Science Gone Mad: My Shitty Job

Showing posts with label My Shitty Job. Show all posts

Showing posts with label My Shitty Job. Show all posts

Sunday, March 03, 2013

My arrest record

On January 24, 2013, I got pulled over for a seatbelt violation. Also, I didn't have a current insurance card at the time, so I incurred two tickets, totalling $250 or roundabouts. My traffic court date was scheduled for 2/28/13, 5:30pm.

Read more ...

Monday, December 10, 2012

Honey mustard and Armageddon

Where Nate finds about as good a reason as any to quote a Sting song, and are we really ten days away from the end of the world? Am I the only one that notices, when you open a bag of sandwich meat, it smells like a plastic bag full of ass?

"I hate to say it, but it's probably me."
So yeah. Putting together a Dagwood special, layering a perfect balance of roast beef, turkey, and pepperoni (even though I heretofore believe in pepperoni as a pizza condiment ONLY, but like a sucka, I get 'em for sandwiches too ... I'm like Lewis Black with candy corn, I suppose).

My days are filled with fast-paced intensity, where it's almost impossible to breathe, so I try to do that as little as possible. Then there are days like today, where the intensity is spaced out between moments of the utter mundane. Don't really know which is the worst of two evils: The boring sessions with the morbidly depressed, or the action of maladaptive self-mutilators who are chronically in subjective crisis mode (including those of their own design).

I shared a bit of insight with a client today:
"When fighting anxiety or depression, you have a chance to play the role of a samurai guarding a fortress. It's up to you to decide where you can best defend this fortress, either inside the gates or outside the gates.

"If you put yourself inside the gates, all you can be is a victim to those things that you can't hear. You can't hear the rustling of the leaves, you can't smell the steel of the swords, you can't see movement in the dark. You only know that you're going to be attacked, and before you know it, the enemy is upon, and you've been defeated.

"If you put yourself outside the gates, you can be 100% in defense. You know that the enemy is coming, but now, you're ready. You are in defense mode. You can see, smell, hear, feel all the changes in the world around you, and you can focus, you can prepare. You can set yourself upon the enemy, before the enemy sets himself on you.

"Now, imagine that the 'enemy' is your anxiety and your depression. All that rustling in the trees, the movement in the dark ... those are you symptoms, your shaking, your nervousness, your crying. When you're defeated, you've been defeated by your panic. When you are prepared, you're ready to see these symptoms and notice how hard you need to fight."

And that's today. The car won't start, so I'll be pushing the SUV around the driveway tomorrow morning for Roadside Assistance to get me going in the morning. DMH is two months deep into giving micromanagement to true solid go, and my OCPD supervisor is loving the fuck out of it. Come home, and the two inside dogs went from being clean yesterday to smelling like hell risen today. And I'll have grades due by week's end. And I'm looking for a job closer to the wife and child, both of whom scarpered off three hours north due to, oh, such a convoluted pattern of events it hurts to recount.

Layer upon layer of sandwich meat, I'm running over the crazy shit that I need to accomplish before this evening's end. Finish grading some papers (such a painful task in and of itself). Putting more touches on this little figure I'm making to look like the lead villain of the film "Master of the Flying Guillotine." Trying to come up with another way to get some effective sleep without further exacerbating my burgeoning Nyquil dependence.

It's the 10th. The fucking world is allegedly coming to an end on the 21st. More and more, with these doomsday prophecies, they're all terrifying roughly six months to a year before they're supposed to happen, yet as the time gets closer no one seems to give a big quacking shit. In fact, the only people I've seen mention the 12/21/12 stuff recently were the Batiri, a trio of wrestlers in Chikara who are rocking a gimmick where they're supernatural demons. I'd hate to think that the last wrestling I ever got to watch was anything that showed itself on Monday night. Have to break out the Kenta best-of comp and watch a match a night 'til the end of the world.

Hey, how come no one's noticed that 12/21 is on a Friday. Wasn't that October doomsday on a Friday, or a weekend, or something like that? I want to see a doomsday prophecy where doomsday falls on a Tuesday.

I heard from someone in some previous life that, if you predict a day that the world will end, then you'll be wrong because man can never know that day. My reaction was that I'd wake up every day and say quietly to myself, "I bet the world ends today." It started off as a joke, but now, since it's obviously worked out pretty well so far, I'm afraid to start a day off and NOT do it, because watch that be the day that doomsday happens. I can imagine the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse addressing me directly, "About fucking time," then ride off to do their thing. Then, of course, there's luchadore Cibernetico, who's been predicting the "Apocalipsis" for probably his whole career. (Granted, he pronounces it, "Apo-CO-lip-sis," so there's probably the loophole.)

Well, let me honey mustard this motherfucker. Might smell like ass, but it tastes like wicked fresh.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

My thought of the day

A lesson from Ric Flair
The internet has opened the world up to a great deal of unwarranted and unnecessary snark. In my profession, we have an anonymous online rating site that allows our customers to critique our performance. For the most part, the results are usually fair....no one is perfect all the time. But sometimes a comment comes through that is completely and totally removed from reality.

As I was mulling over the most recent example of these, a picture of Ric Flair came across my news feed and it got me to thinking. Here is arguably one of the greatest performers of his generation who excelled at his chosen profession. While his longevity is remarkable for any career, spending as much time as he did on top is pretty unprecedented and will likely not be repeated any time soon.

Yet, in spite of his acclaim, there are people who hate him. Part of it within the industry is probably jealousy. Part of it is probably from people who legitimately didn't get him or what he was trying to do.

Moral of the story: if people can hate Ric Flair, it is ok to be called medicore on occasion on an anonymous internet forum.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

And, while on the subject of work ....

While I'm still contemplating dropping a few stories from my time at Slander University, here's a small gem to show you the brain surgeons amongst which I was working during those dark, dark days.

See, I got this dog. His name's Brutus, and he's a Boston terrier, and 100% badass motherfucker. Great dog, and I take care of mines when I can, so while grooming him the best I can on no fucking money (especially none to spend on grooming a dog ... I give myself my haircuts, so shit), I'd been noticing his nails were getting unruly.

I ask my supervisor, who had more dogs than fucking sense, if she knew what those things were called that had the rotating FILE that you can use on your PET's claws.

After hemming and hawing through her daily cognitive fog, she says to me, "I think it's called a 'Pet-a-File.'" Which, when spoken, sounds like "pedophile."

I stare blankly at her, while she added at the end, "I think they have them at Wal-Mart."

Without a shred of irony attached, I said, "I doubt they're called that." And while she looks at me quizzically, I follow that up with, "Besides, I ain't going to Wal-Mart, just to ask some employee, 'excuse me, can you tell me where I can find a pedophile in this place?"

Stupid ass. I'm glad I had the opportunity to cuss her out when I did.

Interesting how the mind works ...

Contents may be NSFW.

I came upon this site through an article on Bleeding Cool (in the pull-down menu). As I delved more into the work of this Giuseppe Veneziano fella, I found his work to be amateur crap at best.

But then, this piece - titled "Il Declino del Ragno" - reminded me of a funny work story from the ol' prison days.

I had the fortunate happenstance to be in the Special Housing Unit (SHU, which a couple of people wanted to call "the Shoe," but I refused) when an inmate was refused release from "investigative solitary;" it was a crazy kind of holding where institutional investigators could lock a guy up "pending an investigation" of some ne'er-do-welling on his part, the theory for the lock-up being that, if he's locked up and the shit's still going down, it ain't him. Plus, dude can't interfere with whatever investigation is going on at the time. I saw months stretch by that some dudes were on "investigative solitary."

So, this inmate who was refused release, he's raising hell, cussing out the officers (incurring institutional charges, which would contribute to possible punitive lock-up time, a winner is you), then he sees me and blurts out, "I'll just kill myself then."

Of all the phrases I've had the privelege to hear in my life, "I'm gon' kill myself" has to be the favorite. By this time in my life, I was a seasoned vet of institutional psychology services; dumbass blurts out even a whiff of a suicidal threat, I gotta look into it. However, while I was of the mind that if I looked into one of these situations and could smooth it over, I'd leave it the fuck alone, my repulsively corpulent supervisor was of the mindset that we have the responsibility to "set an example" to other inmates who want to threaten self-harm. Setting said example usually meant putting the inmate on 15 minute watches, stripping out their cells, and daily monitoring by the psychologist, i.e. my dumb ass.

There's dude, Mr. "I might just try to suicide myself," who probably wouldn't have even thought this if I'd been ten minutes faster in signing out of his pod, but no, he saw me and this brilliant plan came to mind. After he was put in his cell, I checked in on him to find him staring pensively into the toilet.

My memory interjects the Lumbergh voice into my interaction every time I remember asking him, "Hey. What's happening?"

He's a belligerent asshole, too, pissed over his circumstances (and who could blame him, really?), but through all my therapeutic skills, empathy and identification of solution-based behaviors, and all that other good ol' textbook shit, he just won't de-escalate. Plus, he's being a dickhead to me, and I had the philosophy during my tenure there that in my sessions, and in talking to me, I would let you cuss the institution, your circumstances, your lot in life, even God himself, but if you cuss me, I'll charge you.

Finally, after a few minutes of watching him basically stare into the toilet, it occurs to me to ask him, "So, how are you going to kill yourself?"

Sez he: "I'm going to drown myself in this toilet."

I could only stare at him for what felt like an hour. Then I spoke.

"Okay, go ahead. I'll stand here and watch you; I promise I won't call the officers until it looks like you may die. But know this: There are a lot of documented successful suicide attempts that have been made in history, but none have ever involved someone 'making' themselves drown. Go ahead; stick your head in the toilet and inhale as deeply as you want. Your brain will not let you do it. I bet you my salary for this year on it; you won't open your mouth, or you'll push yourself out. And all that will happen is that you will still be in this cell, with shit and piss remnants all in your hair and your nose and your eyes, for however long those things will live on, and these officers and staff will be joking on their lunch hour about 'hey, lemme tell you about this dumbass that stuck his head in the toilet.'

"Now, is that how you want this to go down?"

He looks at me and says, "Yeah."

I tell the officer at my side to go ahead and put him on fifteen minute suicide watches. Thinking about it even today, what's gotta be maybe eight years later, I'm still pissed about it.

So, yeah, Spider-Man won't have a lot of success, if that's the method he's choosing to go out on.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Spoiler Alert!

Well, shit ... I didn't get the job I interviewed for a few weeks ago. I got a nice letter though.

Something's gotta get better soon, ya'll.

Oh yeah, and Manute Bol died today, at age 47 of Stevens-Johnson syndrome.

And Trent Acid, indy wrestler sub-extraordinaire, died yesterday, at age 29, of "suspected" drug-related causes; a dude with the handle "Acid" works in wrestling, dies at 29, and drug use is "suspected?" Another one for the Hennig tournament.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Job front news

I had an interview today. First job interview I've had in almost two months. I've applied, to date, to a little over 30 open positions in a multitude of settings.

Well, in a word, it sucked. Or I sucked. One of those two applies.

I felt okay going in, and I aced the general questions, like "Tell us about yourself," and "strengths & weaknesses." I lied about what an ace I am with paperwork, but I did note that I had been the go-to IT guy for bringing my not-so-computer savvy colleagues up to speed with my previous employer's electronic medical record system.

But they asked some questions, I just absolutely blew. The second question in was, "What do you know about the disease model of addiction?" I didn't know if they wanted the medical model of disease - like assessment, diagnosis, treatment then rehab/recovery - or if they just wanted me to simply state the biological & environmental factors of the "disease" of addiction. So, I hemmed and hawed for a few moments before blurting out something about psychosocial factors & influences, then how drugs enforce a physiological dependence that can be fostered ... blah blah blah. It sounded like crap to me, and if I can't even lie to myself that the shit outta my mouth sounds like I'm spinning golden thread, then I know that others around me know that I know I'm full of shit.

I had an interview committee of three - some chick, this other chick, and some dude. Chick #2 asks me about a time that I handled a crisis; so I described the time that dude tried to hang himself in front of me in the prison ... discussed my level-headedness, my attention to my crisis response training, and my dogged stepwise progression from the initial aspect of the crisis through to its end. A few questions later, dude asks me how I handle disruptions in a regular day, meaning what if I have some guy in group raise hell on another member. Sooo, I discussed how I maintained a level head when verbal shit hit the fan in my Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) group one time, used my DBT partner to maintain group order while I sequestered the offending individual, maintained attention to my DBT training for disruptions, et cetera. Chick #1, a few questions later, asked me about my involvement in ... crisis intervention. This pattern of redundancy was pretty pervasive, as each individual initiated at least one question that at least one other person on the interview team then asked me again, in some different form. I in turn assumed that they wanted some different aspect or take on the topic, so I gave them generally connected but fundamentally different answers.

The cap off was when the dude asked me what I knew of the DSM. Literally, "what's your thoughts on the DSM?" I almost choked on my water that I brought with me to the interview. What the capital-f does that question even mean?! I have 10 yrs experience with mental health & psychological services - eight with this very state alone, a Masters in clinical psychology, an MD on my reference list ... what are you asking me? So, I flatly explained that I've been using DSM IV since my bachelor's program, discussed my strenuous efforts to learn it for the Clinical Psychpatho class at Radford, and then my use of it up to and including the recent release of DSM-IV-TR. So, he clarified his question, because apparently I was thinking too basic ... or not basic enough. "What do you think of it?" Again, what the F does that mean??! So, I discussed what criticisms I have heard of it, my opinions of its efficacy ... "I mean, what's it used for?" "Um, the identification of symptoms of mental illness for the possibility of treatment?" Dude follows up with: "Now, how would you identify abuse? Give me three things you would look for." Shit, okay ... "any deficits in social or occupational functioning ... any apparent signs of changes, alterations or abberations in appearance, behavior ... and self-report, such as report of abuse of a substance, family history, or - resources permitting - a positive urine drug screen." I admitted that I wasn't sure how specific he needed me to be, as in a differential diagnosis between abuse or dependence, but he waved that off and said that my response was "good enough."

A couple more odd questions here and there, which allowed me to bust out some arcane info that I've stored in my head from back in the Radford days. I mean, my post-wreck recall abilities did me no favors whatsoever there, either. I blanked on names of theorists (like the author of the seminal work "Changing for Good," which I JUST THIS VERY MOMENT remembered is Prochaska), concepts, structures in theories, etc. It was suddenly like I was having my comp orals all over again. There was no middle ground to the questions either; it was either "discuss the assessment tools you've used and perhaps explain what you believe is the best to summarize a client suffering with addiction" or "What's cognitive therapy?" The only question of the whole damn thing that I have no doubts that I aced was an aside dude made, "How old is your daughter?"

And dude was not trying to hide his notes at all, so I caught a glance at what he was writing at times. And some disheartening news, he scored one of my best answers a "2" out of 10, which was either great (doubt it) or just bloody awful. He scribbled something down, no matter what I did ... I think he counted each sip of water I took, plus it was hot as a bastard in their conference room, so I had to roll my sleeves up, and he watched me do that for each arm then wrote something down about that. On his last page, I think he was grading me on the A-F scale, and his writing was the shitz, so I either got a B- or a D-, so I got close to a C or close to an F.

I think they telegraphed that I didn't get the job. They asked me for the questions I had, and I had three shots ready to go:

1) "Having worked with the state for so long, I'm just curious about the differences between your nonprofit organization and the state system?" Oh, we had a nice discussion about that, particularly me and chick #1.

2) "What changes has this organization undergone in the past few years?" I had been aware of this organization for some time in my tenure with a previous employer, so I was already aware that changes had been made recently, regardless how small, but I wanted to show my interest in this place of potential employment. They moved to a bigger building in the past few months, but overall things have remained steady, although they anticipate that Medicaid changes coming up would force them to be more flexible and creative. So we talked about Medicaid, and the two chicks and me were having a blast.

3) "How has this organization been affected in these harsh economic times?" I spoke program- and service-wise, because of all the changes that I saw occur during my state mental health job tenure. Fortunately, they've made some adjustments here and there, but they've been able to maintain the programs and services with little more than a hiccup.

So, to try going for the gold, to wash off all this uncertainty, I had one more impromptu question, based out of the discussion about flexibility. I had referenced the structure of the DBT approach - skills group, individual counsel, peer professional support - so I asked that, if hired, would there be opportunities to adapt my experience within that structure to the organization's system ... i.e. are ya'll running group services where I'll then be able to follow-up with those people one-on-one, or is it a different set-up?

Dude sez, "You're clearly well-versed in mental health ... we really do more substance abuse and addiction counseling ..." and in misinterpreting my question, dude told me all I needed to know. Any pokerfacedness I had was gone; I felt my face sink to the floor. I felt immediately stupid, humiliated, and disappointed in myself. I knew that I was interviewing for addictions counseling; they knew my background was in mental health. All the questions were about my experiences, and none of my experiences that I was being asked about involved any involvement with substance abuse counseling. The whole thing ended up being a train wreck. I believed, and I still do, that I did little more than waste those people's time, and my time, when we all could have been doing something more productive than them being entertained by my silly ass. I went in about as confident as I could be, and walked out humbled.

I don't anticipate a second interview with administration (which is apparently part of the process); if I get one, I'll be terrified going in because of this first interview, and it's not like I can bail because my daughter ... craziest thing ... SHE NEEDS ME TO GET THINGS FOR HER. I anticipate only a nice form letter that everybody else but one candidate for the position will get. I am far better an employee than I think anyone has ever really seen - definitely better than I think anyone would give me credit for, but I have no idea when or where I'll get the opportunity to show that again; I'm pretty certain it won't be at [the organization]*.

Sometimes the bull, he win.

*I ain't the kind of shithead that Facebooks drunken escapades, if you get me.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Are you the annoying co-worker?

10 questions to find out if you irk colleagues.

To make sure you're not the annoying co-worker, take this quiz and hope for the best. (Hint: If you're not the bothersome co-worker, feel free to print out this quiz and leave it where the offending parties will find it.)

Why not? It's not like I'm working or nothing.

1. You're stressed. You're busy at work and your home life is hectic. You walk through the front doors and ...
A. ... do your job, mentioning your stress level only if it's relevant to the conversation.
B. ... sigh deeply until someone asks you what is wrong.

I never mention my stress level at home. It's irrelevant; if you're any kind of professional, home stays at home & work stays at work. If I'm stressed at work, yes, then I'll mention it if someone asks.

2. You had the best wild salmon for dinner. You ...
A. ... tell everyone to order it the next time they're at the restaurant.
B. ... heat up the leftovers in the microwave, allowing everyone to enjoy its pungent aroma.

I'm confused. Given that most leftovers are by nature a little ripe, am I supposed to read it as unacceptable to reheat anything in the microwave at work? Or just "pungent" salmon? I mean, leftover shrimp smells like the ass end of fuck, but if I have a lot left over from the night before, fuck all ya'll, money don't grow on trees for me to go up the street to Burger King every fucking day. Unless you're buying; are you buying? If not, then I'm eating free, and "free" can smell my fucking pungent salmon, and, and, and, if you come in my office between 2-4, you'll probably have to smell my pungent salmon poots too; ain't no "annoying co-worker quiz" question about that, is there??!?! I'd answer B there too, 'cause it's my fucking office; be thankful that I don't come to your office and poot WHICH I HAVE DONE BEFORE.

Bitch.

3. You're a busy person, so ...
A. ... you make sure to get all your work done during business hours so you don't have to take it home.
B. ... you show up an hour late and leave an hour early because someone else will pick up the slack.

Thank you for noticing how busy I am, and please make a mental note that I did not bring it up in any unsolicited manner; I'm not "that guy." My answer is A. Who the fuck is "busy," when they're coming in an hour late and leaving an hour early?

4. Your new ringtone is awesome and deserves to be heard, so ...
A. ... you play it for your co-workers during lunch.
B. ... leave your ringer volume set to high so everyone can hear it every time you receive a call.

How about turning a goddamn cellphone off every once in a while? Here, here's five times when the cellular telephone should be turned off:
1. At your goddamn job. "But it's for emergencies!" You're at your goddamn job; everyone knows how to contact you ... at your goddamn job. Unless you're deep undercover like Dan Tanna.
2. At the movie theater. S the fuck U.
3. Whilst fornicating.
4. At the dinner table. Every meal isn't seafood, so I don't wanna "see food." HAW! JUGGALAH!!!
5. Whilst sleeping.

Otherwise, I say B. I have some beats and shit that I've remixed for the SGM Audio eXchange, so I have an artistic voice (i.e. ringtone) that "is awesome and must be heard."

Oh, and 6. Church.

5. You have new ideas on how to improve certain procedures at work, so you ...
A. ... suggest them to your supervisor and ask for permission to test them out.
B. ... tell everyone that they're doing things all wrong and should listen to you instead.

Hm, yeah, okay, how about C; you give them a try on your own, see the effects, while also using your well-developed judgment skills to make sure that any screw-ups that occur won't be extremely far-reaching, THEN suggest what works to a supervisor? Whatever happened to ingenuity and self-determination in our taint of a country?

6. Your children are adorable. Everyone thinks so.
A. The pictures on your desk are enough proof that you're one proud parent.
B. Bringing your brood into the office so they can run amok and interrupt the workday is an effective way to show them off.

"Bringing 'your brood' ..." Love it. I actually worked under the misconception that this was an actual quiz to discuss those relatively plausible/probable things that people may do to annoy their co-workers. I admittedly was almost thrown by the salmon question. Who, on the regular, is taking their children to work? Whatever happen to school? Remember, that place where people - students & teachers - pretend to pay attention, get tested using methods and criteria that became instantly irrelevant in November 2008 & try not to get shot at?

See, there's this thing I learned in psychometrics - a part of which is how studies are designed, their validity, etc. - that states a very simple rule of quizzes like this, to wit: You don't want to lead your respondent to a specific answer, in the answers you provide. Even if I brought my child to work, I'm not going to want to answer B because I don't consider them a "brood." What the fuck is a "brood," anyway, other than a David Cronenberg film, the Alien-ripoff villains in "X-Men," and Gangrel, Edge, and Christian?

7. You think you're getting sick ...
A. ... so you try to work from home to avoid infecting others.
B. ... but you're determined to show up every day for work, even if you're pale and coughing up a lung.

But wait, in number 3, I admitted what a busy person I am, and how hard I work so I don't have to take anything home.

Seriously, I answer B. I was scarred at an early age of wage-based employment by co-workers that very often "called in sick," only to be seen in the public eye fucking around and doing various non-sick things. I remember being the only person - non-manager, non-key holder, non-register checking outer at night - working the night shift at Movie Time Video on Saturdays, with people waiting to check out in a line that reached all the way back to the pornos, calling my shitty store manager Alyce for help only to have her tell me that she's too drunk to come in and for me to call someone else, except that all my co-workers' phone numbers are in the locked office, so I got to listen to drunk Alyce pretend to try to remember at least one other person's phone number. All this on account of people "calling in sick;" because this happened on a weekly basis, it was at this job where I ended up experiencing the second time (of three) that I'd ever had a gun put in my face. I almost got in a fight with this one punk-ass fucker co-worker there who bragged about calling in sick on me one time to go see a hockey game. After that one conversation, he quit working there. Crazy thing, you'd think it was something I said.

Anyway, I'm predisposed to believe that if I call in sick, I'm shirking responsibility and leaving someone else to do work that I should be doing because it's my responsibility. I call it "bjorking."

8. You find some funny Web sites you want to share with co-workers.
A. You forward only the best ones to a few select co-workers who share your sense of humor.
B. You send every amusing link you come across, certain that a dozen e-mails will not waste your colleagues' time.

I sorta suspect that this point was included only because the author expected that this hilariously entertaining and 100% relevant to every workplace would be emailed across offices. If you clicked the link from where I stole this article, you'd find that very issue hinted at ("Before you stomp over to your annoying co-workers' desks and start dispensing your advice;" "If you're not the bothersome co-worker, feel free to print out this quiz and leave it where the offending parties will find it"). This presents another issue entirely, because really, what's a bigger waste of time, emailing some annoying quiz to your co-workers, or wasting paper to print it out and leave copies where one select individual or collection of individuals will find it?

And again, no alternate option; I don't make it a habit of forwarding much of anything, much less stupid shit.

9. You and 10 other colleagues receive an e-mail from the boss.
A. You decide that your response is relevant only to your boss and reply only to her.
B. You reply to all, even if your message is irrelevant to 99 percent of the recipients.

THAT'S NOT EVEN PROPER FUCKING MATH!!!How does Lewis Black do that thing he does without stroking out? Even thinking about it while typing made my eyeballs quiver.

If your response is only relevant to you and your supervisor (because "boss" is so "prison road crew"), and the email was sent to you and ten other colleagues, then it's relevant only to 17% of the original recipients, meaning it's irrelevant to approximately 83% of the intended recipients. Not 99%. Some people may suggest I get a grip, but look, I remember when this kind of shit used to matter. It wasn't that long ago; it was probably between the time people went from using AOL Instant Messenger and people started saying "LOL" out loud in general conversation. Our syntax, diction and spelling have already become just another set of victims to social entropy; must our math die choking, as well?

AND ... did you catch that sudden gender shift of the authority figure in the A response? "Reply only to her." "Answer only to her." "Answer only to my female superior." "Answer only to my female 'boss.'" "Yes, boss, can I ... trim your minge?" Naw, use the gender non-specific "them;" that's professional.

10. You heard some good gossip that is possibly true ...
A. ... but you don't want to spread rumors so you keep quiet.
B. ... you can't sit on the secret for too long, so you get the word out as quickly as possible.

A. I stay away from all that shit, always have and will. Now, I listen to it ... seems you really can't help it, in some offices. But I have to speak proudly about my capability to not say shit about shit.

Result: If you have more Bs than As, you are an annoying co-worker. The next time you're in one of these situations, stop and ask yourself what you'd like your colleague to do in the situation. Then ask yourself what you'd normally do. If they're not the same thing, err on the side of caution and do unto others as you'd like them to do to you.

Oh, holy shit, I totally have more Bs than As. Granted, that translates into 3-1, and all the rest of this stupid thing didn't apply to me. I can't think of any 50 people that I've ever worked for that this shit applied to. Now, I watch a lot of "The Office," and on that show - on the TV, where fiction is quite prevalent I'm told (even in the news, BA-ZING!) - these questions, and their corresponding B-responses, have manifestation abundant ... on the TV ... where fiction ...

Friday, April 16, 2010

On the jobless topic

(Should we change the post label to "My Shitty Old Job?")

Totally with Ron on this one. I've done a fair share of shaking the tree lately since losing my position in January, and it's been a fruitless endeavour.

My unemployment, by the numbers:

2 - Degrees I have, in psychology;
4 - Jobs I claim on my resume, since 2000;
5 - Staff I've supervised, in total;
7 - Years (approximate) I spent at my longest tenured job;
10 - Years I've been professionally employed in my chosen field;
6 - Months it took them to fire me at my last job;
4 - Other employees I worked with at the last job - all women;
1 - Number of males who have worked in that office in the last five years ... namely, me.

55 - Workdays that I've been unemployed, to date;
55 - Workdays, since I've filed for unemployment, that I haven't seen my first unemployment check;
9 - Weeks of penalty the state docked me, since I was fired and not let go by reduction in workforce;
3000 - Dollars (approximately) those nine weeks were worth, to my disability account total allotment.

7 - Days before my first interview since my job loss that I was called and informed that budget cuts were closing that job down;
22 - Percent that the department of mental health budget was cut.

1 - Number of interviews that I've actually been invited to;
2 - Number of job positions that I was interviewed for;
3 - Letters of rejection I've received from jobs who only got my application and resume;
27 - Applications that I've submitted since I lost my job.

3:00 - AM, about the time I get to sleep every night since being fired.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Down to the wire!

I would like to say that this is exhilarating, but it isn't.

We are going right down to the wire in the Quest for Employment 2009-10. A lot of stuff has happened since the last time, so let's recap:

*The job I interviewed for in the northeast decided to expand the field for on-site interviews from three to five candidates AFTER the first three of us interviewed. Guess they weren't impressed with any of the first three, so probably not going to happen unless bachelors four and five are worse.

*The current place of employment is talking seven-figure budget cuts in operating expenses for the next FY, so it is highly unlikely (though still possible) that I can stay here for another year.

*The hiring director for my DREAM job that I was runner-up for in the fall has agreed to be one of my recommendation writers going forward because he was so "impressed with my work." Too bad he wasn't more impressed than that other person who actually got the job. Still, for him to agree to do that shows there are skills there. It took guts to ask him to write for me.

*I pulled down that other site that I used to update and communicate with you all on for the time being. Don't want to have a meltdown on there over this situation. I'd rather meltdown with y'all.

* To compound matters, my highly qualified spouse is hitting speed bumps in her search. She has a good opportunity that she has interviewed for. That position has one more person to interview this week before they make their decision, which the hiring director said "would be a tough choice."

So basically we are looking at going from highly qualified, up-and-comers to unemployed within a matter of months. The lesson I've always taken from people is that you make your own luck. We all know people who are unemployed and get mired down in it and stay down. I'm not going out like that. So, I am doing a lot of a)praying, b) tree-shaking to hunt for other opportunities, c) applying for part-time jobs to boost the income. At some point this will come good....it's just going to be a bumpy road to get there.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

No updates due to unemployment

As I sit here in the local library ...

Sucks, man. I had an interview for a supervisor position at a distant mental health clinic, only to get called a few days ago to be told that the interviews in total are being cancelled due to a 22% financial cut to the department of same.

I am certain I was in the ninetyish percentile of being their candidate, too.

So, no income, still, with few prospects, and ongoing medical problems that I can't seek treatment for (due to lack of insurance). So no internet for another month, it seems.

Another week of this, and I may be hitting up Wal-Mart.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy (Part Three)

(Also see Part Two!)

It's true, it's true! The big finish! Enjoy!

Money for Nothing (and the Crazy for Free)

Michael sent out one of his occasional emails detailing the latest installment of Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World and apparently I sighed way too loudly as I read it because Michael flipped out and shouts about how I didn’t have to read the email if I didn’t want to, but the article he linked to was that Obama is going to raise taxes in January 2010 so high that he would have to cut everyone’s pay by a third. The original phrasing Michael used was “if you are still here in January, your pay will be cut by a third.” He specifically emphasized that he was referring to me and I thought it was odd that he was already planning for me not being there in January.

Unsurprisingly, there was no tax rate increase, but Michael apparently did recently cut pay, as evidenced by a Craigslist want ad recently discovered by my roommate. (Craigslist deletes ads after a period of time, so I archived this for posterity.) A year ago I would have said that I don’t know what kind of person would focus a want ad on the fact that he had just cut salaries; today, I can confidently say that I know exactly what kind of person does that.

Another email in August had a link to what at the time was just an early draft of the Health Care Bill. Anyone with any knowledge of current events or critical thinking skills was aware that there were at least six versions under review of which this was just one. Not Michael, though: “The Democrats are pulling a fast one trying to pass a Health bill and are lying to our faces right now. Here is the actual bill.” The email also included a huge list of “facts” about the bill, each “fact” referring to a page in the bill and whatever evil aspect of Obamacare it represented. As Michael bellowed through the office that everyone should read the email, he implied that the “facts” were from research that he had personally done. My general policy with Michael’s emails was to spot check them: pick a couple of points and do a quick Google search to debunk them just to make sure that I still lived on planet Earth.

The first “fact” from the email: “Page 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!! WTF!!” I didn’t even have to research this: if a company decides to self-insure their employees – the employer assumes the direct risk for payment of employees’ benefit claims – of course the government is going to make sure that the employer can afford to do so, especially if mandates exist for health insurance. This is called “closing a loophole” and also protecting employees: the only thing worse than having no insurance is finding out that your employer never actually had the funds to cover the insurance that you thought you had. I double-checked the bill to see if there was something missing from this “fact” and it turned out there was: auditing books of employers who self-insure is part of an 18-month study of the efficiency of self-insurance, not a permanent aspect of health care reform. Two strikes on the first pitch.

I skimmed through more “facts.” “Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill – YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!” Insurance companies decide what they will pay for based on various factors. You can call it rationing, risk management, cost-benefit analysis, or whatever you like, but it’s all the same. I was disappointed by the inclusion of this oft-repeated criticism, as Michael’s nonsense is usually of a higher caliber. “Page 50 Section 152 in HC bill – HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise.” I did a simple search of the bill for the word “undocumented” and found that on page 143, section 143 it clarified: “no federal payment for undocumented aliens,” defining undocumented aliens as “individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.” Two more pitches, two more strikes.

I skip forward to a “fact” in big red letters, so it must be important and certainly it has to be true if he’s going to call attention to it: “Page 304 L 17-19 BIG ONE HERE: Expedited Data Collection – Chapter 35 and…” it has a link to a page that no longer exists. Fortunately, Google archived it: the point here is that the Health Care Reform act would be able to use collected data in any way it sees fit, exempting the government from protecting the privacy of citizens. Here's the text of the bill on page 304, lines 17 through 19: “Chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code shall not apply to this section.” What is Chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code? It’s the Paperwork Reduction Act! The Paperwork Reduction Act has nothing to do with privacy laws, it's intended to ensure that the goddamned government wastes as little time, money, and - as the title of the law suggests - paper as possible. At this point there are more errors in the “fact” checking than there are “facts.” In compiling this list, Michael failed at reading and comprehension in every conceivable way.

But wait, there’s more failure: in researching that last “fact” I discovered that the list was compiled by this illiterate. Not only did Michael steal someone else’s work, but he stole research that was incorrect to the point of being a lie. You couldn’t possibly fit any more failure and stupidity into one email.

Ohhhh yes you can. The email included the warning that "If Health Reform passes, not only will your pay be reduced, but the Post Office ( which means the government) will run your Dr. office and our health industry, and we WILL sacrifice our elderly as all all socialized medicine does in every nation including England and Canada." Just...no. I'm done with this part of the story.

Denouement Part Two – Race to the Bottom

Michael spent a great deal of time, money, and energy in creating an Internet-based War/Battle Simulation/Social Networking Strategy Game Website with a storyline based on his particularly odd brand of paranoid delusional politics: United States of Earth. I don’t know anything about how the Game works because I never tried to play it, but the explanation I was given made it sound like an MMO based on a combination of Risk and Diplomacy board games. The plot and setting is familiar; it’s 2011 and Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World damaged America so badly that Republicans won majorities in both Houses of Congress in the 2010 election, but Obama refuses to seat the new Congress and revokes the US Constitution, leading the American people to revolt. The player’s goal is to seize territories and government to eliminate the evil liberals/Federales/traitors boogeymen.

The first guy Michael hired to do website programming for USoE quit after two weeks because he could not get Michael to understand the limitations of web-based gaming and was tired of being instructed to do the impossible. The second programmer quit after being ordered to wash his hands because Michael witnessed him leaving the bathroom without washing his hands; this incident was aired publicly on the calling floor while employees were on live calls as Michael ordered his assistant to very publicly clean the programmer’s keyboard, mouse, and work area with Lysol while Michael stood around shouting about it. Granted, not washing your hands after you use the bathroom is nasty, but this can be handled quietly.

Before United States of Earth went live, Michael needed posts on USoE similar to the ones on Earthfrisk, presumably for the same reason: to make the game website appear to have legitimate traffic. Michael also wanted us to focus on creating Trivia Questions for the game, as players will answer those questions to earn points to create larger armies to win battles to win the Internet, fuck if I know why. Creating Trivia Questions is easy: set the StumbleUpon toolbar to Wikipedia-only and then dig something out of the entries that come up. However, creating Trivia is far more time consuming than simply posting links; each question is multiple choice, so it needs one real answer and three incorrect answers.

Michael’s inability to focus leads to an erratic demand for Posts one day and Trivia the next, then nothing is mentioned for two weeks, then a sudden demand for Posts that changes to Trivia later in the day. One October Tuesday evening, just before the end of my shift, Michael storms around the office bellowing his demands Trivia Questions for the site. I do what I can over the remaining three hours of my shift to add Trivia Questions to the site between calls, but in deference to the clients I focus on answering phone calls and providing customer service to the callers.

A little over an hour into my shift the following day, I receive an Instant Message from the Office Manager telling me to shut down both computers and come to her desk. I know it this can’t be good: the only reason I would need to shut down both computers is if I’m not going to be there for the rest of the day - or possibly ever again. The Office Manager tells me that my bounced calls have been high recently.

Let me explain: in most call centers, you take one call at a time. At Crazyhouse Office, you have calls coming in on top of calls you are already taking and you have to put the first caller on hold to take the next call and so on, with the system having a limit of nine calls per station at any given time. The extent to which calls overlap is related to how many client accounts you handle and the current call volume. If you cannot answer an incoming call quickly enough, the system automatically reroutes the call to another available operator, thus it is called a bounced call or “bounce.” Bounced calls are a legitimate issue, because calls need to be taken promptly and a missed call could mean a lost customer.

From conversations I had with a fellow employee over the previous months, I was aware that my bounced calls were higher than other employees; however I was also aware that my call volume was higher than other employees. I was never given any official assessment of my performance, nor had my performance been discussed in any type of performance review in months because there are no performance reviews. As to why there are no performance reviews is debatable; it could be a result of there being enough just enough employees to cover the call volume, meaning that no one in a position of authority has the opportunity to compile data and discuss it with CSRs. It could also be that Michael’s review of your performance is based entirely on his serotonin levels on any given day. Or possibly your voting record. But this is speculation.

So now I’m getting an impromptu performance review covering some undetermined amount of time. When advising me of my high rate of bounced calls the Office Manager made a motion towards a piece of paper that had a column five numbers on it. I assumed these were the previous five days’ worth of bounces and protested that I had been added to a very large number of new accounts the previous week and was still familiarizing myself with them. The Office Manager claimed the new accounts were irrelevant and that I had been added to the accounts in order to bring my volume up to levels closer to other employees who had more call volume than I did. I wasn’t immediately looking to call the Office Manager a liar, but the numbers I had seen going back some months demonstrated that I was regularly taking a higher volume of calls than the employees she mentioned long before I was given the new accounts. In fact, I had long been taking a higher volume of calls than all but two or three others. The Office Manager mentioned that she had been instructed to look back over my numbers after Michael had noticed that I had not posted any questions to USoE the night before; because my bounces were so high I was being suspended for three days – without pay, naturally. I was furious and twice had to stop myself from screaming obscenities at the Office Manager because Michael was the true target of my rage and he conveniently wasn’t there.

I signed off on my Employee Warning Notice, which focused on bounced calls and doesn’t mention my alleged refusal to further contribute to the Internet Culture of the Workplace, then stalked back to the F-Train. I was still seething when I got home was not certain of what to do next, but after sharing yet another oh-so-hilarious tale of Crazyhouse Office for my roommates, I decided this: Michael would have to fire me if he wanted rid of me. In the meantime, the issue of bounced calls became a hot topic at the office, with regular updates on call volume and bounces being sent out throughout the day with the expectation of minimal bounces. It seems strange to tie the necessity of performance reviews to Michael’s hobbies, but it’s not my company.

When I returned from the three-day suspension, I saw an email from Michael saying not to worry about posting on USoE until the server issues were resolved and that a new server was being installed to handle the new traffic. The new traffic was a result of USoE being posted on Fark; for anyone unfamiliar with Fark, it’s a where people submit websites and news stories and the readership at large will comment on them. If something previously obscure, like USoE, hits the front page of Fark, the site is often overrun with traffic from people who saw it on Fark – the terms for this phenomenon are called “Farking” and being “Farked.” Michael found out USoE had been “Farked” and was allegedly quite pleased with “the publicity” until he read the comments that were being left on Fark about his masterpiece. For someone who takes his mythology seriously, it must have been quite a shock to read quotes like “This has to be a carefully crafted farce… I can only believe that this was concocted by a bunch of snickering undergrads out for the LULZ” and “These people are seriously unhinged” in reference to USoE.

I returned to work as usual the following Monday and The Office Manager took a moment before my shift started to ask me if I was ok and if there was any tension between the two of us. I assured her that I had no problem with her; she was just doing her job. And everything was fine until 15 minutes before the end of my shift on Wednesday, when Michael came by my desk and told me to finish my call, shut down both computers, gather my personal belongings, and come to the front desk.

Michael, the Office Manager, and I went to a conference room; Michael began with an odd question about my recent job searches and then detailed my allegedly poor performance. I noted that it was their failure that I had gone so long with allegedly poor performance without any intervening review to let me know that my performance was unsatisfactory. I also noted that my performance had improved once I was advised that it had been unsatisfactory. Michael suggested that my performance was a result of dissatisfaction with my job, demonstrated by how angry I had been about being suspended for three days, and referred to the fact that I had asked for time off for job interviews. I corrected him and pointed out that I had asked for a schedule switch on one day to interview for job that was a specific and possible career opportunity that I didn’t have high expectations of getting anyway. I didn’t really know how to address criticism for being angry about being suspended without pay for three days; that was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard him or anyone else say.

(I should note, in the interests of full disclosure and accuracy, that I did receive one performance review within my first month relating to bounced calls and I resolved the issue to the satisfaction of the Sales Manager who handled the review. I was not, at any time, advised of any threshold or standards of performance and the lack of further review gave me no reason to consider my performance unsatisfactory.)

At this point I determined that any further discussion was futile and a danger to my well-being and freedom as I was already beginning to see spots from anger and most of the words I could think of were obscenities, so I asked the obvious question of whether or not I was being fired and stood up to leave. Michael said that I was being terminated but, in a stunning twist, that if I would sit down and stay calm he would state that my termination was due to downsizing and position elimination, thus making me eligible for unemployment. If I left immediately I would be fired “for cause” and would unable to draw unemployment. So I sat down and then he said something about finding a job I enjoy and then scribbled a note about downsizing on a printout with the company name and employer ID. And with that, my tenure at Crazyhouse Office quietly came to an end.

Epilogue: Fark You, Buddy

United States of Earth did receive some publicity as a result of getting Farked, all of which occurred after my termination. Mother Jones, a very progressive Liberal magazine - who employs my favorite political blogger, Kevin Drum – interviewed Michael about the game and the anti-Obama storyline. Michael uses the second or third last name that I’ve seen - Russotto - in order to “protect himself” from people who, when looking for the main office of USoE, would find themselves directed by a big red sign to the front door of…you guessed it, Crazyhouse Office.

To be honest, I was quite disappointed with the MoJo interview. Here’s an opportunity for Michael to air his views in what will probably be the best opportunity he’ll see at a notable forum; more than that, it’s an opportunity to confront the hated “Liberal Media” head-on. When talking to David Corn - a legitimately bright journalist who regularly challenges and debunks absurd far-right nonsense – Michael, the man who stomps around the office shouting “THIS PRESIDENT IS DOGSHIT!” to a captive audience, is suddenly Mr. Middle-of-the-Road who dislikes each party equally and isn't an ideologue “advancing any partisan agenda.” This anti-Obama scenario is merely the first “stunt” to bring players to the game; a similar “Bush-themed” episode is in the works.

I did see the purpose in taking a moderated stance when discussing USoE for the publicity. If he’s looking to make the game commercially viable he can’t drive away potential customers. But then I found this interview Michael did with Two Stuttering Jerkasses and a Fuckwit (This is a YouTube link, just over minute long. Apparently there’s a longer version of this interview, but that YouTube clip is all of his nonsense I’m going to listen to for anything less than $14 an hour.) On an Internet radio show with an audience consisting of drunks who wear tinfoil hats, permanent basement dwellers, and what George Carlin called "guys in Army fatigues talking to God on a one-way radio" hosted by a couple of clowns who sound like they'd have trouble arguing with a kindergartener, Michael shows his true colors: Obama is evil and these Marxists “Czars” are infiltrating our government and using black helicopters, FEMA concentration camps, and Health Care Reform to kill the elderly. (I only listened to like 30 seconds of that interview so that may not accurately represent what he actually said, but I think I can safely assume that he did.)

And that’s my former employer in a nutshell: Glenn Beck with twice the crazy and half the charm, hiding behind fake names and confidentiality agreements so that he can preach to the chorus and a captive audience without having to risk being called on his bullshit.

I wrote this story to amuse and inform my friends and family, not as part of a crusade against an asshole who fired me and then suggested that he was doing me a favor by claiming my termination was due to downsizing so that I could draw unemployment. Any exposure of someone's political mythology to the harsh light of truth is unintended. Speaking of politics, I did occasionally refer to Michael’s politics as “far-right” and I want to make clear that I wouldn’t smear the Republican Party or modern conservative philosophy with his lunacy, but it is what it is.

I want to thank everyone who made it this far and I also want to suggest that newcomers dig around the archives here at Science Gone Mad. There’s some great work from my fellow Mad Scienticians - Nate, Ron B., Will, Buck, and Jake - all over this joint. Just pick a category over on the right and go. Bookmark us and y’all come on back now, y’hear?

~Fin~

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy (Part Two)

(Also see Part One!)

I opened up the ol' Inbox today to this gem:

Dear Joshua

Not only are you in violation of an agreement that you signed not to talk about the company in any way, but you are naming [Crazyhouse office] which was not your employer. You were employed by [Another Company, Not Crazyhouse Office]. [Crazyhouse Office Group] is an umbrella group for many companies around the country - all of which you have left yourself open to lawsuits from. You are advised to remove the article immediately. Failure to do so will result in many lawsuits from companies around the country, including your former employer [Another Company, Not Crazyhouse Office], which by the way, didn't protest your unemployment benefits. We may now do so, along with a lawsuit if you do not remove the article immediately since you were fired for cause and therefore are not eligible to get unemployment insurance. NYS will go after you for all monies already given to you.

We are giving you a few days before we notify each of the companies as individual entities who may also sue you for violation. We will share the info with them and join in the many lawsuits. We will also notify your hosting company of a violation of their terms of use in using free blog space to illegally disparage a former employer. Not only will your blog be removed, but they will also add testimony as they have a copy of the article and we do too.

We will acknowledge receipt of this message when the blog is taken down. Don't wait too long.

Your friend
Mike

Internet Lawsuit threat! For. The. Win. Man, I hope he totally doesn't tell the unemployment people that he changed his mind three months later and decided that I was fired for cause! I guess this Termination Notice with the reason for termination listed as "downsizing" is totally a forgery, probably by the same organization that forged Obama's birth certificate!

I planned to put the Strange but True Tale of Michael's Confidentiality Agreement in the third and final segment, but he totally spoiled it so I went ahead and included it part two. I may go back and change the name of where I worked to Crazyhouse Office. In fact, yeah, that's what I'll do. Hopefully this will avoid MANY LAWSUITS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY. And it is also funnier, plus the Interests of Accuracy are appeased.

This reminds me of the legal threats Something Awful receives from aggrieved crazy people. I guess that puts me in pretty good company. But enough about that crazy bullshit, it's time for PART TWO OF THIS CRAZY BULLSHIT:

The Internet and You

The nature of the business requires that employees have largely unrestricted access to the Internet. The clientele is constantly changing and – aside from refusing to aid in the battle against our planet becoming uninhabitable and also declining service for blatantly obvious scams and frauds – Crazyhouse Office will provide services to anyone who puts in the barest effort at appearing legitimate. Because the clients include some fully-legal adult services, you can’t run content filters; because new clients are always coming along, you can’t run URL filters. Well, you could run filters that a competent IT professional would regularly update, but that requires hiring a competent IT professional. So the end result is that employees have unrestricted access to the Internet.

The obvious downside to allowing employees full access to the Internet is the possible loss of productivity, which is why most employers either limit access to the Internet or fire unproductive workers regardless of what causes them to not do their goddamned job. Michael doesn’t like that every other company in the world either limits their employees’ Internet access or fires them for not doing their job. Michael’s solution: create Earthfrisk, a social networking site similar to MySpace or Facebook, and require employees to contribute. (See also Michael's blog at Earthfrisk.) Employees contribute by using the StumbleUpon toolbar to randomly find new websites based on settings and interests of our choosing and posting links to those websites on Earthfrisk between calls. This site was created and maintained at an alleged cost of thousands of dollars per month so that Michael would not have to fire employees for using the Internet. I guess it’s cheaper than hiring an IT professional to maintain filters and I don’t really see how this helps productivity but I’m not batshit insane.

Although Michael repeatedly stated that he created Earthfrisk with no intent to profit – he does not sell advertising space of any kind – my impression from looking at the site and some posts and comments he made on various technology-related websites attempting to subtly advertise Earthfrisk was that the original purpose of the site was to actually compete directly with MySpace and Facebook and that employee contributions were intended to give the appearance of legitimate traffic and usage. Earthfrisk is poorly designed, provides no unique services, and - due to Michael’s constantly-trumpeted personal beliefs - the content focused largely on crazy right-wing nonsense; unsurprisingly the site has not, as of this writing, gained much market share.

This bizarre Internet Usage Policy is where my first real problem at Crazyhouse Office arises. As I’ve established, Michael is largely unable to hold coherent conversation for longer than 45 seconds unless it involves Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World. The only clear explanation I was given about the IUP was that if I found something that I liked via StumbleUpon, I was to post it on Earthfrisk. No quota or quality control was defined or mentioned; if you like it, post it. It made sense to me that we would only post things that we like or find interesting from the position of the site having credible, quality material. I asked for clarification on what should be posted and Michael reiterated: if you like something, post it.

I didn’t keep track of what or how often I posted during my first month because I was under the impression that my job was to provide customer service to callers and this Internet nonsense was a trick being played on me by a vengeful God. Given that we were fairly shorthanded, I was also focused more on answering calls than randomly surfing the Internet or posting to a poorly-designed, third-rate social networking site. What Michael didn’t bother to clarify during my interview, or training, or on the three separate occasions I asked for clarification, was that he does indeed require a certain level of participation on Earthfrisk and he allegedly let it be known that certain people were not maintaining this level. He did this, allegedly, by storming around the office and bellowing it while people were taking calls, after which he retreated back to his office without further explanation. Of course I had no clue what he was talking about because I’m on the goddamned phone and can’t pay attention to his gibberish so I make the critical error of thinking whatever he was on about was more irrelevant lunatic political bullshit. Eventually an email was sent out by one of the veteran employees noting that Michael wanted more posts; I let Michael know that I wasn’t finding much of interest and a large amount of what I was finding had already been posted by other employees, as the StumbleUpon database shared by all StumbleUpon users. He mumbled something to the effect that other employees had mentioned the same problem, so he was looking into it and not to worry about volume.

Two days later I was pulled off of the phone and informed I was being suspended for one day (without pay, obviously) because of what my roommate adequately described as “a lack of contribution to the Internet Culture of the Workplace.”

I was upset because I was explicitly told by Michael just days earlier not to worry about post volume and that he had continually been unclear about exactly what volume of posting he was looking for. Michael did everything he could during the meeting to avoid saying “just post anything” without actually saying “just post anything” although I read between the lines and decided that clearly he meant “just post anything.” He would send out a directive a few months later, after he launched his new Social Networking Strategy Game Website, that we should post at least once for every two sites we visit, which would have been helpful fucking information before I lost a day’s pay over it.

Escalating Insanity

I made certain to post often, without regard to value of content, after my suspension and things ran smoothly for a month or so. This would soon change. At the time my desk was located beside the windows on the other side of the office. After a few weeks I noticed that Liz, who sat directly on my left, had begun turning her monitors away from the window on my right. I assumed that she was having trouble with sunlight glaring on her monitors, which was odd because I didn’t have any problems with sunlight, but I didn’t think much of it until a meeting that Liz had regarding her performance.

Normally a performance meeting is held privately in a separate office where a supervisor or supervisors will have a discussion with the employee. Not at Crazyhouse Office; Liz’s performance was reviewed at the front desk on a conference call with the Sales Manager who telecommutes from Long Island. The discussion was a loud airing of grievances audible to the entire staff. After a rundown of her shortcomings as an employee, Michael asked Liz about her monitors. As it happens, Liz didn’t turn the monitors away from the window because of glare; Liz was turning her monitors away from me because she was concerned that I was looking at what she was doing on her computers.

The conversation was just loud enough for everyone to hear it but no one was able to follow the entire conversation because they were trying to take calls, which led a couple of employees to believe that I had done something wrong. Fortunately I was able to piece together that Liz was concerned that I was looking at what was on her monitors and she didn’t want me to see what she was doing. This was absurd, because there obviously isn’t anything she should be doing at work that other people shouldn’t be able to see, a point Michael made, and she also made sure to turn her calling-station monitor away even though there was nothing she could do on that computer that wasn’t work-related. The next day I was moved to another desk on the other side of the office. I was fine with this arrangement because my old seat was in a corner away from the air vents and a couple of warm summer days in the sunlight had nearly resulted in me melting. And since I couldn’t possibly see her monitors from my new seat, everything would be fine…

…until a week or so later when Michael informed me that Liz was accusing me of sexual harassment and that he needed me to write a statement claiming that I had never done any such thing. I, having never sexually harassed Liz, wrote a statement to that effect and gave it to Michael. Apparently she was making a similar claim against another employee and generally looked to be angling for a lawsuit. Liz disappeared a week later with no explanation given.

Denouement Part One or “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Randomly, in the middle of the day in the middle of September, Michael sent his assistant around with some very important paperwork that all employees had to sign by the end of the day. Before I have an opportunity to look at the document, Michael’s assistant comes around again to retrieve the original paperwork and give us new copies. Apparently the first copy had at least three typos - I say “at least three typos” because the new copy had two typos - unless you’re familiar with the law and legally binding contracts, in which case the entire document is one long typo. Amusingly, one of the remaining typos is a misspelling of Michael’s last name.

Once I finally look at the document I notice that it appears to have been written in Microsoft Notepad and is clearly based on someone’s poorly-thought out idea of what a legally binding document might look like if there weren’t hundreds of years of work that went into creating a common idea of what a legally binding document actually is. Ostensibly the purpose of the document is an agreement to protect the confidentiality of Crazyhouse Office’s clients and their customers – a Confidentiality Agreement, if you will. However, a close examination reveals that the document’s true purpose is to protect “certain ideas and information relating to [Michael]” from being disclosed “without the express written consent of the Discloser [Michael] …and to prevent the Confidential Information from falling into the public domain or into the possession of unauthorized persons.”

Now the reason I think this may be more about protecting Michael’s Confidential Information and not the Clients or their customers is because of the Summation that appears in the middle of the document clarifying that “the recipient will NOT discuss ANY personal information ABOUT [Michael] UNLESS it pertains to preforming [sic] your job…will NOT discuss any personal information pertaining to [Michael] that you have learned in the past or will come to know in the future to ANYONE for ANY REASON outside of work, PERIOD.” And yes it did include the words in all caps. Crazyhouse Office gets a cursory mention in the final third of the first Summation. The second Summation spells out the consequences: “if you break any term of this contract YOU WILL be FIRED and YOU WILL be sued to the fullest extent of the law. Even if you QUIT or are FIRED you can STILL be sued for disclosing any confidential information of [Michael], or the companies listed in this contract.”

Fun fact: notably, one of the circumstances under which the recipient is no longer obligated to protect Michael’s Confidential Information is if the information “was ordered to be publicly released by the requirement of a government agency.”

Secret fun fact: I haven’t been ordered to release this information by the requirement of a government agency…or have I?

Generally legal documents don’t have summations in them because the whole point of an attorney is to pay them a lot of money to do that for you. It’s kind of a racket. Speaking of having an attorney double-check this gibberish, I looked over the document and decided that I needed to take a good goddamned look at this and maybe even have an attorney look at the agreement before I signed it. It appeared to be very broad to the point that I was concerned that I might be signing away my right to tell people that I have a job. I know it’s preposterous, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do: act craaazy. When Michael’s assistant asked if I was ready to sign the agreement, I said that I would like more time to look at it. I also mentioned that I might see if the attorney I previously worked for would mind looking over it. Michael’s assistant sighed and walked away; five minutes later Michael came over to tell me that he “would give me a chance” to have my attorney look at the agreement, but I needed to leave for the rest of the day and that the agreement had to be signed before I could return to work.

I called the attorney I had previously worked for and asked if she would mind reviewing the contract; after reading the agreement her first question was “your boss is crazy, isn’t he?” After we discussed the agreement, my understanding was that it was poorly constructed, clearly based on some sort of template found online or in a book, and that I should sign it without hesitation if my continued employment was at stake. Everything the agreement covers is either protected under existing privacy laws, such as tax returns and medical records. Aside from that, publicly-stated anti-government paranoia and a fundamental misunderstanding of Science isn’t Confidential Information.

In the meantime I found out that others had not signed the agreement, but after I was sent home Michael left for the day without pursuing the issue any further. This began to concern me and I wondered if the entire incident had been a set-up to see who would balk at signing because apparently Michael’s fucking paranoia was contagious and had begun to seep into my head. I returned the next day and signed the agreement, as did everyone who hadn’t signed it the day before, and that was the last it was mentioned.

Continued in Part Three!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy (Part One)

[Editor's note: Original references to whoever it was that I worked for have been changed to "Crazyhouse Office" due to legal threats detailed in Part Two.]

Crazyhouse Office was not a normal workplace environment where experiences common to many members of the workforce require no elaboration. A penny-pinching boss that cuts out stocking the break room or an idiot co-worker breaks the printer trying to remove a paper jam – these are things anyone can understand on their own merits. Not here. Aside from my laziness, the hardest part about finishing this was that most incidents demanded a full explanation.

There was a lot of rewriting, too. Every paragraph eventually turned into a word salad of twists and turns and run-on sentences. The final draft is probably the fourth revision; I’d estimate at least ten- thousand words went in and seventy-four hundred came out. If there is any part of this entire tale that you don’t understand, feel free to ask for elaboration. If there is any part of this entire tale that you don’t believe to be true, just wait until the lawsuit. Finally, and two months behind schedule, I give you a story in three ridiculous parts: Reverend Joshua versus The Crazy.

In The Beginning

Just like the rest of the country, Brooklyn wasn’t the easiest place to find a job in early 2009. Most of what I saw were awful desperation jobs, door-to-door sales trying to trick people into signing up for programs that allegedly “save money” on utilities. It’s easy to spot this bullshit, because major corporations like Comcast pay people decent money to sit inside climate-controlled buildings to call people with legitimate offers of savings and upgrades. And I’m fresh off the boat from Tennessee, I’ll be damned if I’m walking the streets of Brooklyn with no idea where I am or whose door I’m knocking on.

There was, however, a promising ad I kept seeing on Craigslist for a call center in DUMBO: the highest paying call center in America, recession-proof because they take work from other companies when those companies downsize. The ad focused on the Crazyhouse Office’s very laid-back atmosphere with an emphasis on not tolerating racism or homophobia, plus a couple of cats roam freely around Crazyhouse Office and take precedence over employees and any possible allergies. I sent my resume and placed a follow-up call the next day; the person I spoke with said they would send a note to the HR department. I saw the ad again a week later and again I sent my resume and placed a follow-up call the next day; this time I was told that they were not hiring. The following Monday I saw the ad a third time, posted at noon on for an Open House at 3PM the same day because they needed to hire immediately.

I walk into the office and introduce myself to the woman at the front desk. She isn’t an employee, so she directs me to another woman a few feet away. Before I can speak with the actual employee, a man walks up to me and says that he will guess my name. I don’t remember what he guessed - Gary or something, damned if I remember - but he wasn’t even close, so he introduces himself as Michael and begins the interview. He starts by explaining that Crazyhouse Office is a Virtual Office that provides reception, secretarial, and mail drop services to companies that want to reduce expenses or cannot otherwise afford office space and/or employees. It is largely a straight-forward call center, except that you handle multiple clients and are expected to be familiar with varying procedures across all accounts.

Michael further explains that the inability to fully research every prospective client occasionally results in scam artists and other unsavory characters perpetrating frauds of varying sorts. In order to protect employees from enraged victims of dishonest clients, employees are required to use pseudonyms on the phone and the mail drop location is not the same as the call center location. People victimized by the clients will never know the real name or location of the operator or operators they spoke with. However, Michael refuses to allow employees to refer to one another by their real names while on the calling floor, so everyone only knows one another by their pseudonym. And because the mailing address is the suite adjacent to Crazyhouse Office with a sign on the door that says “NO ENTRY - USE OTHER DOOR AT [CRAZYHOUSE OFFICE SUITE NUMBER]” with an arrow pointing to the front door of the office, any enraged victim with murderous intent will be directed to the office where they will ask for a pseudonymous person who is only known to other employees by their pseudonym.

The interview continues as Michael looks at my resume and sees that I have a great deal of experience with phone jockey work. He then tells me that he doesn’t like to hire men because they don’t handle irate calls very well. I note that I’ve held several phone jobs without issue and can handle irate calls very well, which was apparently the magic phrase to overcome his highly-illegal gender-based hiring preferences, because then he asks when I can start.

As Michael introduces me to the rest of the office he asks me what my political views are. I’ve just moved to New York, one of the most socially and fiscally liberal states in America, from Tennessee, one of the most socially and fiscally conservative states in America and it did not occur to me that admitting that I was a liberal who voted for Obama would be a terrible, terrible mistake.

Michael tells me that electing Obama is the worst mistake this country has ever made. Michael says that he is liberal himself, but not a Liberal, but also not a Conservative, because he doesn’t like either Democrats or Republicans, because he “doesn’t buy the bullshit.” It sounded as retarded spoken aloud as it does written out here.

As he took me around the office and introduced me to my new co-workers he expanded on his view of the current political landscape, predicting that Americans would be so sick of Obama’s liberal agenda by 2010 that they would vote Republicans back into a majority in both Houses of Congress but Obama would refuse to seat the new Congress and there would be an all out armed revolution.

We return to the front desk where he introduces me to the woman that doesn’t work there, Liz, who it turns out was hired just before I arrived. She was at the front desk (normally occupied by a secretary) reading Michael’s personal blog about whatever paranoid right-wing conspiracy bullshit Michael was up on at the time. Michael says that Liz is also a libertarian like he is who “doesn’t buy the bullshit” and admits to both of us his concern that Obama is going to come after him personally because Michael was personally involved in the investigation that uncovered that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and that the birth certificate issued and certified by the State of Hawaii was not only a fake but that anyone who wants a Hawaiian birth certificate can get one from the Internet. This too sounded as retarded spoken aloud as it does written down.

I didn’t bother to mention the birth announcement from the Honolulu Register published days after Obama’s birth nor the fact that any state that freely issues birth certificates for anyone who wants one would certainly require the intervention of the United States Senate in order to satisfy the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution seeing as a birth certificate is the most important document a citizen can possess.

Michael continues to harangue us with batshit-insane political rants for about 10 or 15 minutes and I don’t even remember how that ended except that I was suddenly riding the F Train home concerned with the very real possibility that I had accidentally joined a cult – and I start tomorrow.

Training Day

Training initially involves studying the various states and time zones of the United States, which are generally things that should be learned in elementary school and I was pretty sure that this was a waste of time and money until later on when a co-worker thought Mexico was a state. Regardless of the value of this exercise, it would be great if it was at the starting hourly pay rate, but training is paid at a flat-rate of fifty dollars per day. Michael emphasizes that training can take anywhere from three days to two weeks, depending on how quickly you pick up the instructions. I spent seven weeks training to phone jockey for Cingular and that was handling clients for one major corporation; Crazyhouse Office has hundreds of clients and I can be on the phone in three days? I don’t see a problem with this.
After a few hours “studying” the various States and their Time Zones, I am given a quick overview of the calling station software and directed to study some accounts. No real direction and/or objectives are given: just study the accounts and at some point someone with experience will show me how to further use the software and the equipment. They will do this when they have the opportunity to stop taking calls; unfortunately there is very little opportunity for anyone to stop taking calls because the office is critically understaffed. After someone found the time to show me how to use the software and equipment, I was again left alone to “study” accounts. Years of experience with phone-based jobs, coupled with not being retarded, allowed me to pick everything up quickly and I was on the phone full-time after three days.

It takes about 45 seconds of speaking with Michael to learn that he is capable of coherent conversation unrelated to Obama/the Socialists/the Marxists’ secret plan to destroy Capitalism/America/the World for a maximum of about 45 seconds. Fortunately it turns out that when you start on the phones full-time, he doesn’t really bother you. I also learned that no one else in the office, aside from Liz, cares about his nonsense. Everyone just nods and smiles and hopes he goes away; this was quite the relief, but I made the critical error of thinking that he will fade completely into the background.

“Crazy Man Michael”

I was initially assigned to a seat by a window; Michael likes to keep the office relatively cool, so he opens the window for fresh air. The cold weather here lasted fairly well into May, so Michael asked if I was okay with sitting by the open window; I said that I was and that I like a cool environment myself. I made the mistake of continuing with small talk by noting that I had just moved to Brooklyn from Tennessee and, while I do like the cool weather, it was kind of depressing that the weather had been so shitty here in New York at the same time the weather back home was mild and dry. This gives Michael an opportunity to let me know that Global Warming is a hoax and here’s how he knows: Newsweek printed an article in the 1970s about some scientists who were concerned about Global Cooling. He pulled up his blog and, from there, a scan of the article which he insisted that I read.

After I read the article, Michael asked what I thought about it. I pointed out that regardless of whether or not the Earth’s temperature is rising as a result of natural climatological cycles or man-made activities, current Global Warming theories are not invalidated by the existence of previous theories that suggest cooling instead of warming. I didn’t bother to mention that the Global Cooling concerns came from a small group of scientists that had misinterpreted a very small amount of data which had long since been debunked or that what little media exposure Global Cooling received at the time was largely a result of standard media sensationalism. Likely expecting some Al Gore-style facts and analysis response that he could counter with more gibberish, Michael didn’t know how to process a rebuttal that discounted his premise entirely and wandered away silently.

Michael’s concern about the “lies of Global Warming” extended to the business itself, as indicated by a press release Michael put out trumpeting the fact that Crazyhouse Office had turned down a potential client who raised funds and awareness for Global Warming due to Global Warming being a hoax. However, he once spent thirty minutes arguing in favor of Evolution with his assistant, so clearly Science is not Michael’s enemy. Amusingly, Michael wasn’t even able to properly argue on behalf of Evolutionary Theory, but I imagine the intricacies of macro- and microevolution elude anyone who thinks Obama is planning to deputize AmeriCorps volunteers as his own private, domestic army. The kind of hippies that join AmeriCorps wouldn’t touch a gun if you taped a bag of pot and incents to it, but certainly Obama will have them running around enforcing orthodoxy.

Michael’s paranoia regarding the Federal Government has driven him to embracing all of the poorly-thought out Libertarian/Neoconservative viewpoints from Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and the rest of the far-right Tea Bagging fringe that lost their goddamned minds when the Scary Black Man With The Funny Name was elected President. He subscribes to theories alleging that the Federal Government has created internment camps for domestic political dissidents under FEMA, a claim which goes back to the early days of the Clinton Administration. Michael repeatedly charges that President Obama is a socialist trying to destroy capitalism and is at the same time controlled by Wall Street financiers. Michael demanded that anyone who received the Swine Flu vaccine let him know so that he can stay away from them because the government is trying to killing citizens with either the Swine Flu or the vaccine or both. I will give Michael credit for one prediction: he claimed some months ago that Obama would declare the Swine Flu a national emergency. He also predicted that Obama would force everyone to take the vaccination. He was also outraged that the Swine Flu vaccine contained live germs, which is generally how vaccination works.

His social skills are greatly retarded in the clinical sense of the word; he doesn’t seem to have the ability to differentiate between what is and is not appropriate behavior, especially in the workplace. To a large degree his inability to understand appropriate behavior isn’t even regarding what most people would consider morally offensive so much as the wrong time and place. Michael was storming around the calling floor one morning, upset about something Obama did or didn’t do, repeatedly bellowing “this President is dogshit.” Later that same day, Michael reprimanded an employee for saying “fuck” too loudly because “the callers might hear it.” In fact, Michael does most of his interoffice communication by storming around the calling floor, bellowing instructions to people who should be focused on speaking with callers, rather than using email or Instant Messenger.

Michael’s paranoia leads to him running what I assume is an entirely legitimate business like a Mafia front. I uncovered the Global Warming press release as I was doing Google searches to learn more about my employer, who used an entirely different name on the press release as he does for running Crazyhouse Office. Michael would turn up with a third name later in the story. Crazyhouse Office actually operates under two different names with a payroll under an entirely different company registered in the state of Florida and at one time had an office in Nevada that Michael never mentioned.

What Michael knows about the imaginary world doesn’t translate well to Crazyhouse Office; he rarely seemed familiar with much about any of our clients, call volume, or the constant need for new equipment. The best example of Michael’s poor familiarity with what actually goes on with the office is when he hired too many people in response to a temporary spike in call volume. The call volume was for a client that was working on a Federally-mandated deadline, after which they would no longer need Crazyhouse Office’s services. But all Michael knew was that call volume was through the roof, so he frantically hired eight new employees, four of which would start the following week; the remaining four would start two weeks later. There was not enough equipment for the first group to go live when their training was complete, so they received an extra week of “training” while Michael took the opportunity during the downtime to force both classes of new hires to watch online videos explaining President Obama’s Secret Plan to Destroy the World in great detail.
Once the first class took the phones it became apparent that call volume would not require the office to retain half of the new hires, so Michael fired the entire second class. Instead of just admitting that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, he made a big production of telling the people he terminated that The office was being forced to downsize because of a new tax that President Obama had just signed into law and then went so far as to inform one of the veterans that he was also going to have to fire some of the people who had just started. I assured my coworker that Michael was full of shit; accordingly there was no tax that had been signed into law nor were any of the first class of new hires fired.

Continued in Part Two!

Friday, December 04, 2009

Don't Call it a Comeback.

What a six months!

So I think I'm back now. I'm not exactly sure that I'm back, but I think I'm back.

My professional life has been a nightmare since July because of a change in leadership in my department. I have purposely been avoiding posting on here because of my tendency to engage in long-winded (but well-argued) rants about people I don't like and I didn't want to have any fodder out there should things really go tits up. Well, I signed my "parole document" today transferring me to another unit through the end of my contract. I feel as giddy as New Jack at the end of the Heatwave 99 pay-per-view.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how incompetent people can land a job and then continue in that job for more than a few weeks. This is especially true in a radically difficult economy. For the past two years, my unit built up a small operating surplus of just under 100K, all of which carried over into the current fiscal year. This was while other units were laying off people, implementing across the board hiring freezes, and pulling printers out of people's offices to save paper and power. To show an operating surplus and still be effective, which upper management repeatedly told us were were, was amazing.

So things are good and then this yahoo comes in and the first thing they say is "We can't show an operating surplus! If we show that we have excess funds, they won't give us any new funds from central accounting!"

I went absolutely nuts, especially since I was pretty much responsible for running the tight budget and building this up in the first place. The new boss was not affiliated with the institution (and I'm being purposely vague here) before but was well aware that the budget cuts had been going on for the last few years. They were hellbent on doing acting like Andy Dick in a titty bar. Even though I argued against it until I was blue in the face, it happened. Two things came out of it:

1) I was tagged as "resistant to change." I became "the cloud that ruins the entire office and brings everyone down." I made it on to the "list" of the new boss, who turned out to be an extremely vindictive person and didn't really care if anyone under them kept their jobs or not.

2) They spent our entire operating surplus in roughly 6 weeks. We have an amazing new color copier that we don't need that will damn near press a suit and stir a martini. We have some really great remote control presentation mice. Some employees got some good travel perks. We had to really struggle for things to spend this money on, and some of it was completely absurd.

Then guess what happened?

Central Accounting didn't fulfill the new boss's supplemental budget! Well of course not! This is the same institution that cut janitorial services to three days a week and you think they are going to give you money a) after you blew a sizable chunk on shit we didn't need and b) they barely have any money for basic operations to begin with!?! I was absolutely livid when this came down. We were damn lucky that they didn't cut us an additional 100k because we weren't good stewards of company funds. If they had done that, I really couldn't have blamed them.

Of course we had pointed out that this would happen, but hey, the new boss knew more than we did because they were the new boss. They liked to tell us that on a regular basis.

So we all got off on the wrong foot. This was especially true when the first staff meeting under their tenure took 2 hours. We have five people in the meeting and it took 2 blasted hours. That in and of itself is a criminal offense, but it went on by.

Then, their ego started coming in. This person literally (with completely no hyperbole) had to be the center of the office. All of our existence at work had to run through them and they had to be involved in every decision no matter how small. Every morning started with this elaborate ritual of greeting where they came by our offices (or if we walked by their office early in the AM) and they would go through this exaggerated "GOOD MORNING! HOW ARE YOU?" in the fakest-ass voice you can imagine. There were at least two moments that I had a physically noticeable cringe reaction when I heard it. If you were having a bad day or you just didn't want to chat they MADE you chat with them. If you didn't, you might get tagged as being a "cloud in the office," which was apparently a sin right up there just above murdering the pope. The boss wanted you to know that they were there, they were ready to tell you exactly what to do and not listen to any feedback, and you had damn well better like it. If you didn't talk to them, you got put on the list.

I think I stayed in the number 1 spot on that list from roughly mid-August through November. It didn't help that they also cut/transferred two of my colleagues nearly immediately. I'm the third one out the door, and I'm tickled to death.

I'll have more stories about this later, but for now, I'm back.

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The Universal Scientific Truths

1) There are two kinds of people in this world: those that suck dick and those that don't. 2) Stupid people don't know they're stupid. 3) Play to get paid. 4) Somedays you get the elevator, somedays you get the shaft. 5) Never say more'n you have to. 6) Never ask a question unless you are prepared for the answer. 7) Books are fucking heavy. 8) The board is dead. 9) Titties uber alles! 10) Correlation does not imply causation. 11) The world is not enough. 12) Hook the leg.

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