Don't you know who I am?

Isn’t that a Spice Girls song? Or am I getting confused with “Who do you think you are?” Kind of opposite my intended meaning, however had I actually said my post title out loud, I’m sure the receiver would have been quoting the Spice Girls.




Every so often, not too much thankfully (because to say the above would mean I’m in a not-very-good-situation) but I’ve had the feeling of wanting to say something along the lines of that.



In particular in relation to my job, if I’ve felt I was going to get unwelcome, in particular unfair trouble/treatment for whatever reason, I’ve had the strongest inclination to say “Do you know where I work?”



It’s something that naturally comes with working where I work, at a particular ‘influential’ media company, with ‘influential’ media contacts, and lots of other people I work with, have both admitted to thinking/doing the same, and encouraging the same. If you have it, you gotta use it, true?



Although I’m not one to take advantage of, guilt people into, or blackmail others into certain ‘desirable’ outcomes for myself, like I said, only when I felt I was getting inappropriate treatment did this thought cross my mind. Never have I used it.



A couple of weeks ago, something happened, that rather than make me want to say “Do you know where I work?” made me want to say something that only the biggest nose-in-the-air stuck-up celebs would say. I was soooo close.



I’d made my hair cut appointment over a month before the busy/crazy festive month. I’m never this early or organised with my hair, only just getting in before Christmas each year, but this time I was there at the hairdressers for a hair cut in October, and I thought “why not? I’ll be organised.”



So I made it.



Then something/someone broke my windscreen. I don’t know who/what it was, whether it was intentional or not, but one morning I got into my car, and there was a crack in the top right, and it proceeded to get longer and extend to the middle of the window over the next couple of days.



I initially freaked out. I thought the windscreen would shatter and cave in on me at any point in my driving. I was yet to find out that I could drive like that for 3 years (not that I wanted to), and in my freaked out state I had to IMMEDIATELY get it fixed.



The only day the guy could fix it, was a day I felt I already had an appointment. But I made the windscreen appointment anyway.



I called up my hairdresser’s, hoping whoever answered wouldn’t tell me what I already suspected. Yes I’d made the appointment so many months earlier, only I hadn’t been organised enough to write down the date. When I found out that the time of the hair cut coincided with the windscreen getting fixed, well I felt I had to cancel my hair cut appointment – I felt it was a matter of safety.



A bit disappointed, I informed the girl that I had to cancel, and asked her what other times I could see my usual hairdresser.



No times. Not that week or the one other.



I took a deep breath, and asked about getting my hair cut by the owner. He’s cut my hair a few times, and he actually knows me really well. I’ve been going there for so long, and he’s always really polite and friendly to me, and treats me almost like we’re friends. On several occasions he’s even bent over backwards to get me in, because I’m such a loyal customer.



No free times for him either. Not that week or the one other.



And then they were on leave ‘til end of Jan. END OF ‘JAN.



I was quite upset, and mad, but asked to get my name and number down so they could call me if there was a cancellation. Surely there’d be a cancellation.



In the meantime, the windscreen man cancelled on me, 10 minutes late into the time he was meant to come and fix it. I told him not to worry about coming another time, and then screamed the house down when I hung up. I was having a bad week.



At about the same time I got a voicemail message from the hairdresser owner, telling me someone had cancelled. I was really excited calling back, until I realised the date he’d given was actually a date I was already booked with something else. I wasn’t going to cancel my work Christmas party for a haircut, no matter how much my split ends needed to be removed.



I asked to speak to him – it was the same girl who told me there were no bookings available the first time around – and when she asked why, I explained he’d left a message for me. She returned in less than 10 seconds, informing me he’d made a mistake and hadn’t seen the message that I actually couldn’t come in on the day he suggested. I knew that, I just wanted to talk to him and get him to help me! I knew, I felt, that if he actually spoke to me, HE would squeeze me in, because HE knew how important I was. “Do you know who I am? How long I’ve been going there?” I wanted to scream into the phone. But I didn’t scream it. I tried to remain calm.



I was soooo mad. I devised a plan to ‘swing by’ the salon after work the following week, even if they hadn’t called me, just so I could see him ‘in person’ and make a ‘booking’ for the following YEAR.



When I came in, perhaps right near their closing time, I found:

Owner

Woman with child (child appeared to be getting hair cut), &

Said women from phone with her hair in foils.



AHEM. IN FOILS.



So it appeared that two people were working, and only one was paying. They couldn’t fucking get me in, a loyal customer, for a simple haircut, but they could put foils in the hair of a non-paying employee. I was soooo shitty.



Owner seemed to be aware they’d been trying to get me in though. That’s what I found surprising. He asked when I was coming in next, and I said with some bite ‘next year.’ I couldn’t follow through though, and still said a nice goodbye and ‘Merry Christmas’ – but really thinking of the scenario there over and over, I felt they could have treated me better, and at least tried. Considering it was their last week of Christmas trading hours, they didn’t look busy AT ALL.



Maybe owner didn’t know I had previously booked, and had to cancel due to what I temporarily though was a safety emergency – I certainly didn’t tell the girl, but she knew I’d booked months earlier, I told her that much.



Maybe I should have asked to speak to said owner from the start, in order to avoid all these ‘what if’s’ and urgencies to scream “Do you know who I am?” through the phone receiver. Maybe he would have helped me out more. She doesn’t know who I am, after all.



However, it didn’t appear I was anyone, from the moderate, average treatment I got when I walked into the salon unexpectedly that day… from the lack of treatment I received.



I’m booked in with him in late Jan. On the first day they come back. Gosh I hope he comments on my split ends. I intend on making him feel soooooo guilty.



Because clearly he’s forgotten who I am.

The peculiarity of symmetry

Prior to this my current employer, I used to work in a shop. Back in 2006, at the end of that year as I was approaching my almost 4 years of working there, my work colleagues and I were hotly contesting the latest work issue: The upcoming Christmas Party.

I had been to three Christmas parties up until then from the time I'd been there, and it appeared there was to be no more, with rumours rife that management had decided only Managers and Full-Time workers of all their shops were invited to that years party, leaving out the part-time workers and casuals. I was a casual, and almost every person in that shop was too, bar the manager and her assistant. The majority of the company was the casuals, so we considered it to be a major slap in the face.

It turned out to be true, and when we spoke to employees at other stores, they too confirmed the same rumour we'd heard.

Meanwhile, our manager was working on some damage control. She was trying to keep us from revolting against management, while at the same time sweet-talking the area manager into allowing us an invite to the Christmas party. She believed we deserved the exception; we had won two awards over the past two years in our retail industry sector, and our stores sales were on the increase.

Finally, one day when the area manager came to visit us, our manager had her breakthrough. She'd convinced him, and he, in an ashamedly-but-chuffed-that-she-was-flirting-with-him way, said we could come.

We were allowed to go to our Christmas party.

Our manager was rapt. She announced to us all that we should be grateful that he was allowing us, the only casuals out of all the shops, the opportunity to attend. We should thank him, and go to the Christmas party.

I am not a freaking pitiful charity case.

I didn't do or say anything then (because it'd all been said and done between us the casuals previously), but I felt like sticking up my finger to them and telling them to stick it. I should be grateful? Really? For your initial refusal to accept us as important members of your team, for all the shit jobs we do and customer pressure we put up with? For all those Saturdays we go without proper lunch breaks or any breaks because we're understaffed yet snowed under in constant work due to high demand? For choosing to only pay attention to customers complaints and threaten our job dismissal without talking to us first? (oh yeah, that's a whole other story).

I didn't go to the party that year. I actually had a ticket out of it, because I had another engagement, and so that's all I said to my manager. I don't think many of the casuals went, a lot of us had already decided it was a lost cause.

Fast forward to yesterday, October 2011. I am approaching my fourth year here at my current employer. I have been to all three Christmas parties since starting work here. Also, over the last few weeks, there have been rumours that this years Christmas party was going to be held at the company's cafe. The small little cafe, meant to house 400 of the buildings employees, rather than hire out a proper venue like every other year. And, wait for it - the company has this year achieved some of its greatest success to date, in many of their profit sectors.

Yesterday we received an email from one of the top-dogs. He repeated the above: that we had had a magnificent year and achieved success in a variety of their avenues.

HOWEVER

with all of these successes, they had reached some difficult financial times, and as a result, the NETWORK CHRISTMAS PARTY WAS CANCELLED.

We all sat at our computers, mouths gaping as we read the email.

Just letting you know that our company is big. REALLY big.

The last part of the email read that several management heads were not going to accept this, and were so going to organise their own version of a Christmas party for us, with further details to follow in the coming week.

So in other words, they were going to pay out of their own budget or wallets for all of us. That is respectful. The part preceding it was not.

So, pretty much, this massive company that I work at is saying that THEY HAVE NO MONEY. Really, that's what it comes down to. They have enough when they have to 'buy out' people, pay them enormous salaries, anything to attract attention or increase their wealth through huge financial risk.

Yet for those people who come to work every day and make them a success, they have NO MONEY.

That is disappointing. That is sad. That is greedy.

This year we're on top and yet this is how we're treated. We won't be on top every year. What will happen then? They'll take away the coffee machine, start charging us to use the toilets and make us bring in our own milk?

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Most of us in our department are leaning towards a boycott of the whole event, preferring to get together at a bar and have our own little Christmas party.

And as I pondered all this yesterday, I couldn't help but link up all the circumstances, events, people and years to see some interesting connections developing.

I have to wonder whether this is another sign that there is change near. This has given me even more ammunition to achieve my dream. As I write my 11th chapter, drawing ever so closer to the completion of my book, I wonder whether there is something such as a 5 year itch.
Whether you call it an itch, history repeating itself or simply fate, whatever it is, there is no denying, there is something happening in the air......

I just got goosebumps.