(This fictional conversation IS based on a real person. The words are made up, but the essence of the man is the same.For privacy sake, I have given the subjects different names. WARNING: CUSS WORDS!!!!!!!)
The conversation is taking place in the dark, dank basement of a universally renowned health care facility.Cliff--the Idiot---is holding forth on a variety of subjects. Surrounding Cliff are several co-workers who had the misfortune to be dragged into the irresistable Black Hole that is Cliff.
Cliff: Hey,, hey, did you know that oranges were originally purple? I've been reading up on it. They found some DNR of some old oranges that tells them that they were purple.
Arnold: Where did you read this?
Cliff: On the internet.
Dan: DNR? You mean DNA?!
Cliff: Yeah, that.I know alot about DNA. I been reading up alot on DNA. The moonaluctides and all that jazz. It takes an unignorant person to know this stuff.
Freddy:It sounds like it.(rolling eyes)
Cliff: I do know alot. Don't question me you ape's ass!
Arnold: Calm down, Cliff. No need to get your panties in a bunch.
Cliff: Hey, I'll defend myself against assholes, that you can count on.
Cliff: Speaking of assholes, did you see the show about elephants on Discovery? They showed these two elephants fucking. Man, it reminded me of my old girlfriend. It brought back memories of me working that ass all night....
Arnold: Dude, shut the fuck up. No one wants to hear about you banging your girlfriend.
Cliff: I was a stud when I was younger. I was buff and I wore these tight jeans that hugged my butt. Man, you should have seen me with the ladies. They were all over me.
Freddy: Oh, boy.(sighing in disbelief)
Cliff: SHUT THE HELL UP FREDDY! I WAS A LADY'S MAN! YOU ARE BEING IGNORANT WITH YOUR STUPID WORDS!
Arnold: Cliff, calm down. You don't want Angie to come back here do you?
Cliff:I'm not scared of that hairy bitch. Just because she is our supervisor that don't mean she can push me around. I'm not afraid of her or anyone here, you can count on that!
Dan: Did you guys hear what happened between Angie and Mark? They got into it something fierce. I heard she threatened to send Mark home.
Freddy: Angie does that shit all the time. She whips out the "I'll send you home" threat all the damn time. That bitch needs to shut the fuck up.
(Everyone shakes their head in approval of Freddy's statement)
Cliff: Hey, hey, did you guys hear about this lady who could crush cans with her tits? Size DDF I hear. Man, what a babe!
Freddy: Sounds lovely.
Cliff: I dated this chick who had the nicest rack I have ever seen. These tits were so round...
(Cliff has position his hands as one would hold melons)
Arnold: Settle down, big boy. Save the x-rated details for your beer buddies.
Freddy:Changing subjects, did you guys see Obama on the television last night?
Cliff: Obama is a Communist. He is trying to destroy this country with his communism. These commies need to go.
Freddy: Obama is not a communist, he may have socialist tendencies, but he is not a commun---
Cliff: Bullshit. Obama is a believer in Groucho Marx and John Lenin..
Freddy: You mean Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin?
Cliff: Doesn't matter. He hates Jesus because he is an atheist, faggot lovin', commie.Obama is destroying this country.
Arnold: I wouldn't say----
Cliff: Don't be ignorant. Obama is going to take away our freedom. We are going to be a socialist country.
Freddy: Don't your parents receive Medicaid and social security?
Cliff: Yeah, so?
Freddy: That is socialism, Cliff.They are being supported by the government.
Cliff: No...well... I guess...(Cliff's rant sputters out)
(To be continued at some future date)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The limits of law
We live in a litigious society. Lawsuits are filed for everything from trifling offenses to the most outrageous of acts. Lawyers now are becoming more than just our legal representatives in the court of law, but advocates in the public court of opinion. As a result of this, lawyers are now becoming celebrities in their own right.
Some take this as a sign of our country becoming more civilized. Where we used to settle our scores in the streets with our fists or weapons, we now employ warriors in three piece suits to wage our wars.
Law has become increasingly powerful in this country, so much so that wars now are waged in close adherence to the law. Law is ubiquitous and omnipotent--or so it seems.
How real is the power that lawyers wield?
History and current events tell us that law only matters if it is backed by force in a stable environment. As evidenced by the chaos of Somalia and our Old West, law means nothing without some centralized power monopolizating theuse of force.
In Somalia fo example, there exists a state of lawlessness that finds the nation infested by roving gangs terrorizing the populace.Somalia's government is too weak to successfully crush these groups,who basically have divided rule of the nation amongst themselves. This has lead some to try to establish a Somalia-style Taliban called Al-Shabab in an effort to bring some level of stability to that disordered state.
In the US history, sheriffs ruled the Old West through the liberal application of the Colt revolver,Winchester rifle, and the noose. Formal legality mattered little in lands where towns were hundreds of miles away from the nearest cities and military installations.
In nations where there is a powerful centralized government, it is at times necessary to quell internal revolts through force--or the threat of force--because law alone was insufficient to solve the issue. Bite needed to be applied in order to make the bark relevant.
If President Kennedy had not sent federal troops into Oxford, Mississippi, in September of 1962, what could have law done to force the South to integrate? What could have lawyers done against Hitler's Panzers? Or Bin Laden's suicide bombers?
Brute force, not words on parchment, are what keeps our society from descending into chaos. It is fear of lethal retribution that prevents armed mobs from doing as they please. It is in acknowledgement of government's monopolization of armed force that forestalls any organic movement for violence on a mass scale.
A lawyer's power finds its source in the soldiers and law enforcement officers who are trained to use to deadly force if called upon to do so. It is this most elemental aspect of law that is often lost today on Americans. The power the lawyers have is but an illusion. They only have as much power as we wish them to have. We could crush them tomorrow if we so desired.There is no man who can deny a bullet's power to silence the most effective of attorneys.
As a student of World War II, I have come to learn the absurdity of laws when confronted by men backed by immensely powerful militaries. It is not law or morality that prevents us from doing evil, but the people who have the physical clout to impose the law upon the recalcitrant.
Some take this as a sign of our country becoming more civilized. Where we used to settle our scores in the streets with our fists or weapons, we now employ warriors in three piece suits to wage our wars.
Law has become increasingly powerful in this country, so much so that wars now are waged in close adherence to the law. Law is ubiquitous and omnipotent--or so it seems.
How real is the power that lawyers wield?
History and current events tell us that law only matters if it is backed by force in a stable environment. As evidenced by the chaos of Somalia and our Old West, law means nothing without some centralized power monopolizating theuse of force.
In Somalia fo example, there exists a state of lawlessness that finds the nation infested by roving gangs terrorizing the populace.Somalia's government is too weak to successfully crush these groups,who basically have divided rule of the nation amongst themselves. This has lead some to try to establish a Somalia-style Taliban called Al-Shabab in an effort to bring some level of stability to that disordered state.
In the US history, sheriffs ruled the Old West through the liberal application of the Colt revolver,Winchester rifle, and the noose. Formal legality mattered little in lands where towns were hundreds of miles away from the nearest cities and military installations.
In nations where there is a powerful centralized government, it is at times necessary to quell internal revolts through force--or the threat of force--because law alone was insufficient to solve the issue. Bite needed to be applied in order to make the bark relevant.
If President Kennedy had not sent federal troops into Oxford, Mississippi, in September of 1962, what could have law done to force the South to integrate? What could have lawyers done against Hitler's Panzers? Or Bin Laden's suicide bombers?
Brute force, not words on parchment, are what keeps our society from descending into chaos. It is fear of lethal retribution that prevents armed mobs from doing as they please. It is in acknowledgement of government's monopolization of armed force that forestalls any organic movement for violence on a mass scale.
A lawyer's power finds its source in the soldiers and law enforcement officers who are trained to use to deadly force if called upon to do so. It is this most elemental aspect of law that is often lost today on Americans. The power the lawyers have is but an illusion. They only have as much power as we wish them to have. We could crush them tomorrow if we so desired.There is no man who can deny a bullet's power to silence the most effective of attorneys.
As a student of World War II, I have come to learn the absurdity of laws when confronted by men backed by immensely powerful militaries. It is not law or morality that prevents us from doing evil, but the people who have the physical clout to impose the law upon the recalcitrant.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Empty Slot
A hospital employee is given much reason to reflect, for everyday there occur things that remind them that life is precious.A seemingly innocuous item or occurrence can give one pause to ponder the meaning of life or the sorrows of the ones left behind after someone passes on.
Today I had one of those innocuous moments.
When I was stocking my room with supplies,I noticed a slot that was full when I had inventoried the room, but was now vacant. In that slot went an adult body bag pack. Upon seeing the empty slot, I was caused to think back to a moment from earlier in the day. There was a family gathered outside a room, crying and clearly upset.I had not paid much attention for frequently are families posted outside rooms and not infrequently are they distressed.
However, the absence of the body bag and the obvious connection to the sobbing family made this poignant for me. In that missing pack now lay their loved one. A real person, who mere hours earlier was alive, was now wrapped in plastic as one wraps a gift. No longer would this person dream dreams or hold in love a family member. No longer will this person be able to revel in a sun drenched August day or stand in quiet admiration of the polychromatic splendor of fall.
When a person passes from this world, their suffering ends. No more the pangs and discomfort of tests, no more pain from whatever ailment they are afflicted with, no more anguish for they now reside in that unknowable realm we call the afterlife.
The torment of the deceased now passes on to those left behind. Where the former dealt primarily with physical agony, the latter must bargain with the ache of emotional pain over the loss of the person they so deeply cherished. It is the misfortune of the living that they must continue forth while their loved one sleeps in peaceful eternal repose.
Parting from a loved one for the final time is rarely a sweet sorrow. It is a soul-shredding, tear-inducing moment that leaves one with the sensation that their heart has been torn asunder. All that is left over is an emptiness that no one or thing can fill. An emptiness that will be with you until it is your turn to be placed in that plastic bag.
That empty slot represents much more than just a slot to be restocked, but a life. A life unknown to the rest of humanity, but beloved by those who mattered most--family.There is no greater measure of a person than that.
Today I had one of those innocuous moments.
When I was stocking my room with supplies,I noticed a slot that was full when I had inventoried the room, but was now vacant. In that slot went an adult body bag pack. Upon seeing the empty slot, I was caused to think back to a moment from earlier in the day. There was a family gathered outside a room, crying and clearly upset.I had not paid much attention for frequently are families posted outside rooms and not infrequently are they distressed.
However, the absence of the body bag and the obvious connection to the sobbing family made this poignant for me. In that missing pack now lay their loved one. A real person, who mere hours earlier was alive, was now wrapped in plastic as one wraps a gift. No longer would this person dream dreams or hold in love a family member. No longer will this person be able to revel in a sun drenched August day or stand in quiet admiration of the polychromatic splendor of fall.
When a person passes from this world, their suffering ends. No more the pangs and discomfort of tests, no more pain from whatever ailment they are afflicted with, no more anguish for they now reside in that unknowable realm we call the afterlife.
The torment of the deceased now passes on to those left behind. Where the former dealt primarily with physical agony, the latter must bargain with the ache of emotional pain over the loss of the person they so deeply cherished. It is the misfortune of the living that they must continue forth while their loved one sleeps in peaceful eternal repose.
Parting from a loved one for the final time is rarely a sweet sorrow. It is a soul-shredding, tear-inducing moment that leaves one with the sensation that their heart has been torn asunder. All that is left over is an emptiness that no one or thing can fill. An emptiness that will be with you until it is your turn to be placed in that plastic bag.
That empty slot represents much more than just a slot to be restocked, but a life. A life unknown to the rest of humanity, but beloved by those who mattered most--family.There is no greater measure of a person than that.
Indulging Indolence
Where I work, laziness is not a malady that management seeks to extirpate through aggressive application of the rules, but a tolerated, almost encouraged, behavior of the employees.
Before I go further, I should note that my co-workers and I belong to AFSCME(American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) The contract with our employer is more than adequate for punishing the work shy, for it allows the supervisors plenty of latitude to find a way to remove an uncooperative employee.Management has the tools it needs to hold people accountable.
Alas, rare is the moment when they actually apply the hammer to the incorrigible nail.
The permissive attitude towards the idle is concerning for we work at a hospital. This is a place where lives are at stake. How can people be permitted the luxury of not doing their assigned task?How can a managerial team with adequate disciplinary weapons at their disposal, permit rampant indolence?
How can management permit a weekend employee to punch in, sit around and do nothing for his two scheduled days? How can they allow the supplies of a unit to so dwindle that come Monday morning the stockroom as well as the nurse servers(small closets that we also stock) have yawning holes, where supplies once were?
What makes this all the more infuriating is how simple the task it. Resupply the nurse servers, inventory and resupply the stockrooms, and go home. That is the job. It is not particularly arduous from a physical standpoint and the job requires no intellect at all. Trained Capuchin Monkeys could do the job.
This issue spotlights the incompetence and insouciance of the managerial team. For no competent person who cares the slightest bit about their job would countenance such inactivity. But tolerated it is and it plagues many more units than just my own. Mondays are a dangerous time for those with an aversion to cuss words to pay a visit to the warehouse.
Management concerns itself more with the issues of Ipods, call offs, and to matters of dress then people actually doing the work. While those are of some importance--particularly of habitual call offs--people not doing their job is infinitely more important. We are here to do a job. If a person is not doing that job than we are failing to do what the department was created to do.
The worker himself is responsible for his languid approach to work, but only to a certain extent. He can only do what he does with the tolerance of the supervision.It is their apparent acceptance of his "do nothing" approach that allows this this type of behavior.
It is not just a problem of lazy union workers, but of lazy, indifferent, supervisors, who refuse to do the most elemental part of their job--making sure that their charges do theirs.
Before I go further, I should note that my co-workers and I belong to AFSCME(American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) The contract with our employer is more than adequate for punishing the work shy, for it allows the supervisors plenty of latitude to find a way to remove an uncooperative employee.Management has the tools it needs to hold people accountable.
Alas, rare is the moment when they actually apply the hammer to the incorrigible nail.
The permissive attitude towards the idle is concerning for we work at a hospital. This is a place where lives are at stake. How can people be permitted the luxury of not doing their assigned task?How can a managerial team with adequate disciplinary weapons at their disposal, permit rampant indolence?
How can management permit a weekend employee to punch in, sit around and do nothing for his two scheduled days? How can they allow the supplies of a unit to so dwindle that come Monday morning the stockroom as well as the nurse servers(small closets that we also stock) have yawning holes, where supplies once were?
What makes this all the more infuriating is how simple the task it. Resupply the nurse servers, inventory and resupply the stockrooms, and go home. That is the job. It is not particularly arduous from a physical standpoint and the job requires no intellect at all. Trained Capuchin Monkeys could do the job.
This issue spotlights the incompetence and insouciance of the managerial team. For no competent person who cares the slightest bit about their job would countenance such inactivity. But tolerated it is and it plagues many more units than just my own. Mondays are a dangerous time for those with an aversion to cuss words to pay a visit to the warehouse.
Management concerns itself more with the issues of Ipods, call offs, and to matters of dress then people actually doing the work. While those are of some importance--particularly of habitual call offs--people not doing their job is infinitely more important. We are here to do a job. If a person is not doing that job than we are failing to do what the department was created to do.
The worker himself is responsible for his languid approach to work, but only to a certain extent. He can only do what he does with the tolerance of the supervision.It is their apparent acceptance of his "do nothing" approach that allows this this type of behavior.
It is not just a problem of lazy union workers, but of lazy, indifferent, supervisors, who refuse to do the most elemental part of their job--making sure that their charges do theirs.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thus it begins...
The Beautiful Game begins this week. No, not futbol, but that most special of all games, college football.
Much blood, sweat, and tears will be shed over these next glorious four months--and that just by the fans.Months of hard work in the off season--by players and staff alike--to get to the starting point of more than 3 months of arduous work.
No event in American life is more American than college football.The bands, the crowds, the tradition, the helmets, the mascots, and the passion of the fans create an atmosphere that no other sport can match. It is a mixture of carnival, theater, and sport.
In this grand game we Americans congregate to watch our fellow Americans grapple with each other and their physical limits to achieve victory on the field and in the soul.
We watch it because we relate. We care because the on the field battle is the physical manifestation of our own struggles in life. Each of us are struggling to break that tackle that impedes us, to block the onrushing challenges that confront us each day.
At approximately 3:30pm on the 4th of September, 2010, 110,000 Maize and Blue clad fans will lustily cheer as the announcer declares "Band, take the field" thus beginning the sacred ceremony that will end in the Winged Warriors come a-chargin' from the bowels of Michigan Stadium.
No matter the result of the game, those 110,000 fans of all races, genders, political views, and religion, will have for three hours become One Voice. One voice singing "The Victors" after each Michigan touchdown, one voice groaning in agony after each score by the opponent.
That temporary unification is ultimately what makes this game so special. In a time where there is so much division we can always for four hours each fall Saturday apply the ointment of college football and experience the sensation of unanimous belief.
Let the games begin.
Much blood, sweat, and tears will be shed over these next glorious four months--and that just by the fans.Months of hard work in the off season--by players and staff alike--to get to the starting point of more than 3 months of arduous work.
No event in American life is more American than college football.The bands, the crowds, the tradition, the helmets, the mascots, and the passion of the fans create an atmosphere that no other sport can match. It is a mixture of carnival, theater, and sport.
In this grand game we Americans congregate to watch our fellow Americans grapple with each other and their physical limits to achieve victory on the field and in the soul.
We watch it because we relate. We care because the on the field battle is the physical manifestation of our own struggles in life. Each of us are struggling to break that tackle that impedes us, to block the onrushing challenges that confront us each day.
At approximately 3:30pm on the 4th of September, 2010, 110,000 Maize and Blue clad fans will lustily cheer as the announcer declares "Band, take the field" thus beginning the sacred ceremony that will end in the Winged Warriors come a-chargin' from the bowels of Michigan Stadium.
No matter the result of the game, those 110,000 fans of all races, genders, political views, and religion, will have for three hours become One Voice. One voice singing "The Victors" after each Michigan touchdown, one voice groaning in agony after each score by the opponent.
That temporary unification is ultimately what makes this game so special. In a time where there is so much division we can always for four hours each fall Saturday apply the ointment of college football and experience the sensation of unanimous belief.
Let the games begin.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Three Clods and a Country
In Washington DC, there gathered on this Saturday, the 28th of August,2010, a crowd of useful idiots. It was a multiracial, bipartisan affair, that saw two separate groups of true believers cry their hosannas whilst the Chosen One's preached their homilies.
These maddening crowds were lead by two of the preeminent demagogues of our age--the Rev. Al Sharpton and Glenn Beck--who each extolled the virtues of generations past and issued commands to their parishioners to "take back the country".
Such delightfully absurd human beings deserve a third member to fill out this unholy Trinity and we find that in the sometimes funny Jon Stewart, who while not in DC in person was there in spirit. The Spirit of Smarm aligned himself with the good Reverend by tearing into the apostate Beck on his television program, The Daily Show.
This representative assembly of America's bigoted, arrogant, and sanctimonious side on this glorious late summer day, is reminder enough of how many stupid people breath air each day.
For how can any intelligent person in full grasp of their mental faculties, follow such obviously narrow minded, obtuse people as Sharpton, Beck, and Stewart?How can anyone take seriously a Reverend, a TV personality, and a Comedian, on political issues?Not one member of this ignoble triumvirate has ever held office or been in a position to make decisions for large, diverse collection of human beings.
People ask why the news reports the barks of these dogs--I asked that myself today--and the answer is simple: people place great stock in what these men say.For whatever reason, they have been awarded credibility by large swaths of the American body politic.
That these are men of little intellectual power, there is no doubt. That these are men who will be mere footnotes in the history of the times, there is also no doubt.But their loud barking attracts hordes of lemmings wanting to be lead by people who share their parochial beliefs.Independent thought and thorough analysis are wasted on people already convinced that what they know is the truth. There is no possibility of doubt or an alteration of their view point.
If there is an excuse for this mindset, it is that we are all to an extent prisoners of our experiences. Everything we believe is filtered through the lens of our life. We have come to our beliefs by acquiring information through direct contact or taught to us by a secondary source.
A person who possesses a (relatively, for there are no minds free of prejudice)free mind will fight the mind's tendency to refer to the mental default we call prejudice and analyze a subject critically. Such people are rare in number in this world. Most human beings are guided by their preconceived notions when they think about a topic.
Demagogues like Sharpton and Beck know this, so they tailor their speeches to appeal to the prejudices of the people who listen to them. They feed off the paranoia, bigotry, and distrust of the crowds they are preaching to.Truth, justice, and tolerance are of little interest to men who made their careers and fortunes off of playing to the worst of our nature.
It is a sad irony that so near the statue of the Great Emancipator stood two men who represent a perversion of the ideals that Abraham Lincoln defended.
Lincoln sought unity among Americans, these men create division. He sought empathy and understanding, they sew intolerance and animus. He strove to reconnect a divided house, they are striving to partition it into several parts.
History has shown that our house can withstand such division if it is lead by men of exceptional ability. There has as of yet, been any sign that the United States has such leaders today.
These maddening crowds were lead by two of the preeminent demagogues of our age--the Rev. Al Sharpton and Glenn Beck--who each extolled the virtues of generations past and issued commands to their parishioners to "take back the country".
Such delightfully absurd human beings deserve a third member to fill out this unholy Trinity and we find that in the sometimes funny Jon Stewart, who while not in DC in person was there in spirit. The Spirit of Smarm aligned himself with the good Reverend by tearing into the apostate Beck on his television program, The Daily Show.
This representative assembly of America's bigoted, arrogant, and sanctimonious side on this glorious late summer day, is reminder enough of how many stupid people breath air each day.
For how can any intelligent person in full grasp of their mental faculties, follow such obviously narrow minded, obtuse people as Sharpton, Beck, and Stewart?How can anyone take seriously a Reverend, a TV personality, and a Comedian, on political issues?Not one member of this ignoble triumvirate has ever held office or been in a position to make decisions for large, diverse collection of human beings.
People ask why the news reports the barks of these dogs--I asked that myself today--and the answer is simple: people place great stock in what these men say.For whatever reason, they have been awarded credibility by large swaths of the American body politic.
That these are men of little intellectual power, there is no doubt. That these are men who will be mere footnotes in the history of the times, there is also no doubt.But their loud barking attracts hordes of lemmings wanting to be lead by people who share their parochial beliefs.Independent thought and thorough analysis are wasted on people already convinced that what they know is the truth. There is no possibility of doubt or an alteration of their view point.
If there is an excuse for this mindset, it is that we are all to an extent prisoners of our experiences. Everything we believe is filtered through the lens of our life. We have come to our beliefs by acquiring information through direct contact or taught to us by a secondary source.
A person who possesses a (relatively, for there are no minds free of prejudice)free mind will fight the mind's tendency to refer to the mental default we call prejudice and analyze a subject critically. Such people are rare in number in this world. Most human beings are guided by their preconceived notions when they think about a topic.
Demagogues like Sharpton and Beck know this, so they tailor their speeches to appeal to the prejudices of the people who listen to them. They feed off the paranoia, bigotry, and distrust of the crowds they are preaching to.Truth, justice, and tolerance are of little interest to men who made their careers and fortunes off of playing to the worst of our nature.
It is a sad irony that so near the statue of the Great Emancipator stood two men who represent a perversion of the ideals that Abraham Lincoln defended.
Lincoln sought unity among Americans, these men create division. He sought empathy and understanding, they sew intolerance and animus. He strove to reconnect a divided house, they are striving to partition it into several parts.
History has shown that our house can withstand such division if it is lead by men of exceptional ability. There has as of yet, been any sign that the United States has such leaders today.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Somewhere over the rainbow
Today I applied for a job at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Ann Arbor as a "Civilian Pay Technician".Granted, it was not much of a improvement over what I do now, but at least I would be able to wear khaki and a nice shirt. The cheap polo and over sized pants of manual labor jobs no longer cut it.Plus, it offered a chance to make significantly more than I do now.
Alas, the Fates conspired against me for within minutes of applying I was summarily rejected because I did not have "status" which meant that I did not fit a certain criteria. To meet said criteria, I had to be a veteran, a mentally disabled person, or both to be eligible to bid for the position.Basically, was I was disqualifed because I a fully functioning civilian.
Thus ends another chapter in the story of a man's pursuit of a financially and emotionally fulfilling job.A story filled so far with disappointment, frustration, and a pointed lack of initiative.
To be quite frank, my search for a better job has been intermittent. I have had periods of great activity followed by much longer periods of languor.I have spent more time bitching about my current position than actually looking for a new one.
At 33, I cannot afford such extravagant use of time.I should be identifying what kind of job I want, determine the means to the end, and do it.
If that means pursuing a Master's Degree in History, so be it. If that means taking courses to learn website design, so be it.But whatever it is, I need to make a move.
It is a fear of mine that my intellect is going to calcify from the lack of use in this place. My job is something a lemur could be trained to do. It is simple manual labor with no skills required to do the job other than being able to speak and read English. Some of my co-workers even struggle with those bare minimum requirements.
I feel like Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz", wistfully looking out at the Rainbow and wondering what is beyond the narrow confines of Kansas.
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Now I just have to find the goddamn Rainbow.
Alas, the Fates conspired against me for within minutes of applying I was summarily rejected because I did not have "status" which meant that I did not fit a certain criteria. To meet said criteria, I had to be a veteran, a mentally disabled person, or both to be eligible to bid for the position.Basically, was I was disqualifed because I a fully functioning civilian.
Thus ends another chapter in the story of a man's pursuit of a financially and emotionally fulfilling job.A story filled so far with disappointment, frustration, and a pointed lack of initiative.
To be quite frank, my search for a better job has been intermittent. I have had periods of great activity followed by much longer periods of languor.I have spent more time bitching about my current position than actually looking for a new one.
At 33, I cannot afford such extravagant use of time.I should be identifying what kind of job I want, determine the means to the end, and do it.
If that means pursuing a Master's Degree in History, so be it. If that means taking courses to learn website design, so be it.But whatever it is, I need to make a move.
It is a fear of mine that my intellect is going to calcify from the lack of use in this place. My job is something a lemur could be trained to do. It is simple manual labor with no skills required to do the job other than being able to speak and read English. Some of my co-workers even struggle with those bare minimum requirements.
I feel like Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz", wistfully looking out at the Rainbow and wondering what is beyond the narrow confines of Kansas.
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Now I just have to find the goddamn Rainbow.
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