Stuck In A Basement, Sittin’ On a Tricycle, Girl Gettin’ on my Nerves…
By Lauren Pincente

At this point in my academic career, I should be secure in what my next step is going to be. Should, as always in my life, is the operative word here, though. I am halfway through my 4th, and what should have been final, year and just now realizing that maybe graduate school is not in the cards for me. As a result of a very insulting grade and the out-of-left-field opinions of one Political Science TA, I sit here rethinking my entire academic life: my hopes, my mistakes and the reality. I realized I have been stuck in a gray area since I arrived at U of T.

I remember my first day of university very clearly. It was a Tuesday because I had somehow scored a great schedule which included Mondays and Friday off. At 9am, I was one of the first students settled into the comfortable theatre seating of Isabel Bader Theatre, waiting for Introduction to Architecture to start. For the first time in my life, I actually felt I was doing something relatively productive. I had made my parents proud, I was going to school in what my first professor called “The Greatest University in the Country” and I had moved out on my own. I was woman, you could hear me roar.

My first two classes at U of T were exceptionally generous in that they did not overwhelm nor intimidate me. It was not until my third class, Introduction to Philosophy, that I was given a real taste of university life. The topic of abortion came up in discussion which Prof. James Brown (yes, James Brown) was using as a precursor to his Violinist argument. A very brave boy, front row, centre, raised his hand and made the following statement: “If a girl gets pregnant and wants to have an abortion, it is her own problem. It is her own fault for getting pregnant—she was the one who decided to have sex.” The words barely had time to echo in the theatre when all female students in the class pounced on him. There was a lot of screaming and yelling, I am pretty sure I saw a young girl run out crying. Papers were thrown and a tomato was smashed on the stage. Absolute chaos ensued. One female in particular yelled out, “WHAT ABOUT RAPE?!” As soon as the commotion had started, the boy sat, wide-eyed and obviously taken aback by the reaction. Prof. James Brown looked down on him and smiled, in that knowing way that only wise U of T professors can, as if to say, “Welcome to university, kid.” (To this day, I swear there may have been a little James Brown “heh!” mumbled.)

My father had told me there would be something memorable about the first day of university. In his experience, it was the Professor telling the class, “Forget everything you learned in high school, you do not need it anymore.” For me, it was watching some poor public high school student get mobbed by a group of feminists, ripping at his clothing and screaming at him like banshees. (Well, not really. But I do like to imagine that he was sincere in his statement and that that did happen to him though I know that he just really did not think about his argument thoroughly before speaking.) The incident sticks out in my mind so much so that to this day, I am afraid of what some kid in a beatnik will say if I speak up in tutorial. It has taught me to think long and hard before I speak. It has also made me realize that I am far more undereducated and uncultured than I previously thought I was. I admit it-- I had not seen the backlash of his statement coming.

Second year was a blur of overworking myself to pay bills and trying to maintain/beat the grades I had achieved in first year to no avail: by the end of the year, I was so worn out that I had stopped going to class and only finished two credits. This was the beginning of my problems.

That summer, I went to Oxford University for extra credits towards my English degree, which I was slowly beginning to despise. The moment I got to Oxford, I realized I was stuck amongst rich, private school WASPs and I could not compare. I am, after all, a first generation Canadian whose parents and grandparents spent their entire lives working towards a very small fortune. I realized I just do not have the stamina to compete with people who can actually come up with terms like “Ayatollah of Areolas” without a blink of an eye (okay, so it is a bad example but it’s true. I know you are laughing right now, Christine). With that realization, I needed to chill out and reevaluate my studies so I took a semester off, knowing I would eventually go back but still wanting to drop out.

After a lengthy and boring third year in which I primarily worked my waitressing job and did 1.5 irrelevant credits just to keep myself entertained, I realized I wanted to be in school and I was ready to face the harsh reality of prep school kids and people smarter than me again. With that, I spent my summer playing catch up and returned this past fall to classes and a new major in Film Studies. Four months in, though, and I am starting to get back that old, familiar feeling. Oh, yes, I’ve lost that loving feeling. Now it’s gone… gone… gone… woah-oh-oh.

On Sunday at 9am, I attended a tutorial on Super8 filmmaking out of my own general interest in starting to develop extra skills for my grad school applications. While there, I met a girl who, I kid you not, was named Gray. She was smart and witty, perhaps a tad annoying because she was one of those kids who you know is always asking questions in lecture. She was of questionable sexuality—she dressed like a boy, looked like a boy, had the haircut of a boy and introduced herself in such a mumbled voice, I thought she was a boy named “Greg”. It was not until much later in the tutorial that I realized she was in fact, a pseudo-lesbian: she looked the part of the butchy stereotypical lesbian but it was a cover-up. I am almost positive the word “boyfriend” was dropped in her conversation to the scriptwriter sitting next to me. On the walk home from class, I could not think of everything that I had learned. All I could think about was how funny it was that her name and her sexuality were so elusive. She literally was Pat from Saturday Night Live. Talk about being stuck in a gray area. Beneath all that she symbolized, though, Gray made me realize that I am just as bad as any pseudo-lesbian. Not only do I waffle between the adjectives of “intelligent” and “dumb” but I interchange two personalities with my different groups of friends—at school, I am the defeatist failure and at home, I am the success. My true persona is just as evasive as Gray’s (though maybe not quite extreme as that of Pat).

Yesterday, I got back my political theory paper. The grade was a 66%, insulting but not too harmful. The comments from the TA, on the other hand, were downright offensive. All I have ever wanted to do with my life is write. Apparently I was some form of child prodigy because my mother swears that I began to read at the age of two and I do remember reading the dictionary to learn “fun” words when I was in grade one. I distinctly remember reading two “The Baby-Sitters Club” books each day over the summer after grade two until my parents could not keep up with purchasing them because I read them too fast. By grade seven, I was receiving special consideration for book report due dates because while my classmates were reading 200 page novellas, I was attempting to read a 1000 page epic. According to my TA, not only can I not write but I lack the basic skills of putting together a paper. Zing!

Apparently child prodigies do not grow with their titles as their bodies grow. Somewhere along the lines, I found myself in this gray area where I am trapped by Bs and Cs on my transcripts from previous mistakes and people outside the university telling me that I am smart. My friends are all annoyed: I whine about getting a great education. I understand how much of a burden my worries have become on others but I cannot seem to shake this feeling. I think back to my political theory lectures and tutorials and I do not think I am missing something other people are getting, so where am I going wrong? Is my writing really that bad? Should I give it up? Writing is my identity—it’s like red hair is to Christine for me—what could I possibly do without it? It sounds silly because it is just one TA out of many but this TA has a PhD in Political Science. And she’s Russian. This means that at some point in the future, she will try to take over the world and will probably not be pulling me up in the ranks of her dictatorship. She will only remember me as the bad writer who never really spoke in her tutorial. She will stamp me on the forehead with a red “66”, one extra number shy of being branded the devil, and I will forever be known as the horrible writer, who attempted to take down Aristotle, in her great academia politica dictatorship.

Here I sit, now, with my scarlet numbers burned into me as I worry about what is to come of my grade in this course, its effect on my GPA and my chances at NYU film school. My gray area, the place I am stuck between my private school educated U of T friends and my friends from my hometown as well as my former academic success and my current disappointments, seems to be a place where I stand virtually apart from everyone I know. How nice-- God managed to at least give me my own little area, painted a drab and depressing colour. Not to mention I am stuck here with a non-lesbian lesbian who just may be better off than me.

Warning: This Constitutes as a Random Stream of Consciousness
By Lauren Pincente

Today, I took a two hour evening nap after eating a bowl of pasta. It was the first time in my life that I gave into the after meal drowsiness I always experience. I fought through all of "Annie Hall", my dinner theatre for the evening, until Woody Allen just could not hold my attention any longer. The fact that I even had the time to cook dinner and watch a movie is proof that I need to be employed soon. It has been only six days since I left work and I have written three blogs on the topic (including this one), told my closest friends the entire story and applied for approximately 40-50 jobs (I wish I was joking). Given that the Christmas season is wrapping up, I expect calls back anytime in the near future.

Before I settled in to my hearty (fattening) plate of rigatoni, I received a phone call from Citigroup Financial for an interview this Thursday morning, the first of what will hopefully be a series of callbacks. Here's the bad news: I have no recollection of applying for a job with this company and I suspect that I am about to be pulled into some sort of Pyramid scam during the interview. Nevertheless, I will be in attendance at 11:30am with Mr. Tal Grossman anyway. I am so desperate to be saved from evening naps that could potentially be symptoms of old age and a pending trailer park lifestyle, I will work in a boring, monotonous financial institution (though credit must be given, Mr. Grossman sounds like a real character).

After I had accepted the interview, I sat down to think. How is it, I thought, that not even a week later, I am so restless that I cannot even spend an entire day at home without wanting to dive head first off my balcony? (Note: I live on the second floor; I think the only reason I have yet to take the plunge is because it would be more depressing standing up once I hit the ground and realizing that I am completely uninjured.) I am normally a restless person (restlessness is no fault though, let it be warned. The young and the restless always lead the most interesting lives.) But, what some of you may not know, is that I am actually queen of multi-tasking and a hardcore workaholic because I can get so restless at times (I know, Oxfordians are shocked-- the girl who gave up on Shakespeare?!). In high school, I always had my assignments done weeks early. I have been employed by one soul-sucking corporation or another ever since I was 14. I am such a control freak that I am constantly fixing, straightening, doing, working on something or being somewhere that I'm needed because I do not like wavering. Even if I am spending a night at home watching TV, I am always doing something in front of the TV whether it is writing my mother's Christmas cards, reading or organizing something in the apartment. I am an expert multi-tasker and a workaholic (except when it came to schoolwork in 2nd and 3rd year).

I know that "when I grow up" and I am out in the world, working hard at my career job, I will be one of those people who stays late at the office, and not just to do some co-worker on the Xerox machine. I hope the career I will have will be one that I love and once I start things that I love doing, I do not like to stop. Organizing makes me happy. Working makes me happy until I start to hate my job (stupid Outback). Clean, uncluttered surfaces in my apartment, alphabetized CD collections, and "decorating" my bookshelves by placing books awkwardly upon them makes me happy. Working hard is also something I love (though I only whip that out for things that I'm REALLY into). I think this will only worsen with age and I look forward to it.

I also suspect that my annoying, uptight ways will fester when I am older, like a bad disease. Eventually, my career-centred ambitions will translate into negligence of other aspects of life. Maybe I will be a negligent and abusive mother, as well. Not only would I be the perfect companion to the Whiskey Will persona that Hertha takes on in public, but so many people would be scared of me. I will be the boss of whatever company I am working for in no time. I accept that fate, though. I used to be considering the marrying kind because I used to be sweet and innocent. I still have my spunk (which lately seems to have taken over my public persona because I think I am embarassed of my neurotic organized self); my spunk has just grown me into a motivated, career-driven type of person. I accept that I may never get married because I love film and I hope I will work in some sort of film industry for the rest of my life, whether Canadian, American or international. Film will take over my life and become my surrogate husband (though I may consider making love to celluloid in private from time to time, just to keep myself satisfied. After all, I am woman). Marriage is no longer on my list of priorities and I really do not care because really, no one likes "marriage material" anyway. It's really just a euphemism for boring, predictable, has no other relationship or career prospects, etc, anyway. Rest assured, Lauren will go on in her spunky, multi-tasking, workaholic ways and be a modern day working woman in business casual suits, probably wearing running shoes and stockings for the trek home on the subway only to arrive at her condo to be greeted by her cats (maybe a baby if I can find a sperm bank. But the baby will have to take care of its own damn self.) Oh, the possibilities!

Essentially, tonight I decided that I am the hardest working unemployed person around. I managed to draw up my entire future while watching Woody Allen play the neurotic, paranoid Albie in "Annie Hall" and trying to ward off sleep. I decided I am not "marriage material" and that I was better off alone. I managed to define myself as a polar opposite OF MYSELF in a blog. See? I told you I was productive. It was also a very big bowl of pasta.

Joblessness Looks Good on Me
By Lauren Pincente

My friend Theo told me the day after I quit my job that it takes a special kind of person to be able to live in a Yorkville condo and become jobless trailer trash. My response was that I just may be that special person. It has been 3 days since I've worked and I'm only starting to get a little worried about my financial situation. Christmas is in a day and a half so I'm hoping there will be some sort of payoff from this holiday season (which I keep forgetting about because bills are all that is on my mind). The fridge is starting to empty out.

In fact, I could probably list off it's contents right now and I know for a fact they include a really old tub of frozen yogurt that I am still eating, milk that expired on December 12th, 2 chicken breasts, a bag of frozen perogies and some fruit that I bought the last time I went to the grocery store (about 2 weeks ago). Sundays are usually the day that I visit my favourite Loblaws fish guy (some brainiac who was able to tell me the difference between gouda and some weird smelly cheese I had never heard of); this week there will be no visit to his counter. Little Timmy will not be eating salmon and tilapia this Christmas, only tuna out of a 99 cent can.

With Theo's advice, I will be attempting to live a ghetto lifestyle. I already have the "Trailer Park Boys"-admiring boyfriend who saunters around my condo in a mustard-stained wife beater and his boxers all day, yelling at me to turn down the heat. I already give myself my special "homegrown" haircuts which, this week, resulted in butchered bangs. While I admit, I did apply for about 30-40 jobs today in every area from airline call centres to bartending positions to reception jobs (and one close call with a hedonist club, I kid you not), I can still live the life of trailer trash. My furniture is stained and relatively cheap (I was in my Ikea phase when I moved out). My duvet has a hole in it making my apartment look as if a chicken factory exploded feathers everywhere. My stainless steel fridge and granite countertops have not been cleaned in, oh, a month maybe (yesterday I picked off some sort of red sauce. I haven't used red sauce in months). I am well on my way there!

My next step would be to make my teeth more yellow (perhaps black) and maybe even have a few fall out for dramatic effect. I think this could be entirely possible since I am still to this day ignoring my stalker-dentist (seriously). I considered getting one of those "funky" mullet haircuts a few weeks ago and now, I have the perfect excuse! It is only a matter of time until I, along with Whiskey Will, will bring down Yorkville to trashy levels. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go bang on the TV and tug on the antennas while Whiskey Will is out catching roadkill for dinner.

“Your Daughter Has A Problem With Authority Figures”
By Lauren Pincente

If Madonna can be called a revolutionary figure then my behaviour this past week is definitely on par with her. I quit my job with no money in the bank and absolutely zero prospects for a new one lined up. The best part? I'm not even worried.

There are many things in this world I cannot tolerate. Firstly, there's Julia Roberts and her oversized smile. Then there is people who take advantage of and exploit me. My boss is one of them. After the events that took place at my job on Sunday (meaning a 10 hour shift and only making $42 plus wages for 3.5 hours), I had sucked on the last straw of Outback's dirty, dirty taste of the real world. For the past 8 months, I had been whining and complaining to all my co-workers about how much I hated that job and it finally came to fruition. In a huff, I came home, gave myself a few hours to relax and then calmly wrote to the head office of Outback International in Atlanta, Georgia to tell them what it is REALLY like to work for their wretched company. I knew as I was writing it that it would be obvious who was behind the computer screen (I made direct reference to myself not caring how I was jeopardizing my job) and I did not care. Outback has pushed me too far this time.

The details of the letter are a bit fuzzy now but I know it was only a paragraph long and chockfull of accusations (I hate to call them that because they are not just accusations but truths). I wrote about the shoddy business practices and I named names. I was sick of being lied to and of working for pennies. I was sick of the fact that the company was paying us minimum wage (which is fine because it's normal business practice for any restaurant) but then jeopardizing our only chance to actually make money by "volunteering" us for shifts, by giving us bad sections if we were not liked by management and by stuffing the restaurant so full of employees that no one ever had the opportunity to make money. As long as the customers get all the undeserved attention they need and the business makes money, right Stan? I did not think the letter was bad; I thought I had told the truth. Apparently, what I had done though had set off the two men named in the letter. When I went into work last night and I had heard about how angry they were, I knew I was either about to be threatened or be taken for a ride. Bonzer.

Today, I sit in a bit of a dillemma. In my family, the apple doesn't fall from the tree. This exact same situation happened in the 70s to my father, when he was my age *flashback sequence*:

An afternoon meeting had been called. A young Flavio Pincente and his girlfriend, Kornelia Schwarz (now married), were employees in the same department store, Towers. Kornelia was the quiet and shy German immigrant who worked on cash. Flavio was a rough, loud and vibrant Italian immigrant who worked on the floor and was one of the best salesmen in the shoe department. They sat down in the meeting and their boss announced the big kahuna, the man in charge of all the Towers in Canada, to the podium. The man, dressed in his fancy 70s leisure suit, stood before his employees and spoke. He was discussing theft and said in a threatening, condascending tone: "SOMEONE HERE is stealing. And we will catch YOU if YOU steal." Flavio sat, flustered. As the man ranted on and on, Flavio got angrier and angrier until finally, he raised his hand and stood up. "You know what I don't like? I don't like the fact that YOU are THREATENING US."

Now, obviously, I can't imagine what about this situation angered my father so much. I think there was likely more to the story that he didn't tell. But what I do know is that after this happened, my father was cornered by his manager and subsequently had his shifts cut. This is the future I foresee if I were to stay at Outback. The difference between my father and I is that my father stayed. My father knew he was the best in the store and he stayed, through all of his manager's bullshit, until he was back in priority to prove his point. Could I see myself doing that with Outback? Yes. I can imagine staying and being back on top because my boss has hated me before (though that was for no reason but his own PMSing). But do I want to put up with this anymore? Definitely not. After all, I was the one who wrote the letter in the first place.

My father wanted me to resign but I know that a part of him wants me to stay just to anger them even more. A meeting has been called on Friday and I was warned that being fired could be in my near future when I admit to writing the letter (though I already have to many employees and one manager).

The problem is that I do not feel like being cornered and threatened by these men. Within recent months, I merely worked at the Outback but I didn't work for them. Whenever the topic of my job came up at dinner with friends or when I was visiting my parents, I would say exactly what I said in that letter. I have not cared about that job in months and to be honest, I was waiting to get fired. I did things on purpose just so I'd be forced to have to get a new job because it was partial laziness that I hadn't.

I know that they actually cannot fire me because right now, I'm dangling some hefty information in front of Head Office's eyes about them and I'm protected by many whistle-blower laws. I considered staying. In fact, I think it's almost cowardly to quit before the meeting because I really want to give them a face-to-face piece of my mind. I'm considering attending just for shits and giggles and also to prove that it's not just my problem with authority figures that has led to my defiance in this situation.

Though believe me, many of my high school teachers will say that I have a major problem with that and it's true. I once got suspended because a teacher told me I couldn't eat pizza in the hallway. It was such a stupid rule and the lady was on such a power trip that naturally, I had to defy her. When my father called the principal for clarification, their excuse was that I had "a problem with authority figures" and that my suspension was a result of my defiance, not my pizza loving.

The regional manager does not know me and I know he's thinking I'm some punk with a chip on my shoulder. I want him to know that it's more than that. This is about the fact that they take advantage of their employees and treat them like dirt all the while patting them on the back and saying, "You will make money" or "Other jobs aren't nearly as good as this one." If that's not suppression, than what is?

I want money and I currently have no job, but I also want my dignity. Every night that I worked there, I looked outside of myself and watched the environment I worked in and the people I worked for and thought to myself, "If I saw anyone else as angry with a company as I see myself, I would tell them not to stand for any of it." I am at the point where I now look at it and think, why did I ever stay? In retrospect, I do not regret writing that letter. I never leave a room quietly, so why should I leave a job without stating my opinion on the conditions? So maybe I'm not a revolutionary. So what? I finally took a stand about something I cared about and I'm proud. I know that now the shit talking will start. I know that my old boss will go around discussing my behaviour with other employees and I hope he does. That would just prove my point further.

Some advice to those I left behind (not like I'm wise or anything): Outback actually has pretty good communication levels so if you are angry about something, talk to them. Do not let anyone stand there and condascend. If you do not agree with something and see nothing changing about it, do not hesitate to write to the corporation like I did. When you write to them, they get angry with our "superiors" (I use that term VERY loosely for the dense mind of Stanley Goodman). The reason why our bosses are so angry about my letter is probably because they are now being treated the way Leon treats Adam or any other employee he hates-- which is completely deserved for the stuff they pull on you. And most importantly, do NOT kiss the asses of the "important" people who fly in from Georgia to check up on the restaurant. They are flying in on private jets which YOU are paying for because a) they are overstaffing at low wages for customer service purposes meaning you do not make money but they do and b) do I really need to mention the inequality in ticket audits? Furthermore, if you have a problem that you think is serious enough, quit when you first want to quit. I literally have $0 in the bank but I have faith that I did the right thing and I will be okay.

"If you are irreplacable, you will never be able to go anywhere."

Gulp.
By Lauren Pincente

You know you've got it bad when you've just come home from a $15 lunch and you're regretting it because you're so broke (Rowers Pub on Harbord St.--3 lbs. of wings, 2 for 1 deal!). The second my boyfriend started putting his shoes on to leave my place, I was already spinning, counting the money I've spent. $15 on lunch and an additional $60 on DVDs today alone (Welles' "Citizen Kane", a gift for my brother and Antonioni's "Professione: Reporter", a reward for myself). Can we please avoid the fact that I have $300 left to my name and my VISA bill is not only much bigger but far overdue? Oh, wait. I think my hydro just went out because I haven't paid the bill yet. This summer's European vacation keeps slipping further and further away and all I needed to save was $2500. How sad. I can always blame my job, though. Barely making $50 in a shift does constitute as slave labour, doesn't it?

I can't really complain though. The real world (though mine is a bit fluffy and padded thanks to my father's generosity) is far better than being under my parents constant surveillance. I'll take student life over that any day. At least student life comes with cheap beer and occasionally free pizza from the student center.