Have you ever dropped a tab of acid while at work and thought you were in Richard Scarry’s Busytown? Yeah, me neither, but sometimes I think that’s the only way I’m going to survive the next forty years until I can retire (to which, when griping to my younger co-worker, he skeptically said to me, “Forty years?” Well noted: more like 20 years). I mean, dropping acid isn’t a long term solution to my problems, but I think it will keep the job fresh, at least until I can look into the procurement of something more mind-numbing, like opiates (to-do list: 1. research opium dens; 2. research the decline of opium dens; 3. learn from history’s mistakes).
In my ideal narcotic-drenched scenario, I wouldn’t smoke opium, though. Gotta keep my lungs in fighting condition (I assume at some point I will need to run from the law, or my family). Instead, I’d take long, Faulkner-sized swigs from my bottle of liquid Oxycontin between bouts of furious typing on my Word Processor. And yes, Virginia, there is liquid oxy. After my recent tonsillectomy (or, as I like to say to co-workers, my throat-widening procedure), I was in wicked pain but unable to swallow much of anything, let alone fat, pain-killing pills. As a result, I was given a BOTTLE of LIQUID OXYCONTIN. A fucking bottle (I LOVE this bottle, BTW; I love that it is opaque except for a little strip down the side–a racing stripe, really–where you can see how much of this pink elixir is left). If I could just sleep away the next 20 years, I think I could do it, I think I could handle employment. Because, really, I can do anything if asleep. Or rather, all sorts of things can happen around me while I’m sleeping and I won’t care (please refer to my post, The Crying Game, or Visiting a Vodka Distillery While On Weight Watchers , in which I declare I can do anything for six weeks; and if I can’t, I can lie about doing something for six weeks. I see a trend…).
A few months ago, I was going to apply for a different job in my department at work. It’s not because I was looking for a new job, or unhappy with my current job. It was only because our HR person sends out emails announcing departmental openings, and because I didn’t have anything particularly pressing to do that day. The job didn’t even look that good. I mean, it was a step up in title and pay but without the burden of having to supervise anyone, which is (theoretically) appealing. Not that I dislike supervising. I’m very good at telling people what they do wrong, which is why I’m so good at my current position which is essentially quality assurance with political trappings. What I don’t like about supervising is mediating conversations between peri-menopausal women about air conditioning versus open windows. I do, however, like that the hiring process is, as I once explained to my team (who I often let weigh in on potential candidates), an opportunity to make new friends to drink with after work (“We gotta get a guy in here, because right now it’s like beaver-valley”).
But, what was really tempting about this job is that it was temporary, which meant a layoff, which meant worker’s comp, and I love something for nothing, especially when it comes to work, and we’ll get back to this, but first, I ended up not applying, mostly because the application process included these supplemental questions, and they just PISSED ME OFF. Because you know what would be better than something for nothing? Something for all my goddamned skills. Because, you see, no matter what I do, I do it well. And I’m totally 100% boasting. Now, keep in mind that I’m also fickle, and just because I can be awesome doesn’t mean I will be awesome, and there are a lot of things that I just can’t abide by, and there are a lot of things I can’t bring myself to do that I would NEED to do if I want to be promoted in the environment in which I currently work. First and foremost, from what I’ve seen, to get ahead in my department you need to be willing to say the following and mean it (I’ve included translations for those who are lucky enough to work with anyone whose soul is still intact):
- The 30,000-Foot View (“I don’t know who you are or what you do”)
- Rightsizing (“Layoffs”)
- Give You a Heads Up (“I’m about to complain”)
- Action Item (“You apathetic ass, do your job”)
- Hit the ground running/ All hands on deck/ Boots on the ground (“This should have happened three months ago”)
- Low hanging fruit (“A chimp can do this”)
- Get my manager’s blessing (“I’m a spineless twat”)
- Ping me (“Send me an email so I can delete it”)
- I don’t have the bandwidth (“I’m not done not-doing the last assignment you gave me”)
- Move the goal post (“Instead of trying harder, let’s just lower our expectations”)
- Circle back around (“I’m tired of discussing this”)
- Take this offline (#8 and #11 combo!)
- Drill-down (“Let’s obsess about minutiae”)
- Unpack (“I think we can make this meeting longer by dissecting everything”)
- Incentivize (“Let’s just buy our way out of this mess”)
- Paradigm shifts (“Fuck this place”)
- Stakeholders (“People that someone other than me thinks are important”)
- Leverage (“I can fire you”)
- Hacking anything (“I just made this shit up”)
- Wheelhouse (“I’m not willing to admit that I have no idea what you are talking about”)
- Drink the Kool-Aid (“I’d feel better about giving up if you gave up, too”)
- Caucus (“My wife hates me”)
- Wedded to the idea (“I want to choose who lives and dies”)
- And my personal favorite, idea showers, which, to quote someone other than me: “I think that says it all.”
Here’s an email I just received from someone who did the same work I did, did it as well (but not better) as I did, et cetera and so on, and yet leapfrogged his way into a better job because he was willing to talk to people like this (the context is not important…trust me):
I’m so glad you are thinking about this, Lee. I think it would be super to use available technologies to provide real-time publicity information & logistics to attendees. I think it’s very likely we could support a modest investment if needed, if we have a good rationale and can get the cost/vendor nailed down according to the rules of the powers that be. If you’re up for running point on this idea, I can provide a lot of the content, so long as we can lean on your expertise/connections to establish the architecture/medium and train any potential contributors.
LET’S UNPACK THIS.
First, I’m always suspicious when people use my name. I’m including telemarketers, online help at Amazon, and my husband. I get a kind of “what choo talkin’ bout Willis?” thing going with my face.
Second, as soon as I saw the word “super,” I forwarded the email to my boss (“tell an adult!”). Clearly, this guy is throwing around casual vernacular in an attempt to appeal to me, to lure me into his cubicle so I can do all his work and to get none of the credit (I must applaud my boss for also immediately recognizing the threat at hand: “If he offers you a puppy, do not get in his van”).
Third, “available technologies”?!? All I can say about this phrase is, “Astronauts to the moon? HAHAHA!” (I really hope you get this reference, because every time I say it to myself, I giggle a little because it’s really fucking funny).
Then there’s just this flurry of words that make me mad: real-time, publicity information, logistics, modest, rationale, vendor, nailed down, RULES, powers that be. There’s nothing I can say about this. If you don’t see red flags popping up when you read those words, then I must applaud you on the upper-management position you obviously hold.
Fifth, running point on this idea?!? You mean, do your job? Wasn’t it enough that I came up with some (pretty standard) promotional ideas for an upcoming event? And, then, it’s not like he would actually give me the power or control to “run point.” No, no, no…. He will provide me with the content. I do the work, he fills in the blanks, then suddenly next thing you know, it’s a sci-fi “Handmaid’s Tale” type-situation where he also controls when I ovulate. And if this weren’t enough, WHO THE FUCK USES TERMS LIKE ESTABLISHING THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MEDIUM WHEN TALKING ABOUT FACEBOOK AND TWITTER?
So anyway, back to that job….I looked at these supplemental questions for this “eh, looks alright” job, and I didn’t even know how to answer these questions. I mean, most jobs I’ve applied for, I’ve been able to understand the questions within the context of the job description well enough to compose something that sounds at least moderately knowledgeable.
But these questions? I tried Googling them, thinking maybe this was some sort of big-concept that I should know about. But, it’s not. And it’s not like I don’t understand the words individually. I just really, truly, couldn’t figure out WHAT THE FUCK they were looking for, because these questions did not seem at all applicable to the position. They might as well had asked me about my experience grooming dogs. And so that, more so than talking over this new position with my boss, and his boss, and being promised more exciting work coming down the pipeline, plus a pony that I can name all by myself (I will call him Brandy) (Yes, I stole Brandy the Pony from the real-life adventures of my friend who once lived in a position of privilege in New Orleans, and if you can’t imagine this, then picture the fat little girl in all her ruffly white clothing, falling off the pony and dying at the end of Gone with the Wind, because anytime that Brandy comes up (and Brandy only comes up when I’m drunk and introduce the topic), this is exactly what I picture), it was these questions that stopped me from applying.
OH, and I also didn’t apply because my boss explained how the job was rigged, that I would lose my free benefits and not get worker’s comp or anything like that. Clever, crafty, government attorneys, always finding a way to not have to pay. But, really, is that in different than me always trying to find a way to get paid without having do anything? No wonder they hire these guys! It’s because of people like ME.
But the problem with all of this something-for-nothing-job is not so much that this is a fantasy that I know will never amount to much, but that I have this sense of entitlement when it comes to something for nothing, and I’m kind of put out that no one is stepping up to the plate to make this happen for me (because part of the entitlement-thing is that someone else needs to do the work). I mean, let’s think about this, I came to financial consciousness in the 1980s, when Reagan was king and my family was flush with coke-money and Garfield comic books.
Unlike my two oldest sisters, who grew up poor, sharing a bedroom, and making due while my dad was in college, me and my sister Hattie pretty much got whatever we wanted, so much so that as an adult, I had to be taught about the concept of delayed gratification. My parents lived the full spectrum of making something from nothing, sacrificing to get ahead. I only caught the tail-end of this lesson, the part where I get stuff. I think I learned this decadence from my father, who would take us to Payless (when it was a drugstore, not a shoe store), and let me and Hattie pick out two paperdoll books. TWO EACH! Mom would never have allowed that; she would’ve limited us to one. And then she would have made us go home and stack firewood. Both of my parents were born during WWII, so everyone was poor then, and their parents survived the depression and carried those tight-fisted-tendencies forward. And so yeah, my parents also carried that forward. But, once my dad ‘made’ it, he enjoyed what he had earned. My mother seemed to have this more “sinners in the hands of an angry god” type thing, where enjoying life meant an eternity in hell. Almost a bitterness towards those who had money, something that she couldn’t shake from her childhood, learned from her staunch German parents. She couldn’t separate morality from money, which I guess kept us kids from being 100% selfish brats (she’d disagree: she would say we were spoiled brats) (Sidenote: my grandma/her mother once referred to little tiny grade-school me as a “rich bitch”).
And isn’t it interesting that although my mom was the greater parental presence in our lives, by far, it was my father’s approach to money and employment that I clung to. I think a lot of people are taught to respect their employers without question, and to have a “healthy fear” of them. Fuck that. You earn my respect the same as anyone else, and in fact, if you think that you can superimpose your station in that hierarchical bullshit from work onto the rest of your life, then you are a classist asshole who must work that much harder to earn my respect, except, I don’t think they really care if I respect them or not, so really, this all just backfires, and I’m stuck, always the bridesmaid and never promoted at work.
I don’t know; maybe this means I just have a healthy ego? I often ask my therapist if I’m normal; not like, “is it normal to be aroused by sofa cushions?” but more like, “are most people insulted that they are expected to go to work everyday?” I guess that’s all I have to say on this. For now. But, let me end with this Richard Scarry quote:
“the horror…the horror…”