I really appreciated all the lovely stories that people provided for me yesterday. They really, honestly cheered me up tremendously. THANK YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH.

There were a couple of things going on yesterday, not the least of which was ther prospect of having to work the snow emergency under the new conditions. You all may not be at all surprised to discover that I have "quiet quit," in part because the job became even more unreasonable than it already was.

For those of you just tuning in, the tl;dr is that I previously enjoyed being a "tagger" (the person who gave out parking tickets during a snow emergency) for the City of Saint Paul due to the independent nature of the job. The job changed this year and now the only option is to be an assistant to a retired/reserve police officer as a kind of ride along. Many things, including ACAB, that I no longer could even imagine enjoying, since the largest part of my appreciation of the previous work was, in fact, the autonomy.

Yesterday, things got exponentially worse.

Because I spent much of last season also feeling dread over a job I ended up enjoying, I was determined to attempt to go on at least one shift this year to be absolutely sure that I did, in fact, actually despise it. So, when the call came out yesterday, I BRAVELY answered.

So the initial email offered these shifts, (though they would not guarantee work):

St Paul has DECLARED A SNOW EMERGENCY and runners are needed.
This is a call for ALL Shifts:
- Monday (12/29 NIGHT - 8pm - 5am)
- Tuesday (12/30 DAY - 7am - 5pm)
- Tuesday (12/30 NIGHT - 8pm - 5am)
- Wednesday (12/12 DAY - 7am - 5pm)

Yeah, these are terrible hours. The shift is ten hours, but this was also nothing new. These were the hours I worked last year and I was surprised by how fast the time actually went when you were out and about. So, okay, I wrote back and said I could do the day shift today (you may note I am writing this TODAY.)

The first hassle was waiting to find out if I actually snagged a shift. The email was very clear that I should not show up to work unless I got a notification telling me where and when to show up. Both of these interoggative pronouns confused me a bit since the WHEN was very clearly stated above among my choices and where else would I show up other than the Public Works building in Saint Paul? But, okay, I understood the assignment: wait and see what I was offered before making definite plans to work the next day.

And so I waited.

And waited.

The previous year, this is was much more straight-forward. Regardless of when the text went out (though it was guaranteed to come out by 3 pm the day that the emergency was called), once we agreed to a shift it was ours. You could make plans, pack up a lunch, etc., etc. well in advance.

It was 6:30 pm the night before an early morning shift that I got the following message:

You are scheduled for:
- Tuesday DAY (12/30 - 06:00 - 18:00)

I had to read the message three time before calling Shawn upstairs to also double-check my math. 6 am to 6 pm??? That's a TWELVE hour shift, y'all. Also, NOT AT ALL WHAT WAS INITIALLY OFFERED. 

So, with Shawn's seal of approval, I told them absolutely no fucking way. Only, I just used two letters: "n" and "o."  And, I was moderately polite about it. I believe my actual response was, "I can not work a twelve hour shift. If that means you need to choose someone else, so be it."  

Like, y'all? I was actually perfectly willing to consider ten (possibly horrific) hours in a car with a cop (or, more likely outside in the freezing conditions of the streets of Saint Paul, MInnesota--it is 17 F/-3 C today--with a cop harrassing me to hurry up.)  But twleve hours feels vaguely unconstitutional, you know? Especially since at the informational meeting I attended regarding the changes in this job, I asked, "So, you're talking a lot about how fast you want to do this job. I'm a woman who is nearly 60 years old. You will make time for me to go to the bathroom, right?" I got a look like, OMG a woman is speaking and an answer that was, and I quote, "This is why we go to the bathroom before our work."  To which, I said, "Sir, we are talking about a ten hour shift and a 60 year old bladder." This didn't didn't even get a laugh. They were dead serious that they weren't willing to give me the breaks that are, in fact, guaranteed by Minnesota Labor Law. 

So ... (again, possibly not in a surprise to anyone) ACAB and Fuck Saint Paul.