Job Jitters: We Don't Need No Education

Nervously, I sat in the chair of my superior's office, waiting as he slowly read the conduct reports. Actually, I say “my superior”, but he really wasn't. My superior was the secretary (I'm sorry, administrative assistant) who worked in my same office here at the college. Her superior was the administrative assistant in the office next door, and her superior was the dean who she directly assisted. And when I say dean, he was technically just the dean of the art school, and his superior was on the school board representing the whole college, and his superior was in the Administrative Building. It was in the office of this last superior that I sat, awaiting my judgment.

“Well, Harry, I assume you know why you're here.”

“My work isn't good enough?” I ventured.

“No, no, your work is fine. You have been an excellent...” he adjusted his glasses while scanning the paper for confirmation of my title, “...administrative assistant's assistant's assistant.”

“Oh, well then have I not been getting along with my co-workers?”

“No, actually, they all seem to love you. The assistants called you a life saver, and one teacher called you brilliant.”

“Oh, then this can only be regarding... the outburst.”

“Yes, that's it. The outburst you had last Friday. You had, um, quite a lot to say, didn't you.”

“I tend to express myself creatively, sir.”

“Indeed. It says at one point you described this job as 'a huge, steaming pile of... baloney sandwiches'. Wait, why baloney sandwiches?”

“This is a pretty tame blog, sir. Families read this, children even.”

Children exclusively, I should say.

“I see. Well, what, might I ask, is the main reason for your concerns?”

“Well, this job just carries with it a whole lot of baloney sandwiches. Like, all the paperwork. I mean an insane amount of paperwork. We have books that keep saved paperwork going back as far as 2008, and that's just on the shelf. In the storage closet, we still have final grades that go back twice as far. And most of it's so useless. There was a huge stack of papers, I kid you not, 600 sheets at least, that were two days late being sent out and were suddenly useless. And I had to shred all of them, one by one, because they had private info on them. There's so much paperwork, 90% of it useless, that our file cabinet just for the empty forms that people have to fill out for any little thing looks like the closet in Zaboomafoo.”

Editor's note: Harry, I want you to make more nostalgia jokes. Internet audiences really respond to nostalgia jokes.

“Okay, well, is that all?”

“No, other problem is that nothing is ever done as it's said. So many times has someone told me to do something, explained it in length, and then when I did it, it was wrong because they expected something else. Even with my hiring, I was only here for a temp job while you looked for someone to fill the spot permanently. But now you've got her, and I'm still here. Then you said you'd reduce my hours so I'd only be coming in 3 days a week, but that never happened. Hell, first you said I'd be paid one thing, then I actually get paid less.”

“To be fair, you weren't qualified for that job title, therefore we hired you at a lower title to do the same work for less.”

“Yeah, but that's another thing that points to this job just being a frustratingly overcomplicated mess. Look at my resume. I'm qualified to do this, I've had similar enough experiences before. But when I applied, I spent an hour and a half being coached by my boss to get previous job experiences to match, word for word, to what your job posting called for. Stupid, little things, like not saying I 'checked out customers' when I was a cashier because it sounds like I was hitting on them; and saying 'experience using a mechanical adding machine' instead of saying cash register. I had to alter the minutest of details and wordings just to get this job. I spent more time carefully rewording my application, after I was already selected mind you, than I did learning what I was going to be doing, all so my bosses wouldn't get in trouble with you guys for hiring someone who wasn't qualified for the $1.00 pay difference between job titles. And the thing is, I'm not really qualified, not for this. I can input data, organize, deal with customers or technology and anything else that the job posting said, but what the posting never said, and what I've never had experience with, was this level of total BS. And because of a well meaning superior stretching my resume to fill a needlessly specific yet woefully under descriptive job requirement list, I'm suddenly in a job where I have no idea what I'm doing and am expected to do it anyway. It's like I'm living my middle school nightmares about the workforce where I ended up in a job I couldn't do and if I screwed up it would be a negative mark against future employment opportunities and also I forgot to wear pants.

The workforce, how I see it. Did I mention this blog was also created by a child?

I mean, this is supposed to be a college. Teachers are trying to actually get some stuff actually done, and students are trying to get an actual education, but it's made increasingly difficult by your ever mounting pile of pointless, stupid, inane, petty BS.”

There was silence in the office. My superior shuffled the papers, staring at them hard, and eventually let out a long sigh.

“Well, Harry, I'm sorry, but there's only so much I can do. Perhaps my... superior could address your concerns more completely.”

“Wow, that sounded... sinister...” I began, though before I could finish, he had stood from his desk, leapt to the door at the side of his office, the door I had somehow failed to notice until now, and rapped gently on its wooden frame. He was responded by a light gurgling from the other side of the door.

“Sir, I hate to disturb you, but we have another dissenter. He seems quite perturbed by the workings here. Shall we invite him in for a look at the... bigger picture?”

He must have received a nod of assent, because without further sound from the thing past the doorway, he turned and bade me enter. Against my better judgment, I slowly made my way to the door frame and peeked within, and found myself confronted with a great and colossal being that defied all reason and spat upon the notion of sanity itself. It looked upon me with ancient eyes, and all I could feel was dread; the dying warmth of the last day of summer, the bitter tears of an old friend's departure, the painful droplets of rain ruining an otherwise perfect day. There were so many details about the monstrosity that it could only truly be described as indescribable; it's face had fangs, yet also mandibles, yet also tentacles; it's limbs were hideously bulbous yet acutely lithe; its breath was sickly sweet yet nauseatingly bitter; its skin was of some tone that I was certain my eyes were not able to see and no language was able to name; it had so many countless eyes and yet when I stared deeply, uncontrollably, I could see only the one. It's craggy, eldritch visage was nothing short of Lovecraftian.

Editor's note: And internet audiences really respond to that one horror writer you don't really know much about other than that giant squid guy. Also, you don't have an editor.

It spoke with a tongue that lashed and slathered, and while its language was alien to my ears, the words echoed inside my mind with startling clarity.

“Speak, insignificant one. Voice your concerns that I may answer with mocking and laughter.”

“I... I don't understand why you make this job so difficult. It should be easy, it should just be light filing, and organizing, and occasionally answering simple questions to bewildered freshmen. Why is there so much complications to this simple job?”

“You lack the capacity to truly understand. This is a question I cannot answer in full.”

“Then answer in terms I can understand.”

“Very well. I, I and my kind, we do not subside ourselves on physical food; our forms require much more, nourishing delicacies. Frustration, panic, fear, dread. These emotions to us are the most filling bread, the sweetest wine.”

“Then, you're torturing us on purpose?”

“That is correct.”

“But why this college, why these people, why here?”

“Again you do not understand. This campus is not our only source of food. The entire world is rife with our secret presence. This college is but one of many, of thousands, of myriads of places where we exist; slowing things down, mucking things up, complicating processes and perplexing workers the whole world over, and feeding. Always feeding.”

“So here, and in other colleges?”

“Yes.”

“And in courts and legal proceedings?”

“Yes.”

“And governments?”

“And Hollywood?”

“Especially Hollywood!”

pic:

It makes so much sense!

“No!” I cried, “This can't be allowed to continue! I have the knowledge now, and that compels me to act. I can tell the others, I can make everyone see what you're truly doing to them!”

I was greeted with nothing but laughter, much of it foreign and unrecognizable, but a small part of it human. I quickly realized this part was my superior, standing in the doorway still, laughing maniacally with the beast before me.

“You foolish whelp, there is nothing you can do. No one will believe you, and even someone did, we control everything. Any investigation would be put through bureaucratic hoops until it dissolved, any party who sought to confirm this would be met with frustrations upon frustrations, until nothing was left of their curiosity except lamentations and defeat. You are powerless against us.”

“Then I'll bring them here, to look directly upon you. No bureaucracy can stand against man's resolve when it sees these horrors with its own eyes!”

“Ah,” it countered, “How can you bring others here when your clearance to these offices has been revoked!”

“Wait, what?”

“Bwa-ha ha ha ha ha!” it laughed once more, it's languished cries of mirth filling the room and beyond until the very sound of it felt as if it must shake the earth to its core.

I am fired.

¿Qué, Qué, Qué?

I just don’t seem to have a good track record with staying one race, do I?

Ladies and gentlemen, I come before you shocked, outraged, and mortified after having learned a terrible lesson, one I have learned firsthand. Racism’s ugly (splotchy, acne laden, and prematurely gray) head has reared itself once more in this supposedly forward thinking country, and I have experienced this firsthand. Yes, I have felt the venomous sting of racism. Firsthand! The situation has become so traumatizing that the details of the… incident have grown fuzzy. I will try to relate it as best as I can recall. I was sitting at my desk, taking these accursed customer service calls. As per usual, I got one. It didn’t take long for the conversation to become heated (as customer service calls are wont to do). As the customer kept asking me to do more and more for him, and I kept insisting that (as a worthless peon) I literally could not do any of the things he was asking for, he finally snapped, “you {expletive} wetback; go back to your own country!” Then the line clicked off.

I sat there stunned. After hearing what I had, various emotions stirred within my heart. First and foremost, confusion. In case you hadn’t noticed, I am white. Really, just about as white as can be. I come from along line of Danish and Irish folks. I get sunburn from nightlights. I listen to Arcade Fire. I write a blog. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Buddy Holly and 10 being Danny Trejo, I rank about a 2.5.

Although I'm pretty certain I'm more genuinely Mexican than Carlos Mencia.

And I was talking in my normal voice, which includes a verbosity unmistakable for the grammatically obsessed, language arts teacher’s pet I am. I don’t sound the vaguest bit foreign, and if I tried to do a Mexican accent, it would come off as authentic as the Frito Bandito. For me to wonder how on earth this narrow minded fellow confused my voice with that of a migrant worker is only reasonable.

On a related note, I know who I'm going as at my next costume party.

Secondly, I felt confused again. Going strictly by racial stereotypes, aren’t call center employees supposed to be Indian? If I put too many jalapeños in his pico de gallo while working the dinner rush at El Fenix, I could understand getting told to get back to my own country. If I’m calling him over the cable bill and I sound like I might not be from around here, I expect to get a complaint about outsourcing

Coming this fall to NBC!

Finally, I became righteously indignant. How dare he judge me. I braved drowning and dehydration in my quest to get here. I have taken the lowliest job on this totem pole to scrimp and save and earn a living for my impoverished family, while he sits on his butt and watches Jersey Shore until the company disconnects him for non pay. And when that happens, I’m the one who gets to take his anger, I’m his verbal punching bag, and all in the name of braving hardships and breaking my back for a better life for my family. What could be more American than that? You say to get to my own country, well I from what I see, I may not be a legal citizen but this is my country! Also, I am a legal citizen, and this is literally my country.

Although, when you look closer at all the things I think are cool…

...Wait a minute...

Okay, from now on guys, I am Mexican.

Job Jitters 2: This Time, It's Personal

The woman sat behind her desk, briefly attempting to meditate on the moment’s peace. So long did peace elude her in this place, and as usual, this moment had just about reached its end before it reached its zenith. There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she said bluntly, resting her fingers on her temples.

A scruffy looking young man entered and approached timidly. She waved him to the chair, where he gently sat and looked up at her sheepishly. She brought her hands to the desk and threaded her fingers, then looked squarely at the young man, not into his eyes, but simply at him. She had learned the impersonal gaze from experience, realizing it gave her a sense of authority over the subordinate (and more importantly, insubordinate) employees. The most troubling part of her job, it had turned out, was telling the differences between the truly insubordinate and rebellious employees from the ones simply in over their head, and it was an unbiased gaze of observation that could often tell that difference. The results, unfortunately, were usually the same.

The young man waited furtively for her to speak. The young man is me, by the way. I should have mentioned that earlier, but I wanted to start in 3rd person and transition to 1st. I thought that might be cool. Eventually, she cleared her throat and spoke. Again, it was at, and not necessarily to.

“So how do you think you’re adjusting to the position? Think you’re picking it up okay?” she asked like she was reading an unseen script just over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I think I’m doing fine,” I lied. At the moment, it seemed like the right thing to say, but aided with the clarity of hindsight, and perhaps a bit of honesty, it was pretty much an outright lie. She knew this.

“Really?” For the first time in the room, she seemed to actually be addressing me, but she tried her best to quickly return to her distant aloofness. “We’ve been monitoring your performance for the last couple weeks.”

I cringed. “That’s… good…” Again I lied.

Incompetent, she thought, this one isn’t bad, he’s just incompetent. If not for the sterility she mentally forced upon these conversations, the incompetent ones would be harder.

I had figured I’d been monitored. It was like all those paranoid moments when you’re washing your hands and think you see a pair of eyes over your shoulder in the mirror, but you turn and there’s no one there. When you can feel the stare on the back of your head, but there’s no one else in sight. When you enter a room and hear the faint skitter of fleeing shoes, but once you enter there’s no other door. Except, in this case, it was moreso the remote viewing of computers that the higher ups use to monitor their employees’ internet activity, the Orwellian “tattle” policies, and the constant threat of firing should you be caught in possession of a cell phone on the call center floor. Due to the fairly severe sets of privacy laws that govern cable bill debt collection call centers, I and all the other employees were rigidly monitored pretty much at all times, and had been told that at the beginning. Still, it felt a little invasive to be outright told this after being called into my superior’s office.

“Is there something wrong with how I’m doing things?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer, mostly because I already knew it.

“Well, let’s just take a look at one of your recent calls. I think this might explain things a bit.”

“Hello?” asked someone on the other end of the phone line.
“Hello, is this Alexander Simmons?” asked me, in a perfect, and I totally mean perfect Sean Connery voice.
“Um, yes, who is this?”
“This is Sean Connery with Time Warner Cable. It seems you have, rather unfortunately, been missing some payments. This, I’m afraid, is completely against our regulations.”
“Okay, this clearly isn’t the real Sean Connery, but aside from that I’d be happy to make a payment right now, if…”
“Hold on a second. What do you mean I’m not Sean Connery. Can’t you tell it’s me from my ever so distinguishable voice?”
“Why would Sean Connery be calling me about my cable bill?”
“It’s bring a world class celebrity to work day.”
“Yeah, not buying it.”
“I WAS IN THE ROCK!”
The line went dead.

The woman behind the desk stared at me blankly, until I spoke up to defend myself.

“I don’t see what Sean Connery’s poor bedside manner have to do with me…”

“Yeah, don’t even try that kid.”

“Okay, okay. You got me. That was me. It’s my daily 10 O’clock Impressions. I just wanted to liven the atmosphere once a day, so sue me.”

“We know about your 10 O’clock Impressions. Over the last several weeks we have recordings of Robin Williams, Marlon Brando, Hank Hill, and Rod Serling.”

“But what harm is a little fun if it doesn’t harm productivity in any way?” I asked, plaintively.

“Not a single of these calls have made a payment.”

“Okay, fine. So the 10 O’clock Impressions are out. Is that all?”

“No, actually. Why don’t we review this next call?”

“Hello?” asked the customer.
No reply.
“Hello?” she asked louder.
Slight rustling on the other end, and a bit of breathing.
“HELLO?”
There was a sudden snoring noise that peaked crescendo with a snort and a very slurred “Don’t eat me!” followed by a hasty “Yes who is this?”
“Uh, you called me…”
“Yesthat’sverytrue,I’mcallingonyourrecordsjusttoletyouknowletmecheckthecomputernoiseyouoweussomethingmoneyforyourcablebillservicehereisalistofthenearestpaymentlocationoutletswouldyouliketoknowourcurrentspecials?” My voice lilted up and down through the whole jumbled speech as I tried to do my job through hazy, half consciousness.
“Were you asleep? Are you even awake now?”
“Don’t tell my boss” came my slow, dreary reply.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. Just let me know what you’re calling about.”
“These… these men in coats said the books sent me to find the secrets…” there was a muffled thud followed by intense snoring. The line went dead.

“Sleeping on the job is a very serious offense, Harry,” the woman said sternly.

“Yes, I know, I understand. I’m very sorry about that, but it was just once on one of the first few days, and I swore I’d never fall asleep at my desk again, and I’ve taken steps to prevent it.”

“Yes, that might explain this next one, which was recorded the following day.”

“Hello?” asked the customer. There was nothing on the other end of the line but what sounded like some kind of static, and an almost imperceptible ringing.
“Hello, is someone there?” There was more of the ringing noise.
“Look, I’m going to hang up if no one answers.” The ringing seemed to begin to cry out frantically, but no sound of a voice ever materialized. There was a hang up noise, followed by several minutes of the ringing sound. Eventually, the line went dead.

“Actually, I remember this call, but I swear from my end it sounded like he was talking in slow motion.”


“Yes, this one took us a while to decipher. The boys in the lab eventually slowed the track way down and that noise is your voice speaking at an incredibly high speed. I think they said it proved a couple theories about the theory of relativity when it comes to subjective speeds.”

“…We have boys in the lab?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Oh, okay. See, that was my first Red Bull, and I’m starting to think those don’t agree with me. But hey, my words were technically still there, and didn’t I do a good job on those?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Hmm… Okay. Well, is that all the phone calls?” I asked.

“Well, we kind of have one more. It starts out as a phone call, but the important part of it is what we’ve started to call “the outburst”. This is really the reason we brought you in here today.”

“Hold on. Alright, there’s no need to play that. I think I understand what this is about. This is about last Friday’s escalation? Yeah, I am very sorry about that. Things got out of hand with a very impatient customer, and maybe I lost my cool a little bit, but I think you should know it wasn’t entirely my fault.”

“We have $14,000 worth of property damage.”

“I maintain that the computer was broken before my reaction, and was a part of the stresses that led to said reaction.”

“Over half the damage was to the property on the next lot over.”

“Sometimes when I’m really mad, I need to take a walk to calm my nerves.”

“Eye witnesses described your actions. Of the many verbs used, not a one of them was the word ‘walking’. ‘Leaping’, ‘stomping’, ‘crashing’, ‘air punching’, ‘foaming at the mouth’, ‘Hulk-smashing’, ‘crying’, and ‘gnawing’ were all words that came up in multiple reports.”

“Perhaps a bit of an overreaction, but the good news is no one got hurt, right?”

“The customer from the other end of the phone line is having to go through extensive therapy. It seems that you repeatedly used the phrase, ‘This job is devouring my soul’, and the customer claims she saw ‘wisps of hellfire’ seeping through the speaker phone.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“I’ve heard the tape myself.”

I paused, “Hellfire?” She nodded.

“Is there anything, anything at all you want to say to explain for your actions?”

“Look, I can only say ‘I’m sorry’ so many times, but if it lightens the mood, would like to hear an apology from Sean Connery?”

I am fired.

Job Jitters

I was starting to think this day would never come, but here at long last it is: I have a job. Granted, it’s only a temp job and doesn’t look to last long, but it does mean I have a reason to leave the house, and I got to use a cash register, and I’m pretty certain this place doesn’t pay in monopoly money (although the “Get Out of Jail Free” cards I got as a Christmas bonus have been useful). For those interested, I work the cash register afternoon shift 2 days a week at a local greenhouse and market. This time of the year is rather slow, so I probably only get 6 to 7 people over my 4 and a half hour shift. As you can see, this shouldn’t be so hard. Let me go ahead and walk you through what a normal day thus far consists of.

10:00 AM: At home. Remind self I have a job now, and I can’t forget to show up (again).

10:30 AM: I Dream of Jeannie marathon starts.

2:40 PM: Suddenly remember that my shift started 10 minutes ago, and rush to get ready (during commercial breaks).

3:10 PM: 40 minutes late (again.) I explain that I was distracted by a I Dream of Jeannie marathon. I am fired. I correct myself; it was a Matlock marathon. I am granted a second chance.

3:30 PM: First customer. Phew. I was getting worried for a minute. They look around for a while.

3:45 PM: They bought a Fruit Roll Up? Just a Fruit Roll Up? They show for 15 minutes and that’s all they get? What is wrong with humanity, I ask.

4:00 PM: No one else has shown up yet. I’m starting to wonder if there’s been some kind of cataclysmic event that wiped our humanity, and somehow I’ve survived because of some kind of, um, I dunno, radiation that the vegetables give off. I am alone. So very alone.

4:35 PM: Still no one. My hopes for the survival of the human race are dwindling. I believe if there were survivors I would have heard something by now.

4:57 PM: I have begun constructing the necessary tools for survival. I set fire to the crates that held the watermelons, so I will be able to keep warm. I have designated the former cash register desk as the lookout point, and using a pair of binoculars I fashioned out of paper towel rolls I am scoping out the charred and burnt countryside (which looks surprisingly pristine for having just survived an atomic holocaust.) I have spotted several cows wandering the deserted plains, and have contemplated using them for food. They would be heavily irradiated, but when the winter months set in, I’ll need to stay alive no matter what.

5: 48 PM: I have made my first kill! Crossing what used to be a street, I ventured boldly into the cows’ habitat, and used a bow and arrow I made to hunt one down. I am now a man!

6:27 PM: I am so lonely. After finishing off my kill, the tragic hopelessness of my situation set in. Staring at the raging inferno of the watermelon crate fire, I just sat there contemplating what was left of my life. When the embers finally died out, I began to weep. It feels like I’ve cried for days. And with no one here to console me, I feel like it will be several more days before I stop, or until I collapse from dehydration.

6:59 PM: Swing low, sweet chariot…

7:00 PM: Oh, hey my shift’s over. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

7:10 PM: I am fired.

There's No Such Thing as a "Free Time"

Oh, where does the time go? I'm not entirely certain, but I just know time management of any kind is really hard. Here I am, in the middle of the day, entirely unable to focus on what I know I'm supposed to be doing.

Anyone who knows my current situation understands that I technically have a lot of free time. I have neither a job nor school to worry about, and it turns out that without responsibilities like that, the day is actually quite a bit longer than you might think. Unfortunately, with that free time comes the necessity of using it to look for a job so that you won't have that same free time anymore. Kind of a Catch-22, I know, but it's how the rules of the planet seem to work. Like that Eskimo parable wherein the man made a discovery when he tried to bring the bonfire with him while he fished, you can't have your kayak and heat it, too. Or something to that effect. Either way, this is my situation. I have several projects I would like to work on (a comic, a novel, training myself to hone my human echo location abilities to become a non blind Daredevil). All these things require time and effort, and while I always have a ready supply of effort, and currently have a surplus of time, every ounce of publicly taught common sense tells me that spending this free time on something as trivial as projects I want to do is a bad idea, so when I do spend the days working on something like that, I always have this sickening level of dread that by using the time "selfishly", I'm missing out on some grand opportunity to better myself, get a job, get rich, and eventually retire. Because of my taking time off and working on something I'm vaguely interested in, I am dooming all of my descendents to a life of perpetual poverty and probably slavery when in the near future this legendary, lower-class-hating figure some people refer to as "the Obama" descends from his throne in the lofty, celestial heavens at the end of every 500 years to inevitably enslave the poorest in society and make them serve the higher and more prosperous. In this mythological future society that they speak of on that wisest and most reliable of news outlets (Fox), I want my kids to be the oppressors who violently exploit the slave class, not the other way around, and it appears the only way I can ensure this will happen is to give up my dreams and aspirations, and trudge my way into the job market, or something similar to it.

Then again, as I have learned over the last week or two spent actively job hunting and taking the occasional odd jobs at barely humane levels of pay (Grandma, that Batman painting I did was worth way more than $20) is that I, like most of America, hate working. There is a reason they call it "funemployment", after all, because while you may be dirt poor, eating out of garbage cans, and begging for enough cash to spend on the rent for your cardboard box, you don't have to deal with paper jams, carpal tunnel syndrome, or office politics. And boy, I hate that office politics. My sister has a job, and you know what she gets out of it? Spending money and canker sores, that's what! I don't have a job, and you know what I get out of it? Nothing! That's right, and like they say, no thing is good thing, am I right? Well, no, but that's beside the point. I may not have my job, but I have my dignity (until the guy at the Pawn Shop can give me a good price for it). And I plan on keeping it that way. I'll take this free time, and I'll do something great with it, like pen a beautiful novel to be remembered for centuries, or illustrate a glorious web comic that brings joy and enlightenment to the internet, or compose a tear jerking symphony that brings man and beast together in peace to the glorious sounds of music. But wait, I can't do any of those things, not without some form of supplies. And to get the supplies I need money, and to get the money, I need a job, and to get a job, I must sacrifice my free time. Oh crap, I'm back to square one.

Hmm... I need to think about this. While I contemplate how to deal with this issue, I'm going to go ahead and play some video games. Animal Crossing will get these mind grapes going for the next few hours...