Further Complications

I swear, for everything that works out, there's always something else.

I start work on Monday, that's the good news. I got all the documentation in, for the most part, at least. The rest I have to fill out over the weekend and hand in to HR on Monday. I hate these things, mostly because all that info is on my CV and why the hell I have to keep rewriting this shit every time I turn around is beyond me, but whatever. There's also the matter of my references; the problem with having temped for as long as I have is that there's always so few people that you've worked for more than a few months. They're asking for my agency as a reference, so I guess at least there's that; they can confirm where I've worked and when. Still, it's frustrating. Still, at least the hard part's over and I can more or less relax about the job thing ... well, to the point where I can settle in and do the damn job, anyway.

Now it's the computer issue that's really pissing me off. Every day, something else goes wrong with my poor Eshu. Today, it seems to be that iTunes won't work. I tried to get it started but not only would it not load, I can't use the task manager to shut it down so I can properly reload it, either. It's just sitting there frozen and it's a royal pain in the arse. So my computer is probably steps away from a total meltdown and the promise that I'll get a new one as an early Christmas present has conditions that I hadn't even considered. Mostly is the issue that my Mum and stepdad want to wait until I've moved into a new place of my own before they actually get me the computer so there won't be extra to lug around. What they don't seem to realise is that the computer I'm looking at is actually smaller than Eshu, so it'll be easier to transport. That and the fact that my stepdad, who used to work as an Information Services person before he got made redundant maybe ten years ago or something, is turning around and saying, "The one you picked looks okay but tell me what you want in a computer so I can see if I can find something better". Read: "Let me second-guess your choices, okay?" Look, it's supposed to be an early Chistmas present; what on earth is the point of having a Christmas present if it's not the thing you want? Honestly, I'm trying to find a polite way to reply to his email that involves the sentiment, "I want that one, okay? It has everything I need and frankly, what I really want is a computer that works as soon as possible!"

Then there's the preachifying that followed the second-guessing in the email I got last night. My stepdad launched into this thing about how I needed to hold onto this opportunity (I KNOW, okay? I know the unemployment figures, I know how much I need this job; please stop rubbing it in) and how I need to remember my place and moderate my behaviour in the workplace to suit said place. This really galls me; he has absolutely no idea how I behave in a work environment. He's never seen me in a professional capacity, and he's just assumed that I behave the same way in my family, social and professional lives. He might do so, but most people, as far as I've been able to see, don't. I know how to behave at work, thank you, and for him to suggest otherwise is truly insulting. Particularly when he assumes that it's my behaviour, and not lack of opportunity and years of temping NHS hospitals that won't hold onto staff because of staffing regulations, that's led to my lack of permanent jobs. I want to be able to tell him all of this but I don't really want to get into it with him. I don't even think I can tell him that I know how to behave in a workplace without him using that statement as a comment on how I would behave in a workplace.

There's a lot of history here, I suppose. Since I was 15 years old or so (long before he was my stepdad, when he was just my mother's lover), my stepdad has told me that he was not going to treat me like I was his daughter. He has two children of his own and I have a father, however much I refuse to talk to him. Except the problem is that he has, in a way. I have received from my stepfather all the discipline that a child can expect from her father but none of the affection, at least not openly. I know he cares and all, but the discipline far outweighs the caring. Bit of a story: when I was a teenager, Mum attempted to force me to keep my weight under control by enforcing a half-hour on a stationary bike every day. I resented the hell out of this and lied about doing it when the parental units were out. My stepdad decided to catch me out in this lie by putting a sprinkling of talcum powder on the bike seat. I got really offended, as teenagers do, at this entire mess, took a bit of a tone when I apologised for the lying, and he slapped me. Mum didn't do or say anything about it and the fact that he had no right to do that was obviously going to get no sympathy. Mum then left on a business trip and my stepdad ordered me to write an essay on why lying was wrong. I protested this and he slapped me again. I don't think he's raised a hand to me since (I don't remember it, anyway, and I probably would if he had) but that's the sort of thing I only barely condone in a blood parent. In a step-parent who insisted that he wasn't going to be a parent? Noooooooononono. I never really liked my stepdad; I think he's an uptight, controlling prick at times. Mum loves him and they get on well and that earns him kudos, but he's not my father and he needs to stop trying to control me.

I seem to have the worst luck in the world with father figures.