Just like that it comes up and bites you in the throat, this corporate shit they sling your way
And I have had on several occasions thought to myself as I walked in the door...you're a lucky son of a bitch you think these guys still want you around. You could say that for just about anything I suppose. You're lucky these people even want you around, you say. But you go to the show anyway because it's where you are at. It's street cred, if nothing else. It doesn't make you who are, but it's something you know how to do. But then the boredom sets it, the discontent, the happiness that you have a place to go everyday. I ask myself often if this is living. It's not hell. Far from that. You've been to hell and you're trying not to go back... hell is a shattered state of the mind, the core of selfishness, where you are a shell. Anyway, it's not hell. Until you feel it wrap its tight talons around the base of your neck like it's been. Soft. Soft place in the heart of the concrete landscape... The quiet, nothing going on, you're biding time there. Trying to make things look like youre busy. They said that something like 250,000 lost their jobs last year. I mean, fine, the news is depressing, and to say so is not news. It's all yellow journalism. We read it, watch for confirmation. Or gratitude, depending on which side of the envelope you want to write. But looming in this environment we see that jobs are scarce, it's a bitch and not a bull market. Act like you're busy, act like its your purpose. The question is which percentage of those 250 thou were acting like they had a purpose, like they were producers. Those are the real tragedies. They went to work everyday to please somebody and something and it just wasn't enough. Or something had to be done. I'm not in that class. I still earn a paycheck because I didn't leave, decided I would stay until they made me, or until I just up and decided to make another move. I can't admit that entirely but every now and then it shows... not here for anything but plug the time that will wind up into my bank account. There for dollars. At one point it was different. In the beginning the light at the end of the tunnel was a train. I couldn't stand it because I never had my feet under me. I wasn't just passing time. I was trying not to drown. I tried to take a job at my last employer that would land me serious dollars. And it would have. If I had any skill at it. If I had had any inkling of how make it work for me. I would have cleared something like 40 thou. I was living in a shithole apartment in the city and with that money I could have probably rented or bought a house. But it wasn't right for me. It was a bitch deal when they needed me to be a bulldog out of the gate. So I flopped. Then I got this gig and training seemed like enough, until I hit the floor and then...then it was rough sailing...lots of shit to remember, lots of people to please, and if you didn't remember it, you were in trouble. But somewhere someway over about a year I felt things clicking. I wasn't dreading going to work in the morning. I was starting to like it... they gave me projects, assignments, responsibilities. I mastered a few things that were valuable. I was making it work. I fit in. For a short time, until I balked at the wrong assignment. I said, I'm not sure if I want to be doing this ALL the time. Not without a little extra incentive, what is my incentive? How will I be graded when this is part of someone else's job. All the little wormy things you say when you just really want to know the answer to the question, how am I gonna get mine?? Stockading, bivouacing. Waiting for the apocalypse. Summer break, what above my 401K wilt thou bequeath unto me. Selfish to the core. The slip from purgatory back into hell, greed.
Anyway, I'm entirely sick of this story. It's been my story the last couple years, until... I fell soft. I went back into the underbrush, trying to hide. And within the last couple weeks, a total meltdown. This shit is not that difficult really. Not at all. Unless you aren't paying attention, unless you are asleep at the wheel. Then, shit gets tough. You have to put out fires again, you've gotta surf instead of merely wade. You're running for your life so you don't join the ranks of the 250 thou. You can't afford that, you won't make rent. You won't be able to breathe and you will begin to panic. You'll look at banks in that special way, you'll be calculating bank vault volume. You'll need to have a gun which is the last thing anybody wants. It'd be like having a pack of cigarettes when you're trying to quit. You'll carry it with you everywhere. Just in case. Suddenly, you're putting out fires again. You're bargaining with your chips, you tell them anything just to get them off your back. You tell half-truths. You twist it in your favor. I told them today how I gave someone a chunky rate because that's all there was but someone else found something that saved $300...I said they okayed it. They didn't even put up a fight. They hadn't but I don't know where I got the price, how I got the price. Why, you'd practically have to be asleep at the wheel not to see that it was something fishy. I stuttered, stammered through it, I didn't know where it came from.