The Starting Over

Starting over. You've decided to start over. Not only now, but in the future as well. You'll be doing a lot of starting over from here on out.

You like starting over. It makes you feel nice and clean. Like a newly freshly diapered baby.

See, that's what starting over is all about. It's all about nonsense and bad metaphors...or similes...or whatever, and using the adverb forms of words for absolutely no fucking reason whatsoever.

Plus, you have today off from your shit job, so starting over is easier today. You had yesterday off too. So, starting over has pretty much spanned two days already.

Sweet.

You know that phrase, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? Yeah, well, starting over is a lot like that phrase except not so fucking lame. A phrase like "titfdotroyl" (that's what you'll call that phrase from now on) is something a douchebag would pull from his or her ass while catching a bus home from his or her AA meeting and/or massage parlor, so it's not really like that, but it's on the right track.

You see, starting over involves a lot less "give a shit" than "titfdotroyl". And it involves a lot more "fuck this shit" than "titfdotroyl".

Is that clear?

OK, so it's settled. I'm starting over.

The Socializing At Work

This morning, you realized one of the major reasons you hate your job and the company you work for:

There is absolutely no socializing where you work…at least not for you…or your peers. You know nothing about the people you work with. Well, other than the one douchebag who sits next to you and talks constantly about Star Wars between calls.

The manager and supervisors seem to have endless time to gab, and make bland, humorless, pseudo-work-related comments to each other, and then endlessly fake laugh with a lot of volume to let everyone know how fun they are to work with. However, you can tell that the second they walk out the front door, they forget that the people at Castcom even exists.

Anyone at work that you actually had a rapport with (Luke, Blong, Chuck, Riz, etc.) has either quit, been fired, or (in the case of Annette, and your friend heavy-metal Rick) has been moved to the other side of the building where you never see them.

Your previous jobs were far from perfect (boy, is that an understatement), but at least you met people there that you actually knew OUTSIDE OF WORK, and that you actually enjoyed socializing with. In fact, you're still friends with many of the people you met at other jobs.

But, at your current job, it’s just: walk in the door; talk to douchebags all day about things that are either their own damn fault, or something you can’t really do anything about; eat lunch; talk to more douchebags; go home.

Castcom is a sterile, impotent, ugly, and depressing place.

The Top-Five Worst Public Reputations of American Corporations

You hate your employer. It's a shame that you continue slaving away for such an evil corporation. What's your problem?

It was recently reported that your employer is one of the top-five American corporations with the worst public reputations. And you can report that they definitely deserve it.

If you weren't three beers deep, and getting up early to rollerblade, you'd explain further.

The Jack SHit Disappointing Blog

Why is it that you have so much to blog about all day long, but the minute you have a free second, and you do mean second, or perhaps 60 or 90 seconds, you can't think jack shit to blog about?

The Brother-In-Law's Jaw

So, your brother-in-law got decked by some guy, and had to have surgery today, because his jaw is broken.

He went to a College World Series game, and went out for a drink afterwards at a bar in the Old Market. And, supposedly, as he was waiting for some friends outside, some random dude punched him.

It just doesn't add up. You're pretty sure he said something to someone, and then he got decked. You want to think this was all not his fault, but you have to admit that you've always thought your sister could do better. Not that he's a bad guy. He just seems to end up in situations where he gets, thrown out of a bar, or running a stop sign, or getting slugged. It's his M.O.

You'd think that you'd get along with him considering that you're no fucking saint, or genius, or a success in any way whatsoever. Uhg. And you don't not get along with him...really.

Face it. It would be worse if your sister had married someone much better, because then he'd probably look down on YOU, and write in his blog what a loser HIS brother-in-law is. And his bog would probably be much better than yours.

The Update On the Guy At Work Who Is Never At Work

Yeah, he left early again yesterday. This time he didn't even bother telling us he was leaving. He just called the douchebags in Resource Management, said he had a headache, or the sniffles, or whatever, and then walked out the door.

Seriously.

If it weren't so fucking ridiculous, it would be funny. If the guy didn't annoy you so fucking much, it would be hilarious.

Yesterday, during the short time he was actually at work, he asked you if you were a gamer. You said no, but he went off on a nerdy retard rant about "newbs" anyway.

Please, kill you. No, wait...kill him...not you.

The Layoffs

Sweetie and you are in trouble.

Sweetie's employer, let's call them Tillips & Phemro, has been laying people off left and right. Yesterday, they had a company-wide meeting, and they announced they're going to start outsourcing a lot of their work to China.

Jeezus. What a crock.

Tillips & Phemro is a small, laid-back company that manufactures engine-block heaters. Sweetie does admin work for them, and she's been there since she was in high school.

You always thought Tillips & Phemro sounded like a nice place to work, but you also wondered how they made any money. Their website sucks, and they spend tons of money on fun frivolous, catered parties for their employees with open bars and karaoke sing-alongs. All the employees get every holiday off with pay, and they even get a lot of fake holidays off. For example, Sweetie had Good Friday off every year with pay, and she also got the Monday AFTER Easter off with pay...and Sweetie isn't even Catholic.

During the warm months (when no one orders block heaters), most of the staff twiddle their thumbs from 8 - 5, with an hour break for lunch.

Well, that's all over. Two different CEO's, and one CFO have "resigned" in the past couple months. A new guy was recently hired to run the place, and he got all corporate nazi on their asses, and battened down the hatches.

Now, everyone's afraid to take a shit without asking first, and the pink slips are raining down like confetti.

Sweetie's worried she's next on the chopping block.

You're worried that you hate your own job too much to support the both of you. Plus, you're a broke douchebag with the resume of a cockroach on acid.

And Tillips & Phemro have been complete douchebags about the layoffs too. For example, the sucky website you mentioned above. Well, they've had a marketing person working on a new website for months, and the minute she finished the project...she was axed.

"Hey, thanks for all your hard work. You're fired!"

Side note: Sweetie thinks the new website is hilarious, because it has all these pictures of people...well, pictures of models acting and posing like people...that DO NOT work at Tillips & Phemro.

Also, the website still sucks.

So, at this point, you pretty much just consider anyone who calls the Castcom tech support line an idiot.

You hate them all. The legit ones...well, you just feel sorry for them, but they're still idiots.

It's impossible to put what you see into words.

Right now, you're lying in bed, looking out the small attic window above your head, and, above you, the sky is lit by a bright 3/4 moon, and small purple clouds are floating by, and, between them, you can see stars.

You should have been asleep long ago, but you keep staring at that small bit of dark sky you can see through the window.

There's one bright star in the center of it all. Twinkling. It's probably a planet. What the hell do you know? Go to sleep.

The Steak and Eggs

OK, in the spirit of making this blog a place where people can go to feel better about their own lives...

Your latest white trash purchase is a tabletop propane camp grill. It cost you less than twenty bucks. You've used this grill every night since you brought it home from Menards. Well, except last night when Sweetie treated your broke ass to dinner at Shiraz Fire Roasted Cuisine, which was awesome, BTW. (Yes, you are a serious carnivore. You can't even take one night off.) You want to go there again on a Saturday night when they have belly dancers, which totally gives you an opportunity to put a gratuitous hot picture of Rachel Brice in this post, because you enjoy pictures of Rachel Brice. You may start putting pictures of her in posts completely unrelated to belly dancing.

So, yeah, you make a nightly run to Cub Foods where you buy meat. And then you stand over your little grill in the back yard and cook the meat. The other night you marinated a whole skirt steak, and since then you've been having leftover skirt steak with your eggs for breakfast.

That's right. Steak and eggs for breakfast every morning people. Living like a king here in the Twin Cities.

The Hobo Expressway

You are so glad you have the day off today. This is one of the nicest days ever. Blue sky. Big puffy white clouds. Cool breeze. Perfect temperature.

You've spent the day blading. You just came back home to make some lunch, and to watch Maury, of course. Also, you have to put on some sun block, because your arms are already red, red, red.

Today, you decided to skate the Midtown Greenway and the Southwest LRT. AKA the "bum freeway". AKA the "hobo highway". AKA the "vagabond expressway". It's the stretch of connecting trails that make it easier for rouges and tramps to get from one end of Minneapolis to the other with their carts full of empty aluminum cans and bottles.

The Guy At Work Who Is Never At Work

So, you work with this douchebag. Let's call him Aaron Douchebag. And he's the type of guy who stays fat, and he talks with a lisp, and has crooked teeth. He plays with his Star Wars cards in between tech support calls, because he can't stop until he's become a complete dweeb in the eyes of his peers.

He started about 6 - 8 weeks ago, and he's annoyed you ever since.

Anyway, for the past two weeks, his desk has been deserted, and you had no idea what was going on. All you know is that he left one afternoon about an hour after arriving for work because his "allergies were acting up" and he needed to leave.

Even your lead, John Douchebag, was completely clueless as to the whereabouts of Aaron Douchebag. In fact, John asked you if you knew what happened to Aaron Douchebag, and you just shrugged.

Well, yesterday, he came back to work. He arrived at the start of his shift at 2 PM. At 3:30 PM, he logged off his phone, stood up, and stated, "I have a headache. I'm going home." And then he was gone again.

Not to brag, but you have perfect attendance at work, and you want to call in sick every day, because you really hate your job. Your question is: Why isn't this guy fired yet?

The Reoccuring Dream About Missing Class

So, you've been having this reoccurring dream.

You're taking classes...at a college...or a university. Sometimes it's a college or university you actually attended in your past, sometimes it's a college you'd never get into, sometimes it's a shitty community college that anyone could get into.

Sometimes you're college age, and you're a full-time student. Sometimes you're the age you are now, and you're just taking a couple classes for fun. Sometimes you're taking a couple classes because you need to for a very important reason which you're not really clear in you're waking world.

What's the same in every dream is that you've done well in all classes...except one.

In fact, it's 3/4 through the semester, and you've completely forgotten to attend that class, and it's too late to make up the work for the class, and way too late drop the class, so you're fucked. Sometimes it's that you forgot you registered for the class. Sometimes it's that the class moved and you just never bothered to find it again. Sometimes you just didn't go at first, because you thought the class would be easy, but then got carried away with skipping it to the point where you never attended the class.

And even though you've done very well in the other classes, this one class is going to ruin your academic career.

The Interview You're Not Prepared For

You have a job interview today.

You had very little time to prepare considering your supervisor delayed the approval of your transfer request until a few days ago, and HR needs to find someone immediately, and they've already been doing interviews, and they've been waiting six weeks to find out whether or not you'd be one of those interviews.

You did what you could, but you are not prepared.

You need to be at Hair Police at noon for a haircut. You need to buy a suit before noon. Your interview is at 3:30 PM.

David Douchebag delayed the transfer request for six weeks. What a joke. Something that takes two minutes. At worst, it should take ten minutes.

You spent six weeks not knowing whether or not you'd be given an interview. You could have prepared, but what if it had been a waste of time in the end? Is that the wrong attitude?