First, I have been engaged in a pitched battle with my employers here at the University for the last two days because Wednesday I was looking at bills to pay and planning for Thursday which was payday from three of my four jobs. That is to say, I assumed it was payday.
I discovered last month, as you may remember, that it was not their intention to pay me until this month and then not again until the end of the semester. Well today is payday, pay me motherfuckers.
No such luck.
Yesterday while poring over accounts and bills to pay I thought it wise to inquire exactly what day they did intend to pay me because truthfully I was assuming it was today. However, though I was correct, it was today, there was the small matter that payroll had never heard of me.
Can you imagine the depths of my apoplexy?
I requested that the guy I spoke with in payroll look into the matter, and true to form of a civil servant he proceeded to assure me that he would do just that.
What he didn't know is I was a civil servant once myself.
I showed up in his office an hour later, he was not amused.
After ascertaining that it was not actually his intention to help me I moved up the food chain. I went to the Dean's home.
There was no answer when I knocked. The word chickenshit came to mind.
So I proceeded home for further investigation. Deciding that big guns were necessary to win this battle I got on the website and looked up senior administration. I chose to go straight to the top and called the President's office.
A very nice woman answered and I posed my problem to her. Lucky for me she was actually a person who wanted to help. How utterly refreshing.
I never heard back from her yesterday so I pretty much wrote her off with the rest of them.
This morning I called the Dean's office and asked his secretary to relay the message that I would be happy to return to work, once I had been paid. She took the message and got hurriedly off the phone. I figured the rumor mill was in overdrive after my work of the last 24 hours.
I then sat down to compose a little poison pen note of my own. After it was written I felt ever so much better, but wisely I saved it as a draft and went for coffee. When I returned I opened the email again cut the entire thing, saved it as a word document, and then wrote simply. "I would like to request an immediate meeting on your return to discuss why I was not paid per our agreement."
Then I hit send. (of course I forgot to change the subject heading, but I later decided that "insults" was fine since I was deeply insulted by his behavior and there was no reason he shouldn't know it)
As I stood up to walk away from my desk the phone rang. It was the very nice woman from the President's office. She'd called to let me know she was still working on the problem and wanted me to know she hadn't forgotten me. How fucking nice is THAT?
I thanked her and went about my business figuring my fate was sealed there and who really gives a shit. How stupid am I if I continue to work for someone who doesn't pay me?
Then I got the call.
Nice woman left a voicemail telling me that there would be a direct deposit for my fee in my bank on the morrow.
Mind you she authorized the entire thing, not half as was expected. So I've no idea what that might mean. I wrote the Dean that since nice woman paid me I'd be in Monday but I still wanted to meet to discuss preventative measures for the future. I cannot wait to watch the little weasel squirm when I arrive.
Thus likely ends the saga of the terrible job at the horrible joke of a University that employed me for half a semester. I cannot imagine they'll want to continue. We'll see. They might just be as simple minded as I think they are.
I have this feeling that it's my innate inability to tolerate bullshit that will put them off. Since bullshit appears to be the stuff they're made of.
Alas.
So I was moving on and thinking that it's nice that there are people in this life who will help you when you need it even though you're a total stranger like nice woman. Then I ran across this:
-Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.
By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer Mary Foster, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 6 mins ago
NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.
"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."
If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
"I try to treat everyone equally," he said.
Bardwell estimates that he has refused to marry about four couples during his career, all in the past 2 1/2 years.
Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay, both of Hammond, say they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.
Humphrey, an account manager for a marketing firm, said she and McKay, a welder, just returned to Louisiana. She is white and he is black. She plans to enroll in the University of New Orleans to pursue a masters degree in minority politics.
"That was one thing that made this so unbelievable," she said. "It's not something you expect in this day and age."
Humphrey said she called Bardwell on Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She says Bardwell's wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples. Bardwell suggested the couple go to another justice of the peace in the parish who agreed to marry them.
"We are looking forward to having children," Humphrey said. "And all our friends and co-workers have been very supportive. Except for this, we're typical happy newlyweds."
"It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009," said American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann. She said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 "that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry."
The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice."
"He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it," Schwartzmann said.
According to the clerk of court's office, application for a marriage license must be made three days before the ceremony because there is a 72-hour waiting period. The applicants are asked if they have previously been married. If so, they must show how the marriage ended, such as divorce.
Other than that, all they need is a birth certificate and Social Security card.
The license fee is $35, and the license must be signed by a Louisiana minister, justice of the peace or judge. The original is returned to the clerk's office.
"I've been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don't think I've mistreated anybody," Bardwell said. "I've made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn't tell this couple they couldn't get married. I just told them I wouldn't do it."
What a douchebag!
What else is there to say? Has this inbred cajun been in the fucking country these past 50 fucking years?
And so it goes:
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