Firing Things

[digitaldiscipline]

'tis the season for things to be fired around Ye Olde Eff Ell, and, in the spirit of sharing,

October 25th, 1997.



I should have shot myself then. Instead, in search of "valuable work

experience," I accepted a position in a town I'd never heard of in an

office of fifteen people trying to support five thousand

frequently-fucked customers.



The trepidation and indecision I felt leading up to that phone call

should have warned me. The fact that the woman conducting my interview

couldn't give me directions from the nearest major airport and used the

phrase, "It's a really big brick building - you can't miss it" to get me

to the office and interview site should have clued me in.



The fact that the best apartment I found was at the end of a mile of

dirt road on top of a fucking mountain should have driven the point

home.



I said "Yes" anyways.



And I have regretted doing so almost continuously ever since.



I said yes to forty hours a week of being berated by customers

infuriated by the incompetence of my company's planning and execution.

Forty hours a week of coping with people who might have had more sense

than fingers, but only just barely. Forty hours a week existing as an

ear, a mouth, and a pair of hands controlled by a brain that wanted

nothing better, ninety-seven percent of the time, than to turn that ear

deaf, give voice to a true word, and strangle the stupid fuck at the

other end of the line, and not being able to do any of those things.



Forty hours a week of having to take it. And one hundred sixty four

hours a week of being in God's own backwash of a town. Roll up the

sidewalks at sunset. No booze for sale on Sunday (how the fuck are you

supposed to watch football?). Inbred redneck assholes as far as the eye

can see, and probably farther.



Until coming here, I'd never been threatened, asked to leave a

restaurant, or felt any kind of despise towards those around me spread

with broad strokes. I've been suspected of being a member of the group

thought to be behind the massacre at Columbine High. I've had my tires

cut. I've felt the drooling hostility from people I was supervising,

the inept contempt of the local authorities, and the bland indifference

of people who I thought were there to help.



I will be the first person to admit I am a bastard to work with on a

personal level - I expect competence from others and expect respect for

my own. But I don't play politics well, so there has never been an

avenue out of the lower legions, regardless of what the company's

promotional policies state. I made my boss's boss uncomfortable because

I never lost my rough edges. If anything, the longer I chafed in a

useless role, the rougher those edges have become. I make no apologies

for who and how I am - I kick ass at my job despite the fact that I

loathe even coming in each morning.



But for three years I have been here - moving from the lowest, most

thankless tier of technical support masochism to something less hateful

but no more fulfilling. I have sacrificed portions of my health (to

allergies), my car (winter + dirt hill = inadequate traction), my

socialization (internet and phone only five days a week, 120 miles to

friends, family, and social events). For what?



A job I detest.



Will I miss it? I think that's abundantly clear. Will I miss the

people? A few, but most of them I feel no obligation to. Hell, I

barely recognize one person in three in this cubicle farm.



For three years. But no longer.



I still don't have "valuable work experience," at least in the sense

that I can go get a job that I'd enjoy without having to prostrate

myself for headhunters or employers. I have career time in jobs I never

want to do again. I have a large cachet of bitterness towards the

nameless, insipid hordes of the online world, the slavering

mouthbreathers that pass for entry-level support personnel once the

barrel has been scraped clean, and product and personnel management

that, when it's not being inertially clueless is actively hostile.



But I have a silver bullet for the abomination. It's just a square of

paper on my cubicle wall, but it says everything I need it to.



October 26, 2000.



So long, and thanks for all the fish.

In the words of a one-time nemesis, to all who need to pull the ripcord and make a change:

Kick Ass.
BE MIGHTY.

Comments

[algernon33.livejournal.com]

BRAVO!

That indeed does Rocketh.

-A33