2002-09-29
saturday, september 28 - So things are strangely different right now, but in a more-or-less good way. I quit my stupid job. Under the delusion that it wouldn't be that hard to find another paycheck in two weeks if I really busted my ass, I left Alan holding my quotas in Vancouver. And I don't care. I really don't.

Dary had a party on Labor Day. I got pretty fucking stinky. I gave Alan a real hard time about a project for which I wanted him to lay down some simple drum tracks. But Alan is the type of putz who makes excuses for everything, much the same way I do, but he has a tendency to ridicule that which he doesn't understand. That annoys me. There's a difference between poking fun and making ridecule. I like to think I poke fun. And because Alan is the type to ridecule, he took my drunken jabbing as such. He's been a cranky bitch ever since.

There's nothing I can point to as an example of his suddenly treating me differently after that night. It was never direct. It was never diliberate. He would just pull rank on me every chance he got while everyone else pulled shit. It's just the little things. While Jared, Steve or any female in the office could do anything they wanted, he never passed up a chance to let me know that, as my supervisor, he was very annoyed with me. As my supervisor. That's the part that bothers me.

Now, before you go telling me about work ethic and that I ought to do my job like it was any other job, let me tell you to shut up. This was never a job. It was always an inbetween paycheck that afforded everyone time to look for something else. Taking meaningless surveys in the mall is not something to be taken seriously. Think of it as an alternative to state unemployment. It just became too comfortable to work very hard at finding something else.

Of course we all have a work ethic. None of us ever liked making up surveys. In fact, everybody hated it. We couldn't finish the work we were given, whether is was too much work for too few people, not enough time in the day, or impossible demographic quotas. But we all have a certain amount of integrity we'd like to keep intact, and faking the work isn't part of that. It's like using the cheat codes on a video game; it takes all the challenge, and therefor the fun, out of playing. You try to find a mother of a 6 - 8 year-old girl or boy, who's been to the theater at least once in the past two months, who owns a DVD player, buys most of the household videos on DVD at a price range above $12.95 within the last twelve months. Find six of those people at the mall who are willing to answer mundane and repetitive questions for 15 minutes. Then find six dads of the same criteria.

Thursday I showed up for work and found out I would be working in Vancouver all by myself looking for:

Males, ages 13-17, 18-24, 25-35

Females, ages 13-17, 18-24, 25-35

For two different versions of some stupid "Armageddon" rip-off, I had to find people who passed the screener questions and fit these age groups. I solicited every teenage idiot and middle-aged woman who passed through the deadened mall for three hours straight. Those were the only people there. I think I got four surveys done.

Here's why this is - so far - the stupidest job I've ever had. I had twelve to do. At four bucks a pop, I would work eight hours of my day (six standing in a mall) for $48, before taxes! Not quite worth my time. Alan said there may be more work coming in, and, if there was, he'd follow me out later in the day with it. I'm thinking that was a little bit a bullshit. Just a little. I called him and asked him about it. No extra work....

Now here's where it all went downhill. My recollection of the conversation was my asking him whether he was going to follow me out there, as in, "Oh, there's no extra work? Are you coming out here?" I don't remember if those were the words that came out of my mouth. Probably not. But I know he had no intention of ever coming out there anyway, even though he was scheduled to. Really, not a big deal. Until he showed up.

Standing around the mall for four hours by yourself getting all kinds of lame rejections from retarded rednecks will take a toll out of your morale. My only consolation was the guy at the baseball hat store. He and I were bullshitting when Alan showed up. I think Alan's hair was much shorter that it had been that morning. Anyway, his panties were tied in a knot up his ass when he saw me talking to the baseball hat guy. He got in my face like he was my dad, and all I could do was laugh. He takes that job way too seriously for somebody who says he wants to be a professional musician.

But this was the last time I was going to let him pull that disciplinarian routine with me. This is the guy who taught me, by example and by instruction, how to fuck off on the job. Our second day working together, he and I sat in a coffee shop making up surveys all day. He was also there with Jared and Steve while we all discussed extremely disgusting subject matter instead of recruiting interviewees. I didn't ask him to bail me out for twelve lousy surveys. He was scheduled to be there whether he liked it or not. Fuck him. I walked out. I left him there with the rest of the work I didn't finish. Because fuck him, that's why.

I know I get in a funk often, and my general attitude towards the rest of the world is less than rosie. I don't think I've ever complained that my bullshit job was too much work. I've never complained that my immediate supervisor is taking too long to quit so I can have his job and sit around doing "nothing" all day. For the past two weeks, this is all Alan the Bitch has bitched about. I don't need that.

"And don't come back" is the last thing I heard him say. *??!!* Poor guy. Of course I came up with a psycho-analysis on the way home (just to make myself feel better). Alan will eat corporate shit at a managerial level because the authority makes him feel like one of the brass; or at least makes him feel like he's above the rest of us. Then, out of spite, he'll wield that authority towards anyone he doesn't rely on socially, because he knows he'll never be one of the brass. They will always shit on him just like any other manager in the company. The brass are rumored to be taking a bachelor party vacation to Mexico. (Gawd, how I hope someone they know reads this.) None of us can afford a road trip to the beach, let alone Mexico. Everyone hates this situation. Enron? Worldcom? Unions don't sound so bad now, do they, you zombie middle-class suburban fuckos? But it's the American way, isn't it? You start a business to make money. You hire workers to make money for you. You get rich. They don't. That's the melting pot for ya. Like it or not, this ain't socialism. I can accept that. That's why I walked away from it instead of complaining about it like Alan does.

I felt terrible. I honestly did. I wasn't sure if I was right or wrong. How ass is that to walk off a job and leave a day's work for someone else to pick up? Well, everything happens for a reason. If it had been anybody else, I would have finished the day and given my two weeks when I got back to the office. But for some reason, I felt like making Alan taste the shit that he seems so hungry for. He wants to manage a worthless office so bad; here, chew on this, Bitch. How bad do you want to oversee a crew of people who will do that to you every month? Because when Dary and Jennifer are gone, that's what he'll have to deal with. I have a feeling the party is winding down. The Crew is getting to old for that kind of shit. We need jobs with bennefits. And when the survey gig becomes just slightly less comfortable, those people will get off their asses and find something else to do.

Eat it, Chachie.

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