I think it\u2019s time to start telling my co-workers what I really think about them. I\u2019ve coasted through my day job for ten years now, keeping my head down, trying to fade into the crowd and just muddle through the day.
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The day job isn\u2019t about challenge, advancement, or success. It\u2019s an idiot\u2019s job. On the rare occasions I feel like applying myself, I find that all the possible work to do each day \u2013 even when I ask for more and do more than I\u2019m expected to \u2013 takes about 45 minutes. Of course, I rarely apply myself. Why should I? The job\u2019s a constant heartache filled with crazed, abusive customers and ignorant, small-minded co-workers. Some days, I have trouble deciding who is more abusive. The customers who shout an endless stream of abuse at me, or the co-workers who all move through their tiny, meaningless, sad worlds in a cycle of sub-psychotic, passive-aggressive mania.<\/p>\n
We actually have an office pool for which one of us will snap first and stalk the cubicles with a rifle. Most of the lifers, of which I am one, cringe from any rapid movements and clear out if there\u2019s ever a spark of fury in one of the leaders of the pool.<\/p>\n
I have the job because an idiot can do it. For seven of the last ten years, I was crippled by pain. I was high on the medication that was used to try and control the pain. Seven years spent completely out of my mind, numb or twisted by agony, and constantly feeling like I was observing my tortured body from a few feet above. A spirit looking down on a very small, broken man. Even then, the job was simple. The only job that someone almost completely mentally and physically disabled could perform with flying colors.<\/p>\n
After the pain was cured, the job became a place where I could maintain a steady income while also spending most of the day running a publishing company, and consulting for other companies. Four of my six jobs are conducted during the hours of my day job. Perfect. I\u2019m getting paid to work my other jobs. It feels like stolen time.<\/p>\n
Every year, whether in the grips of pain, or up against the wall with publishing deadlines, or even, as I have been this last year, somewhat humbled and aware that I have a good thing going, I\u2019ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. For my bosses to get wise and fire me. But even after going public in a major national newspaper with the fact that I\u2019ve abused the system to such an extreme extent for so long resulted in hardly a blip on the radar. My co-workers are so absorbed in their own personal hells that there\u2019s no room for them to stop and think. Or, perhaps, the disgruntled self-loathing is so severe that nobody is taking their job seriously, from the bottom up to the directorial level.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t know. Don\u2019t really care. In the end, I\u2019ve tried to keep my nose clean. One thing I\u2019ve learned from my weekend job, which I\u2019ve maintained for 20 years, is that you need to know when to break the law and when to pretend that you\u2019re a keeper of the law. We all do that to a certain degree but, when it comes to stealing crates of booze and bags of money, or abusing the system by watching movies all day and keeping up a steady drunk at your desk, it\u2019s important to know when your actions are bordering on hubris.<\/p>\n
We all have limits.<\/p>\n
So, in the end, I do try to appease my superiors. I smile, I indulge their whims, I respect their rank. I deny everything. When caught, I assure them that I will do better. I talk the talk even while running far away from the walk. And, most of the time, that\u2019s acceptable. Even a criminal as confirmed as I am must acknowledge and respect the system. It\u2019s a symbiotic relationship. Rendering unto Caesar and what have you. Without the day job and the weekend job, I wouldn\u2019t be able to pay my rent. Nor would I be in a position to fill my trunk with whatever fringe benefits I can lay my hands on. The cycle must continue.<\/p>\n
But I am constantly appalled by the insanity, abusiveness, and downright evil back channeling on the part of my co-workers. This is something that is omnipresent, I know, but it feels beneath me. Here, I do suffer from a bit of hubris. Maybe. I feel superior to many people because I have endured more than they. I have known the face of true suffering and loss that eclipses the pale chattering of a child of abuse or the woes of the terminally ill. I have been taken to the edge and shown what lies beyond this comfortable bubble we loosely call humanity. I have been given cause to be suspicious of everything that is good \u2013 friendship, love, beauty, life. All have been used as an avenue to hurt me, to flay my soul, to pare me down to a raw, shocked nerve.<\/p>\n
At 37, I\u2019m simply in a state of constant surprise and despair. Surprised that I\u2019m still here, and suddenly functional and alive, and despaired that I have to deal with terrible people. You would think that, maybe, I\u2019ve earned the right to take a break from all my worries. More so than others. I know that\u2019s foolish, but I think I\u2019m just, simply, tired of everything. I\u2019m exhausted. I feel 80 years old. And curing the pain has made everything worse.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d be dead right now if the pain was incurable. I promise you that. In the three years since I\u2019ve been healed, I\u2019ve talked to countless people in my situation who did not qualify for the invasive brain surgery I underwent. Many of them are dead. A 12 year old whose mother called me two years ago did not qualify. Her mother called again four months ago and told me that the child had opened her wrists and died in the bath.<\/p>\n
They call what I had the \u201csuicide disease.\u201d The pain is so great, so constant, so resistant to treatment that it\u2019s just not tolerable.<\/p>\n
For me, I now realize, the pain was my greatest escape. The inhumanity of man, the specter of my parents and my family\u2019s past throughout my adult life, the coming and going of friends, and the horrible deaths of my parents were all a sideshow. Some ridiculous subplot that you fast forward through. Nothing was important except staving off my increasing desire to throw myself from the roof of my day job.<\/p>\n
Now my brain is carefree. My life has been returned to me. And now I can think about everything that\u2019s happened, and observe what goes on around me. Now I care that I\u2019m forced to spend nine hours of each day in close quarters with simpletons and sociopaths. That I have to battle the insane sea of commuters to and from an apartment I can\u2019t afford for a few, short hours of qualified freedom where I have just enough time to stuff my face and pass out before the alarm screams me back into the work day.<\/p>\n
Yes, again, that\u2019s all of us. But I can\u2019t help but think that everyone else has chosen that fate. Either, like many of my co-workers, they\u2019re evil\u2026or they\u2019ve simply surrendered to the machine. You people haven\u2019t had a fortune stolen from you, or your life, or your hope. You have no excuse to be stuck in the system except your own, stupid, clear-minded decisions.<\/p>\n
I acknowledge that many are trapped \u2013 wage slaves and salary serfs. That\u2019s a very large problem in America. We dig our own graves with mortgages and excess. We\u2019re told to do so from childhood, and it\u2019s hard to fight against it.<\/p>\n
Therefore, I respect not only those who have fought against it, but those who understand that they should try to do so. That they should try and live responsibly for themselves and others, even if they\u2019ve consigned themselves to a golden cage.<\/p>\n
The fighters \u2013 the good people \u2013 make up my very small network of friends. As we get older and windows close, we all flail somewhat hopelessly against the tide of dull stagnation and debt. We\u2019re doomed, if only by the knowledge that we\u2019re doomed. But that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s good to be doomed. At least, then, you know how it\u2019s going to end.<\/p>\n
My co-workers, though. They have no awareness. Only this animal-like instinct to preserve their own sad lives. All operating on some manic-depressive reptilian cortex that drives them slowly to oblivion and tells them to take everyone with them. After all I\u2019ve been through, I have no tolerance for the small minded. And no desire to learn tolerance, or to be charitable in any way. These people are poison. They should be wiped out. Any right-thinking world would have seen then dashed against the rocks in their infancy.<\/p>\n
Yet, here they stand. To make my days worse. To draw out the last vestiges of my own personal hell and to pave the road ahead of me with sharp rocks.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no reason to be polite. There\u2019s no reason to mend fences, extend olive branches, or meet in the middle. These are bad people and they should not be tolerated. Since they can\u2019t be thrown to their deaths, the only solution is to put them in their place. Cathartic for me, and, maybe, a benefit for the world.<\/p>\n
So, Monday\u2026 No more games. No more false smiles. If a co-worker\u2019s being a cunt, I\u2019m going to call them a cunt. If they\u2019re going to try and ruin my day, I\u2019ll reduce them to dust. I have nothing to lose. I\u2019ve already lost everything a dozen times over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think it\u2019s time to start telling my co-workers what I really think about them. I\u2019ve coasted through my day job for ten years now, keeping my head down, trying to fade into the crowd and just muddle through the …<\/p>\n