Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it does. It's funny how all it takes is a couple of words and your life totally alters course. I can now confidently say that if I needed to pay my dues in order to get a job, i've paid them in full 2x over. I don't know if words can truely describe what i'm going through right now. Sorry for being so cryptic, but i'm not ready to share all the details of my situation right now. Maybe at a later date when i'm finished sorting through all this mess. Right now, it would be safe to say that i'm pretty much at the bottom of the barrel, scraping the bits inbetween the planks to keep on going. These past 2-3 weeks have been wild, and that's quite an understatement. I think the best way to describe the what i'm going through right now is think of riding in a car that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds flat (think ferrari), slamming into a boulder, ejecting you out the front window, and having the boulder roll over you.
I guess a little background is in order. I haven't been able to update my blog recently due a crazy chain of events recently. So many things have happened, and i was really struggling to get a handle on my life. My job was something out of a movie really. I think the best way to categorize is would be to think of the movie "Office Space", but without the nice trio of friends. I seriously had some of the worst coworkers you could imagine. I only had 2 real coworkers, and they were seriously coworkers from hell. There was one guy and one girl. The guy was vietnamese, and the girl was Chinese (cantonese). Let me get this disclaimer out first. I have nothing against vietnamese or chinese people. All my high school friends were chinese... so ya, this is not racism. That aside... both were really.... um... short. I think for the girl, no big deal. But the guy was only 5'3"!!! and the girl wasn't much taller than him. He basically had short man complex, top that off with being an only child, and you have recipe for trouble. Top that off with the girl being on perpetual PMS, always moody, b*@#hy, and generally unpleasant, let simmer for 9 months, and they bickered amongst themselves like little kids, fighting over toys. To give you a taste of what it was like at work, the guy would call the girl "monkey spit", continually nag her for her paycheck, would call her at the other office and say "wake up moneky spit", not to mention the corniest/dorkiest jokes known to man. I mean they were so incredibely corny, it's not even worth remembering. My boss was telling a small anecdote about how he had a coupon for subway, 2.99 for a footlong or something like that, and goes into what he thinks is a subway, hands teh coupon over and dictates his order, but the guy says he's in togo's. Funny, yes. Hilarious, no. The guy thought it was the funniest thing he's ever heard. We were walking in the oakland city center, and busts out laughing like there's no tomorrow. Oh ya. his laugh is seirously annoying... it's literally "HA HA HA HA" and the girl cackles like a witch. They truely enjoy bashing on the people they should be consulting. Our job function was to support the local admins and watch over the network and make sure everything was running. Basically, just help the clients cuz they dont' know how to do these things. That's why we're there. They didn't understand the last bit, and just figured everyone was either incompetent or just dumb@$$es. All i would hear about was how bad this person was, how this other person didnt' know didly-squat, this person was annoying, that person was computer illiterate. Um... hello? Can we say anythign nice about anyone? Are you guys for real? You expect me to join your lunch time conversations, bash people i haven't even met, bad mouth the people you want me to? Uh... how old are we? Disgruntled little man if you ask me....
And the girl!!! She didn't know how to do anything gently. She would SLAM the phone back on the receiver, throw the pens down, jerk her papers around. Made me really uneasy everytime i was around her, unknowing if that behavior would transfer over towards me when she talked. They probably thought i was dumb or something since they never bothered to explain anything to me. Hello? This was an entry-level position. I'm not required to know anything. That's what the advertisement said. And I won't know what to do unless you tell me... "just help people". Thanks guys... i feel so well-equiped to go out and be productive in this new environment. And you say i don't "fit in". i don't "match well". It's gonna be like this with everyone you pick unless you decide to help this person along. We can't exactly just start running after coming aboard. There's gotta be some slack you give us to get our bearings, some directions to point us in which direction to run, and some markers that what we're doing is what is expected of us. My training consisted of learning the names of people i should avoid, learning everything in a building that i wouldn't have to work in, and knowing where the bathroom is. Great. I feel so confident now. I can go tackle any problem that comes my way, since knowing where the bathroom is will solve all major computing problems. And you wanted me to ask questions? Sure, if i knew what to ask. I was so clueless during my time at work. Ask anyone who i kept updated while i was at work, namely janet and my parents. I had no idea what i was doing. There were no clear boudaries of what i had to do, nobody said these are you duties and tasks. Just a simple "go to work, help people". Okay... sure. You really know how to make the new guy feel like crap. You have no idea how much i had to bite my lip and control my temper. At one point, i wanted to slap the guy, pissed me off so much. If it's a bad idea, tell me, dont' be a d!ck about it. How am i supposed to know that it's not going to work? I guess they assumed that by just watching his computer screen, i would understand everything he was doing with "monkey spit" cheering him on. "you go..." replied by "I go". Can i shrivel up and die now? I've heard corny, but that's just wrong. All of this, and i wasn't even working there for 2 weeks.
I was talking to Irving earlier, and he heard something on the radio that really hit home. It's sorta paraphrased, but he said that for guys, how we feel at work really makes a difference on how we feel overall. If we feel that we're incompetent at work, we feel the same way about whole lives as well. Obviously, that's not true, but the tendency in guys is that's the way we end up feeling. But in some ways, it's really hard not to feel that way. I've been pounding the pavement for 10 months looking for a job, and it seems that i'm all outta luck right now. Sure, it's not my fault. I just graduated in the right major at the absolute worst time. I used to imagine what it would be like to be working, what i would be doing on the job and what not while i was still in school. These days, getting a job has been almost like searching for Atlantis. I know a job is out there... but it's been so long, I don't know what it would be like to be working anymore. Add these past 2 weeks into the mix, and I really don't know. My life has been so much drama... i just wish that it would just settle down and some some semblance of order and reason to it all...
God, give me strength...
