over joy

(167)

testing. testing.

We've removed the ability to reason from the people who are supposed to be in charge. ~ Adam Carolla

Sometimes the best thing to do is take life as it comes. Life is after all a particularly specialized form of live theatre. The heat of the lights are always on you, someone is always watching, and that mistake may turn out to be a happy accident. But there's no need to beat yourself up over that missed cue. Move along. There are more interesting things coming up.

That said, I haven't written here in some time. In fact, I have barely posted anything during the last several months. I have simply been too busy with work to have a moment to bother with it. I'm only now having the chance to breathe, to collect my thoughts.

Here's a little story. Some of it will be familiar. Some of it won't.

I work for a big, steadily failing ninety year old corporation. Let's call them the Loathe Shack. They've got a piss poor reputation, and when I first applied I was surprised they were still around. Of course I get hired there. For some reason every other place in town has passed me by on multiple occasions, but this joint scoops me up on first go. I figure it'll be a good bridge out of my fascist previous job and toward whatever the universe promotes next.

I counted wrong. I'm still there. And I've watched as floor slave after sales sucker has come and gone. And I've watched as manager after manager leaves either with a jumbo grab bag of filched items or within a moment's reach of insanity. It's kind of a sucky place to work.

But I'm a writer and an observer and I have a bit of a masochistic streak in me. I also happen to be terribly good at it. I'm not trying to be immodest. It's just an underpaid job with an ever expanding job description, overwhelming demands and expectations, and very little reward, but I work really well under such pressures and constraints. Plus I just happen to work at the store wherein a reality show could easily take place. And I don't mean the fabricated kind. I mean the pseudo-documentary sort. The lunatics, nimrods, and characters who cycle through make it worth the commute. I do have a love-hate relationship with the whole mess. And I get bored at jobs that keep me chained to doing two or three different things and only those, conveyor belt style.

So, what should happen when yet another manager's head explodes? Well, since I was already doing half of their job anyway, I stepped up to the plate, dusted off my distaste and said I'd watch over the place until someone else was hired. No one else was going to fix the situation, after all. It didn't take long for the whole thing to start fitting quite well. It became clear to the higher ups that I meant business, and that this guy isn't the usual fly by night slacker they usual stock their ranks with. They were listening! And receptive and open to offering me the store.

For the last three months I have overseen our little shack through a bevy of tidal waves and morale quicksand. I inherited a completely messed up lil' shop that soon swelled up with every problem under the sun, but I helped pull the place through it all.

So, what thanks do I get? I get the left field surprise return of the store manager who hired me, who has a fused temper the size of flaccid rubber and who I distinctly recall being forced to resign in lieu of actually being fired. This woman has bounced between a handful of jobs in the meanwhile. (Let go from each, by the way.) And now I am given the unpleasant task of teaching her how to do the job I have been doing so I can play second fiddle while I theoretically wait for another store to open up.

Everyone can't stand her. Our vibes live in different countries. No one has any idea how this egotistical show-off who was previously running the place into the ground could have been the better choice, but there it is. This job isn't my calling. I am terrific at being in charge of complex efforts. I suppose this is not really one I want that badly. I could do with a bit more respect than I've been shown, but it is what it is.

The universe clearly has other plans. Therefore, I play along.

(166)

empty promise

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.”

~ William S. Burroughs

(165)