Well, yesterday was really something else. All night I watched the rest of the Fox Noise "debate", thought of the 10 year anniversary of Thelma Carter's death and yes, it finally hit me: Peter Jennings HAS BEEN DEAD 10 years. Why did I not remember it the first time? Let's recap.
10 years ago this week, The Weasel & The Bald Snake pushed my department (and the 2 admins left) into 50 hour weeks. I had to cover and catch Conchita de Goddessa Punanney's mistakes EVERY DAMN DAY. This meant I had to come in on WEEKENDS unpaid to cover OVN's (Online Video Network orders --youtube had just launched) and 2 foot stacks of contracts that The Weasel would sit on and not sign for days. I had just been formally and definitively diagnosed with fibromyalgia (which no one believed I had, and basically I thought would go away) while being "guinea pigged" (my word) on big, fat horse pills. The amount of thinking and multi-tasking I had to do was INSANE, which is why I was afraid of pain pills. My anxiety levels were hitting the ceiling and beyond, so Alprazolam was given to me. Praz pills (again, my word for them) is the generic form of XANAX. I was on 1 mg, but for a person who never took medications before, this hit me like an elephant driving a mack truck. I had hangovers in the morning after coming home each night (and sometimes going into work) having full-blown THEY'RE-GONNA-GET-ME-I'M-DOOMED-THEY-KNOW-WHERE-I-LIVE PANIC ATTACKS. If you've never had a panic attack? You are a blessed human being with people around you that care, something I have had very little of. Those 50 hour weeks soon turned into 55 hour weeks when I started going into the office on Saturday AND Sunday, just to catch up. There were also nights I was still at my desk at 7 or 7:30 pm. The average week for me, even WITH job interviews, in May 2006, became 62 hours, and I was only getting paid for 35 hours, an overtime violation. This sent me off to HR (who didn't care, thank you Evil Longoria with The Buck Teeth), and later to the EEOC and Vincent Hammond (MY HERO) at the New York State Labor Board. When payroll "forgot" to cut me my last check on my last day, I sicced Vince on them, and my money showed up. Nothing like a good lawsuit threat to wake up bad management.
That's pretty much why I never noticed Peter Jennings has been dead for 10 years. I barely noticed it the first time. 2015 has been up and down so far, but 2005 was a pit of black, spiny depression and pain--physical and emotional. Thelma Carter's death pretty much shoved me over the edge. Age 60, gave her life to AADA, a true hell of a school if I ever I saw one. I wonder if the place is being run with any integrity now, because it was a festering pit of ineptitude when I left, the same quality that eventually took AP into the abyss, as well. It continually amazes me how incompetent, asskissing narcissists are allowed to pump up their own salaries and egos at the expense of good staff and people that care, as if it's all a game. TRULY DISGUSING, which is why I am trying so damn hard now to find a way to work for myself.
Thelma Carter gone. Tracey Trevett gone. Janis Powell has a heart attack and LIVES? Proof the devil protects his own. But karma took her down a few pegs--Thelma eventually became Dean of the Day program, Evening Program lost all its funding with the recession, and I have heard NO ONE have anything good to say about this woman since the day I left, April 6, 2001.
So, in the scheme of things? Me not noticing Peter Jennings gone is not really that shocking. I was bewildered and a bit embarrassed, but there was so much going on 10 years ago, I totally missed it.
I do not miss AADA at all. I do not miss the AP at all ( I miss the old SkyRink where my desk eventually sat). I will never give creedence nor be beholden to those that take pleasure in treating others like complete garbage. In 2010, I heard the Weasel got his--he went home for Christmas vacation time, and was told not to come back. I might have quit (and goddamn, it took a long time), but that joke of an executive GOT SHOVED OUT.
That is truly joyful. News Membership (Eventually News Markets) was wiped off the 16th floor. Who knows who sits at my desk now. Not that I care, I still remember walking onto a cool sheet of ice in 1981 with my friend Kathy Seddeducatto from the Broadmoor (the pre-1994 rink) and twirling around. THAT will always be my 16th floor.
I miss you, Thelma. I'm sorry, Peter. I wonder if I'll ever get things right.
