Chronicles of a Corporate Intern

I've been trying to figure out what's wrong with me. Why I feel so frustrated and sad and angry and empty all the time.

I might just be sad about Grandaddy.

But part of me thinks there's more to it.

And I really think it's related to not being happy with myself.

I'm a proud person. I know my good attributes. But people still cause me to second guess myself all the time.

I am constantly proving myself a judgemental hypocrite; I have a short temper; I'm a very jealous person; I'm extremely selfish; and I have piles upon piles of emotional issues.

Not to mention: I am one obnoxious little brat! I annoy MYSELF sometimes!

Oh yeah, and I'm immature; really airheaded; stuck up; spoiled; an elitist; fickle; flacky; a bad friend; a difficult girlfriend...

I hate that I feel like I'm driving people away. I don't want to. I love the people in my life right now. I wanna keep them.

There's so much wrong with me - mentally, emotionally, physically - I don't even know where to start on fixing it all. I mean, clearly with the physically, but that's mostly taken care of now; so where do I go from here? How can I fix myself?

I feel stupid saying this, because I know it's a bad thing to think; but all I want is to be perfect and to make everyone else happy.

It doesn't seem like it should be this difficult until I word it like that...

So if that's true, why do I still feel defective for not achieving my clearly impossible goal?

AND... On top of all that...

I'm wanting attention more than ever now. It's not like I'm being ignored by anyone. I don't know, maybe I just feel like I can't talk to anyone. I think that's probably part of my problem.

People keep trying to cheer me up. I don't need be cheered up.

People keep trying to point out all the good things in my life. I know what they are.

All I really need is someone to reassure me that things have kind of sucked for me recently. That it's not all in my head. That I'm not being overdramatic.

I need to know that it's okay to be angry and frustrated every once in a while.

Why can't I know that? Why do I have to beat myself up just for feeling negative, and then feel even more negative, and then start this aweful psychotic useless cycle?

Bah.

Driving has really become therapy for me. It's one of the only times I cry.

There's something about driving down a road with the top down late at night with no one else around that just lets my emotions get the best of me. It was even worse last night. It was raining.

Rain doesn't bother me; in fact, I love it. I frolick in it. It doesn't bother my Jeep either.

But last night it fit everything so perfectly. Driving by myself down a dark road at 11:00 with Can't Turn It Off cranked and a drizzle sweeping across my and the Jeep. It fit so perfectly. And I cried.

It seems that when we need them the most the people who care about us show their true colors.

The past 24 hours have been a real eye-opener for me. Some people who I thought I'd lost have come back into my life going strong and supporting me amazingly well. And some people who were never really in my life to begin with have made themselves a part of it to see me through. And some, some have been here for me all along and have stuck by my side.

It amazes me how much faith people have in me. Recently all my friends and acquaintances, those who have been following my plight and have been supporting me through it, have been commenting on how strong I am. All of them.

I can't fathom how they can believe in me so strongly. Am I really that stubborn and prideful that all these people are convinced nothing can bring me down?

I'm not sure what it is about me that they see. I know, deep down inside, that they're right. That I'm going to make it through this and anything else life throws my way. I know I'm strong-willed and have an uncanny ability to see the good things when I need to, even if I never seem to at any other time.

Throughout the years I've developed a mentality; some call it morbid. I call it the way things are. I always tell people "either it all works out, or we die."

And it's true - death is the ultimate end. If I get thrown out on the street, robbed, and then raped my life will go on. It will not come to a stop because of a trauma, even one so large and unimaginable as that.

Until death, life goes on.

I have been in a time in a place where I haven't wanted it to. I have poured a variety of chemicals into a glass and sat staring at it until my cat came over and showed me that yes, someone does care. But even though I was so ready for it to be over, I so no longer wanted to be a screw-up, I hated myself and my life and everything around me; life went on.

Had it ended it would have been my choice - and a foolish one. There is no reason to ever give up on life. It seems to me that out of all the things we are given, life is the most valuable gift of all.

I mean, you wouldn't throw out a Bentley because the road had a pothole, would you?

Well, guess what. I drive a Jeep Wrangler bitches. Bring it on.

It's not in my nature nor my belief system to give up. I have been through enough in my short twenty years to realize that faithlessness is foolishness and that above all else we must believe in ourselves and our ability to sustain.

And I do believe in myself. I believe that I can make it through everything that's been handed to me, and I can do it head held high and come out the other side a better person. That's what I intend to do - use my obstacles to become stronger, smarter, and wiser.

If I go through enough, and experience enough pain and adversity, maybe someday I can be as wise and admirable as my grandaddy. Until then I will take the pain and adversity life gives me and strive slowly to that goal. Because what good is strife is we can't learn from it?

Life is tough.

In fact, I'm pretty sure it's been said that "Life is pain... And anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something."

It's so true. Every day arises a new adversity, and all we can do is continue to battle through them - sword drawn and head held high.

My life has never been simple; then again, no ones' ever has. We all face difficulties, and we all deal with them in our own ways.

Things started going downhill when I was 12 and my parents got a divorce; and went that way until my senior year of highschool.

18 wasn't a bad year for me, at all.

Then this year hit, and I realize it was all just an act on the part of life to give me the illusion of contentment.

I have expounded about my sickness well enough in this for anyone who wants to know to know, Marilyn's father died, and now... Now my grandaddy is dying.

My grandaddy was like a god to me. He was strong and wise and intelligent and had been through so much, overcome so much. He made me feel special when no one else could. He made me feel like I was someone worth being.

And now I'm losing him.

Not that quickly, not in the next few months losing him - but I am, it's happening, he's going.

I had hope, so much hope, through his triple bypass and through his colon cancer and through whatever other diseases I didn't recognize he's fought these past few months. But now I'm being told there is none.

And that kills me; there should always be hope.

This is so much about me, and so much not. I don't even know which post to write.

It's so much about him: About how the strong and stubborn old man I've always known and loved is now giving up.

It's so much about me, though: About how the one person who never made me feel less than I am is leaving me to fend for myself.

I am beginning to feel like life is just a series of unfortunate events strung together. He and I have both experienced it recently, and I'm beginning to think it will never stop.

It scares me, so much, the similarities of what we are facing. The consistent line of sicknesses; and now, out of all things, he's dying of what started as colon cancer. It scares me.

I have decided to face the high levels of pain that life has confronted me with the only way I know how: By believing that I would not be as blessed as I am if it weren't for the obstacles I must overcome along side.

And with that recognition, I must turn my attention to my grandaddy: Because that's who this is about. I will be fine. My attitude is not a life and death situation. His could be. And if I give up, he will. But if I stay strong, I can't help but hope he will too.

We have both overcome so much, and even if we have overcome it in different places, under different circumstances, there's no reason to stop now.

So that goes down as one of work's stranger mornings.



I woke up at about 9:00 with a text message from my boss telling me to go into the office today because the CSG team had a special project for me. So in I go.



I get here and plug up my laptop and find two emails from some lady over in CSG. (I still don't know what CSG stands for. Huh.):



The first e-mail is to me and John, the other intern, asking us to come to the CSG area and ask for some guy named Greg. And to make sure we have access to a file (that I didn't have access to.)



The next email simply tells us to bring our laptops.



Then I have a CC'd email from John to his Dad (Who is our Product Dev. Manager) asking for help because he "can't automate this."

Now - at this point I'm thinking "uh-oh", something John wants to automate, that they can't, that they're asking the interns to do. Sounds like bitch work if anything ever was.

Then I have one final email from John, directly to me, no CCs (I always breath when that happens, means I don't have anyone to impress, no professionalism, no show, just a kid talking to another kid. It's all good.). This email says: "Turns out they’ve pretty much finished before I got here and the woman who asked for our help underestimated how fast they were handling it. Odd, eh?"

Oh great. So now I don't know if they need my help, I don't know where CSG, I don't know what's going on. Great.

I e-mail John back expounding this frustration in light-hearted questioning, as always: "Very strange – do they still need me to come over? I don’t even know where this is at, hah"

Then call my daddy and ask where CSG is. It's the "half-walled field cubed downstairs". Information I can work with. I wander down stairs, opting to leave my laptop in my office due to the information received from John, and ask for this "Greg" guy.

A black guy in a sideways tipped baseball cap. It was a really strange sight. There, in the middle of all these geeky, super-white, polo-wearing, suburban-raised computer boys was a black guy in a tipped baseball cap: "Greg".

I walked up, "Hi, I'm Shelley."
"Ahh, you were supposed to help with redactions?"
"Sure."
"We're about done with that, don't worry about it."
"Okay, thanks."

They were going to make us do bloody redactions. I'm so glad I slept in this morning.

But really, it was a rather unprofessional process. I don't want a "special" surprise project of redactions. I don't want to be told to come here and go there when I don't have to. I don't want to be expected to be at the beck and call of someone at 7:45 in the morning who is not my boss, especially when my boss is in New York.

Forget that.

I was hired to do a job and I do it very well. I expect to be treated like a civilized person, not a child. My time is valuable - $15/hour valuable even. So they shouldn't be wasting it.

That hour is going on my time card.

There are different ways to look at everything. Like today, for example.

I could look at today in the negative light:
I woke up this morning, sick. Had a text message from my dad bailing on our afternoon plans causing Dan and I to have to drive to my house and back to his. While home my dad got mad at me for letting Dan drive my car. I continued to be sick until we left. I missed almost all the birds skeet shooting, I didn't have the right gun for it, and I bruised up my shoulder and made my left arm rather sore. I came back and gorged myself to the point of almost nausiea then spent the evening sitting around doing nothing.

Or, I could give this day the credit it deserves:
I woke up this morning not feeling too well but ended up fine by mid-afternoon, plus I woke up next to an attractive guy, and that always helps. We had some biscuits and gravy and went home to pick up my dad's old 20 guage trap gun so that I could go shooting with Dave and Dan. We went out to the skeet range, and I didn't too badly for my fourth time shooting and my first time shooting skeet. For that matter, I nailed about 8 birds on the last round.
We shot 3 rounds and headed home where Dan cooked up an amazing steak dinner. Just the way I like it too, nice and pink and bloody. Then we hung out all evening in the living room watching Lost and eating homemade rice crispy treats (I am a total rice crispy treat addict).

It was one of the greatest days ever. Ever.
Just not when I describe it that first way, hah.
I'm going to have a really pretty multi-colored shoulder tomorrow. I'm kind of excited.