Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Working Girl

Posted by Laura / 1 comment » / , jobs, life, people, portland, work

I started work at Time Warner on Friday, and so far, I really like it. I’m on my third day at work now and I’ve met my supervisor, a few of the HR representatives and some of the people with whom I will likely be working on a semi-regular basis. I’ve calculated mileage to the various payment centers, got a schedule from this week until April 1, when I start my official training. I have no idea how long that is actually supposed to last, since the schedule that my supervisor printed for me says “April 1-?” for the training time.

Being at work has started to change my perspective a little about the people in the area. The demographics of the Cleveland area are fairly diverse, and on the one hand, I’m not as used to it – Portland is certainly not that diverse – but on the other, it seems like I’m more tolerant of it than the people I now work with. After each person with an accent (save for the man with the Irish accent), there are disparaging comments about whether there are any Americans left living in America and whether, if Obama is elected as President, we’ll get affirmative action because we’ll be the “minority.” What, really? Suddenly white people will disappear? Apparently so. All the same, they’re nice ladies, profess to be democrats and I have similar interests with both of them as they sit here. It seems incongruous that two people who, theoretically, are for equal rights for everyone and who adhere to the Democratic party ideals are also mildly racist in a way that actually makes me uncomfortable.

Avenue Q really does have it right: “Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes.”

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