2003-03-18 - 10:22 p.m.

Catching Up

It has been a long time since I have had the strength, attention span and mental capacity to sit down and write in my diary.  Again, my job, my vocation, my livelihood has absorbed all of my time and energy.  I mean just sucked it up and consumed it.  I have been working long hours for a month and, as usual, the president of the company and my new sort-of boss, the sales guy, are completely clueless.

We are all worn out, burned out really, because of all the extra effort we have been giving, and we were pretty much slapped in the face for it.  They both have a habit of demoralizing us and they don't know what to do about it.  In this case they got us all together in a room and asked us what we could all do to make it better.  Every suggestion we had was immediately batted down.  What we said was, reduce our work hours, hire one more person to help us do our work and stop giving us more and more tasks to accomplish.

What they wanted us to say was that we would buckle down, work extra hours without being asked and stop complaining and pretend that everything is lovely.

And, as usual, as we sat in one of the offices, me, Kevin, Ben and Viarum on one side of the room, the president and the sales guy on the other side of the room, all eyes turned to me as the first question was asked, "What motivates you?!"

Oh my God. No. Please no.  This is exactly the sort of crap we all hate. So I began speaking.  And I kept speaking until every point I brought up was negated using company logic.  The main focus was that everything they ask us to do takes time.  If we have more things to do then something is going to have to move over to make room for it.

This is not what the president wants to hear.  That's just being negative and thinking inside the box.  It is not proactive at all.

Unfortunately, it is the truth.  It did not mean much though.

By this time all the other guys had recognized this meeting for what it was and decided to just try to get it over with without our being assigned more work to do.  We told them that was had worked our asses off, we were turning into unproductive zombies and we wanted to know specifically what we had done wrong.

The answer we got was that we had done nothing wrong, everything we did was perfect, but we just were not finished with our tasks.  We were not going to get more help.  We need to work smarter, we are just hurting ourselves.

Jesus Christ on a cross.
And we were told that they were not going to order us to, but we needed to come in on the weekend to get caught up.  It was optional unless we did not do it, then it was mandatory.

I did go in on Saturday to get some work done.  Viarum and I met and I did some training with him and we worked on building some of our company's product.  It is a device and it has to be assembled.  It is not hard, but it takes time.  It was good to spend the afternoon with him. He is a great guy, and, as I have mentioned before, I think he was my brother in a former life.

We exchanged stories about previous weird things that have happened in our lives.  He has seen a lot of miraculous things and has led a pretty unusual life.  We talked about reincarnation.  When he started working with us he went home one night and told his wife that he thought I was his brother.  He said he freaked out when I told him the same thing the next day.  We talked about the nature of the lessons we learn in our lives.  Viarum had heart surgery a few months ago, and I know that will make a man emotional. Some of the stories he told me almost brought us both to tears.

Viarum was born in India, but spent his early life in Africa.  His father was an architect. His family moved to America when he was in is late teens, I think, and things just went down hill from there.  His father's health deteriorated and Viarum has had to help keep his family together.  Now his parents live in India in an ashram with their spiritual leader.

For the rest of the weekend I just laid down.  I talked to my mother for a while.  She, my aunt and my sister are planning another trip to some Pacific Island resort.  They find really cheap vacations on the internet.  On Sunday I ate lunch, and then laid down for the rest of the day.  I just needed to recharge my batteries.

On Monday it was back to work.  I just did not feel up to it.  We were all dragging when we got in.  I was in low key mood.  Depressed, really.  The president and the sales guy tried to cheer us up.  It didn't work.  We all moped around.

Ben came in 10 minutes late.  The sales guy called him into his office and gave him a talking to about how unprofessional it was.  Ben just stared into space for the rest of the day.  We talked about it. He just can't understand why it is necessary to do this to him. It is like they are picking on him.  I agree. They are picking on him.  It is like they want him to quit.  He told me that he has never before worked in a place where he literally was not wanted.  And since he works his ass off and does all the crap work that no one else will do he is further mystified.

By the way, he spent the weekend driving to another state and back. His mother has multiple sclerosis and had to have an operation this weekend.  He was tired from working, tired from traveling all weekend, worried about his mother and then he gets chewed out for being 10 minutes late.  All those months of being constantly early and working late are forgotten.  It is like a joke.

Tommy tried to cheer me up.  He is worried that we are all going to quit at once.  And he has good reason to worry.  He tried to engage me in conversation about the forthcoming war with Iraq.  I just stared at him and then walked out of the room without talking about it.

Tommy is a mindless Republican who basically parrots his father's and friend's opinions.  Although he is very smart, he has a big blind spot when it comes to politics.  He gets angry about the actions and words of liberals.  It really bothers him.  I think that is the main difference between conservatives and liberals.  Conservatives have little tolerance for anything that varies from their outlook. Liberals generally ignore the nonsensical blathering of conservatives.

So an hour later Tommy came into my office and tried again. Only this time he changed his position of the argument and was anti war.  I would not answer him.  He tried again later.  Still got no reaction from me.  And that is all he wanted, a reaction.  He wanted to get me all worked up and spill my guts about how I felt about the war and President Bush. I refuse to be manipulated like that.

But today Jamie came into the office and we had a long chat about it.  Jamie does not like the way I seem to agree with him all the time. He says that I only tell him what he wants to hear.  I explained to him that I did not tell him what he wants to hear.  I just don't have time during the workday to fully explain every position I hold.  It is unusual to have a conversation that lasts longer than 3 minutes because I have a lot of work to do.  Also, I know that he will play devil's advocate on almost any subject just to debate and he often tries to provoke me into some discussion.  I do appreciate his opinion on most subjects and he is usually right.

That is one of the things I like about him. He is usually right.  He is a genius and lives a very mental life.  He is the sort of man who will patiently listen to the other fellow and then point out all of the flaws in logic.  There are the facts, which he commands, and then there are his opinions.  It is my opinion that everyone is entitled to his opinion.  That's fine. The more the merrier.

Jamie is still at the age when things that are beyond his control bug the shit out of him.  We talked about that a little today.  He hopes that has he gets older his priorities will narrow and he will be able to let go of pointless angst.

Ben said that he is has not yet reached that age (he and I are the same age).  Ben gets very worked up on the subject of race.  He is black and he does not hold a very high opinion of black Americans.  It really bothers him that people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are considered representative of his race.  Today he said he would be very happy if everything that is considered black culture were wiped clean from the face of the earth and we could all work on the basics, having a home, having a family, raising our quality of life.

Ben really gets worked up about it.

Tommy came into my office during our discussion and tried several times to grab hold of it and insert himself into it, but none of us would let him.  When we stopped talking he went off on a tangent about Marxism (he always does) and then concluded by saying it all comes down to education.  Tommy is currently working on his Masters Degree, so naturally it would come down to education for him.

Since we have been moving some offices around I got to bring home a big metal shelving unit.  The sales guys asked if anyone wanted it. I said yes and he said he would help me put it on my truck.

A little while later he came in and told me that the shelf was in the lobby, just let him know and he would help me load it into my truck.  I nodded.  Then it was time to leave work, you know, load the shelves into my truck, but where was the sales guy?  What?  He left already?  But… he promised…  he …. promised…

I walked down the hall calling his name.  I knew he had left an hour earlier ("I'm right there beside you guys working the same hours!")  Of course Ben was there to help me.  He said he knew I was going to need his help.  We took it down to the loading dock and left it.  We made our way to the parking deck.  We both try to put our situations in perspective.  We struggle with it. He has made up his mind that he is out of there as soon as possible.  He is literally depressed about his job.  We compared notes about all of the lies we have heard recently.  It is strange.  I hate to keep writing about it, but it is just so odd that I am a grown man and I am in this situation.  I keep asking myself how I got here.  But I know the answer.

The answer can best be summed up by a line from Joel Hodgeson's TV Wheel when Nick Bakay said to David Cross, "You put yourself in the Nude Dude, Larry."

I pulled my truck to the loading dock.  Put the shelves in the back. Tied it down with some rope I keep for just this purpose and made my way home.  There is something immensely satisfying about hauling stuff in the back of my truck.  Hell, yeah!  That's what it's there for!  Giving away a shelving unit?  I'll take it!  Giving away a sofa, a desk, and a giant box of hammers?  I'll take it.  Put it in the back of my truck. You bet!

Tomorrow is the last improv class of this session.  I am nervous about it.  We are going to play Theater Sports.  That is where we break up into two teams and compete for points.  It is a rehearsal for our final performance, which is a little more than a week away.  I love that fluttery feeling I get in my stomach when I know I am going to be on stage.  I have no doubt our show is going to be bad, but I don't care.  It will be a good experience and if I just get one good laugh from the audience I will be happy.

Ok. That's it.  This brings me up to Tuesday.  Back to work tomorrow.  I'm hoping for an interview next week for that job I want with that one company.  They are dragging their asses as most companies do.  I don't even know if they will like me, but I have an advocate in my corner who keeps pushing for me.

Jimmy
 
 
 

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