The upside of my mother dying—insert cynical snort—is that (maybe) I can let go of trying to be a person she would be proud of.
For my mother, the ugliest insult you could hurl at someone was to say he was selfish. It carried an outsized weight, a bitter contempt and hatred far beyond the conventional meaning. So to make my mother proud was to be selfless. To offer of myself, to give my time, my effort, my love without expectation of any return. And I have spent my life trying to live up to that.
What a fucking waste.
During the pandemic, with schools working remotely, if at all, my coworker Luke was struggling to take care of his special needs child. Like most parents, only more so, school was primarily childcare for him. And when COVID took school away—right after he and his wife split, no less—he was kind of fucked. He was working maybe 25 hours a week. So I offered to take care of his son for a few hours a week so that he could actually...you know...be at the job that was paying his mortgage. I was watching this minimally verbal kid with severe behavior problems more than his family members could be bothered—because nobody but me would do it for free. Hundreds of hours of my life that I could have done literally anything else with, and that I will never get back. When money became available—from the state, and thanks to Democrats who care about people—Luke asked me if I would take the job, and I said I wasn't interested. Given his reverence for money, I was not going to become his employee, with the entitlement to my time that it implied. So I was no longer of use, and fuck me very much.
His family members, however, now that pay was in the offering, could suddenly be stirred to watch their own flesh and blood. 🙄
So Luke and I continued to work together, and I continued to do nice, little things for him and everyone else, because it's who I'm supposed to be. I didn't need the job, and working for Melissa was irritating and demeaning af, but I continued, in part, because I was afraid that if *I* quit, Sharon would quit, and then Melissa would close the company, and what would Poor Luke do? Poor Luke, who needed the flexibility of a job that would let him drop everything so he could take care of his autistic kid.
Well, the fucker up and quit Monday without having given any notice that he was looking. Jose had asked ALL of his employees, given the precarious footing of the tiny company, to please let him know if they were thinking of leaving. He wouldn't blame them, wouldn't penalize them, would even offer recommendations because he understood that people have to do what's best for themselves, but he needed to be able to plan to try to keep the shitty little ship afloat. One of the engineers let him know—after she'd been rejected—that she had interviewed, and Jose had told Luke that he'd been hurt that she had done it despite his request.
And despite all of that, hereafter forever known as, Fucking Luke went and found another job and accepted it without telling Jose. Or me.
Because no matter what you do for people, they are shitty and not worth your effort.
