pragmatic me

There is a negative connotation to being opportunistic. I have certainly had troubled dealings with the sort who would attempt calculated positioning like the sad, chessboard bishop, sliding predictably here and there in the hopes of getting a leg up on the competition. I have seen it a lot from both highly competitive fields I have worked: sales and the arts.

Certainly, there's a value in bettering or challenging oneself, and of holding expectations for yourself and others to a high mark. But then there's the key phrase I have heard abused of late, in too many misguided ways: seeing the opportunity and taking it. At the extreme, this is a breeding ground for corruption and rape. Me. I think of myself as pragmatic. I am often better at making the best of a bad situation than at being the sort who would dive into the deep end of a pool they don't belong.

I work at the appropriately named $hack out on Main Street where the ghetto meets the smelly indie kids. It's an old delapidated, outmoded store built in 1974 that shows signs of age, neglect, and reeks of constant overturn. In management and on the floor this company can not hold more than a handful of people, as one peek at the addictive site glassdoor reveals.

Now I'm acting itinerant captain of this ship of fools.

It's a comedy of sorts. And not unlike Hard Core Pawn given the stranger than fiction oddballs, idiots, and eccentrics who step through the door. This aspect is the primary reason I haven't been a part of the turnover, or a transfer to the dull location three minutes from my home.

But here I am, in charge of the whole damn thing. It's a few fingers shy of a perfect fit. I don't want a career with these people. The problem is that I'm really good at it, to quote others, and my own recognition of the situation.

Ah, shucks.

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