Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Donation Letter

It's audit time at work.

No, not the IRS, I work for a non-profit, we do it to ourselves, for the donors.

I think a whole lot about donors and donations. They pay my bills. Were someone to know who I work for, I try not to be a supreme pain in the ass, because hey, I might be nothing more than a cog in the great machine, but what if it's me and my outrageous behavior that makes them NOT write a nice check to us this year?

It could happen.

And I know this because I am also looking at it from the other side. My HS has send me their annual donation letter. Do they not know better by now? Or since they haven't heard from me in years do they think that my fortunes have magically altered? That I finally married into money (cuz lord love 'em but there ain't no fortune coming my way from any of my current or aging relatives...half of zero is still zero and all...)

And besides, as they themselves have proven to me to be less than honorable, funding them so they can continue to perpetuate the lie is not exactly high on my list. Yes, dear alma mater, I have grown up and let go of a whole cargo container ship of baggage with regards to me and my own personal experience with you, and yet your rotten smell lingers beneath the false facade as you first mess with my mom, and then, most recently, with my dad.

All I can say is, please don't let your kids attend the high school you work for. At least not if you are in the maintenance department and it's a snooty west-side school.

Aside from the ribbing and the nose-turning and the outright ignoring your child will suffer, they won't get a chance to complain, even unto their almost 40s (really? Time = not my friend) about these experiences to anyone but you (and the internet, obviously), and then maybe not you if your child knows of your pride and hot-headedness and does not want to be the one responsible for your losing your job when you go ballistic on those responsible for her misery.

And then, THEN, years later when it's obvious that now the school has turned on you directly, giving you a hard time, giving you managers that see you not as a human being but a thing, heaping task after task upon you to see when you will break, she still has to keep her mouth shut because you have not retired! And if she were to complain about anything they would (and yes, they would, take it out on you!)

And yet, with all this, they keep sending her donation letters filled with bullshit about helping to raise good, moral, upright, prejudice, closed-minded, bitches who are shocked, absolutely SHOCKED when they hear she got into Stanford for grad school, sailed half way around the world in her sailboat, lived and bought a house in Hawai'i (man, my life seems so glamorous!). She, who'd been told she shouldn't even bother to apply to college because there was no way she'd ever get anywhere what with the beginnings she had...(yeah, I may have dumped the baggage but I seem to have kept a carry-on or seven).

Where was I?

Right. I maybe just used you to get all that bad off my chest, sorry. I have such positive things to post about, I do! But this kinda plunged me into a dark place and before I could think again about the happy? I needed it to go away. I know I'll feel 10xs better as soon as I shred that letter.

Happy Wednesday!