The top half of this entry has been cross-posted from the LJ. Feel free to skip down to the divider line.
"Crap.
It almost feels hypocritical, as someone who has spent the last year working with lawyers and mitigators and this-ors and that-ors to put together our screening policy. I've spoken with everyone from CxxS top-secret folks as to how they do their clearance, to the run of the mill "just a background check please" folks.
The issue of course isn't just privacy, but discrimination. At some point I used the wrong word somewhere and lived a week of nightmare accusations.
The problem is, I'm glad our system is so sensitive right now. I'm glad that every decision on my part was faced with questions and demands for justification. Every single person who will have to be screened has hours and hours of work on their individual case precisely so that their case stays individual.
And now every company can do it, with nary a second blink. Suddenly that possession charge in high school, whereas it WILL get you hired according to many current policies so long as it does not directly pose conflict with your intended tasks (armoured truck drivers, for example can't be stoners -- whereas for executive admins it bears no significant information on their trust level).
I know I'm just digging my hole deeper -- but this article, biased and alarmist as it is, fucking terrifies me. I know I'm clean and it will never directly affect my ability to land a job, but... That doesn't make it alright.
Fortunately, as legislation stands now -- this is unlikely to happen in Canada, or at least unlikely to set a court precedent wherein all companies can get away with it sans scrutiny."
And in other news I realized yet another only-important-to-me thing this morning as M____ kissed my cheek on her way out of the car.
The effect of carpooling to work every morning with the lovely lady has had a profound effect on, not just my psyche -- but my work and personal strength as well.
It's not as though we solve all the world's problems each morning, and some mornings all we do is drive along in a cloud of cranky doom.
Some mornings we share hurt, disappointment, anger, bitterness. Some morning we debate and disagree, some mornings we do so from within a cloud of cranky bitterness.
Some mornings we say things to each other in the hopes that they will help. Some mornings we don't even think to do that.
All mornings, however, we share space and time and even if that morning is migraines'R'us we still share some form of intangible warmth that I fervently wish I could bottle and distribute. (even if it meant less for me, before you ask)
I spend twenty minutes on average with a relatively new but already dear friend each morning.
As a result of each morning that I spend with her I walk into work different than I would otherwise. More patient, more aware, better balanced on the ever fumbling proverbial ball.
And it has so little to do with my mornings at home, with my quiet time that I wake up at 6am for just to think, with the cuddles-shower-bumgrabbies-kisses routine that Dave and I have worked out.
It has to do with some elusive bit of social needs that I learned I need in a mediocre philosphy class, and one day I might put my finger on the right terminology, but it doesn't matter.
What matters is that after all the healing I spent the last years doing, getting over my anger, my loathing, my fury, my bad habits, my cries for attention, my need to be right, my inability to apologize -- I still have so much left to learn.
This morning I learned that there is more to humans, and friendship, than I previously allowed myself to think, and that in itself has an element of wonder.
This morning I learned that I need people, and that not only is it alright -- but it feels really good too.
This diary has gone from detailed accounts of my miseries, to even more detailed accounts of my fortunes as I begin to notice them one by one...