Tired. of. it. thank. you. very. much.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

OK...we've been off work 20 days now.
20 Freaking days.
Our negotiators finally convinced our employer to meet with us....and after 2 days, there is no change in anything and we were actually given the same offer as before that we went out on strike on...it actually has a few things *less* in it.
And...AND the union offered to the university to go to arbitration to settle it all...and to go back to work WHILE this was being done. The university said "no, let the union members vote on the offer first". So basically after being off work 20 days our employer is hoping we'll be broke enough and tired enough we'll just accept the same offer we wouldn't before. They haven't budged...but I say we shouldn't give in? Why should we vote yes on something we already refused?

I say to my employer - How stupid do you think we are? Don't you want us back helping the students?
YES I'd like to go back to work.
YES I want this all over with....but I'll be damned if I just froze my ass off for a principle over 3 weeks to give in, go home and have done it all for nothing with an entire month of debt hanging over my head.
Bring on the arbitrators. Whatever they say I'll take...it's the only way out and I'm tired of beurocrats playing parlor games with my life.

All I know is it'll be at least another week before we get our vote over with and (I hope) the arbitrator called in to hammer out a deal for both of us to take...meanwhile the students are being royally screwed over...and so are we. If the university really cared about the students and wanted it over they'd just go to arbitration...but them being unwilling to do so just...well...it stinks. It shows why we're out here in the first place.
I have to say...I love my job, but right now I am just plain tired of it all.

I am tired of having people yell at me from cars while I picket, give me the finger and tell me to go back to work (altho today a group of students said we should all go home and have sex so we'd be happier and strike a deal...that was the most reasonable thing I'd heard all morning...). I'm tired of being broke. I'm tired of having to tell people why I'm off work and can't afford to go out and why the students are suffering from this. I'm tired of having to resort to this in order for the university to treat us fairly. I'm tired of walking about on eggshells hoping nothing else goes wrong.
ENOUGH already.
End this.

*sigh*
Can't we all just get along???

PS - I'd like to add that this post is in no way inspired by assembling a tricky, half missassembled model and inhaling fumes from entire tubes of crazy glue and super glue. Nope...none whatsoever. I'm almost done in fact. Had to break form the fumes.