Satisfaction
by lenQuit your job. Right now. Don’t have a job? Get one. Now quit it. Open Microsoft Word and draft a short letter giving your two weeks’ notice. Tell them how you’ve found something new. Tell them you’ve found a better opportunity. Tell them your job has become “dead-end”. They don’t even have to be truths. Just extrapolate on how inadequate the position and company have become. Finish it with a “Sincerely,” then skip a few lines down and type your name.
Print out the page. Watch the printer give birth to your creation. Put your face close to the printer and feel the warmth as it spools out. Grab a set of tongs, yeah, a set of tongs! And pull it off the printer like a horseshoe out a blacksmith’s forge - a horseshoe that you’ll fix to the beast on which you’ll soon ride out of town.
You’re not done. Grab a pen. Sign your name and make it law. Take the last letter of your name and extend it in garish fashion. Maybe do a revolution or two around your whole signature. Give yourself a logo. Take a needle to the other side and try to spell your name in Braille. Because they’re obviously blind if they’re gonna let you walk so easily. Add an “Esq.” at the end. Or give yourself a fake title like Dr., Atty. Gen or Grand Marshal. No, put CHESSMASTER! If anyone calls you on it, make a reference about how difficult it is to pull off a successful Grob Opening.
Put the letter in an envelope. Put that envelope in another envelope. Put that envelope in one of those interoffice mail folders where you have to unwind the string to open it. Cut the string off of other interoffice mail folders and wind those strings around yours. Make ‘em work for it.
Spray the folder with Febreeze. Put a couple Lisa Frank unicorn stickers on it. Draw your favorite Care Bear on the front. Make ‘em think there’s fantastic news inside!
Now hold it up. Does it look right? Does it feel heavy and important, considering the message within? Good.
Tear it up. Use a document shredder if you have to. Or maybe your company has one of those lock boxes in which to put documents awaiting shredding.
Don’t let anyone know what you just did. Go back to your desk. Resume your normal routine. Everything is fine. All is calm. All is bright.
Repeat as necessary.
September 8th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Do you consider yourself a nice person? I do. I find myself being nice to people and also helpful. Sometimes strangers, sometimes friends but helpful nonetheless. At the same time I can’t help but notice recently that I have this strange habit. After finishing a nice conversation or an exchange of friendly banter, I whisper horrible things about the person I’m talking to. Example; I’m walking down my street when a very nice older women stops me.
"Excuse me, my daughter lives in this neighborhood and this is my first time visiting Chicago. Do you by any chance know how to get to Hamilton and Roscoe."
I flash a friendly smile. "Oh, sure. You just head up Roscoe two blocks and you’ll run right into it. I’m actually heading that way if you want to walk with me."
"You don’t have to do that." I assure her, "I know, I want to." We walk a couple of blocks, she tells me about her daughter, I tell her about myself and before I know it, we’ve arrived at her daughters place.
"Thank you so much, that was really nice of you." "Any time, " I say.
As I begin to walk away a split second after I say "anytime" I mumble.." You fucking cunt." Not loud enough for someone to here even if they had their ear to my mouth but still leaving my head and actually being said. I can honestly say that I didn’t feel that woman was a fucking cunt. I liked her, she reminded me of my mother. Can I just not resist any moment to be a smart ass, even if I am the only audience? Does anyone else do this or is it just me.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
I am extraordinarily judgmental in some ways … largely in secret, and I think in kind of an unusual way. I have a major problem with those people I regard as treating people poorly because of some judgment they’ve passed on them.
So I get really pretty twisted over those I perceive to be treating people that they’ve judged as being in some way lower status than them (less smart, less popular, less talented, less experienced, stuff like that) without respect or civility.
It’s the kind of thing that drives me absolutely crazy, and it’s also one of the fairly few things that triggers my disrespect for somebody. And maybe it’s elitism on my part, but I really think that if you have some reason to think someone is lower than you, it’s your job to do what you can to give them a hand up rather than planting a foot on their face and pushing down.
Now, I can spend a lot of time desconstructing what I feel like the issue is in my head for people with which I have a problem, which leads me to sort out exactly what I’d say to them to express my opinion if I got the chance.
But, usually people like that are perfectly nice to me, and so I’m bound by the civil strictures I’m wanting to see upheld to not really start any static. Which can lead me to roll out a lot of just cold shoulders, which is, in itself an additional failure to the social contract.
All of which sounds like a lot of repression … and judgment. The saving grace here being that if someone actually gets to unload on me, well, I can appreciate someone that deserves some comeuppance actually getting it doled out to them.
So, take that me! Space jam, in my face. Well, if it were ever to happen.