Something isn’t right here

Growing up, weekends were the best. No school! Play with your friends! From Friday afternoon until Sunday night, life was perfect and commitment-free. Sure, there were sometimes birthday parties or family things or swim meets (in my case) but the happiness of a weekend was still there.

Then you get older. Still no school but you probably had to work on the weekend. A little less fun, but still usually a happier time. Anticipated.

I’ve reached a point where I hate weekends. I don’t work a Monday-Friday job, so Saturday and Sunday are virtually indistinguishable from any other day of the week. I get up, I go to work, I come home. The bus schedules are less convenient, but otherwise… nothing.

But now a weekend means two days of no possible change in our case. No chance that I’ll get word we can book our interview. No chance that anything will change because the people who hold the future of my life in their hands aren’t forced to work on weekends. I have to be accessible to the demands of customers until all hours of the night on weekends. We’re told over and over that its important we don’t hold customers hostage. We need to be not just accessible to them, but have managers available for them to escalate to from 7am until midnight, 7 days a week. Their demands for iPhones and unwillingness to pay their bills must be met instantly, says my employer!

Yet those who control the futures of people undergoing a difficult process only need to work 9-5 on weekdays.

Priorities are pretty messed up in this world.

Counting down the seconds until Monday, when its back to the possibility of progress.

On Entitlement & Life Lessons

Let’s talk for a minute about entitlement. The act of being entitled. Of feeling you should be given something, or deserve something, or something is just your right to have.

I really wish this weren’t a topic I’m capable of going on at length about. I wish this were not something I have to deal with in the day to day of my life. It absolutely blows my mind and infuriates me to think about the fact that there are people out there who feel they are entitled to things just because.  I don’t mean entitled to clean air or simple things like that. I mean people who feel entitled to expensive electronics or free services just because of these made up constructs like “I’ve been a good customer” or “I’ve worked hard.”

Sure it would be nice to get something in return for being a long-term customer with a company, and a lot of the time you do get things… but you don’t decide what those things are. If your service provider wants to give you something, they will. If they don’t or what they offer isn’t good enough, find another company. If you don’t like the prices at a grocery store, you shop somewhere else. You don’t speak to the store manager and say “I’ve shopped here for three years, I don’t want to pay the same for apples that anyone walking in off the street does.”

Why this doesn’t extend to service providers is absolutely insane. I know there isn’t a lot of choice and that the wireless industry in Canada is pretty awful, but it’s not going to change if people don’t start looking for other options. If you hate the big companies so much, spend the money to break your term and switch. Don’t get into a cycle where you’re renewing every three months to get some other free perk you’re demanding. All that does is invalidate your point and prove that you actually love how bad things are because you get whatever you want in order to keep your business.

Meanwhile, I’m expected to work a job where my sole purpose is to tell people no. We’ve created them, we’ve ingrained in these customers that if they push hard enough they will get what they want and now they want us to stop doing that. I won’t get started on the specifics or the workplace  ridiculousness or the absolutely ludicrous policy decisions being made (Not to mention the lack of employee engagement in any way shape or form) because the one thing that terrible place is good for is a very good paycheque and if I get specific I’ll get myself fired, but suffice it to say: It’s insane.

The thing is, though, it doesn’t just stop at work. People who live their lives expecting to have things handed to them absolutely infuriate me. You’re never going to learn anything if you never have to work for anything. I may have issues with my parents and things that happened in my life, but I am eternally grateful for the lessons I was forced to learn. I don’t get any help from anyone, I have to work for things and if I fuck up: I need to clean that up.

So, there’s that, at least.