Edit: I'm going to go out on a limb here and link stumbleupon and myspace on the side now in the hopes that I won't come to regret it. I've also finally included my AIM screen name in my D-Land profile. Solicitation is not welcome.

I've discovered a new pet peeve of mine.

Actually, pet peeve is not strong enough a term to use. The best way I can describe the feeling I get is abundant, seething, near-indescribable lividity.

Being fed inaccurate and/or conflicting information makes me angry and upset and stressed out until I am on the brink of tears.

I don't even know how to accurately phrase how incompetent the owner and manager are at treating a long-time, loyal employee of their coffee shop.

On Friday, after spending the morning in tears and freaking out about my car and not being able to work at the call center for more than a month, et cetera, I wrote a concise letter requesting of the owner a raise in pay. I spoke to him after my shift ended that day to discuss what he thought about my proposal and I was given very encouraging words. I asked if it seemed okay to him and he said that it looked good--not making any mention that the amount I requested was in any way inadequate or above what he believed I deserved--but he also wanted to speak to the coffee shop manager about it, too.

So I walked off thinking, "Okay, the owner and guy who is in charge of what I get paid here is cool with the amount of money I want. I'm a shoo-in for more moolah. Sweet."

Today I come in and ask my boss if she's talked to the owner about the raise I requested. She says no and wanders off for about 45 minutes (leaving me alone to man the cafe) while she discusses the options with him.

She returns, tight-lipped, until I ask her what he said. I am met with an onslaught of conditions and a $0.20 decrease in the amount that is even potentially under consideration. Apparently I need to show more effort in my work.

I get paid minimum wage at a place where a raise is never simply offered to anyone simply for stick-aroundy-ness or job-requirements-do-ey-ness. Two years of being as loyal as I possibly could despite, for almost a year, having another full-time job on my hands means jack shit to these people. The fact that instead of finding a myriad of inane tasks (e.g. cleaning the slivers of space between the floor tiles with a crusty 17 year old toothbrush) to do when I have downtime (which is a direct result of bad ownership and management and their collective inability to market a coffee shop called Bad Ass to the correct age group) I choose to do a crossword puzzle absolutely blows their minds.

It's not like you give anyone who works there a scheduled break, hey! It's not like the bookstore employees don't get an hour off for lunch if they want it, hey! It's not like your manager, my boss, doesn't come in 3 hours late most of the days she schedules herself for and then does nothing but sit on her ass writing thank-you notes to the fifteen hundred people who scribbled anything in the guestbook at her father's funeral, hey!

And it's certainly not like I don't work my ass to the bone when there actually is something valid to be done and come home exhausted with aching shoulders, feet, mind, and a sense of hopelessness and worthlessness because the one fucking place I've legitimately liked working at is actually just a terrible, dead-end job, HEY!

So, yeah. I'll take the raise and I'll conform to your conditions. And September 4th I'll march my rear right back down to the call center and put in another rehire form with the utterly incompetent HR people so that in 3 weeks I can work a job that keeps me pretty much all day away from the man I love because he works mornings and my shift would start at 12:30 and not end until 9. So I can work a job that bores me to death, a job I hate, spending 8 hours a day on the phone giving aid to the dregs of the human race who cannot, no matter how many times you explain it to them, understand that AT&T did not "take money off your phone." If you read the user info when you bought the fucking thing, you'd know that the $15 prepaid refill card expires in, yes, 30 days.

You bet I'd work elsewhere, if there was another place around here that I am qualified for that would hire me full time and pay me $11.50 or more.

A good thing managed to happen today in spite of all of this: The Camaro is all better. Turns out we did not have to replace the entire coolant pump as we initially thought. The pipes leading to it were worn through and that was what comprised the leak, so the bill was about $70 lower than it would've been if they had to replace the pump. B paid for the repairs without me even having to ask.

I'm just so tired of wishing I could make that hopeless shithole of a coffee shop into the really cool place it has the potential to be.

My opinion and suggestions are meaningless. That hurts. I've been there so long I feel as though I should be able to say something and have it make a difference, but decisions just constantly get shelved and nothing ever gets better there.

I may be over-analyzing all of this. It's probably not my place to make suggestions, anyway. It's certainly not in my job description, after all.

I wanna be the manager. I wanna go mad with power.

Or, at the least, get mildly creative and bring life into a place so weak it can't blink, much less stand, any longer.