How Corrupt Am I?

In general, I'm pretty black and white on where I stand on issues. Stealing is wrong. Saying please and thank you is right. But I know not every issue has a black or white answer. Safety comes before law in my opinion, which is why I felt no guilt over sliding through a stop sign, hand slammed on the horn to approaching cars, one winter afternoon while driving my mother somewhere. I did what would be safest for me, my mother, the car, and gambled that the other cars would watch out (we were fine).

As a kid I lied a lot. So my parents were very black and white on lying. It wasn't until I was a teenager that my mother explained the fine art of the white lie. "If a friend asks if you like their dress and you hate it, you can say 'That shade of pink is beautiful!'"

As an adult I lie very little, except for white lies, which I feel no guilt over, and at work, which also creates no guilt. One time, back when I worked with Cowboy and Nice Partner, Cowboy called from his car, demanding to speak with Nice Partner, who was on the phone with someone already. Nice Partner hated nothing more than to be interrupted (with stupidity a close second), so I told Cowboy that Nice Partner wasn't available due to being on the phone. Cowboy told me to interrupt.

I interrupted. Nice Partner gave me his Glare of Death. Told me to tell Cowboy he was on the other line. Cowboy told me to tell Nice Partner that he was holding for him. It was very awkward. Later, after Nice Partner was off the phone, I knocked on his door.

"I know you don't like to be interrupted and am sorry I did it, but I had Cowboy demanding that I interrupt you. How do you want me to handle it next time this comes up?" At that point Nice Partner's Glare of Death dissipated as he understood the position I'd been in. He thought about it for a second, and then told me, "Lie. Tell Cowboy I'm not here." I nodded, thanked him, and walked away. Legal secretaries tell people who call that the attorney is not there, when in fact s/he may very well be standing right at their desk. That kind of lie is just fine with me.

However. When I was a little girl I'd go food shopping with my grandma and she would take a grape from the produce section, or a jelly bean from the bulk section. I was taught this was stealing, and to this day, I hate seeing people do that. It's one thing when Whole Foods has clearly put out samples for people to taste, but other than that? Wrong.

It's hard to explain if you don't understand it without using the cliche that desperate times call for desperate measures, but since I've been out of work, my standards have ... become more flexible.

Last night I got a Safeway delivery, and the delivery guy accidentally left me with a package of Keebler cookies I hadn't ordered. Every once in a while something has been tossed into your delivery that's not yours. If I notice it before the Safeway guy has left my floor, I open the door and run after him. If I notice it after he's left, I call Safeway to let them know. Last night I called Safeway to tell them about the cookies I hadn't ordered. They told me to go ahead and keep them.

Thing is, I don't need any cookies. But I do need milk. And potatoes. In another lifetime, I would just bring the cookies to work so other people could enjoy them. But I don't have a "work" these days. So I am tempted to bring those cookies back to the supermarket and exchange them for foods I actually need. It's not something I would do if I were working and earning money. And it's not that I think that because I'm in an extreme situation it's okay to do, because I don't.

This afternoon I got a call from a temp agency. They need someone to do transcription tomorrow. I was told it will be the entire day. I want to take that as license to work as slowly as I can, to stretch the tapes out to last the full work day. Even if in reality it only takes me four or five hours. Again, totally wrong. And yet.

There's a bookstore in the Ferry Building here in San Francisco. Outside of their store they have a cart with books on it. There's a sign on the cart. Normally the type of sign you'd see would say something about shoplifters being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But not here, not in hippie dippie San Francisco. No, the sign here says not to steal because if you do, karma will get you.

I've gone through stretches of time where I am a really good person. And you know what? Good things don't come to me just because of that. I've had bad things happen when I've been good, and good things happen when I've been a bad person. So despite the fact that my mom used to tell me, "God'll get ya," when I search for reasons not to do things like exchange something I didn't pay for to get something I need, or to stretch out an assignment since they think that's how long it will take even if I can get it done sooner, I come up empty these days.

"Sent Home - Alcohol"

Have I ever told you about first grade and how much I hated it? I hated first grade. Not just because my teacher was a yeller. Not just because I got in a fight with the most popular girl in our grade and everyone sided with her. Not just because my crush liked her rather than me. Not just because my teacher would grab your arm and drag you into the hallway all while yelling. But mostly, when I think back on first grade, I think of all the dittos. That's what we did all day, every day. Dittos. Each morning the teacher would pass out seven or eight dittos and we were to complete them by the end of the day.

At least one or two of the day's dittos always involved cutting and pasting. I happen to (still) have terrible small motor skills, and I was never able to deal with the glue without making a big mess. I was one of those kids who didn't like having dirty, sticky hands. Even a gluestick was not enough help for me. Every day everyone else would be finished with their dittos and playing, except me. The cut and paste ditto got me every time.

Yesterday I got a call from a temp agency for a law firm that needed eight temps to go in and redact for them. We were all put in a conference room, four of us from one temp agency, four from another, and redacted all day long. Or until we had to leave, whichever came first.

Here's the scary thing: the eight of us were not all legal secretaries. There were two attorneys sitting at that conference table. There were two JDs (people who graduated from law school but did not yet pass the bar) as well. I know it's taboo to discuss money, but I'm going to do it anyway. I got paid $20 an hour for this job. Everyone there was getting right around the same thing. How much does it say about the economy in the Bay Area that two full-fledged lawyers were sitting there sticking redacting tape all over pieces of paper?

It was a two-day gig, and one of the attorneys didn't come back today. He didn't talk to anyone yesterday. People were speculating that he felt it was beneath him and couldn't bring himself to show up this morning. I have no opinion on this, as the particular guy sat at the opposite end of the conference table from me and I can't even picture him.

We were dealing with employee sign-in sheets. These employees didn't physically punch a clock, but they logged when they showed up for the beginning of their shift, when they left for and returned from lunch, and when they left at the end of their shift. The woman who was supervising us temps and this project was very flustered. Apparently these documents are for a mediation happening next week, and the docs were supposed to be delivered to opposing counsel by Tuesday. That's this past Tuesday. So she wanted us to rush, but also go slowly and be careful. Her directions were not clear at first. We all had a lot of questions.

On my fifth or sixth sign-in sheet, I saw something strange. An employee showed up for work, left for lunch four hours later, came back from lunch a half hour later, and left for the day two minutes after returning from lunch. My eyes flew all over the sheet trying to figure it out. Then I saw an asterisk with the notation "sent home - alcohol."

Well that explained it then. I asked the woman supervising if she wanted the notation redacted. She did, but everyone started laughing hysterically. One guy turned bright red in the face, and giggled about it intermittently throughout the rest of the day.

This is the guy who was taking pieces of paper and cutting them to paste over the names that needed to be redacted. The woman supervising saw what he was doing and praised him loudly for his idea. Inwardly I groaned, and hoped she wouldn't tell us to start using scissors and glue, because I knew I'd be sent home. I have not had glue in my home since moving out of my parent's house. Luckily someone brought in tape and the majority of us used post-its, tape and redacting tape.

The other thing I want to mention about this job is that there was such a time crunch that random people at the firm would drop by to help. We temps talked among ourselves, and often listened as the law firm employees talked to each other. We talked about things like the economy, places in the city to find cheap parking, how scared we are, how many things we need but aren't buying, etc.

What were the law firm employees talking about? Their jet lag that is a result of having just returned from a vacation in Costa Rica, the new steakhouse in the Omni Hotel, how they'll be taking time off next week for a few doctor's appointments they have lined up... There were a lot of unhappy faces at the side of the conference table where all the temps were sitting.

Gay Tunnels

(This post has nothing to do with asses, in case you were worried.)

When I was first visiting San Francisco, you know - two weeks before I moved here, my brother drove me through a tunnel on the way in the city that had a rainbow painted on it. I immediately started calling it The Gay Tunnel even though I came to find out it's actually called the Waldo Tunnel. In the five years that I've lived here, any time I've talked to anyone in the Bay Area about The Gay Tunnel, they have giggled and immediately known what I am talking about.

The gay, I mean the rainbow, is fading. Luckily, I was not the only person to realize this, and the rainbow is being re-painted. So far two whole feet of the tunnel have been re-painted. Turns out the reason the painting stopped is that the People in Charge consulted with a color consultant who deemed the new paint too bright. I can't wait to see the finished product.