eastowners

Welcome to another installment of “Will He Have a Job in
January”. In today’s episode, our happless hero is confronted yet
again by the prospect that change is imminent and there’s really
nothing that can be done to set aside fears that all will be lost with
the haphazard stroke of some corporate exec’s gold-encrusted pen.
Our hero, either unfazed by yet another chapter in this sick and
disgusting tale or through just plain stupidity, decides to stay on and
see what kind of strange new ways Corporate America can threaten his
financial well-being.

After several years of mental anguish at the hands of his captors, our
hero has learned to fight back through small acts of passive
resistance. He regularly (and sickingly) defends folks who don’t
deserve defending rather than give them up for the hanging. “Hang
me!”, he says gleefully. The hangings never come. Plenty of
asschewings, but never a sweet, sweet hanging…

Disappointed (but not discouraged) by the lack of hangings, our hero
makes regular visits to websites promoting his cause, leaving them up
when the bossman comes to visit, and reads as much of H.D. Thoreau as
is humanly possible before feeling the uncontrollable need to throw
oneself from a cliff. He finds solace in the fact that fru-fru
books about management are more comedic to him than
inspirational. He finds inner zen by visiting the local watering
hole for much needed lunchtime r&r, coming back an hour late, and
spending the rest of the afternoon in a daze that makes a Tim Leary
acid trip seem like a toddler’s daydream. And when that magical
moment arrives signalling the end of the workday, he saddles up on his
two-wheeled deathrocket from hell and screams off into the rising dusk
with a maniacal laugh that would haunt the dead.

At least that’s how I see it in my mind.

Reality, of course, is quite different. I’m a drone, not a
hero. I have a little bit of work ethic left and it bugs me not
work hard to collect my paycheck. As with most of the rest of
America, I don’t feel that I’m paid enough for the crap that I put up
with and I bitch about it with no regard for the fact that there are
folks out there that have much shittier jobs for less pay. I’ve
read the fru-fru management books, I’m too cool to admit that I see
things that are applicable to real life in them, and I spend a lot of
time trying to apply some of the principals they are teaching in a way
that won’t result in me being called on the table by my team for buying
into those principals.

While it’s true that extended lunches do happen, most of them are spent
discussing something going on at work and I always make up the time by
working a little over or coming in early.

I ride a 1982 Yamaha XJ 650, hardly a deathrocket from hell, and my
laugh is probably closer to “annoying the dead” than haunting them.

Basically, I aspire to completely flake out and pull an “Office
Space”. Maybe if I were independantly wealthy (or crazy). I
don’t think anyone really like having to go to work. There was a
time when I did and maybe that’s where this problem started. Now,
it’s just Dr. Strangejob… and as long as the paychecks keep coming,
I’ll keep on giving it my best.

I predict more writing on Thursday.