Construction Sites

Why do men panic whenever they see a woman on a construction site? As a part of my job I occasionally have to do inspections on construction sites. I won't bore you with the details, it bores me most of the time. It's not one of the best parts of my job you see. Anyway, it never fails, I'm always the only woman at the site. The guys on the site freak out when they see me. So what? I'm a woman, get over it. I'm not here to give you a lap dance or yell at you about leaving the toliet seat up. I'm an inspector, I just want to conduct my inspection in relative peace. Deal?

God forbid I find something wrong. That opens up a whole new can of worms. First, I have to find someone who speaks enough English to understand me. (For the record, I consider this my problem, not theirs. It's not their fault that I'm too stupid to understand Spanish. And I'm supposed to be the smart one. Yeah, right.) Then I have to tell them, usually half a dozen times, what the problem is. This usually involves pointing at the plans, then at the offending object over and over again. Strangely enough, the more English they speak, the harder I have to work to convince them that I know what I'm doing and that I'm right. Of course I'm right. I was hired to be right.

Today's inspection went pretty well. The crew seemed to freak out at the sight of me, which I am used to. But they recovered well. We worked together and got the job done. At one point, we had some down time, big surprise. I'm standing around waiting for things to pick up again when the one white guy on the crew comes up and starts talking to me. White Boy had been making pithy comments all day, mostly about being the only white guy on the crew. He starts making excuses as to why he wasn't doing more, working harder, etc. when he says, "You know when They are talking about you, right?". They being the Spanish speaking majority on that site. At which point I turned to White Boy and said, "Nope, I stopped giving a shit about that a long time ago." If I paid any attention to what men said about me while on a construction site, or to me for that matter, I would have quit this job many moons ago. What the flying F should I care about what people say about me? F-off, bonehead.

The Obama Mama

I have never met Michelle Obama, nor do I ever expect to. I would love to meet her, she seems like a pretty cool lady. A (very) quick web search reveals some pretty impressive facts.

*graduate of Princeton
*went to Harvard Law
*associate dean of student services at University of Chicago
*mother of two

Overall, Michelle Obama seems like one kick ass woman. Strong, you know? So, why does everyone obsess about her CLOTHES? Yes, she is a good-looking woman. Yes, she has great fashion sense. Yes, I like this about her. But, can we talk about something else now? Like, oh I don't know, how intelligent she is? What she does on a daily basis, other than choosing clothes for her next photo-op? I have great confidence that Michelle Obama does much more in a day than look good (ok, great) in chic attire. We have a strong, intelligent woman in the white house, can we please discuss other aspects of her life than just her outward appearance? Please? I have a daughter to raise and the First Lady would be a great role model for my daughter if we, as a society, can allow Michelle to be a real woman, not a cardboard cutout.