Staten Island Is Not For Me

My aunt lives on Staten Island. She’s lived there as long as I can remember. We used to visit her once in a while until she started coming out to New jersey to visit us. Last week, my family decided to visit her. We haven’t been there in like ten years.

The island has changed. For one thing, the Goethals Bridge is not the same. The old bridge looked like it was made with an erector set. The new one is kind of generic. The rest of the island has changed also. There are more cars. No more woods.

We went out to eat. My aunt was very nice to us, and took us to this place that is about the best pizzeria in the world. I just didn’t pay attention to the name and now I regret it. They served us pizza that was all white, and another pie that was more traditional. Pizza in New Jersey can’t compete.

The biggest change is my Aunt’s block. Her house, along with three others, were once in the middle of a forest. Now, there’s just blocks and blocks of grey townhouses. Don’t get me wrong. I know people have to have a place to live, but so do the birds and squirrels. Seriously. I’m not an animal rights but, but where will they go to live once the forests are all chopped down?

While we were there, we also went to the library and the Mall. My Aunt told me about a newspaper that is fairly new. It covers Staten Island News, but she said it was more geared toward young people and so she gave me the name, Staten Islander. I checked it out on my phone and sure enough, the articles are not at all boring. It doesn’t just cover Staten Island, either. If it did, I’d probably be bored as can be.

I am happy I don’t live on Staten Island. It’s just too strange a place for me. I mean, you can’t leave the island without paying a toll. What’s that all about? And, to get even a mile, you have to be OK with sitting in endless traffic. That’s just not my thing. We live only a half mile away in Central New Jersey, but getting from my Aunt’s house to the pizzeria took just as long. I think if you live here, you have to have a lot of patience.

My New Job

I now work full time at a dentist’s office. I am the receptionist there. By the way, I’m studying to be a teacher. Elementary education, to be precise. But I’m only in my second year of school so I’m working doing anything I can.

My job can get stressful. It isn’t like my previous job. No, the type of stress is very different.

I get stressed because there is always a full waiting room and people get antsy just sitting there. Their appointment may be at 3PM, but they usually won’t get to see the dentist until 4:30. They need to change how they work. They just over-book and the patients be damned.

One day I wanted to get a massage. But my local day spa (not the one I worked at, of course!) was already closed. I had a 15% discount where I worked, so now I’d be paying more. But still, I needed a massage. So I found a place that does massage on-demand. They sent out therapists to the home. The introductory price was reasonable, and I could not wait until tomorrow.

The massage was good. The person arrived on time and I felt relaxed afterwards. But the whole thing had me thinking. Why do women have to get stressed in the first place? Why does my boss, a skilled oral surgeon, make sure that there are always too many patients waiting there? Of course, I am the one who has to take their anger. It’s not fair. My last boss was a woman. This one is a man. Does it matter?

At the end of the day, I’m just as frazzled. But somehow, it was worse at my last job. It’s like I felt that my boss, being a female, should understand better about not taking advantage of women. This boss, well, I just don’t know. He’s old-fashioned, probably because he’s very old. He’s also an egotistical braggart. All he ever does is tell us about his new car, his new sailboat, how successful he was by thirty, etc. It gets old.

Massage for women should be part of the benefits at every job. And not by the creepy dude in the next cubicle that keeps asking you for a date. (That’s happened, too!) I feel that health care should include massage. But it’s especially true for women. I’m not being anti-male here, just acknowledging that women’s roles at jobs are often more stressful. It’s like they know most guys wouldn’t care enough to do the job right.

Yesterday I had my second massage at my house. It was fine. My favorite part was, afterwards, I could shower, then immediately crash. I didn’t have to wait at all to go to sleep. I’m still thinking about how it’s not fair to women that we have to have all the high-stress jobs. Being the person at the front desk sucks. It isn’t a job I would want if I had the choice. But it pays well and I get basic medical and dental coverage. I can’t wait until I’m a teacher.

My Old Job

My old job was as a concierge at a day spa. I hated it. The customers were always asking for discounts. They were also almost always late, and mad that their sessions were being cut short. Lastly, the therapists themselves were the most irresponsible bunch I’ve ever encountered. They’d call out sick like five minutes before they were scheduled. One girl had like six flat tires in a year. A Car only has four tires.

One day, a therapist did not come in. He did not even bother to call. An irate guy in the waiting room began yelling at me. Not one to enjoy being abused, I told him to stop raising his voice. He pulled out his phone and showed me the confirmation for the appointment.

My manager called me on the phone after this customer called her. She told me to pretend the therapist was on the way. I just couldn’t go along with it anymore. So I told the guy that my boss had told me to lie and that the therapist was not coming in.

Needless to say, he thanked me, but when my boss heard about this, she fired me. It turns out another therapist was hanging out and eavesdropping and decided to let my boss know what I had done. Meanwhile, she wasn’t scheduled for an hour and a half, and she could easily have taken the session.

Life is not fair, but you have to do what’s right. There’s just no other way.

My Mission

My blog is starting up so that I can find a way to express my innermost feelings. Like how I felt when I got my new job. Or how I felt when I was (wrongly) fired from my new job.

I never blogged before, so bear with me. I know it’s easy, but I see the remains of blogs all over the place, journals people cannot or will not keep up with. A last message that says, “I’ll tell you more next time.” But that next time sometimes never comes.

I promise not to bore you, readers. If you have any questions, please message me. I know I can be a bit vague at times, so I will slow down and try to remember that you don’t know me, you don’t know the back-story of my life, and I’ll make a sincere attempt to get it right.

The stories I recount are from my own life. I will keep all the details accurate, except names. I’ll be changing everyone’s names just in case someone from my office, or a family member, somehow stumbles upon my blog and figures out it’s me.

If you have advice to offer me, I’m all ears. I usually don’t mind other people helping me emotionally, so if you have something to contribute, by all means drop a line.