Brake Check

Last night, I got to a delivery and dragged a Christmas tree from my car and I delivered it to the recipient, and spend the next hour shaking. I haven’t been able to get my blood sugar up all day. I blame that on feminine issues, and on having to use too much brain power to brain.

I wasn’t shaking just because of the low blood sugar. I was shaking because the route I took – a common connector that I drive on multiple times per day – was almost my grave.

Black Ort, a month ago or so ago, told me that if he can, he does what he can for his. That meant brand new winter road legal winter tires for my car. The ones with the mountains and snowflakes. The ones that will be road legal for a year or two. I was not allowed to say no.

I am very thankful for those tires last night.

I saw antlers lift up. I saw the deer jump, spin, and kick out towards my car. I saw it bound away unhurt even though my shoulder hurt from the seatbelt grab. I hadn’t hit it, but I was too close.

Those tires saved my life.

Thank you, Black Ort, for saving my life, especially when I have far too much on my mind to be safe to drive.

Jay Sparrowtree sent out a mug and mouse pad for all the current staff at the Whip. Mine showed up today.

I threw in the towel with the Whip yesterday, with Black Ort acting as my voice with Jay, so I didn’t explode all over Jay. Spitfire was made a manager a couple of months ago for advertising. I’m not a manager, even though I was doing a manager or three amount of work for the Whip. Just the job description Irish wrote up about my responsibilities and job duties took 3 paragraphs. The rest of the management staff each had only one, including Jay. One.

I looked at the notecard and looked at my lack of powers, and my huge list of responsibilities, and the data I was expected to generate, the social aspect, and more, and threw in the towel. My Second Life was no longer fun. I was always “on” when I was on SL. I had stopped generating one of my data points and no one noticed. Or cared. Then Irish’s notecard came out, and I read, and I cried.

I had been reprimanded twice in the previous month by Spitfire for doing their job for them, except I wasn’t. How was advertising supposed to know what commercials needed to be made if they didn’t know who our sponsors were? Or which to update unless someone was in communciation with the sims? Or which to play, or remove from the playlists, because their sponsorship has ended? And which sims were having events? Hello, Sim Liaison knows!

Or at least Sim Liaison is supposed to know this stuff. Hard to know it when the data and information isn’t there.

I had started to do sim liaison work almost instantly when I joined. I got one place to sign up with ease, and another signed up for a while, then dropped cause they went in another direction. I begged the sim liaison at the time for a list of sims that Spitfire and I could play at – I, the Elf, and Spitfire, the alien. Neither of us wanted to upset sim owners with non-gorean species showing up. I begged for months for the list. I was told, by management, to go and do it myself.

So, I did. I would go to Whip HQ almost every week, before my set, and check the sponsors list that was current. Then I would go to the google drive and double check for anything new or new events that needed their promos aired. I didn’t write it down at the time, but did it. I caught DJs playing promos from long expired sponsors and let them know. I would also make sure Jay knew to remove the ads from the auto dj.

I started to wear a “special envoy” tag because of all the little pieces I was doing all over the Whip. I don’t know how many DJs I coached through the transition from the old stream to the new one with the information Jay had sent out. I know I got Jarven and Black Ort up and running, and at least two others. Maybe more, as well as the new DJs that were hired.

I went through the staff list back in April/May and found out that someone listed as a manager didn’t want to be a manager anymore. I worked on the website. I stood in for both Jay and Irish coaching all the DJs, new and old, what the boss wanted for the stream – Live DJ Best DJ.

I would come home from work, and essentially do a second job. I was working on average a minimum 10 hrs a week before I even got to setting up for my own sets. During the transition to the new stream, I was working close to 40 hours a week, if not more. I generate a huge list of what sims were playing the Whip before, during, and after the transition, and was still working on it when I threw in the towel.

Spitfire and others are managers and have less duties than I do.

“People are complaining that you’re not letting them do their job.” So, I waited to see if Advertising would put out a list of current sponsors and ads. No list. I stopped chasing after sponsors for lindens for their monthly sponsorship. Did anyone notice? I saw that I was needed to make contact with a potential sponsor, and so I did and heard nothing back.

I’m supposed to be the head of a “committee.” How big is that committee? The other three people that are supposed to be on the committee, one’s gone on vacay and never once reported to me, one thinks Google Docs is all viruses, and the third disappears for weeks on end. That’s no committee. That left just me.

Just me to generate reports on which sponsors and events need their commercials aired, which sponsors need to be checked to see if they are renewing or not, which sponsors need or want promos for their special events, which sims are playing the Whip, which aren’t and if we can convince them to switch to us…

I had plans for sim liaison. I was planning on offering those who have played us for years something once Jay approved my idea. I had ideas I wanted to bring forward at the next staff meeting – the staff meetings we’re supposed to have once a month but never seem to?

Then I get reprimanded for reaching out. Even Black Ort’s not happy about that.

So I stopped doing my job unless I was instructed to do it.

The notecard with Staff and Duties came out and those three paragraphs and neither title nor authority smacked me across my face. Twice.

I threw in the towel and sobbed. I showed Black Ort the description. Black Ort knows all about all the things in real life that have been throwing me for a loop. Everything that is hitting me emotionally hard this month. Jay’s offer of letting me do the New Years Eve show had me in hysterical sobs. I wanted to do special events, but I don’t, not anymore.

Black Ort acted as a mediator when I threw in the towel. “I quit!” I told him and showed him why. He had seen, with his own eyes, everything I had been doing. I walked out of the Whip’s discord server because I don’t want to see it.

I need the silence.

I need it because my safety is paramount.

I need it because I don’t want to end up splattered because I was thinking “whip this” or “whip that” when I’m also worrying about the next text or phonecall from the mainland. I’m waiting for either “she’s gone,” or “you are a rotten human being for not being there for your mother!”

There’s all the other things that are weighing on me. I can’t think about the Whip right now. And I can’t not do my job at the Whip either. I was there as semi-hostess for Aura’s 5th birthday on the Gorean University Campus, and even though I wasn’t supposed to be coaching any of the other DJs, and only concentrating on what was going on at the GUC, I was still coaching the other DJs. Black Ort had refused to allow me to do the special event. “My sim. My Rules.”

So, I sat in his lap, as he had ordered me to, and acted as on-again, off-again hostess as needed during the event, and listened to the music, and to a man doing what he does best – play music for pretty women to dance to while he basked in the spotlight. Najah’s hard work for months paid off today and the three hour set he did was to show her how much she was valued.

While I was in Black Ort’s lap, two things were realized. Black Ort needs a free woman at his side to help with the slaves, and general hosting and admin duties at the Gorean University. This realization happened the day after he told me he was upping my powers at the GU estates when I went and had a full on meltdown about it. He had moderated for me to Jay the day before and had agreed that I needed a break, and suddenly I get more responsibilies on my shoulders?

Yes, I am willing to be the free woman who helps him, until and unless he gets a free companion again.

Black Ort reminded me that these were powers I was supposed to have gotten a couple of months ago, and told me to relax in his arms while he played music. My dance balls didn’t get used, but my dance pad did, and people had fun. It was a success, and even a few people walked away with prizes.

I don’t know if Jay has accepted that I quit or that I am only on a leave. I have too much going on that’s got my head turned upside down and inside out. I have the need to be a dutiful daughter and fly to my mother’s side and be there for when she passes, or at least say goodbye to her, but then I have my self-survival instinct that says to stay as far from her and her friends as possible. Thermite and Ice are less volitile than putting the two of us in the room.

I’ve been mauled by customers at my real life work, repeatedly. My son got a 3D printer and I bought filament for it, so I have printed up a couple of pieces to try to help me stay safe. I fear for the day when I am not able to get out of a delivery at all. I’m scared to look at my phone because the next text might be my mother berating me for everything I may, or may not, have done.

I’m waiting for the moment I can breathe again.

I’m waiting for the moment I know that she will never be able to hurt me again.

I’m waiting for my freedom from her abuse.

And I’m trying to keep myself safe on busy, overcrowded, and now icy, streets.

I should have been made a manager months ago.

I can barely breathe right now.

I feel like I am standing on my brakes and the car is not stopping and that’s not just a deer I’m about to hit, but a monster cariboo and I’m going to die.

Something gave – and it was me.