Obstacle Course.
Years ago, I walked into a casino / bar / restaurant (one of a ten million and three in the state of Montana) and applied for a job as a line cook. I filled it out on the spot and upon finishing, the kitchen manager looked over it for about 2 minutes then had me follow him into the kitchen.
“Cook me a medium rare steak,” the grizzly veteran growled.
So I did. And started the next day. Other than that, it’s only ever taken me one interview to get a job. But I guess that’s why I’m floundering in near-poverty while trying to live beyond my means.
It’s amazing the flaming hoops of dogshit you have to jump through in trying to land an entry-level, essentially wageslave job at a large corporation. If it were a management or some executive position, I could understand. But I am applying for the employment equivalent of cannon-fodder. Customer service? We’ve all suffered the ineptitude of your garden variety call center cave-dweller enough times to know that there can’t possibly be any particular qualifications required other than perhaps the ability to say “I don’t know”, “I apologize for the inconvenience. Here’s a sweet keychain” and “You’re fucked, plankton” in at least broken English. Yet, so far I have been to the same company twice already and have taken so many tests that I thought for a moment I might have stumbled into the CIA by mistake. And should I get called back, there will be even more tests and further interviews.
Now, I’m not entirely sure I want to get that call. Considerable pay increase be damned.
They sit me down at a computer in their little testing room, upon which I was to read a series of brief passages about fictitious companies and answer a number of questions about what I just read. Twenty minutes. Forty Questions. In the directions, it warned that many people will not be able to finish. What kind of people? Infants? The answers were right there in the text above the questions.
Whatever. I finished and passed with flying colors.
After that, it was that personality profile test with the two hundred questions inquiring as to what degree I either agree or disagree with statements like “I tend to feel stressed when tractors park on my neck” or “I do not get uncomfortable when someone farts in my mouth”.
Of course I passed that, too, as only the most cognitively deficient of primates wouldn’t know how those questions should be answered. Then I was finally allowed an actual interview, after which I was asked to return a week later for the second round.
That next week, they began by sitting my down at the computer again, this time telling me that I would be tested on my ability to multi-task and handle stress. The test was a sort of simulated work environment, in which orders and requests came in via phone (headphones) and email, and I was expected to enter the information contained within these requests as quickly and accurately into the fake system as I could. I got eight minutes to click around and study what each of the screens looked like and what information was required within them.
Beforehand, I was warned that the simulation was intentionally created to be impossible. And it was. Nevertheless, I was told in the second interview afterward that I had done very well in all of the tests. And now, after telling the interviewer about an instance in which I’ve provided excellent customer service, one in which I didn’t and exactly how I felt about pleated pants, I was to run one more gauntlet that day.
Role-playing. Jesus Fucking Christ.
The interviewer left the room and gave me twenty minutes to study an overview of yet another fictitious company and their policies. Along with that information were included some “files” on a couple of the company’s “customers”. When the twenty minutes were up, the phone would ring and I would pretend to be an employee: explain policy, handle complaints or whatever the hell she was going to throw at me. God. I rather pride myself on having nerves of steel and I do this exact same shit every day, but I was somewhat taken by surprise and under such odd and unreasonable circumstances, I must admit I was pretty nervous. I flailed on the first two calls, but got in stride after that and handled the third and final pretty well.
Despite my previous successes, I was not feeling so confident after that. I just wanted OUT. But we discussed a few more things and I was told that my info would now go to the Exalted Headmaster of the Holy Hiring Tribunal and if they liked what they saw, I would be called back for one final interview. And upon completion of that interview, I’d need only to extract a two-handed bastard sword from it’s bed of Stone and I’d be officially hired.
For the first time in my life, I don’t think I’ll get that call. And if I do, I’m afraid it might be for nothing anyway. I was reading some of the publications on their wall while waiting to take one of the tests when I came across one about their drug testing policy. Though I quit all but the booze a good many years ago, I did take a hit (one is all I can handle after all this time) of weed while out in Arizona visiting my old hometown bros from back in the day…the ones I’d recently got back in touch with after Ninja Vanishing six years ago. You know. Old times’ sake and all that. That was a month ago and Lord knows I flush the hell out of my system every weekend, so I wasn’t too worried about a piss test.
But they test your fucking
hair. And it said it detects any drug use within the last 90 days. I don’t know how valid that claim is, but if it’s true, I may be out of the race, anyway. But I guess we’ll see. I may not get the chance and, again, I’m not altogether sure I want it.
But seriously. We know for a fact that third world neanderthals are considered capable of this job. So what’s with the obstacle course?
UPDATE: Since writing this, I've received a rejection letter. Think about that the next time you're on the phone with one of a billion customer service botards. It's alright, however...like I said: I would probably have failed the next step, and they were crazy, anyway. While still highly unsatisfied, I've a new appreciation for the informal and more personal atmosphere in which I currently slave.
Dead in the Water.
Listen. I can understand the conventional perspective on speaking ill of the dead; that to do so is in bad taste. I’m not entirely sure I agree in all cases but I can certainly respect a person’s adhering to the notion.
By indescriminate posthumous exaltation, on the other hand, I cannot abide.
I am watching television in plaid pajamas, suffering yet another story of some promising young woman in her prime that has disappeared, been murdered or otherwise met some manner of premature demise. It happens every day, or at least as often as I watch television in plaid pajamas…there’s never a moment in any day in which is not being broadcast coverage or discussion on some variation of this same theme. Every day. And in each one of these stories are recorded the numerous accounts of friends, family and associates; about how they were the most unique, outgoing, selfless, intelligent, talented and likable person that ever lived. Each and every one of them was the brightest star in the galaxy; a gleaming beacon of kindness, humanity and imminent success.
Come the fuck on.
Considering that the worthless and contemptible are in the majority, this can’t possibly be true in all cases…very few in fact, I’m willing to wager a modest sum. Of course, I am an admitted mysanthrope and therefore might be biased…but knowing that I am nowhere near alone in my belief that the truly virtuous are an endangered species, I am prepared to allow only a little margin for error in their favor.
Yet, we agonize over the injustice of every seeming tragedy as if it is not far more likely that that bloated carcass found on the beach yesterday belonged to a lifelong bitch on toast.
“Oh, Stacy? Really?! That’s too bad, I suppose, but whatever…she was a passive-aggressive nightmare of a backstabbing, manipulative cunt.”Or, at the very least:
“Well, I wouldn’t erect any statues in his honor, but I guess Roger was nice enough. Kinda stupid, but nice.”Not that I don’t empathize with anybody’s loss. Even the worst of us has at least one person that loves and will miss us. It’s just that it’s not possible that every dead person was some ultra-special, wittys and prescient philanthropist superhero.
“…an overlaughing attention whore. Pretty annoying, really.”I am watching television in plaid pajamas. Tammy Faye Bakker is on Larry King. Indeed, her condition is severely unfortunate. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, and the faith and fortitude with which she seems to be facing an inescapably painful present and deadly future is to be commended. Of course, one should forgive and perhaps forget but are we really going to go so far as to pretend that she is an honorable human being worthy of admiration? Are we really to overlook the evil a person perpetrated in their life; the millions of dollars jacked in the name of the Lord and the self-righteous condemnation of the “amoral majority” simply because they lay on their deathbed? Not that one mightn’t redeem themselves, but the vanity evinced in the deliberate pursuit of television interviews in order to put one’s self on display for no discernible reason other than a need for attention and pity seems to contradict the notion that one has truly repented and atoned.
Isn’t vanity one of the seven deadly sins? Of course, this is ust an example. I don’t feel particularly strongly about Mrs. Messner either way.
I may empathize with victims and their kin on a purely humanitarian basis, but I’ll not skew the deeds of the amoral merely because a cruel fate has befallen them and I will certainly not
sympathize without knowing exactly whose suffering I should be lamenting.
“Dude. He was an arrogant prick.”Or, at the very least:
“No comment.”Sorry, America, but I’ve known too many assholes to just hand out the benefit of the doubt.
Spellcheck is for CEO's.
I really wish that we could observe Independence Day on the same day every year. That way it wouldn’t take everybody by surprise and put me neck deep in a thousand panicked asses with no concept of time and order the day prior. You know. They never announce that shit until the last minute.
Which is my specialty. Le sigh.
Fuck June 21st. This right here is the longest day of the year…and that Summer Solstice is my birthday, so you know I mean it (yeah, my old hippy friends just ate that shit up). Not only do we get a day off tomorrow, but apparently the A/C crapped out on us this afternoon, so everybody’s running around here shining like disheveled diamonds, looking for anything that resembles some kind of fan. Ain’t nobody better be touching my shit, either. I thought of this months ago and was prepared.
Though the little engine that barely can in my fan isn’t quite up to the task, either. I, too am still quickly turning into a stank mess.
So why am I in this damned dress shirt?
Fuck business attire, too. Or business casual…whatever that means. That shit just isn’t practical in certain areas like this godforsaken desert. And are we still falling for the false promise of projected image, anyway? Caucasian, please …douchebag in a suit is the last person I trust. The kid with the pierced lip and bleached fauxhawk might not be able to properly construct my taco for the life of him, but at least his shortcomings are out in the open and I know that he is most likely compensated accordingly.
As opposed to the powersuit that is essentially no more intelligent or flawless than the taco boy, but makes twenty times more for lying about it.
Yeah, we're back to that again. I hate looking for work even more than I hate putting dishes or laundry away. It's not so much the job...it's the clean up. But now I'm looking for a replacement, not an addendum. I got lucky once and escaped the ol' food service wage-slave trade despite a lack of formal qualifications, so to hope to do so again does not seem entirely unrealistic to me .
Of course, I knew somebody then. I don't now. But sooner or later, somebody will recognize that college doesn't teach you how to learn; that there is no such class as Critical Thinking 101 or Introduction to Work Ethics and you can definitely not major in How to Deal. Yet I tried to apply for a fucking customer service / call center gig at a giant company that wouldn't even allow me past the third step in the online process because I didn't have a degree. So you're telling me that you need at least a Bachelor's to work in the mailroom? Even though half the people working in there are probably smarter than your CFO?
Define "smart".
If I were an interviewer, that would be the first question I would ask.
Last week, I interviewed for yet another job whose description remained clouded in mystery (always a bad sign...last time that happened I almost became a Kirby salesman). The lady interviewing me attempted to make some analogy, whose meaning I can't recall because it didn't have one. But it had something to with who I'd call if I got a flat tire on the freeway...
"Nobody. I'd change the tire myself."
"Okay. Right. Bad Example, I guess," she says, then goes on to try and make another with an equally retarded answer that I don't recall because I drove an hour to go twenty miles to be here and you still haven't told me what the fucking job is...but I know that you play harp and truly believe that your lingo is inspiring.
Define "smart": Okay. You can drop me off 5,000 miles away from my house with no credit cards or cellphone, and I'll still get home before I starve to death or die from exposure, all the while revelling in the fantastic tale I've now got to tell.
Plus, I've taught myself Word, Excel, Photoshop, various CAD programs, HTML, CSS, my stinking wireless network at home, peel-and-stick tiling, painting, fixing cabinetry, recording drums, how to goddamn sing, how to remember every group of numbers I've ever heard and can cook a fucking chicken fried steak that you'd kill your dog for.
So here's a bit of job-seeking advice more valuable than anything you'll ever find on Yahoo or AskMen.com: When feeling intimidated during an interview, keep in mind that that sorry sonofabitch most likely can't change a fucking tire.
Remind me to tell you about The Police show at Dodger Stadium. I'm way less cranky about that, but it's more tale than I care to tell at the moment.
Explain to Me Again How I'm Supposed to be Upbeat and Optimistic
Festering Pustule: Hello, I was looking at your Candelabras...like the
3-branch candelabra in white? Yeah. How many candles is that for?
Customer Service.
I don’t know…maybe if I renamed and themed this blog I’d be more inclined to spend time and energy on it. I feel as if my veins are pretty much tapped of social / psychological commentary and I can only twist biology and evolution into so many shapes. And whatever else I’ve bloviated about, well…I guess that’s all I had to say about that.
A man gets tired of thinking about shit. You know? I think I’ll just buy myself a vat of Carlo Rossi and make faces at the Princess.
But few things fascinate me more than the alarmingly widespread absence of prescience and logic that is the hopeless human machine; the bane of nearly every minute that I spend out of the house. There’s an infinite amount of juice to be squeezed out of that one—hell, I’ve been at that for about two years, too and I’m not even close to being finished.
I often hold off on that sort of thing, as it most often just sounds like a lot of complaining, but I haven’t exactly kept my superiority complex a secret, now have I? And aren’t we supposed to be keepin’ it rill?
Well, that I can’t swing a dead book without hitting some oblivious moron whose blissful ignorance is hindering my progress and affecting the ease with which I insist on living is about as rill as it gets for me.
Take, for example, a conversation (similar to the hundred or so per day in which I am obliged to participate) I was fortunate enough to have had today:
Stupid Motherfucker: Hi. I was just talking to somebody there. Might you know who it could have been?
whitey: I’m afraid I have no way of knowing. May I…ask who’s calling?
Stupid Motherfucker: Well, it was a lady. Is there a lady there?
whitey: …
There was, of course, more but my lexicon being constricted by professional obligation, the conversation got textually boring from there. But fucking seriously?! The exchange should have gone something like this:
Vat of Rendered Pork Fat: Hi. Might you happen to be clairvoyant? Because I was just talking to one of the forty or so employees that talk to people on telephones there and was wondering if you’d be able to tell me which of them it was without even knowing so much as who the hell I am or what it was regarding.
Also, I’ll give you fifty bucks if you can guess my weight.
whitey: Unfortunately no, but if you happen to know the gender of the person you spoke to, perhaps we can narrow it down.
VRPF: Well, it was a lady. Is there a lady there?
whitey: No. There are absolutely no females in this office. Despite being against the law and just plain highly improbable, we here at Where Whitey Works, Incorporated maintain a strict Males Only hiring policy. So I can tell you with absolute certainty that you were definitely not speaking to anybody here. Are you sure you have the right number, Bile Burp?
Hold on. Would you believe this? It seems a latent telepathic ability has just now manifested itself this very second. Talk about luck. I thought this kind of thing usually happens around puberty, but I’m getting a vision…perhaps from which I can glean what number you meant to dial. Did it have, uhhhhmmm…an 8 in it?
VRPF: Why, yes I—
whitey: Also, the spirit is saying something about a birthday as if it is of some significance. Does that ring any bells? Do you currently know—or have you ever known—somebody with a birthday?
“Traveling at a Speed of Ten Stupid Motherfuckers per Hour” sounds like a good new title to me.
Okay, maybe not but seriously...is it just me? Of course it isn't, but among the many injustices that are blogged about every day, I see relatively little talk about the wholesale distribution of your everyday, dangerously inept moron. Sure...individually they may not all be some high profile threat to national security or the global economy, but whatever they lack in singular impact is more than made up for in the efficacy of sheer numbers.
Just look at the last election. Or any headline including the word "Hilton", "Lohan" or "Spears". Should we really be taking the high road and ignoring the common idiot? You never know when one of them will become your current administration, so in the long run, I don't know if we can afford to let some bygones be. More dialogue is needed, I think.
Or at least more calling out. Whatever. I just need something else to do.
Ninja Vanish.
“Hey…where the hell did whitey go?”
At that particular moment, you are the focus of attention. You are the most important person in the room. The spotlight. You are famous. Like when you first realized that the school bus still comes by when you stay home sick, that life goes on with or without you…in this infinite universe of isolated souls in which one’s presence can seem so inconsequential, absence can be as poignant as any spectacle. The guy with the lampshade on his head can’t compare to he who seems to have suddenly disappeared.
Suddenly, you’re the life of the party with increased mystique.
It’s like the posthumous success of an artist. Or how a scoundrel in the grave becomes an angel. But different.
We use to call it “Ninja Vanish” and much like the artificial depth of intent I’ve just applied, it was really nothing more than a pointless source of amusement. Some get it, most don’t. But there’s a harmless satisfaction to be had in slipping out unannounced, knowing that at some point people will be wondering just what in the hell happened to you.
See? Now they’re talking about you.
While there were certainly repercussions that I once regretted (comes a time to get over it), I rather pride myself on pulling one of the greatest Ninja Vanishes in Great Falls history when I skipped town for California. Not that people didn’t know I was going, but they didn’t know when. There was no going away party or misty goodbyes. I just took off one day, seemingly never to be heard from again.
In these six years hence, I’ve only had contact with two or three of the crew, and only once with even those few, save one. For being limited by my sporadic-at-best contact with my ol’ pal, Sea Bass, what little word of my whereabouts and exploits that got around was mostly hearsay and, dare I say…myth?
“Yeah, I heard that you…”
Some months ago, SeaBass clued me in to the whereabouts of some of my old, dear friends and how to contact them…people with whom I’ve wanted to get back in touch for quite some time but was hesitant due to the animosity bred by my departure and various circumstances surrounding it. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I bit the bullet—knowing that the probability of getting told to “fuck off and die, maggot” wasn’t at all unlikely—and sent a message (goddamn havin’ to register for a fucking Myspace account to do so…) to my old friend and drummer Mo’Chasse. Much to my surprise and relief, he wrote back only a day or two later perfectly willing to write off all the old shit and let ninjas be ninjas. Shortly thereafter, I called his ass up and, in true Great Falls fashion, a lengthy bullshit session ensued as if perhaps mere hours had passed since last we threw down a four-hour set at the Top Hat…except, of course, for catching up on six years of each other’s haps.
Turns out he and another of my old friends are currently broiling themselves alive in Lake Havasu City, so when SeaBass came down for a four day weekend, we decided to drive on over there and hang.
“Holy shit, man. I never thought I’d see your ass again!”
My wallet may heartily disagree, but it was a good, important and entirely necessary thing to do that I myself hadn’t dared to presume would ever happen. A setting to rights and returning to roots has occurred, putting to rest a parasite that’s been entrenched in the back of my mind and feeding upon my peace of mind for far too long.
For some, detailing their lives and thoughts comes naturally, but I require of my expressions a form and function that cost time and energy that I am not always willing to spend in this medium. So, in such an instance as I tire of the method, I Ninja Vanish. This is neither the first nor the last time…The Sordid Details is another of those parasites whose processes thrum continually in my ear, an inadvertent reminder of my role in our symbiosis.
Ever present, this Remora’s growling stomach. Dependant but patient in intermittent expectation.
There will never be a “Last Post Ever” or “Goodbye, Cruel World” post here. First, because I highly doubt it would be true and I try not to lie. Second, because to me it infers a cry for attention for which I have no need and would never stoop to issue. As before, I will simply let it sit here, stewing without explanation, self satisfied in whatever speculation its impassive angling brews…kind of like misplacing your car keys.
You could swear they were just there a minute ago…
“Hey…where in the hell did whitey go?”
And quite magically, they turn up in one of your pockets.
But only after you’ve checked them a hundred times.
Yawnsense.
How many times have you heard a person you consider to be exceptionally ignorant talk about how stupid people are? Me, too. But I don’t sweat hypocrisy. It’s perfectly normal behavior…rationale most often occuring as a desperate countermeasure deployed after the fact. Act instinctually, then scramble for some kind of reason. That’s how it typically goes—especially if you’re one of those twenty-somethings with your barstool psychology that insists on explaining the living shit out of everything.
“See, I think the reason that I whatever is because when I was a kid, my dad used to cut a hole in my ribs and fuck it and ever since then I’ve had this thing aboutEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEand sorry I freakeddudeI’msogladwehadthistalkrighton.”
The majority of us like to believe that we’re in some minority as intelligent, well-meaning and honorable folk. We like to believe that everybody else is stupid, selfish, malicious, conniving and careless. But most everybody else believes the very same thing. By definition, then, it stands to reason that most of us are sorely mistaken.
And that’s the whole problem with the ‘Us versus Them’ mentality…there
is no ‘them’.
This is why I have to laugh when I hear people talk about taking “the high road”. Yeah. I tried that once. There was nobody else on it and I was bored to fucking tears. Seems to me it’s primarily only used when one wants to create an illusion of superiority and invincibility. It’s a complete farce, like some shithead going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how such and such doesn’t bother them.
Right. Then shut the hell up, already.
I’ll still use it every now and then if a situation calls for sheer obstinacy, but mostly I prefer to talk shit and am okay with being a creep like everybody else, only not because I won’t sit here and pretend like I’m not a judgmental prick which I guess puts me in one of those minorities, too only not and now I’m getting confused, so bye.
