Don't tell me what I can't do.

So recently I've had a string of people telling me I can't do this, I can't do that. Or my favorite comment, what did I know about hard, I'm white. So let's start from the beginning, Corset cares about a handful of people very deeply and these people are all on the skint side for Holiday season this year so Corset wanted to do something special and get everyone something nice. This started the first 'can't'. I told a co-worker what I had planned and they laughed at me, told me I couldn't afford to get them everything that I had laid out, not on what I make at my job. I said I would get another job. They told me I couldn't do it in time for presents. They told me I couldn't work that much and still pass all my finals. I said watch me. This was four weeks ago.

Last night my final grades for the semester were posted. I have a 4.0 for this semester. I also work three jobs all averaging twenty hours a week and this Friday I will get the last paycheck I need to buy the last of the presents for the people I care about. I did it because only I can dictate my life. Not my coworkers. Not my friends. Not my family. I chose. I have never made more than 22k in a year. Yet for the past four I have independently supported myself. Pulled myself out of a self abusive lifestyle and into a place where I am so close to finishing my degree I can already see graduation caps. It doesn't matter how poor you are. Where you came from. What you look like. It matters how much you are willing to give up to make something of yourself. What matters is how hard are you will to push and how many times you are willing to stand back up and say, I'm not ready to give up yet. It will be hard. There are times where you will cry. You will scream and swear and when those times are hard and you're not sure you can take any more that's when you have to lift your head high and say I'm better than this and I deserve better than this.

There will always be someone in the world that wants you to think that you have no worth. Someone who wants to tear you down to bring themselves up. Don't let that be. It's like they say, Stand up for what is right even if you are standing alone. You can't wait for someone else to make the first move and do the right thing for you.

Corset climbing back on the soap box,
Signing off.

Skyrim.

Well then, raise your hand if you are familiar with the Elder Scrolls games. Good! So you probably already know about Skyrim and that it came out in the end of November and is a highly addicting game with a few highly irritating problems. My next question, who remembers the cluster fuck of glitches that occurred when oblivion was first released. I do! I know that months and months later they finally re-released the game in a special edition glitch free kind of way but by the time they did that I was torching my copy refusing to pay for another.

So you should be happy to hear that Skyrim is no where near that bad. I've ran into a few incidinces where my game has frozen. I found one area where a mammoth falls out of the sky repeatedly instead of walking. If you approach it, the mammoth falls to the ground dead. That was entertaining. Then there was the update. Oh Skyrim why? I woke up one morning and found I still had the urge to play and it was ok if I was five minutes late so I started up Skyrim and the 360 prompted me that I needed to install an update. Ok this happens. I hit accept. Then I check my cell and I have half a dozen texts from various people warning me that the update includes bugs and do not for any reason do it. Well damn.

Now what these bugs are I haven't done hard core research into. From my understanding it's made some quests unbeatable. I haven't found them yet. Then again I've only clocked ten hours since I installed. Word of advice to the wise though, if you are looking for a fun quest, choose the misc. with the offbeat title. Things like, Haunted House, or Go Visit the Museum. or Drinking Contest!  I've had a lot more fun with those than some of the main line quests. Then again mine has a bug so that despite the fact I chose to have a tail, they still all mistake me for a Nord and my clairvoyance spell has decided it wants to rail road me into joining the rebellion.

Well, no major complaints on my end. All the bugs I've been able to take with a grain of salt and a laugh. We shall see when I turn my sights toward the main mission later this week. Oh and by the way, unless you move slower than a dead sabre cat, don't waste money on a horse.

Corset signing off.

Certified Nursing Assistant.

The blog of a girl who who loves to charge blindly into life. The blog of a girl who was tired of death long before she signed up for the class, long before she passed the test, long before watching someone wither away should have ever been an option. Call my cynical. I probably am but this is what I noticed in the life a a Long Term Care Facility Certified Nursing Assistant. 

My first day on the job was so full of excitement. Two days before I took and passed my test I was hired as a full time Aide. I was walking on air. They introduced me to the other full time gals and guys that would become my second home for 40 hours a week plus overtime. Day one they teased me, it was harmless right? Then I met the nurses. They all looked so tired. Nothing like the ICU nurses I remembered from my childhood but they still acted the same. Self righteous and better than everyone. My first day, such a whirlwind of activity. First day turned into first week,  first week into first month. Light teasing into harassment. Self righteous into god complexes and those willing to walk slowly when a code was called.

This was what I remembered wondering about as a girl. How did they tear each other apart like rabid hyena's and still come together at just the right moment to save a life? Well the answer to that was, they didn't always. I remember going up to a nurse I had offended and begging her to come look at one of my patients, I thought something was wrong. What did I know I was a CNA. Hours passed, she told me she would get to it. She never did, not until I got a nurse from another unit to verify what I had been saying all along. Something had been terribly wrong. 

Then they told me what had happened that day. Funny thing, I didn't remember most of it being that way. Then I was the bad guy because I called the state inspector. The thing that really got to me, I could live with poeple dying around me. It was sad but I could accept I had done all I could. As a CNA what I could never live with was the way the employees treated each other. They harrassed, sexually assulted, some slept with husbands of others, and all talked behind each others back. How could a field that is supposed to be about the greater good and helping others be just as equally about being self righteous and hateful? Why did they do it? 

To everyone. Employees came and went like a revolving door except the five of us who were full time. No one was able to pass through without the gossip and attacks being directed at them just as brutally as they did toward those who they called close friends. After a time I started to become ill. It took me a while to figure out I was only ever ill on the days I had to work. I would vomit and have headaches. Part stress, part dehydration from the vomiting, I cut down to part time. For the second time during my work at this facility I had betrayed them. Until they hired someone else, they were short some days and they never let me forget. Not that I had an alternative life style, not that I had reported the facility to state, not that I had gone to my superiors for abuse and been told it was all in good fun. 

I wasn't laughing. Eventually I moved states. I thought myself to be free of them. Even now one of them will text me or shoot me an email, why don't I talk to anyone any more, I told them, I wasn't laughing. Now for the second time in my life I am working as a CNA. I want so much for it to be different. Tomorrow is my first day all over again. I know it will be filled with excitement and new job joys.  Even know I know somethings will never change. The nurses will be self righteous and 'overworked' the CNA's will pick up their slack and huff that the nurses don't work. I am ok with this. I know I do it to. I have saved lives. I say with pride. The patients think me proud and self righteous. It comes with the job. You have to be that way or they won't trust that you are capable. 

My biggest hope? That this time I will not be walking into a den of wolves. That this time I will not have to call the state and tell them I can't accept what happened as part of life. They say ever facility is different. I have worked in one. Another whose opinion I hold dear has worked in six. In all she has reported that they still back stab and gossip like school girls. I am more willing to turn the other cheek. I have faith that there are those who go into nursing not for the pay but to do good in the world. They still exist don't they? 

If any CNA reads this I hope you can leave me messages of hope. Something to say that it's not always this way. While bad things do happen there are those who live and act with good intentions.

Am I cynical? Am I jaded? Maybe. 

Corset looking for the good in the world

Signing off.

I see the Moon

I've had this on my mind for the past few days. I've know this since I was a little girl but I don't recall who wrote it originally so I can give proper credit. Since I've been singing it a lot this week, I'd like to be able to tell people when they ask. I am normally a pretty good googler but this one has me stumped. Now I would not recommend listening to it on youtube or anything. I also remember hating whoever was singing it. It's one of those things you want to set to your own tune. I am working on some art associated with this song. Maybe in the future I will finish it and post it up. 

"I See the Moon 

I see the moon 

Over the mountain, over the sea,
Back where my heart is longing to be,
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.

I see the moon; the moon sees me
Down through the leaves of the old oak tree.
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.

I hear the lark; the lark hears me,
Singing a song with a melody.
Please let the lark that sings for me
Sing for the one I love.

I kiss a rose; the rose kisses me,
Fragrant as only a rose can be.
Please let the Rose that comforts me
Comfort the one I love."

 Now if you want a song worth actually listening too, Try Chris Rice I see the the Moon. Or Ayreon. You know. Whatever floats your boat.


Corset missing someone,
Signing off. 

The Joys of Retail

Have you ever wandered through a retail store and thought what in gods name are those people doing? They circle certain patches of product like vultures, they try to ring up every sale no matter how long the line, they avoid returns like the plague and see fitting rooms as the door way to hell. It's a little bit hysterical to watch them. Especially at holiday rush hour and double fun if you have a friend willing to sit with you and ad lib them all.

Well Corset is easing back into blogging so let's do a break down of the things I said before. If you see an associate circling product, it's for a couple reasons. With the exceptions of places like Wal-Mart, in retail it's a big no no to sit behind your register and wait for a customer. They want you to be active. What does that mean? Active means you approach every customer and push selling by striking up conversation and 'wardrobing' in every possible way. Now wardrobing is just a silly way off adding on extras the customer might not have thought of. Like You want a shower curtain so obviously you need new bath mats, matching towels, a new tooth brush holder, soap dispenser, bath room curtains, etc. If it can be remotely connected to what the customer is buying, they want it to be suggested in a cute little, did you know kind of way. Or the associate is lazy, it's so they appear busy and the manager or guys behind the camera in loss prevention don't call down and remind you that if you don't want to do it their way, there is someone out there willing to replace you.

Now if the associate is expected to be wooing customers on such a personal level then why do they try to ring up every person who even attempts to enter a check out zone? I bet you know this one. Sales goals. Even if you don't get paid commission the company wants to know that you are pulling your weight. They do this by setting sales goals and if you don't consistently meet a certain percentage of that goal, you go on probation because obviously if you are doing it right, you will be meeting the goal. Every transaction is added up and you can track your goal during the day, an example. If you work an 8hr shift, in some places that means you will have a sales goal of roughly $2500. This brings us to returns.

I find this aspect of the system poorly set up because in my opinion it leads to customer neglect. Just as every sale you ring up brings you closer to the magic number, every return you ring, subtracts from it. So if you are providing good customer service by helping the person everyone else treats like a leper, you're shooting yourself in the foot at the same time.

This brings us to the fitting rooms! Now granted many places don't have these but a lot do, or some equivalent where customers pile merchandise without care to let you find out where its home once was. In my example we shall use the fitting room. When trying to find the right pair of jeans or the right top for the whatever occasion, it's not uncommon for people to pick up and set down over ten items. While good for you your looking for something in particular, the sales associate is loosing progress trying to put it all back. For every moment that an associate is having to return merchandise to a shelf, another associate is taking their sales. Not only that but it's quite a lot of work. If you're staring down a pile of jeans from ten brands and companies and that's only one side of the fitting room AND it's not even noon yet if you try to tackle that, you'll be at it for a while. Now remember, you have 8 hours to sell $2500 worth of merchandise. Now subtract the Three hours you are spending being a good human being and putting things back where they belong. So if you want to be a decent human being and help out with the fitting room you are really trying to sell $500 worth of stuff an hour in a place where most of the purchases are going to be $50-100 total. Now that doesn't sound to hard until you remember you are competing with five other people to get those sales.

Retail can be a bit cut throat. I can't imagine what those poor men and women in commission sales have to go through.

Having been on both sides of the counter,
Corset signing off.