<\/p>\n
Now, as many of you regular readers know, I have a nerve injury in my
\nface that’s inoperable, permanent and, more often than not, a crippling
\nsource of total freak-out pain that knocks me out of regular society
\nfor undetermined periods of time.\u00a0 The official diagnosis is
\nAtypical Trigeminal Neuralgia, which means they know what’s happening
\nbut they don’t know why.\u00a0 This problem is the result of an
\naccident in 1995 which shattered my palate and, to use the professional
\nmedical term, really fucked up my face and jaw.<\/p>\n
Thanks to an exciting cocktail of anti-convulsant drugs, the long
\nperiods of constant pain that made me put shotgun barrels in my mouth
\nhave passed into infrequent and, typically, brief episodes of intense
\nagony with long periods of semi-functional, pain free living in between.<\/p>\n
I’ve spent the last five weeks in the middle of a particularly nasty
\nflare up.\u00a0 The worst pain episode I’ve experienced for, at least,
\ntwo years.\u00a0 Maybe longer.\u00a0 As for the length of this episode,
\nthis is a first for about five years.\u00a0 Usually I’m out of
\ncirculation for a week or two and then I’m okay.<\/p>\n
This episode has changed shape somewhat, as well.\u00a0 Instead of the
\nsteady 24\/7 pain, it’s reacting solely to triggers — eating, drinking,
\ntalking, pressure. Avoid any of those hot points and I’m out of
\npain.\u00a0 So, right now, I’m really quiet and really hungry and my
\nteeth are coated in furry slime.\u00a0 I have managed to start shaving,
\nthough.<\/p>\n
In real life, I work a job that asks me to be on the phones for four
\nhours a day, talking to fuckheads and retards.\u00a0 Talking is bad
\nenough, but having to project my voice and enunciate clearly for phone
\nconversations is something of a pain adventure.\u00a0 After taking
\noodles of sick days, I finally decided to return to work and just do
\nadmin stuff — push papers around and write endless, unpublished
\narticles for GS.<\/p>\n
I did this because (a) I was out of sick days and (b) I hated sitting
\naround doing that endless sick day thing because, otherwise, I’m
\nhealthy.\u00a0 (Plus the internal politics of taking a sick day each
\nday is just as stressful as sitting here and talking to the bosses
\nabout why I can’t talk.)<\/p>\n
Now — My department has recently suffered a shake-up.\u00a0 One of the
\nsupervisors left on a whim and, since she was the only one who was
\nhumane and popular, a third of the staff immediately filed for
\ntransfers and the remainder of the staff started shopping resumes
\naround.\u00a0 This brought the department under scrutiny.\u00a0 As a
\nresponse to that, the big, bad Director — formally an easygoing,
\nthough distant, authority figure — waded in with a stronger
\nhand.\u00a0 In the midst of our busiest season, he introduced a
\ncomplicated “Work Code” routine for each call.\u00a0 These are designed
\nto track the nature of the calls, etc.\u00a0 Every phone center has
\nsomething like it… Except we aren’t computerized, so you have to
\nfiddle around with button pushing on the phone.\u00a0 R Button, 301,
\npound is what you type in if something calls and asks how they order a
\nbook.\u00a0 R button, 101, pound, R button, 201, pound, R button, 501,
\npound is what you have to type in if someone renews their membership,
\njournals and then wants to talk to the Division department — a very
\ncommon call during the busy season.\u00a0 All this must be done while
\nthe individual is on the phone.\u00a0 Once the call is terminated,
\nthat’s it.<\/p>\n
Well, the quick and the aware folks can keep that moving, sure, but
\nwe’re at a wage-slave, low-grade job.\u00a0 Our department is two heads
\nshort and we’re each juggling hundreds of calls a day.\u00a0 Throw in
\nan endless avalanche of other, similarly annoying, paper-trail shit and
\ndaily routines and you have about 12 hours of work a day that needs to
\nbe completed in 7.5 hours, with half that time on the phones and unable
\nto work because we’re not allowed more than 4 minutes logged out or 60
\nseconds on any outside calls, including in-house calls related to
\nproblems on our plates.<\/p>\n
But, tra-la-la, we all figured.\u00a0 This is a wage slave job and, in
\nthe end, fuck it.\u00a0 Who cares?\u00a0 We’re being paid in peanuts
\nand it’s all a sad joke.\u00a0 “Just send checks!” as my grandfather
\nsays whenever I complain about work.<\/p>\n
Then the meetings started.\u00a0 While I lay in my sickbed, each
\nstaffer was called in and told what they were doing wrong.\u00a0 Three
\nweeks after the codes were introduced and using the results, the one on
\none meetings with Big Bad Boss were along the lines of:\u00a0 You’re
\nnot falling into our standards.\u00a0 You’re not conforming to what we
\nneed.\u00a0 The meek and the tiny were chewed apart.\u00a0 It’s almost
\nas if the intention was to force out employees who had already put out
\nresumes.\u00a0 The unspoken comments:\u00a0 We know you’re flying, so
\nfly.\u00a0 At least, that was the attitude on the floor as everyone
\nstarted to mutter.\u00a0 These meetings took such an aggressive turn
\nthat one of the meek employees spent 90 minutes crying in the “quiet
\nroom.”\u00a0 Har-har-har, everyone though, you gotta be tougher than
\nthat…but it didn’t help sooth the growing tension.\u00a0 Criticize us
\nwhen the department is understaffed, underpaid and
\nunderappreciated?\u00a0 That’s the stuff revolutions are made of.<\/p>\n
I’m exempted from my meeting because I can’t talk.\u00a0 I’ve been on
\nand off the phones, usually off, for three weeks.\u00a0 But I haven’t
\nescaped the wrath of the Big Boss.\u00a0 5pm, last Tuesday, minutes
\nbefore he raced out the door, he sent an email asking me when I could
\nget back on the phones.\u00a0 The nature of my injury (which they all
\nknew about when they hired me, by the way) is that I don’t know.
\nYou can’t predict the waxing and waning of nerve damage as if it were a
\nleg cast set to be cut off at 8:35am next Monday.<\/p>\n
The exchange escalated the following day until, finally, there were
\nthreats to “discuss my future.”\u00a0 Word came down from my sources
\nthat the possibility of forced disability was on the map, and
\ncertainly, it’s “a major performance issue that needs addressing.”<\/p>\n
So I asked my doctor to write up all the jazz.\u00a0 Now I’m waiting
\nfor that note to come through and, hopefully, dispel the
\nsituation.\u00a0 Thinking like a rational human being, I originally
\nasked my doctor to send the note to the attention of Big Bad.\u00a0 No
\ngo.\u00a0 It has to come to me and then I have to take it to him.
\nOtherwise:\u00a0 Rejected!<\/p>\n
Okay, okay, fine.\u00a0 It’s the rules.\u00a0 But, if you want to be a
\nclown about this, then you have to tell me what you want.\u00a0 Say “I
\nwant a note from your doctor,” and that’s what you’re going to get,
\nchucklehead.\u00a0 You have to say:\u00a0 I want your doctor to send
\nyou a note so that you can walk it five feet over to me so that we can,
\nlater, use that against you in the context of some arcane ruling set up
\nby the always-absent HR department.<\/p>\n
Now, I see my presence here as a favor to the higher ups.\u00a0 Sure,
\nthey lose a phone man, but I’m here during the busy season plowing
\nthrough admin work, providing support for the staff, running all of
\nthose coordination jobs.\u00a0 In my eyes, I don’t have to be this
\ndedicated.\u00a0 Especially considering that they’re fuckheads and this
\nis a shit-swilling job.\u00a0 I can afford, and would greatly enjoy,
\nclaiming disability — which is an easy thing for me to win.\u00a0 I
\ncould make it long term if I wanted to, milk them for half a year or
\nmore.\u00a0 I could simply vanish for the remainder of the busy season.
\nIt would be easier, healthier and loads of fun.\u00a0 In fact, during
\nthis episode, my doctor has started to advise it in a sort of
\nsideways-speaking way.<\/p>\n
But, like a fool, I come in.\u00a0 The wind from the Metro hurts me,
\nthe motion of the train.\u00a0 Brushing my teeth and showering.
\nEating, talking.\u00a0 Everything through the day is about sharp bursts
\nof pain, or preparing for them.\u00a0 Yet here I am.\u00a0 Instead of
\ngratitude, my job is threatened, my performance is re-appraised and I’m
\ngiven a runaround that makes me wonder if, hey, does my Big Boss not
\nhave enough shit to do?\u00a0 Is he so fucking bored that he can spend
\nall day obsessing about one of his employees who has an acknowledged
\ndisability yet is still showing up and loyal to the job?\u00a0 I’m one
\nof two, out of thirteen, who has not put out resumes or transfer
\nrequests.\u00a0 They know this, too.\u00a0 Is the new plan, when
\nsolving internal political problems, to execute your allies?\u00a0 Is
\nthat in chapter two of “How to be a Manager”?<\/p>\n
So someone asked me a question last night that really got me
\nthinking:\u00a0 Is the wage slave world totally immoral?
\nOperating outside of, and opposed to, the basic moral code of society?
\nAm I in the framework of the basic human moral code right now?
\nSure, I’m not asked to kill people or poison dictators, but there’s
\nmore to our morality than that.\u00a0 Think:\u00a0 Respect.
\nAcknowledgment of needs.\u00a0 Inter-social support.\u00a0 Recognition
\nof special abilities or problems.\u00a0 The ability to take a holiday
\nwithout feeling guilty or fearing for your job… Hell, the ability to
\ntake a holiday.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n
I’m not talking about any institution in particular.\u00a0 Some places If, then, the wage slave jobs, this bottom level of employment that, It didn’t used to be like this, you know.\u00a0 I’m not saying there Here comes a bump in the road – an employee with a disability – and Where do we stand, kids?<\/p>\n
\nhave a great boss, some have wonderful benefits, some jobs are fine,
\nsome people like where they’re at.\u00a0 I don’t mean to say that
\nyour<\/em> job, in particular, is fucked.\u00a0 I’m
\ntalking about the overall wage slave world and the people who manage it
\nand construct it.\u00a0 The mid and sub level managers, the CEO’s, the
\nHR departments… These people who run the show, small and large, and
\ncontinue the same patterns.\u00a0 Whether they’re guilty of passive
\ninaction, embittered judgments, or outright Enron-style insane cruelty.<\/p>\n
\nmore and more, marks our American way of life, are immoral, what should
\nwe do about it?\u00a0 We’re all seeing and feeling the strain, aren’t
\nwe?\u00a0 The frayed edges of Service Society.\u00a0 Employees who go
\ninsane, bosses who have knee-jerk reactions to criticism, our own
\ndeadened, overworked minds.<\/p>\n
\nwas ever some golden age of employment where you could be a
\nshit-swiller and feel good about it, but it was different.\u00a0 Now it
\nfeels like the wage-slaver is smack in the middle of some weird Zoloft
\nSociety.\u00a0 The faux-liberal racism and depression of urban middle
\nmanagers and the judgmental, ignorant attitudes of rural middle
\nmanagers now rule our lives, all of them protected by the shell of the
\ngreatest absentee landlords of all time – the multi-headed snakes of HR
\ndepartments around the country.<\/p>\n
\nit’s time to play head games and 5pm email games.\u00a0 The cowardice
\nof petty men who treat life like a sick boardgame invented by the
\noffspring of Hitler or Stalin.<\/p>\n