free
time to organize it. They all sit on the committee because they believe
that we need to honor cultures other than our own. I don’t blame them, I
do blame the consultant who should be researching and helping them become
aware before they blunder into something like this. How do I address this
issue without killing the spirit of the committee?
Culturally Aghast
Dear Culturally Aghast:
After Dr. Ding finished wiping huge, satisfying tears of laughter from her beady little shrink eyes, a single thought bestirred from the Stygian depths of her brain in response to the scenario you’ve outlined here, and swam serenely to her mind’s surface: what a bunch of irredeemable fucktards.
I know, I know, it’s wrong to conflate “fuck” with the diminutive form of “retardate”…but by the holy silver go-go boots of GirlJesus™, this whole Mardi Gras-on-Ash Wednesday scam is just fucked up like a football bat. Make no mistake, it’s fuckity fuck-fuck fucked. (more…)
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