Posts tagged as:

pussy peril

Now you know that’s a lie

March 23, 2011

On the 17th of December, I was on my couch feeling alone and hopeless. Mostly because I was alone and hopeless. Tears were sliding down my face so slowly it was as if they had been convinced that they were destined to fall into an episode of Reba after leaving my face. As with most cases of rejection, or in the this case, being a complete oversight, I felt instantly foolish for being me. Everything suddenly made sense, and it was a bad thing.

Earlier that week, I interviewed for a community manager position with Rocket Ninja, a social gaming startup. They make stuff like Farmville but for people who are even poorer. It was the strongest lead I’d had in a while and the first time I was actually upfront about writing Vagina Drum. I had a rapport with everyone who interviewed me and Dean, the guy who would be my boss, seemed really enthusiastic about me and what I had to say about areas that needed improvement. He said he would call me with a decision – either way – on Friday, the 17th. Overall, I was optimistic.

And now we’re back to my couch. I tried staying busy that day but grew more and more anxious as time passed. I trusted that Dean would get back to me because he hadn’t bullshitted me up until that point, so I had no reason to think that I would have to wait until Monday for an answer. Which is what happened. And I had to be the one to ask him the obvious – did I get the job?

Short answer: no. Long answer: he had car trouble “all day” and couldn’t contact me since I guess the car trouble ended up being a faulty flux capacitor and he went back to a time before the internet, cell phones and the expectation that when you tell someone you’ll contact them on Friday, they…wait for you to contact them on Friday. At any rate, a decision to ditch the role entirely and hire a temp was conveniently made while he was out trying to evade the Libyans and find plutonium or you know, dealing with “car trouble.”

I realize that applying for a job paying around the same amount as a Geo Metro with all the perks dents my credibility a bit, but I’m not stupid. Car trouble? On the day when the decision was supposed to be made? And then a decision was made but you had nothing to do with it because you were getting your tires rotated? Come on. At this point I was just insulted. I can handle the fact that he didn’t get back to me within the agreed upon time. I’m okay with not getting the job. Those variables were already installed before I walked in the door. What I can’t handle is getting a completely bullshit response that, uh, as far as I know has nothing to do with being able to use the phone or write an email. Consolation prize though – he “really enjoyed” meeting me.

Months later, I had a similar situation (in that, I didn’t get it) for a job that somehow required even less skill. It was a part time gig packing shirts/stickers and other stuff you typically just give away for GitHub. I was actually looking forward to this because GitHub is small, bootstrapped and to my knowledge, doesn’t use terms like “code warrior.” Everything a startup should be.

How I got the interview

It was the kind of interview that, had I shown him my boobs and then witnessed him vomiting on my shoes as a result, I might actually have the job now. It was almost immediately obvious that we weren’t going to be coworkers or fuck buddies anytime soon. For a position that could be filled by Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodies, it kind of matters if you’re liked. After giving me an in-depth tutorial on how to put a shirt in a box and then apply the self-adhesive postage, he said that I’d hear from him which is code for “No way in hell.”

He’s the co-founder of a startup so I assume he has to like, tell people things so I’m not quite sure why he didn’t just tell me right there that an infant with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome could crawl through the door and the Michelob baby would still get the nod.  A few days later I got an email from him letting me know that they went with someone else and that it really “bums him out” to tell me. I wish him well as he gets through this tough time.

Both cases have one thing in common – bullshit. These guys aren’t necessarily flawed because they’re used to delivering platitudes. They’re flawed because they’re happy to pretend that the people on the other end believe them.

What I’m essentially saying is – be a dick to me. As long as it’s purposeful. My time is worth at least that much.

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The internet is a graveyard for all of the worst things possible. Like feelings.

December 16, 2009

The other day, I googled myself. Yeah I do that.

Since someone like me only really has a chance of being indexed through high school accomplishments, I usually come up with nothing. Mostly because my high school was the kind that felt it was acceptable to appropriate the Anheuser-Busch logo and somehow make it about ‘meeting new challenges every day’ instead of…beer. Which, oddly enough, the only challenge my high school faced was teenage alcoholism so I guess in retrospect, they were pulling off one fucking poignant piece of performance art.

Failed public education aside, my query is usually fruitless. But yesterday, when I searched for myself hoping to ensure that I can’t be contacted in any way by family members who should’ve been committed years ago, I found a public profile claiming I live in Nigeria. After confirming that my credit cards hadn’t been used to buy twelve XBox 360s, I noticed a link on the page, relevant of course because it was one of the few that included my name. I cringed when I saw it, but was sadistically delighted to know that it still existed. It was something my boyfriend at the time had written about me – proof that someone, somewhere loved me long enough to manufacture a few thoughts into functioning sentences:

I am with a woman so smart that she makes Annie Dillard seem like a fruit tart, so beautiful she grounds Poe’s Helen into dust, and so wonderful she makes grown men weep in her presence and women take their own lives in a fit of pure jealousy. I’m talking about CHEETOS*, the one who has single handedly has made my life more meaningful than the past 20 years combined. She’s trilingual, has amazing taste in music, and seems to be able to make me laugh no matter what. Even in an emergency room for 9 hours where we had fun playing “I Spy” and laughing at a guy with a c-cup. She’s wonderful and I just want to let you know that.

*name has been changed

A few things come to mind here – most glaring of which is that I can’t believe my pussy has put me in so much peril as to require a nine-hour emergency room visit for a urinary tract infection. Also, yes I’m an asshole for making fun of the guy with moobs. Sorry. I’m (kind of) different now. Oh, and the trilingual thing? My German and French language skills would land me in an assisted living facility for the developmentally disabled because my vocabulary boils down to, ‘Bathroom please and then we’ll see about ham.’ But, if I may brag for a moment, my grasp of English could definitely land me a position cleaning bed pans. While I’m at it, I’ll debunk the music thing too because well, come on.

I can’t vouch for the rest because it was based solely on an opinion that wasn’t mine and has since expired. But, for the sake of the authenticity of the twelve minutes taken to write it, I’ll assume that these feelings weren’t devised under false pretenses. Years ago, I would’ve tried to find a way to salt the earth and bury the page in order to dispel the idea that I am incompetent because I demolished the relationship in which these feelings existed. Because, after all, it is better to be loved without dilution than admit to everyone that you fucked it all up by not realizing that you were even loved in the first place.

Now I celebrate it. Not because the message has changed – the subtext of failure is still very present. But now, the failure is no longer the swelling tide that buries me beneath a carpet of sand and is instead the 7-11 from which I can safely eat my Funyuns while I carefully map out every ripple and finally realize what went wrong. I misdiagnosed the failure. My inability to adequately love this person was merely a symptom of the reality that I knew there was no good reason to, other than the fact that we both escaped from Budweiser High.

I still fail, and have no doubt that I always will. But I am learning how to be better at it – starting with skipping the Funyuns because they’re…just really gross.

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