hopeless as promised

sideblog for writing poetry, random thoughts, melancholy tw for dark subject matter, abuse, 18+ reminder to be kind. no one is forcing you to interact.

[sisu-writes]

i now put my memories in a museum

if i put those precious moments behind glass,

they will neither age nor wither

never grow nor change

time settles as dust

the glass may fog

but what's underneath

remains untouched

and i can never hold them again

[sisu-writes]

I know they say change is good ;

that change is healthy ;

that change is inevitable

ive gotten told this

over and over

by people who sound like they mean well

but it comes off as a threat

often in the form of

if you dont accept the change i force upon you

i will leave you behind

what is wrong with preservation?

constance

in an inconstant world

feels so much safer to me

[sisu-writes]

i now put my memories in a museum

if i put those precious moments behind glass,

they will neither age nor wither

never grow nor change

time settles as dust

the glass may fog

but what's underneath

remains untouched

and i can never hold them again

[sisu-writes]

some things are better left in the past

i used to have nice friends

the kind of friends

who make you laugh so hard you snort milk outta your nose

friends who unironically said stuff like

' id trust you with my life '

' we'll be friends forever '

we talked about the boys we liked, the boys we hated

about silly things like our favorite ships,

how one day we'd be at each other's weddings

the color scheme for mine

was blue purple and white

the flowers would be

dyed blue and purple roses

my maid of honor and gentleman of honor

would wear a baby blue dress and purple tux respectively

we laughed on the floor of her dad's study

drawing pictures of our future to be

then high school ended

we graduated and went to college

we fell out of touch

years later

i decided to try reaching out to them

the response?

ghosted by one

one only texts if i initiate first

i invited one of them to my graduation

and she stood me up after promising to come

that one stung the most

a week later id told her how hurt i was about it

and she gave me a lackluster apology

and basically took no responsibility for it

we dont talk anymore.

i wish sometimes

i had left it all in the past

I shouldn't have reached out

because it just ended in disappointment

i wish i could undo those texts

and just leave it all in the past

down the stairs of my best friend's study

under the soft lamplight

giggling in our sleeping bags until midnight

our sketchbooks and notebooks splayed between us

as we swap stories and draw silly doodles

a happier version of me exists

but i can't get her back

i miss those days

but they're gone now

some things you should keep in the past

because they're precious

and lifting the glass sealing them away

ruins them a little bit

like exposing film to sunlight

i really regret reaching out to them

because it just made it worse to know

that the people who once told me

id die for you

ill read your book a thousand times

those same people cant even be assed to reply to a text message

i would've been better off not knowing

just wondering how they are

and not knowing how theyve changed

i write this blog as a sort of time capsule

because maybe one day my memories will fade

maybe one day i won't even remember my own name

(judging by how my mom's health deteriorated

its only a matter of time)

[sisu-writes]

sometimes i think about how

the people who hurt me the most,

who hated me for being born

who called me derogatory names

who beat me for the crime of not doing my homework one time

who didn't support my decisions

(of bettering myself by going to grad school)

(of getting married to a partner who loved, cared for me and was nothing but kind and polite to them)

who villified my partner after 2 meetings

who villified ME when i was having a nervous breakdown

the people i was supposed to call 'family'

are literal healthcare professionals

who treat patients everyday

that's scary to me.

[sisu-writes]

more of a vent about corporate life

several months ago we hired a new senior accountant who isn't in our timezone

he's nice enough but his work is inconsistent,

things like, his reports are not formatted the same as last month

the headers might be shifted, so everything is off

the .csv isnt formatted for UTF, so it wont load into excel until you tinker with it

and ive tried to point this out nicely by saying

hey could you please make sure this report (which we are all dependent on for our data) is formatted the same as last month?

because otherwise we have to fix the errors and then reupload, which takes forever

and he says ok and doesn't do anything

this affects me and one other girl on the team

and like he just ignores our requests when weve DMd him nicely

so we talk to our manager,

and our manager has this thing where he doesn't like to give constructive feedback to people

so he says

why dont you try to download the bad reports

and then fix them

and then reupload?

and when i said but this will take more time?

he just said no it shouldnt.

and it just ended like that

so basically we have to quality check his review

and because the other girl is so busy and I need the reports sooner than her

im the one doing it

just...lol

so now im doing as he said which is,

way more inefficient

but okay

[sisu-writes]

mike grouse [sic on purpose]

at my job there was a guy named mike grouse

he was a sr. accounting manager

and really good at his job

he came to get the job because our company bought his

and they liked him so much they hired him even after the integration was over

when we went in the office, i remember my accounting director said,

Mike is the MVP

we'd be lost without him

my direct super at the time advised me to learn as much as i could from him

" when in doubt be batman

and if you cant be batman, being mike grouse is a close second "

needless to say

mike was well liked by everyone

so one day

my direct super and accounting director tell me that im gonna help mike out

because Mike is going on paternity leave and needs someone to cover

its really difficult

we have to record all his processes and take notes

me and another girl are tagged in to do it

the training takes literal hours

because we're literally learning his entire job

he's really patient

he was a sweet guy. answered all my dumb questions.

we manage to learn enough so that he can go on paternity leave

he goes on paternity leave

me and the other girl hold down the fort

but to be honest a lot of things go wrong

for example invoices we dont recognize popping up

clients who suddenly demand refunds

clients demanding to speak with mike

it's a mess

we muddle through and told each other

we'll try our best and when mike gets back he will help fix it

a couple months later

mike was about to come back from paternity leave

hed had a baby girl. his 3rd kid

then the company had a massive RIF

mike was let go.

literally the day he came back from paternity leave.

it didn't matter that he'd had nothing but great performance reviews

or that we had a ton of clients asking for him specifically

or that me and the other girl were overwhelmed doing his job,

we were taking a week each to finish his duties on top of our own

with massive Overtime

like over 12 hours a day

they let him go

from what i heard

he threatened to sue

and then he was banned from talking to us

...

We continued to do his job and struggle

eventually they had to hire a new manager to take his place,

6 months later of struggling

a year later

the new manager somewhat figured it out

and me and the other girl were given a $100 giftcard for our efforts

i remember distinctly

the accounting director

the one who had called Mike an MVP

sent me a file and asked me what it was

apparently it was really important for quarterly reporting

and we had missed reporting it for the last few quarters

so someone upstairs was pissed

and I said

i checked the Author name

That Mike didn't train me on this file

and ill never forget

his reply:

whos mike?

[sisu-writes]

when i worked a corporate job, we were expected to clock in at least 60 hours a week

most people worked 90

this averaged out to over 12.8 hours a day...

we were told we needed to do our part,

endure it for just a little longer

this is "just how it is"

and that at the end of busy season,

which ran from January to mid May

we would go back to working 40 hours a week

my coworker was so tired,

she drove home at 3am

and got into a car accident

she was hospitalized

and the first thing she did when she woke up

was ask for her phone so she could contact work

and the first thing her boss asked

was not how are you

or are you okay

it was

" where did you save the revenue samples? "

i wish i could say

that she quit or dramatically told him off on the phone

but real life doesn't work like that.

she told him where they were

then asked for time off,

armed with a doctor's note and the knowledge that her car was no longer road worthy

her boss reluctantly approved it

and she went back to sleep

she was discharged from the hospital

no major injuries,

it was just that she had been so sleep deprived

that they'd decided to keep her there for monitoring

she went home

she got her car fixed

and as soon as she could,

she went back to work

grinding 90 hour work weeks

for the next 3 months straight

she did a great job

everyone praised her performance

she was approaching her 1 year anniversary at the job

then in mid May

once the audit was done

The company laid her off.

despite her excellent performance,

backed up by the metrics and written assessments of her managers

it didn't matter

because they said it was a 15% cut across the board for her cohort

low performers, mid performers, and high performers were cut equally

she still has bills to pay for the hospital overnight

she had only been at the job 10 months

she had done everything she was supposed to do and gone above and beyond

but none of it mattered.

[sisu-writes]

"Sorry"

apologies lived in my throat

ready to tumble out

at a moment's notice

more than a habit,

a reflex

ingrained

"Sorry!"

he called me a bitch

for not replying to his messages

when i was out with friends

even though id replied as soon as i woke up the next morning,

explained that id been busy

and reminded him that i would be out

it didn't matter

"Sorry"

she berated at me

in front of the class

for having the audacity to speak while she was speaking

i had handed my friend her pen

and said "here's your pen"

"sorry"

id asked him how his day was

he said fine,

and returned the question as a statement

"what have you been doing ."

i lit up and said

id been reading about birds

the Leucopsar rothschildi

did he know

this bali maya is featured on the Indonesian rupiah coin?

he said

nobody fucking cares

shut up.

so i said

sorry

[sisu-writes]

i hate telling people things about me. i hate when i become an anecdote in their lives. 'she hates buffalo chicken'. 'her favorite color is purple'. 'her cat has health issues...'

she always wanted to learn more about me so that she could hurt me with it later. so i learned to flatten myself, quietly folding my personality to avoid detection. a shrinking target is harder to hit.

to be unremarkable and palatable is how i stayed safe.

only to be told: you're too quiet. you should smile more. what are you- antisocial?

(she asks, wondering why i was deficit in the social currency she robbed from me)