fuck this job.com

Hello folks. It's been about three years since I quit my last sucky job. Since then, I've been living off my savings and producing an animated film "Big MOD Blows."

All my rants and complaints about "jobs," "corporate America," "the military-industrial complex," "do-nothing bosses and coworkers," and the "worthless government" have been put into this satirical film. So I guess something useful came out of all my crappy jobs.

If you're bored at your jobs, take a look at the film and have a laugh (warning adult language and content):

http://home.earthlink.net/~areyouguystwins/

OR

Hello folks. I haven't posted here in awhile because 1) I'm not employed with a "real job" and 2) I've been busy producing an aminated film that deals with the American workplace.

I've taken all my crappy experiences in my many jobs and written a screenplay that is now becoming an animated film. Pretty cathartic for me I tell you. Also, the film has to do with the current state of the USA, so it's a political film too.

Take a look at the trailer here (NOTE INCLUDES ADULT LANGUAGE):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9c38Rz_4Ug

Two words I thought I would never hear together, let alone in an interview ... said seriously.

Yes, my last interview was yet another doozy. This time it was for a company that makes diapers. As I was sitting there listening to the "VP of something" ramble on about how he knew nothing about whether the company's files were automated or whether they used a central database, he spouted out something about "diaper penetration." Lordy, I perked up at that comment and started smiling and was about to laugh when I realized he was serious. The company is looking for diaper penetration worldwide, which means increased sales ... not quite what I was thinking it meant. Silly me, I'm so juvenile.

To add to my boomer rant, here's a NYTimes article that talks about people dropping out (mostly xers and those on the cusp). When there are no jobs because the boomers have everything locked up, all you can do is drop out. Enjoy.

"Millions of American men in the "prime of their lives" are unemployed by choice, according to a front page story set for Monday's edition of The New York Times."

"Millions of men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55, have dropped out of regular work," report Louis Uchitelle and David Leonhardt for The Times first article in its "New Gender Divide" series. They are turning down jobs they think are beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work."

It seems the mainstay of American jobs is for everyone to look so busy they don't have time to do anything. Yes, at the jobs I've had, everyone else was always so "very busy," so swamped, so short-handed, etc. Work was always at "the bottom of the pile somewhere." Emails sent weeks ago were never opened "because the mailbox was full." Phone calls never returned because "there's no time."

Well I can honestly say in all the jobs I've had, and I've had a shitload, the only job I was busy in was the fast food manager job. And even at that job I wasn't so busy that work never got done.

No, in fact at most of my jobs I was bored after the first hour. That is probably because unlike my busy bee coworkers, I automated my job from day one and refused to reinvent the wheel for every little thing that came up. Most people just stumble from task to task, not realizing that they are wasting time doing the same mistakes over and over.

Alright, I went on an interview the other day. I knew what to expect and was not disappointed. Yes, the interviewers did live up to, and surpassed, my low expectations of them.

While they rambled on and asked me the same questions over and over, I finally said "you know what, not only are you interviewing me, but I am interviewing you also to see if I want to work here." Boy, you should have seen the slack-jaws from that comment. They looked at me like I had just killed a puppy. Then to follow up that heresy, I said "oh, I should have told you sooner, I can guarantee you that I will not be working here in five years. So if you want someone who is going to sit in his or her seat for twenty years, hire someone else." Wham! They looked like someone had swiped them across their wide-open slacked jaws. I believe they had never heard someone say that EVER in their lives. The room went silent.

Is it really so hard to set up interviews? Come on, really, it's not like brain surgery or rocket science.

So I am applying for jobs outside my crappy city (which has absolutely no jobs), and have had to deal with two companies in a neighboring state that seem to have their heads in their asses. The first company's HR person calls me, asks me one question and then wants to immediately set up a face-to-face interview that week. I'm thinking, that's weird, since I live 900 miles away. Even weirder, the next day another woman from the same company calls me and I tell her that I'm already working with the HR guy to set up an interview. She says, "oh I didn't know that, and we work in the same dept." Damn! Can you say dysfunction? So, HR guy continues to try to set up an interview and I finally tell him that maybe it'd be better to setup a phone interview first and save everyone time and money. He goes "oh, that's probably a good idea." What, did you not think of the phone interview at all? Are you an idiot? (that's right he is an idiot, he's in HR).

I went to lunch with two people I used to work with at my last job. I've been unemployed (really self-employed on a parttime basis) the last two years, and so I was relaxed, happy, and somewhat interested in seeing how things were going for them at Big MOD.

Man, it is amazing how absolutely nothing changes, ever. They were talking about how management is clueless, the files are a mess, no one does any work, etc, etc. I just sat there the entire time and laughed. I mean, I outright laughed at everything they said, even when they were dead serious. Finally I turned to one of them and said "you don't get it, for some reason you want to do a good job, but workplaces don't care if anything gets done at all. You need to stop caring." I could see that she still didn't understand why I didn't give a hoot about Big MOD's shit-ass business. I told her that good work would only matter if you worked for yourself. Doing good work for other people is a lesson in futility.

Ruby Shooz, the HR psychopath calls me today for a "feel" for this job that I am so qualified for and tells me that not only am I not qualified for that job, that I'm not qualified for any job at her company. Boo hoo! Ruby Shooz, how could you! I'm demoralized that I can't work for such a provincial company that would employ you as a gatekeeper. Mind you, this is a company that called me three weeks ago to set up a "time to talk" and then refused to call me back after I gave them the times to call me. Ruby Shooz only called me because I sent her a snarky email saying why hadn't she called if she said she would.

Ok. So I'm applying for parttime jobs so that I can eat and still write my screenplays. Well, WTF, what is the deal with providing your social security number (aka national ID number for those not fortunate enough to live in the hell that is the USA) on the application? No fucking way! I barely provide that number to employers after I'm hired, I'm certainly not going to do it before.

Oh yes, I'm going to list my name, address, phone number, and SSN on a piece of paper and then give it to the gang-banger moron at the customer service desk, who can subsequently steal my identity. Screw it. It's not my problem that there are so many illegal aliens in this country that "we need to see your papers please!"

Ok, if you've read any of my shit you know by now I'm a loser who has been unemployed for quite some time. And yes, during my "time-off" from the real FTJ world, I have been thinking about going into business for myself. I know I will never be able to work in the corporate world ever again, let alone any world that requires me to interact with workplace drones.

Here's the deal though, the only thing I want to do is write screenplays. That's it. That's all I've ever wanted to do. I want to sit in my hermitage and write oscar-winning screenplays, sell them for big bucks, and let other people do all the work in producing them. Then I'm on to the next screenplay. That's my dream job. Oh, and I can see everyone's eyes rolling right now thinking "is Napoleon living in a fucking dreamworld? You can't make money doing that." Why yes, I do live in a fucking dreamworld, and please don't wake me up from it.

Ok, for everyone that is still employed and not looking to find a new job, put on your imagination cap and help me with this situation.

What should I do with the next rejection letter that comes my way? Now, usually I don't even open them and just throw them out. But I'm thinking it's time to have a little fun with the dreaded "Rejection Letter." See, I should be getting one next week from the last interview from hell where "Poodle Head" the HR lady, was having an internal battle with the head hunter, which means that no way in hell she was going to hire someone qualified (aka "me").

So, when Poodle Head's rejection letter comes, pug66er recommends that I just fold it up unopened, put it in a new envelope and send it right back to Poodle Head. I'll include my return address so she sees that it wasn't a postal non-delivery error. That might freak her out somewhat, but maybe I can do something even weirder?

While we're on the subject of Americans and slavery (aka "jobs"), let me burst the bubble that is called the "American Dream." For those of you lucky enough not to live in the fascist US of A, the "American Dream" is the crock of shit they feed to you from birth that says if you "work hard enough, you can get ahead in life!" Also, the add-on to the "AD" is that if "you go to college and get a degree, you will be rewarded with high paying jobs and an upper-middle class lifestyle!"

False, false and false. Working hard has nothing to do with obtaining money and comfortable lifestyle. If so, why aren't all those chinese working hard in the rice pads or Nike factories all billionaires! On the flip side, why aren't all those non-working politicians living in mud huts scraping dirt to eat? Bah, because the American dream is shit someone thought up to keep the American worker in his/her place.

Do you want to know why Americans are afraid to say "fuck this job?"

It's because of health care. See, in America businesses are supposed to provide health care as part of the benefits package. The government provides nothing, except a bunch of liars in the White House and a useless war on Iraq (oops I mean war on terror, yeah that's it). Yes, we have it ass-backwards in America, you need a job for health care, but if you get sick, and can't work, then you lose your health care benefits. Makes perfect sense no?

Well it makes perfect sense in the bizarro world that is America. In fact, I read this quote which sums up this whole deal: "To hell with health care as we know it in America, which is to say as a tool used to blackmail every working person in this country. Better to work less, own less and escape the plague of blackmailers." That's it, American workers are blackmailed into staying in shitty jobs simply because without those crappy jobs they'd have no health care.

So I don't understand the mentality of a "seat sitter."

A seat sitter is a person who is content to sit in his or her seat at a crappy job just so one day that person can collect a "pension," which by the way will no longer be there for the seat sitter since ALL companies are deleting pensions from their benefit packages.

A seat sitter has no initiative to do a good job, its only goal is to occupy a seat 8 hours a day, so the boss man can see what a model employee it is because it is sitting in its seat. Bonus, if the seat sitter can sit in the seat more than 8 hours a day, even if it only searched ebay for 8.5 of those hours and no work was done whatsoever.