Catching Up: Take Two

"A lot of the best reasons why people should not take advantage of other people are the very reasons it is so easy to do so." Me

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me TRUTH." Henry David Thoreau

I'm still upset about the whole work thing. But I figured I had better nuke that last, "Catching Up" post before someone at work stumbled upon it. It has actually happened to me before! It was at Hanguk University of Foreign Studies. A place in which the English program had been somehow taken over by a corrupt contingent of cretins that I was just counting the days till the end of my contract so I could tell them all to study my UNhanguk foreign arse! It was probably the most reputable English language program in the country and may have deserved to be so long before I got there. There were more than a dozen teachers and we all shared one computer in one office. Yeah they were coasting on their rep. And I made the mistake of accessing my blog during an internet session on our one office computer that was followed by the talentless, classless, brainless, sycophantic, tongue kisser of the English program director's vacuous ass, named Dean. Him and Ms. Oh, who he never passed up a chance to call, "Dr. Oh", something like Me Sook I think was her name, the erstwhile Japanese soft porn eyes are open but brain is closed for business looking, talking and acting, Kao San Road, Thailand phony degree buying dizz-brain who "directed" the English program with nowhere near the intelligence to direct traffic on a one-way street! Well they just ran a check on what I had been looking at during my session, read my blog and, BINGO, they became outraged not because a word of the blog post was untrue, but because they hated me for exposing their treachery. As well as the fact that they just weren't clever enough, (as they thought), to screw people over without them knowing.

See I can slag THEM as much as I want cuz I don't work for those butt smokers any more. Bridge BURNT! But I had better be more tactful, that is, avoid drinking 15 beers before writing about my current employers just in case I need this job a little while longer. I got some irons in the fire, I just don't want to strike till the irons are hot. Er... am I mixing metaphors or just making my own? I dunno! I don't care! As long as you get it. The irons are heating up. Got a friend of a friend who tells me there are always openings in security at a casino where he works. I have another friend who tells me the Commissionaires are hiring. I worked for them as a jail guard in Smithers before. They pay better than I'm getting now. I also have another friend looking into teaching ESL at some correctional facilities around Calgary. So I have some ideas in case the situation becomes unbearable at work. But these last two days things have been pretty much business as usual. I have been reading the standing orders from 10 years ago and things have changed A LOT! Maybe this "cross-training", this easing me into the position at SLP1 that NObody, least of all ME, wants, will be a strategy that is abandoned like many others have been at the place I work.

But I can't help thinking about the other two guards who have worked the post I'm in now. They're old, they're crotchety, they have more years on the clock than the folks who are in positions to order them around now... neither one of these guys would be treated the way I'm being treated. Now maybe it's because I am viewed as a better candidate for the job, but I sure hope it's not because I'm nice, I'm agreeable, I'm a team player, I'll do as I'm told, I can improvise when it's called for, I work hard, I don't fall asleep or slough off, I'm kind, I prefer to avoid conflict, I get the job done! I am just the absolute perfect patsy for someone who doesn't have a single scruple! And what's more is I know that, I know how to change that but I refuse to do so even though I KNOW I'll be taken advantage of. The reason is simple: I would rather be burned 100 times than withhold my trust from a trustworthy person punishing them for the sins of the scumbag greedmongers of this world! So YES I'll sign your three-year cable or gym membership! YES, I'll pay the surcharge the company didn't tell me about! YES, I'll take three shots at the basket for 20 dollars to win a 5-dollar stuffed toy! Just in case deep down in one or all of you there is a defence mechanism that passes for maturity in this messed up world. The idea of "the only way to get ahead is to become what I have learned to hate." Then pile on the defense mechanisms like, "I'm only doing it for my family," or, "If I don't do it, someone else will," or, as you know, my personal favourite, "It's only business."

You know you hate your job and it's sucking your soul out one impossibly long day at a time. You are cowtowing to people you would rather cowpunch and it is all for reasons we are assured, (by people who don't have to), are legitimate, but you just know if you just eat shit for a few more years you can bust out of this cycle of self-loathing and become a self you can be proud of.

Too close to the mark? Join the majority! The LUCKY majority! Most places in the world people would consider themselves lucky to have some evil boss to cowtow to! This is why on the bus or the C-train in the morning, (you didn't think I'd go a whole blog post without bringing up the source of most of my inspiration did you?), they could be chock-a-block full and you won't see anyone who doesn't look like he's going to the gulag to be hung by his testicles or she's going to a concentration camp where nobody will listen to, much less obey, anything she has to say. The virtually impenetrable fortress of helpless melancholia that is the mass transit morning and evening commute is testament to the truth that is so obvious we think it just can't be true: we are chattel. We don't work for anyone, we are owned. And our owners are the ones who are constantly trying to keep us from throwing ourselves off the buildings we work for them in or in front of the trains we operate for them by providing us with bright and sunny deceit. And because we are optimistic, upbeat, loving, co-operative, artistic, warm, compassionate, ("stupid" is the term our owners use), people, we believe our peers will think less of us if we don't work 100 hours of overtime, pay our taxes and tip 25%. And THEY believe WE will think less of them if they don't contribute to RRSP's, spend 3 month's salary on a diamond ring, and pretend like WE are OWNERS when really we just have 5% down on a 40-year mortgage that will probably solidify our slavery for the rest of our lives.

WOAH! You know what, it really hasn't been quite this bad! I have days at work that are enjoyable! In fact every single shift has a lot of things that I like! The vast majority of people there are great! Today my buddy Rafael, (who we all call Raffy), gave me a shirt he bought for me in Vegas while he was there on vacation last week! What a guy! And there was the Starbucks coffee card from Lee Anne. Then the awesome 100-buck Safeway card from Morguard. I'm being negative again. My job is pretty sweet! I just have to look past the recent events and hope for the best. Another good reason to have erased my previous post.

So consider this the mental conflict ridden replacement for it. If you read my previous post, you will only have its memory. Or I could email you a transcript I saved for my personal pleasure. Lemme know if you want to re-read it and marvel at how, though a bit repetitive and topically transient, was pretty darn coherent for a guy drunk off his ass!

One final quote and I think it's appropriate given the new year we have begun and the gist of this post:

I think I'll stick it out for a while at work. I know they need successors as secretaries/receptionists at SLP1 and will probably pay me more if I do it. They are more than likely grooming me for the position, and the pay raise now. But, in the words of the Irish guy on the I.T. Crowd, "Couldn't give a shitsss..." If they just can't accept that I want to stay where I am now, even at a lower grade of pay, I can always find another job. They would be foolish to bluff me into that position. I KNOW they don't want to lose me.

We'll see what happens...