"Last updated: 140 weeks ago."
I feel I should write this here, since people from work have my myspace account. Not like anybody's reading it anyway.
So there's a guy, a lot like me, who keeps getting himself into dumb situations.
This place that he works at is a disaster. There are people who are so self-absorbed and clueless to the world that it impacts every other department. When these people open their mouths to speak, the air reeks because they are always full of shit.
I'm going to use an analogy for this.
Let's pretend that three months ago, somebody called you up and said:
"Hey, I've got this job for you. You're going to work for this awesome cruise liner that's setting sail in uncharted territory. You're gonna get paid a decent buck and you're gonna have fun doing it."
You would take it, right? Sounds pretty lavish and tempting, and who doesn't like the notion of having fun at work!
But then you get on the cruise ship and find it's a little smaller than you originally envisioned. In fact, it's not even a cruise liner; it's more of a deep sea diving belt. Then, on this boat, you start to realize that there are some soggy floor panels.
Soggy floor panels are bad. Means there's a leak!
Shit! Tell somebody!
You start looking around for somebody who looks like they could help. There's 4 heads of crews and one captain of the ship. You've been informed that you really can't talk to the captain because he's hardly ever on the boat to begin with. When he is on the boat, he's usually in the mess hall eating breakfast all the way up until it's time for lunch, then oh my look at the time... dinner already? I'm punching out!
The head of crew that you directly report to is the only one who seems to know anything about anything on this ship. You start to feel disillusioned because she's the one who told you this was going to be paradise in the first place. However, it turns out that she was about to explode and, if she didn't find an additional deckhand, she would most certainly have jumped overboard.
Two of the other three heads of crew seem to share a mind, as if they cannot think independently of the other. One is very loud and nasty and abusive to his staff but somehow retains them to work. The other is not very loud, but is anal and particular to a fault, where heads will roll if even one bedsheet is not tucked in according to code. These two will -never- disagree with each other, their offices are adjacent to each other, and they always punch out at exactly seventeen-hundred hours.
The fourth head of ship is spread so thin that he cannot actually accomplish any of his jobs with any specific accuracy. He is a lovely and compassionate human being, however he is simply ONE human being. He cannot do the work of many, although the captain has requested he do so. He puts in long, thankless hours, and his crew is notorious for coming to work drunk and/or tired, to which he must then compensate for their uselessness with another piece of his unavailable attention.
Now, there is also another Swedish boat which directs the American boat (which you work for) in its operations. However, it seems to place very little importance on getting your boat the supplies and guidance it needs in times of strife. They almost seem to purposefully complicate matters by asking you to speed up the pace and then taking away your onboard motor. However, once every three months or so they will provide a stipend for your boat to continue its operations.
So, now that the cast has been introduced, we return our focus back to the leak. We know that a leaky boat is bad, right? A boat will a leak will inevitably sink if either the leak is not fixed or the boat is never returned to shore.
So we've got these characters and a leak that nobody cares about. You think to yourself, "Well, since -I'm- in this boat, I might as well fix the leak! I could be the hero, I would probably get a healthy raise from the captain, and I would certainly feel vindicated that I masterminded a plan to keep a leaky boat afloat!"
So you work. Tirelessly. Trying to manage the leak some days and make progress towards its remedy on others. You work 50, 55, 60 hours a week trying to devise a system.
But then we find out that the loud arrogant head of crew from the other side of the boat likes to hire deckhands like the government pays welfare, putting added pressure on the sinking boat and waterlogged beams. Also, we find out that the anal retentive head of crew has a peculiar hobby. She enjoys banging sledgehammers against the starboard side, creating these gaping holes, inviting more water to invade the boat. The captain has approved of this sledgehammer-banging behavior because he is oddly demented enough to believe that it will attract more people to the boat so that it can pay the bills. However, you are savvy enough to realize when a spade is a spade and identify that banging sledgehammers through the floor of a boat is inane and senseless behavior, not to mention counterproductive to the ultimate goal of the boat to stay floating above water.
Your head of crew has come to terms with the shenanigans that are occurring around you and is begging you not to turn it into your problem. However (this is like, the eightieth time I've said however), you always feel a sense of civic duty to a situation in peril and must assist in a troubled situation until either you have given your life in vain or thrown your hands up and walked away because you finally conjecture that your efforts are going to waste. In the past, you have never quite given your life, but you have called out a previous superior and were proven completely right when his reaction was less than compromise. You have learned a thing or two about a thing or two about the topic of importance and priority, and you now comprehend that when is it not the priority of your superior, it is foolish to make it your own priority because all that results in is a trip to a psychologist and a prescription of Xanax.
So now, you have a boss that has become hardened and numb to the fact that her equals are incorrigible and her superior is incompetent. You still have a leak that is not offering you any comfort because it sure isn't looking like it will miraculously rectify itself. You lay down boards, you send buckets of water overboard, but you have a sneaking suspicion that people are intentionally replacing the water just to make your job more difficult.
Now, I ask you:
Do you keep working there?
alright, so the real less journalistic me comes out towards the end. i don't really understand how these people have lived as long as they have without fucking up and crashing their expensive cars because the glare off of their expensive watches blinded them. this is much more serious than any interpersonal problem, though. this is my career. why can't i get a fucking career off the ground without meeting an IN-SUR-MOUNTABLE resistance?
is it accounting? is it the business world?
is it just the fucking world?
i promised myself that if i couldn't get my act together this time, i would be kicking out the chair from under me.
what should i make the rope out of?
So there's a guy, a lot like me, who keeps getting himself into dumb situations.
This place that he works at is a disaster. There are people who are so self-absorbed and clueless to the world that it impacts every other department. When these people open their mouths to speak, the air reeks because they are always full of shit.
I'm going to use an analogy for this.
Let's pretend that three months ago, somebody called you up and said:
"Hey, I've got this job for you. You're going to work for this awesome cruise liner that's setting sail in uncharted territory. You're gonna get paid a decent buck and you're gonna have fun doing it."
You would take it, right? Sounds pretty lavish and tempting, and who doesn't like the notion of having fun at work!
But then you get on the cruise ship and find it's a little smaller than you originally envisioned. In fact, it's not even a cruise liner; it's more of a deep sea diving belt. Then, on this boat, you start to realize that there are some soggy floor panels.
Soggy floor panels are bad. Means there's a leak!
Shit! Tell somebody!
You start looking around for somebody who looks like they could help. There's 4 heads of crews and one captain of the ship. You've been informed that you really can't talk to the captain because he's hardly ever on the boat to begin with. When he is on the boat, he's usually in the mess hall eating breakfast all the way up until it's time for lunch, then oh my look at the time... dinner already? I'm punching out!
The head of crew that you directly report to is the only one who seems to know anything about anything on this ship. You start to feel disillusioned because she's the one who told you this was going to be paradise in the first place. However, it turns out that she was about to explode and, if she didn't find an additional deckhand, she would most certainly have jumped overboard.
Two of the other three heads of crew seem to share a mind, as if they cannot think independently of the other. One is very loud and nasty and abusive to his staff but somehow retains them to work. The other is not very loud, but is anal and particular to a fault, where heads will roll if even one bedsheet is not tucked in according to code. These two will -never- disagree with each other, their offices are adjacent to each other, and they always punch out at exactly seventeen-hundred hours.
The fourth head of ship is spread so thin that he cannot actually accomplish any of his jobs with any specific accuracy. He is a lovely and compassionate human being, however he is simply ONE human being. He cannot do the work of many, although the captain has requested he do so. He puts in long, thankless hours, and his crew is notorious for coming to work drunk and/or tired, to which he must then compensate for their uselessness with another piece of his unavailable attention.
Now, there is also another Swedish boat which directs the American boat (which you work for) in its operations. However, it seems to place very little importance on getting your boat the supplies and guidance it needs in times of strife. They almost seem to purposefully complicate matters by asking you to speed up the pace and then taking away your onboard motor. However, once every three months or so they will provide a stipend for your boat to continue its operations.
So, now that the cast has been introduced, we return our focus back to the leak. We know that a leaky boat is bad, right? A boat will a leak will inevitably sink if either the leak is not fixed or the boat is never returned to shore.
So we've got these characters and a leak that nobody cares about. You think to yourself, "Well, since -I'm- in this boat, I might as well fix the leak! I could be the hero, I would probably get a healthy raise from the captain, and I would certainly feel vindicated that I masterminded a plan to keep a leaky boat afloat!"
So you work. Tirelessly. Trying to manage the leak some days and make progress towards its remedy on others. You work 50, 55, 60 hours a week trying to devise a system.
But then we find out that the loud arrogant head of crew from the other side of the boat likes to hire deckhands like the government pays welfare, putting added pressure on the sinking boat and waterlogged beams. Also, we find out that the anal retentive head of crew has a peculiar hobby. She enjoys banging sledgehammers against the starboard side, creating these gaping holes, inviting more water to invade the boat. The captain has approved of this sledgehammer-banging behavior because he is oddly demented enough to believe that it will attract more people to the boat so that it can pay the bills. However, you are savvy enough to realize when a spade is a spade and identify that banging sledgehammers through the floor of a boat is inane and senseless behavior, not to mention counterproductive to the ultimate goal of the boat to stay floating above water.
Your head of crew has come to terms with the shenanigans that are occurring around you and is begging you not to turn it into your problem. However (this is like, the eightieth time I've said however), you always feel a sense of civic duty to a situation in peril and must assist in a troubled situation until either you have given your life in vain or thrown your hands up and walked away because you finally conjecture that your efforts are going to waste. In the past, you have never quite given your life, but you have called out a previous superior and were proven completely right when his reaction was less than compromise. You have learned a thing or two about a thing or two about the topic of importance and priority, and you now comprehend that when is it not the priority of your superior, it is foolish to make it your own priority because all that results in is a trip to a psychologist and a prescription of Xanax.
So now, you have a boss that has become hardened and numb to the fact that her equals are incorrigible and her superior is incompetent. You still have a leak that is not offering you any comfort because it sure isn't looking like it will miraculously rectify itself. You lay down boards, you send buckets of water overboard, but you have a sneaking suspicion that people are intentionally replacing the water just to make your job more difficult.
Now, I ask you:
Do you keep working there?
alright, so the real less journalistic me comes out towards the end. i don't really understand how these people have lived as long as they have without fucking up and crashing their expensive cars because the glare off of their expensive watches blinded them. this is much more serious than any interpersonal problem, though. this is my career. why can't i get a fucking career off the ground without meeting an IN-SUR-MOUNTABLE resistance?
is it accounting? is it the business world?
is it just the fucking world?
i promised myself that if i couldn't get my act together this time, i would be kicking out the chair from under me.
what should i make the rope out of?