Thursday, March 5, 2009

The ABC's of Work, Part 2


Internships
My heart goes out to everyone who has one of these shit jobs. It’s work that pays you in experience. No no no…fuck money. Who needs it? What I want is to bust my ass doing all the horrible tasks no one else wants to do here just so I can leave this place, go somewhere else, and do the exact same thing for minimum wage. You’re the lowest of the low. Even if you’re a paid intern that works 40 hour weeks, you still don’t qualify for health benefits. The janitor and the boys in the mail room laughed at me when they found out. [read this paragraph, then read all the other times he’s mentioned how little work he does for the company he is basically ripping off, and then feel sorry for Mark. I dare you – ed.]

Japanese Men
The life cycle of a Japanese man is as such: If a boy is born into a rich family, he is groomed until the age of 30 when he takes over his fathers company that makes carbon rods for Hello Kitty dolls. If a boy is born into a poor family, he goes to school where he learns to live under stress that could unnerve an air traffic controller. He then get’s a shitty office job. All men work 15 hour days, 6 days a week, and are in loveless relationships. There is also no privacy at the office; it is much more efficient to supply one big table for everyone instead of springing for desks. So when management gets a letter from the government saying Japan’s population is declining and everyone at the office gets an email telling them to go home and fuck their subservient, emotionless wives, the collective shame is palpable. This nation of Willy Lowmans stay at their job until 97 (retirement age) and then they go off and die under a bonsai tree or something. These are the third hardest working people on earth, only behind Mexican laborers and coal miners. And they know how to make a great Hello Kitty doll.

“Keep Your Hands Off My Food!!! Thank You!!!”
Easy, Cathy. No one wants to eat your left-over Healthy Choice tuna and Mexican wild rice casserole. It smells like something one of your many, many cats would eat. Get something decent like cold pizza or a piece of cake and then you can worry about me pulling a Jesse James in the kitchenette.

Lost and Found
I suppose this isn’t limited to just the work environment, but none the less it’s a great place to pick up some free meds or a butterfly knife.

Manager
The manager. Mr. Manager, to you. The Boss Man. The one responsible for dolling out work and paychecks. He is Pharaoh and you are his slave. I never realized it until now but every work environment is a little ad hoc society. That society happens to be feudal with a caste system in place. If you ever had a shitty job and contemplated stapling your manager’s ears to the wall because of his relentless stream of bullshit then you de facto know the entire history of the French Revolution. It’s time for a workers revolution.

Oh man. See man, like, the MAN, he’s tryin’ to keep us all down, right? And like, by keeping us in the dark, he can bamboozle us out of stuff, man. He’s pullin’ the blinds right over our eyes, man! It’s the natural order, man! The MAN’s keeping us down! I can’t access any socialist websites at work! You know why? It’s the MAN, man! Ever notice how you can’t spell MANAGER without first spelling The MAN? It’s a freakin’ conspiracy! I tell you, this is one cat who ain’t getting caught! I’m blowin’ this scene, man!

I just channeled my inner 60’s hippy radical and honestly, I’m not surprised he didn’t have anything interesting to say. I’m just glad my boss isn’t reading this.

Nobody Cares
Hey guess what? Nobody cares. Nobody cares that the new clients are from the same nowhere town in Michigan your boring, uninspired ass is from. Nobody cares that the weather is supposed to be partly sunny instead of partly cloudy. Oh, your daughter made the 4th grade honor roll? Well, that’s a completely different story. Nobody gives a shit. Worst of all, nobody cares what happens to you in your personal life, even if it’s affected by shared circumstances at work.

Note: all of this does not apply for the following professions: fire fighters, military figures, and astronauts.

Office Space
It’s scary how accurate this movie is at times.

Pay Check
The best part of any job is the reward. As Thomas Jefferson once so eloquently stated; “Get money, fuck bitches, smoke trees.” Wisdom. Once you start earning a regular paycheck you start develop strange feelings. It’s like puberty all over again except this time you start having funny thoughts about stuff like insurance premiums and tax codes. “What if…what if…I’m actually…a fiscal conservative?!” Discovering something like that would be a million times worse than finding out you’re gay. Far more traumatizing.

Quitting
We all have our ways of quitting. Some are respectful; they give their manager a 2 week notice, a good reason for leaving, and give thanks for all the opportunities they had. Some have the decency to keel over at their desk before retirement and deny their spouse pension checks. Others leave a burning paper trail in their wake as they strut down the halls butt-ass naked, flipping everyone off, screaming “take this job and shove it!” and grabbing female ex-coworkers titties. You only get to quit a job once so make it count.

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