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handful_ofdustGrey, dull, cold day. I feel somewhat like an unknown person has been beating me all over with a cloth-muffled wrench. Doesn't help that (inevitably) Steve was not, in fact, able to get home in time for me to do BodyCombat, the first time I've missed it in months. This week has been a total write-off in terms of working out, and I don't expect that to change.
Yesterday's visit to the plastic surgeon was encouraging, when I eventually got there--he was so busy that they kept me waiting a full hour and a half after the time the appointment was actually set for. But according to him, I should have no problem getting OHIP to honor my claim for surgery; he's put it through, and will call me back in three months, after it's been returned, at which point we can start talking about when the deed should be done. According to measurements, my nipples are at currently 36 (or 38?) centimetres, and he'd be moving them back to 21, then getting rid of the overslop. A thin rim of scar around the nipple, plus an immediate increase in firmness (due, the material he showed me says, to "tissue necrosis"), and I go down from a size I to a size C (effectively returning to where I was maybe...twenty years ago). Possible problems include infection and bleeding during surgery, but we discussed my reaction to having a caesarian, and he says the prognosis looks very good indeed based on that.
So, yeah: That's settled. If they come through with the money, I'm doing it.
Last night, Steve and I had a not-so-funny-ha-ha conversation about the concept of service, as sparked by rm's no doubt already-notorious recent post on Con Etiquette. Most of her observations I absolutely agree with, right up to her injunction that panelists should be "useful to [their] audience[s]"...but then she went ahead and added: "You are here to serve", and I felt myself bristle, because "serve" is a loaded word, to me. When Steve hears it, he thinks Christian ideals of charity; I hear it, and think of bad outtakes from a John Norman ...of Gor novel.
"Well, what about community service?" He asked.
"Community service is something they make you do when you've committed a crime and you don't want to go to jail," I replied. "That's not why I go to a con, generally."
It reminded me of when I first went to that orientation meeting at the TFS, and they told us we had to remember we were part of "the service industry". My position on that at the time was that A) being a teacher is not like being a waiter and B) most people who are in the service industry, in my experience, don't really "want" to be there--they're marking time until they can get a "real" job somewhere else, one which doesn't involve having to occupy the service industry/customer is always right (so STFU, or I'll get you fired) headspace. The odd part is that I do, on some level, believe that part of teaching is helping people--a big part. I always liked that part a lot. But it also very much comes from a place of tough love, and I don't think you can approach it in the quite the way it needs to be approached if you're being forced into what's always struck me as a mock-subservient, essentially untrue bout of roleplaying-for-hire in which the customer somehow wants to be convinced you are there because you like it, and gets pissed off if you can't manage that.
And yes: As you can probably tell, I've hated every "service industry" job I've ever had; much of my "no thank you, you don't get to say that to me, not when we're both adult human beings of equal potential respectability/skill-level interacting as such" definitely stems directly from having had to stand there smiling and nodding while somebody acted like an ass just because they could. I get that some people have apparently had better experiences, but for me, it was like being forced to do non-consensual BDSM; the fact that I was getting paid didn't even help that much, because it reinforced the feeling that a really awful job has much in common (at least philosophically) with unchosen sex work.
Actually, I'm sort of surprised myself by the strength of my response to this. Anyone? Bueller?
Yesterday's visit to the plastic surgeon was encouraging, when I eventually got there--he was so busy that they kept me waiting a full hour and a half after the time the appointment was actually set for. But according to him, I should have no problem getting OHIP to honor my claim for surgery; he's put it through, and will call me back in three months, after it's been returned, at which point we can start talking about when the deed should be done. According to measurements, my nipples are at currently 36 (or 38?) centimetres, and he'd be moving them back to 21, then getting rid of the overslop. A thin rim of scar around the nipple, plus an immediate increase in firmness (due, the material he showed me says, to "tissue necrosis"), and I go down from a size I to a size C (effectively returning to where I was maybe...twenty years ago). Possible problems include infection and bleeding during surgery, but we discussed my reaction to having a caesarian, and he says the prognosis looks very good indeed based on that.
So, yeah: That's settled. If they come through with the money, I'm doing it.
Last night, Steve and I had a not-so-funny-ha-ha conversation about the concept of service, as sparked by rm's no doubt already-notorious recent post on Con Etiquette. Most of her observations I absolutely agree with, right up to her injunction that panelists should be "useful to [their] audience[s]"...but then she went ahead and added: "You are here to serve", and I felt myself bristle, because "serve" is a loaded word, to me. When Steve hears it, he thinks Christian ideals of charity; I hear it, and think of bad outtakes from a John Norman ...of Gor novel.
"Well, what about community service?" He asked.
"Community service is something they make you do when you've committed a crime and you don't want to go to jail," I replied. "That's not why I go to a con, generally."
It reminded me of when I first went to that orientation meeting at the TFS, and they told us we had to remember we were part of "the service industry". My position on that at the time was that A) being a teacher is not like being a waiter and B) most people who are in the service industry, in my experience, don't really "want" to be there--they're marking time until they can get a "real" job somewhere else, one which doesn't involve having to occupy the service industry/customer is always right (so STFU, or I'll get you fired) headspace. The odd part is that I do, on some level, believe that part of teaching is helping people--a big part. I always liked that part a lot. But it also very much comes from a place of tough love, and I don't think you can approach it in the quite the way it needs to be approached if you're being forced into what's always struck me as a mock-subservient, essentially untrue bout of roleplaying-for-hire in which the customer somehow wants to be convinced you are there because you like it, and gets pissed off if you can't manage that.
And yes: As you can probably tell, I've hated every "service industry" job I've ever had; much of my "no thank you, you don't get to say that to me, not when we're both adult human beings of equal potential respectability/skill-level interacting as such" definitely stems directly from having had to stand there smiling and nodding while somebody acted like an ass just because they could. I get that some people have apparently had better experiences, but for me, it was like being forced to do non-consensual BDSM; the fact that I was getting paid didn't even help that much, because it reinforced the feeling that a really awful job has much in common (at least philosophically) with unchosen sex work.
Actually, I'm sort of surprised myself by the strength of my response to this. Anyone? Bueller?
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 03:47 pm (UTC)I don't have such strong reactions to the concept of service, but the notion that the panelists at a con are there "to serve" seems somehow both self-aggrandizing and falsely humble. I think the two go hand in hand. It's like a star doctor saying he's there to serve, but really thinking how lucky the patient is to have him do the operation--and the patient is thinking it too! So it's kind of fatuous. The subtext is "You're so lucky to have me," and their subtext response is "Oh yes, yes we are!"
no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 05:46 pm (UTC)(Mixed or complex motives! They can be positive!)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 05:56 pm (UTC)It's just not cool to have to engage in the whole "I'm your humble servant" thing.
The other thing about the servant schtick is that if one party is there to serve, it implies that the other party is there to *be* served... why not just have it be that all parties are there to enjoy one another's company, network, promote, cheer on friends, squee over people they admire, etc.?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-29 04:10 pm (UTC)By which they actually meant something like "Develop great power, so you can carry great responsibilities without being someone else's doormat."