Well, the good news last night was it definitely was not just me and Neighbor, so there was no chance of him asking me about the weekend. I am not sure he would have anyway, but he definitely had no time to do it in that circumstance.
The bad news is there were five fucking people doing the meat-sorting. Me, Neighbor, Mac, and then this woman and man I don’t know. Not that I know any of that bunch, but these were totally new to me. That wasn’t the bad bit. The bad bit was it was constant chatter and chaos, and I’m still learning the ropes. I’m better at sorting than I was when I started and I often don’t need Neighbor’s help to decide where things go, but there are still things I forget or pieces that I’m not sure what to do with. And it was very hard to ask questions with everyone running their fucking mouths randomly.
On top of all that, people kept not asking what boxes were for before putting things into them, and I got the distinct idea someone thought I was misplacing one particular category of sorting-boxes out of stupidity or something. No, hon, it’s not me. I cannot keep track of what YOU are doing if you’re not paying attention either. There’s too much racket and too many fucking moving parts. Period.
But I suspect Neighbor was nearly as overwhelmed as I was. Or possibly more. I haven’t known him long enough to say for sure. There were signs, though.
One of the newbies handed out gloves when we started and seemed hypersensitive to things possibly having gone bad and also spent an inordinate amount of time organizing box halves that are just going to get knocked down again anyway so I have a feeling she might not be back. Fucking hope not. I don’t hate her or anything (I keep feeling like I have to specify this, as people will assign horrifically negative emotions to me that I’m not actually feeling), but she doesn’t get it at all. In fact I’d actually be a little worried she’s gonna blab about the whole situation to the wrong outside party at some point. Probably not, but I have a feeling the risk is not zero. And I hope I’m wrong because if she does blab, ten to one they won’t trace it back to her and they’ll fucking blame me instead. If the timing is all wrong (say, if I’ve just had an argument with L or Neighbor, hypothetically), that’s entirely possible. Not looking forward to it.
Mac had a car full of people and Neighbor got things put up quickly because suddenly he has a ton of freezer space, so Neighbor drove me home. Normally we have some kind of chit-chat. This time not so much. I thought, Well, if he starts a conversation, fine, but I’m not going to make the effort. I can’t do this, y’know? I can’t keep pushing back against polite indifference. Or any sort of indifference, actually.
I’ll say this for him: he does thank me for the help. Rare beastie as far as all that goes. Most people never even notice I’ve done anything, except to the extent they are not yelling at me for NOT doing it. (That was one thing that really pissed me off about Matt three years ago. “You don’t do anything around here,” meanwhile I’m organizing his fucking kitchen. Oh sure, right, those shelving units are INVISIBLE. You fucking clown. God, if you’re not going to notice, don’t TELL me you didn’t notice.)
But the indifference continued today. There was two-thirds as much scutwork available this week as there was last week. He messaged me a little while ago to say he was going to do it. So that’s no money for me this week and I’m in the hole. Not very far — if I need drink mix later this week, I can still get it, as I’ve got four bucks and some change available in SpotMe — but I don’t want to go FARTHER into the hole. If I had known he was going to pull this shit, I would have put off buying certain things this week. I’m angry, and I can’t even tell him I’m angry because he wouldn’t care and I’d be the only one hurt in the end. He’d probably decide I was too crazy to employ any further, or something. I wonder if any of the bozos I’ve known in my life (I am not branding him one yet, but God, he’s tempting me) understand how much I bend over backwards to spare their fucking feelings when they don’t actually deserve it. People look at a woman being outspoken and just assume we’re bitches 24/7/365. Oh no. I pull my punches. I always have. It’s a matter of survival, and I don’t like being an asshole anyway. I know this because every time I’ve been an asshole I spend some inordinate amount of time afterwards trying to justify to myself (and often others) why I had to do it. If I felt good about it I wouldn’t be doing that.
I have an idea for going forward with the scutwork, though. I think I will suggest a price per item and then max it at $100 a week. I think that if I do that, I won’t lose any more work going forward. It seems, also, to be a lot healthier response than just fuming. Hell, he might even be impressed. I’m all about the win-wins. Okay, just sent that to him. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, I have extra time this week to take care of some other possible income sources. I need to do more writing, for one. For another, I need to get the art side of things more sorted than it is… it’s pathetic. I have already put out a call about portrait work. I’m equipped to do smaller portraits that I can actually ship out. I just need to set up the Etsy listing now and I’m good to go. I’m not even going to wait to have something finished to put up. I will just put up examples of my works-in-progress and then we’ll see. And that’ll be another interesting litmus test for “friends.” Will it get a like? Will it get a share? Will I ever hear anything back at all? Dun-dun-DUUUUUNNNNN…
And while I’m at it I suppose I’ll do some paid surveys or something. At least to get out of the hole. That’d be nice.
Some good news: L and I interacted. It was friendly. That’s a relief. I won’t hang too much on it, but I’m not being told to go to hell so I’ll take what I can get.
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[edit] What do you know. He’s agreed to the new terms. In fact, he only did one item, so I have three left. $30 > zero. I win.
I mean, I actually thought he was being a bit too generous with the $100/week thing. I wasn’t going to argue if he was willing to pay it, but I think he wasn’t expecting to have a slow week on the stuff to process. So this lets us both save face, I guess.
You looking at this, Matt, you asshole? I can fucking negotiate. If you had ever tried that, just ONCE.
Oh well.