fuck this job.com

My life has been a steady, downhill progression for some time. My father dies of prostate cancer at age 48, and no one sees fit to notify me until after he's dead (my step-mother hates me). Then my grandfather dies. Then my job starts sucking (reference earlier blogs for more information) and now my grandmother is about to undergo a quadruple bypass and a valve replacement.

Today was my second day with my assistant/replacement, who I will simply call Limp Dick. To date, LD has not made eye contact with me once yet. On his first day, he effectively demanded root FTP access and a copy of all the proprietary software that runs the department. Then he gets pissy when I don't give it to him. He prepares a list of random projects that he feels like doing, and rather than presenting it to me, he schedules a meeting with my boss and the VP of the company without mentioning it to me (This is why people who've owned their own businesses are unmanageable).

I spent all day fuming today. Every time i walked past LD, I fantasized vividly about slamming a baseball bad into the back of his skull. Of thrusting a perfectly folded katana through the place where vertebra meets skull. Of making a garotte out of network cable and choking the life out of him. Of kicking him to the ground, getting him in an arm bar, and flexing until his elbow breaks. Every single time, my mind would come up with a different way to kill him.

During my morning smoke break, I spent most of the time punching a wall in the smoking garage. I stopped when my knuckles started bleeding. That is not hyperbole.

All day, I have people asking me what's wrong. I hate that. Even JA, my fucking two-faced pig of a boss, was following me around relentlessly trying to cheer me up. He even touched me on the shoulder. I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Well, everyone now noticed the new Mike today. In the meeting I had with my boss about him hiring me an 'assistant' for more money that I make, he told me it was because "he likes me", and because Limp Dick is going to be held to a higher standard than I am. Mister 'Higher Standard' was late his first day, takes hour and a half lunches, and can't look anyone in the eye. He wears jeans, even though everyone else in the office is in business casual. This is the 'standard' that he's being held to.

Fine. I've always held myself to the most exacting standards -- mine. No one can drive me harder than I can myself. I demand excellence from myself, because anything less is reducing my quality as a human. Now, well, now I have a yardstick, a measure of how much I'm worth to my boss.

And I'm going to make damn sure that that's the yardstick I measure up to. Fuck ethics. Fuck being the bigger man. He fucking outright told me that this guy is worth more than me. He's more of a value to the company (that I was INTEGRAL in building, from scratch) than I am. Fine. I did the job of two people extremely well, and I did it with integrity, good charm, and grace. I was shat on for years while I was doing this, paid and treated like some fucking asshole.

Fuck it. Tomorrow, Mike's wearing jeans. Instead of working, Mike is going to talk on his cell phone and make silly little 'action plans' that consume 2 entire working days and serve no purpose. I'm not going to be the 'nice guy' who listens to everyones problems, advises them and tries to make the company run smoother. I'm going to be what I really am in my bosses eyes, a wage slave. A warm body that occassionally produces some code.

I feel like life is steadily piling more and more shit on top of me. Piece by piece, it's like it's trying to drive me down. At the same time, I feel a kind of dull elation -- a joy at the thought of struggle, or maybe at the thought of pain and frustration. Sometimes it's nice to feel, even if the emotion is a negative one.

Anyway, that's it. More to come, I'm certain.

~SL