You know I can’t believe how lazy most people have gotten. What’s even more amazing is the fact that they can come up with thousands of excuses as to justify spending more time on the couch! Even the people that supossedly have “healthy lifestyles” are still lazy as hell. On that note how in the hell can you have a healthy lifestyle and eat everything OUT OF A BOX!

People that say that they don’t have time to cook are well just full of it! They are everyone has time to cook, they don’t because they want to be lazy. Hey that’s fine with me just admit it and we can move on. That’ll never happen because these people are nothing if not masters of excuses. At work one time I got a person I work with to a lovely shade of vermilion just by calmly proving and re-proving to her every time that yes she did in fact have time to cook.

I’ll prove it here to! Let’s take a average American family Husband Wife and let’s say three kids. The kids are Billy 12, Jamie 10 and Kerry 7 just for the sake of argument oh and both of the parents work. Let’s also say that each of the three kids are involved with three extracurricular activities each. Because the parents have that annoying trend of making sure that their kids experience everything. Even though the child has never once expressed ANY interest in any of the activities.

Now through the week I’ll stipulate that yes there really isn’t enough time to cook breakfast. Fourtunatly Cheerios are pretty healthy. On the weekends however you should always have time for a real breakfast.

So let’s say that the dad starts work at seven in the morning and works till three so he can be home when the kids get home Mom on the other hand works from 9 to 6. So the kids trottle off to school and the school day ends. However Billy has little league right after school and the other two come home on the bus. At 4 Jamie has dance class and at 4:30 Kerry has karate. Then Dad has to rush over to the school and get Billy so he can be at Piano class at 5:00. Then it’s back to pick up Jamie and Kerry and take both of them to pottery class. Mom picks up Billy and Dad gets high on terracotta fumes. The family is back with each other at I’ll say 6:30. Pretty busy day right. Now one of them we’ll either open up a box for dinner or stop at KFC or Boston Market or at worst Burger King. When asked why didn’t they cook they’ll say we didn’t have time. By the schedule you’d think they were right well their not!

There’s at least two to three opportunities to cook something far healthier than out of a box. First off the morning Mom could get up and put something like a roast or a chicken in a slow cooker for the day and it’d be ready by the time you got home. Don’t worry a slow cooker is designed to be left on even when your not there. Another great thing to make is Slow-Cooker Chili. Then with just a few vegetables that would take about 10 minutes they’d have dinner at 6:40 OR when they all get back do something that every family should do and that’s make dinner together. Billy Jamie and Kerry can each do a job in the kitchen. If you do that most meals can be done in 30 minutes. And their eating a fresh healthy meal at seven. 2 hours to digest and its off to bed at nine. My how hard was that.

If you want go check out www.warcorpse666.blogspot.com for my growing list of recipes

this is the end I just can’t do this anymore. I’ve just finally run out of bullshit. I’m tired of it aren’t you tired of it. I’m tired of one side on an issue always ignoring facts that don’t help their cause. I’m sick and tired of environmentalists thinking that corporations and big business are destroying the precious fabric of earth. Big Business is some of the largest recyclers out there but I’m also sick of the bullshit reason people believe them! The companies don’t do it out of some morale imperative to save the earth, they do it to make MONEY! Why in the hell would you throw something away when there’s another company that will buy it!

I’m tired of the stupid bullshit things that people flip out about. We’ve got a recession on, no one can find a job, Health insurance is non existent or at best a broken pile of shit of course that doesnt matter because no one has money for even a Minute Clinic visit. People are losing their homes the crime rate is going up Our freedoms are being taken away to thunderous applause and are we outraged by it HELL NO! Why because gasp! Lindsy Lohan broke up with her girlfriend and Mel Gibson is divorcing his wife! And gays want to get married oh dread! How can anyone say that Madonna not being able to adopt kid number 23 is a bigger deal to the world then the war going on!

I’m also tired of the bullshit that surrounds the school systems and the kids that infest it! The school is a public place that I keep shoveling more and more money into to help educate the kids! Guess what thanks to all of the bullshit the kids keep getting DUMBER! It’s not really the kids fault because they’re never challenged. Why because  when you challenge someone’s abilities you run the risk of them failing. We can’t have that in schools now can we! We all know how soul crushing it is  not to do something perfectly the first time. Then who really gets it the worst are the smart kids. We can’t separate them because that’s exclusionary and would make the majority of kids feel dumber and left out. We can’t get the class harder because that would make most of the other kids actually think for a minute! Do you lovers of bullshit really think that a person’s emotional center can be forever destroyed because of elementary school! Your assigning the kids way more self awareness then they’re capable of!

I’m sick and tired of the bullshit surrounding the fact that we can’t say anything or have any sort of zest for life because it might be offensive to one in ten-thousand people! You know what if you people would come out of the bubble of bullshit that you’ve built for yourself for just a few seconds you’d see that they’re just words they can’t hurt you. They only hurt you if you let them, alone words are meaningless. No word has the power to kill or to wreck some one’s life, day or even the fifteen minutes after he heard it. All the bullshit surrounding all the so-called hateful words is just that bullshit! Once you stop giving a shit what people say then everyone will see just how fast the so called hateful or offensive words lose any power. You don’t even need words to offended people and wreck your life. A photo of you on MySpace or Facebook have a drink with friends at a bar can keep you from a job, which is just stupid. Why in the hell dose someone going for let’s say a administrative assistant job need to worry about what they do in their off time. The bullshit lovers trying to take away any sort of fun that people want to have.

I’m also sick of the bullshit about how no one can take personnel responsibility for their actions. I’m talking about all the people that spouted the popular “predatory lending” there’s no such thing. It’s just another bunch a bullshit and I’ll prove it. No one held a gun to these people’s heads and made them sign the ARM loan now did they. They had all the time in the world to sign the loan or to have a lawyer look it over. Then to make matters worse instead of cutting back on expenses what did they do instead they went and just busted out their platinum VISA didn’t they. Now before they knew it they’re in over their head and bankruptcy and ruin are just around the corner. At any time we’re these people forced to buy all the shit they didn’t really need. Did they have to get a car every three years No they didn’t

The exception to that is the poor bastard that get laid off because the failing banks remove their line of credit and that spells the end for most companies. So he’s saved for a rainy day but with no jobs that dries up quick and then everything in his life begins to go down hill. To him I say first call your mortgage company and explain the situation. Trust me more and more companies are letting payments go for longer and longer. Then after that I’ll buy the drinks. 

One last pile of Bullshit that I just can’t deal with anymore is the fact that why can’t men be proud to be men anymore. WHY! Oh we can be men alright just the watered down subtle weak version the feminists want. I mean I’ll give you an example if a woman goes out and sets up a club for women or a gym for women or a event celebrating womanhood every one’s just fine with it. However if I set up an event for men or centered around men there would be such a public outcry from NOW and NAW that it would probably end with me getting lynched.

That’s not even going into if i dared set up a club for guys to hang out and shoot the shit. The only requirement for membership is that you are a man that’s it. Race age creed religious belief or even gay or straight wouldn’t matter. It would be shut down in two weeks by the court for discrimination yet women can do that now can’t they especially lesbian bars. Please explain the equality and fairness in that.

That’s all the bullshit I can talk about now get back to this in a part 2 or I’ll go into it on my Warcorpse666 YouTube Channel.

Yep. It’s official. I’m having a midlife crisis.

Or…I could just be bored with life. I think the difference between being bored with life, and having a midlife crisis, falls somewhere in the realm of a cross between a time bomb, an alarm clock (that went off too late) and the sudden realization that you’ve spent an awful lot of years sitting on your ass waiting for time to pass so that you can get off work and go play. And then once you get off, you’re too d*mn tired to do all those things that you were so (once upon a time) excited to do. All those tiny little joyful words that you crammed (in miniature writing), onto three purple post-it notes stuck together and hidden under your car keys for safekeeping.

So that’s it. I am officially having a midlife crisis. I don’t hate my job; I just hate the idea of it, and the nature of it, and the everything about it of it. I thought I hated my boss yesterday, (even though I have to say he’s one of the nicest bosses I’ve ever had) but I realized I was just having …yep, you guessed it: a midlife crisis. How anticlimactic. Actually the midlife crisis was quite climactic, but in the long run, after surviving that particularly unique eight hours of hell, the crisis amounted to pretty much nothing but leftovers. I don’t know what I mean by that; it just sounded right. (That’s part of having a midlife crisis I guess: you have to just go with it.)

Anyways, on a different note, I just found out through the voracious, raucous, incestuous, pain-in-the-ass, very-heavily-breathing-down-your-neck-no matter-what-town-you-move-to-obnoxious and NOSY dental lab grapevine, that the job I quit (before I could get laid off, so that I wouldn’t have to compete with all the people I knew were going to get laid off at some point down the road) just laid off another sizeable round of people. I feel bad for them. At this stage in the dental lab game, there are not a lot of places that are hiring. Those that have jobs are hanging onto them by the skin of their teeth. (haha a dental pun. And I didn’t even try. Must be a part of the midlife crisis too).

By the way, just because we are hanging onto our jobs by the skin of our teeth, that doesn’t mean we can’t complain about them.

Americans are like a bunch of battered women. I mean it. I am NOT dissing battered women – I’ve been in some bad relationships and I know that it’s f**ked up. I know that people in those relationships are held hostage as much by their own fears - their need for security - as they are by the person who is abusing them, who is usually taking advantage of those fears and needs.

We, as Americans, are afraid. We are afraid to live without our government, which we love to hate. We’re afraid to imagine what life would be like without all the institutions that do our thinking for us. We love to complain about government, insurance companies, medical industry, religion, special interest groups, schools, cops, this that and the other thing, and yet it’s almost like we’ve brought it on ourselves by being big pussies.

Think about it, back in the olden days - the pioneer days - which was not too long ago at all, people packed a few basic tools into a covered wagon, along with whatever food they could carry, their families, and a couple guns, and headed west into a land they knew nothing about. They didn’t know what they’d get attacked by, they didn’t know too much about the vegetation - what was edible and what was not - they didn’t know if they’d get jumped by a cowboy or Indian, bit by a snake, eaten by a bear…I mean they just jumped in and risked their lives on this dream of starting a new and better life. They had next to nothing, but they took the leap. The same leap taken by the people who came over in boats - ALL of them, from the Mayflower to the “boat people”.

How many Americans today would have that courage? Very few, I’m afraid. We are so afraid to lose what we have, which amounts to a few cushy conveniences. We are dependent on everything from technology to habit, to the government that we love to hate to the police that are there to protect us, to the rules that we’ve put into place, one by one, to try to make our lives more safe and comfortable. We can’t live without buttons and switches, and God forbid that we get our hands dirty on anything. Most of us don’t know our rights. Most of us are all too happy to hand our freedom over to anything or anyone who’ll give us an ounce of security, whether it be a bank loan, an insurance policy, an abusive partner, or a prison cell. We’re like a bunch of fat, lazy, fearful overgrown children who can hardly think for ourselves, beyond the buttons on our remote control. We can’t live without an electrical outlet, grocery store, food stamp coupon, car, tank of gas, credit card whatever. We’re pathetic. I mean it. Most of us don’t even know how to grow seeds in a garden anymore and that’s the easiest damn thing to do. You put a seed in the ground and water it. Voilà: food.

I think every American should study survival. Seriously. I think we should take away all the things we THINK we can’t live without, and see how far we get. Just for the hell of it. Figure out what we hate most - fear the most - and try to live without it. If nothing else, we might learn something.

There are a lot of structures that are falling apart right now, in this society and all over the world. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, even though it kind of sucks. I think it’s an opportunity to see what we’re really made of. We’re a lot stronger and more capable than we think. There are a lot of people struggling. What better opportunity for people to look around them, see who needs help, and help them. That’s what the damn pioneers did – they helped each other. They HAD to, to survive. We could grow stronger together. Imagine what this country would be like if people spent their time doing that, instead of whining about this law or that rule, this or that controlling  entity, or this or that person.

We’d be free. I’m pretty convinced of it. But I could be wrong. It’s just a thought.

I used to be energetic, fun, loving etc… now all the good staff i have is going down due to the life I’m leading. I’m married but separated and live together. very unhealthy situation and on top of that i lost my job that really made me unhappy but I went back to school and almost done with my 2 years community college and hoping to transfer to university in fall 09 or spring 2010. I tried to get a job at grocery store or just an office clerk job b/c i have a good experience in office job or grocery job. I applied many places but it seems like i just couldn’t make it. No luck. The only positive thing i had last semester i pass all 4 transferable class with an A, that was really cool. I sometimes I feel like dating but my situation is won’t let me do that and been in relationship is a west of my time b/c the last 3 relationship i had wasn’t that great. I feel like i can be a good wife to a good man. I feel like i will feel better if i get a job where i can interact with people. just to get out and do something. Or may be a voluntary job on the field I’m studying (Business) even that i couldn’t get that.  Sometimes i think I’m depressed but i just can’t go see a doctor cause i don’t have insurance. I feel really good when i go running. I do run 2 or 3 times a week.  I do have some guy friends (just friends) but the girls have an issue all the time so i don’t have a girl friends. is there a place for me until i finish my education. I just want to do something even for free like entry level job that relate to my major (Accounting) . Is it even normal for attractive 27 year old women to just be shut off in side? is this b/c i expected too much in life? i only want to get a job and lead my life so that i can feel less of a looser. why is this so hard for ppl like me that would love to work and do something positive but it get to the point were i feel like i can’t do much b/c of the freak-in managers or supervisor rejecting my resume. The funny thing is i see people that are slow mentally have a job  ( nothing against them) but they have a job at grocery store as a bagger or what ever.

The only thing i have is my school, exercising and looking for a job. I don’t even look at guy any more off course except my friends cause I’m shut off b/c of my freak in husband who played on my emotion. I feel like I’ll be really happy if i get a job Why do we have to suffer for the ppl in the power chair screwed the economy and they get belled out and me and other ppl like me got left frustrated.

ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!

hey feel free to share Ur opinion.

It’s true! Just because you have some douche bag request and a pocket full of money, that does not make it anyone’s responsibility to make anything happen for you. 

If someone is hired to provide a service to you, such as making and/or serving food, you should count yourself lucky such a person even exists! We are workers, not prostitutes. We’re in the thick of this shit because we have to, or because we’re too lazy to do anything else. If the latter is the case, then fine, file a complaint, but don’t act like it’s our job to powder your ass just because you were too lazy to do it yourself. 

WE ARE THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF YOUR FOOD!

Don’t treat us like a bunch of incompetent assholes (even though some of us are)!  You wouldn’t piss off your doctor before a prostate exam, would you? Where the fuck does anyone get the idea that it’s alright to anger anyone preparing something you’re about to put into your body?! Keep in mind in at all times that the more shit you give us, the more shit you’ll receive. 

Furthermore, if you’ve received shitty service, or your order was botched, keep two things in mind:

1. Things get busy at places like that, and we’re only fucking human! Mistakes happen! Imagine if every time you fucked up in some little way, some angry asshole called your home and yelled at you, belittled your intelligence, and told you to go fuck yourself. Or worse yet, someone else in your home fucked up and you had to get bitched out for it! 
2. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT IF YOU’RE GOING TO STOP ORDERING FROM THEIR STORE! Unless they’re one of the top bosses in the place, if you tell someone that you’re not ordering food from them again, they’re probably thinking “Good riddance to bad blubber!”

You’re not as important as you think you are you egocentric little fuck head! You’re not a toddler anymore, you should be over that shit! Your money is going to the company that we hate and pays us too little, not us. If it was us taking your money, your actions might be a tad more excusable. No matter what price you’re paying, no matter how bad your food was, no matter any of it, WE ARE BEING DICKED WORSE THAN YOU! Plain and simple. The life of a “food service representative” is bad enough without your grandiose douchebaggery, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET IN LINE!

You know, this economy sucks ass. I’m not saying that to be on the “in crowd” either. It really does. There’s nothing worse than having every single flippin’ person you come in contact with pissing and moaning about the economy.

Well there is one thing that I personally feel is worse: To be around rich people who are pissing and moaning about the economy. People who, for the last five to forty+ years, have been wealthy business owners who eat at fancy restaurants, stay at fancy hotels, take frequent jaunts to warm tropical climates over the weekend, buy diamonds, have nannies, expensive cars, designer clothes, fingernails that are prettier than yours (even though you’re supposed to be the woman), and who personally feel that they are the only thing alive on the planet that have been keeping the economy floating for fucking ever.

“Oh my God have mercy on us,” the masked look of horror behind their perfect tans silently screams, “They’re going to give our money to all those fat lazy bastards on welfare who are just sucking off the system, eating our hard-earned money with the silver spoon given to them at the soup kitchen.” Or ,“Holy hell, it’s goddamn socialism come home to roost right here in our proud country. America is going to hell in a hand basket! ”

You know what I say to all you rich people who are suddenly terrified at the thought of not being able to afford your god damn manicure. Fuck you. I’m sick of listening to your shit.

Some of the poorest people I know work harder than you ever have in your life. Not everyone who is poor is a lazy leach, sucking off the system. Some of them are genuinely stupid (that would have been me) trying to figure out how to get by in a place that didn’t make as much sense as it did to you, with your fancy college education paid for by mom and dad. Some of us have had bad luck and spent years trying to overcome it. Some of us made bad choices because we didn’t have the right guidance. Yes, some of us are sucking off the system, and that some of us will always find someone to suck off of whether it’s this or that, but to hear all you fancy bitches talk, you’d think the only people who had ever worked a day in their life was YOU. Big important patriotic American you.

I have a lot of friends that have been struggling for years. They work their asses off. They don’t suck off the system. I am a single mom and I know what it means to struggle. My daughters and I have lived in everything from an RV to a pole building out in the boonies which we renovated in exchange for reduced rent, to a 200 square foot gutted shack that we fixed up and lived in free in exchange for rent, to a mud house that we built ourselves and lived in exchange for rent, to a 500 square foot apartment which we actually rented with money instead of work, to a real, normal home which I finally, after working my ass off for years, was able to buy. I sucked welfare for exactly six months in all those years, and thank God for that system. I really fucking needed it at the time. The welfare system actually does a service.

I appreciate the service all you wealthy business owners do for this country as well. Thank God someone’s got it right. But it makes me just a little bit ballistic in the brain to hear you pussy assed princesses bitch, because even though things have gotten “really bad for you” you’re still getting manicures, eating at the fine restaurants that I’ve never been able to bring my daughters to, spewing about the fat lazy bastards that are about to take over your perfect world. I will fucking bet you a million dollars that if you put a very large number of those fat lazy bastards head to head with you in a who-worked-harder-in-their-life race, most of them would kick your pretty perfect-tan asses out of the ball park. Some of their hard work might even be paying for the manicure you just had.

Whew. (take a breather bitch) Sorry, But my hours are being cut (two days this week) because my boss decided he needed to redecorate the office and pass the bill on to his employees. Who fucking redecorates their office in this economy? Is there something I don’t know about being a business owner that I should know, so that when I become one I can redecorate my office, cut my employees hours, and then piss and moan about all the leeches who are about to start sucking off the system because they’re out of a job???

And what really sucks is, I had just saved up enough money to get a manicure. Fuck it.

P.S. Sorry if I offended anyone. Maybe I should take a drive in rush hour even though I don’t have to go to work today, so I can let off a little steam.

Since I was a child, I have been taught the value of hard labor, and I worked hard, for many years at attain “The American Dream.”  My economic generation depended on cultivating a die-hard workload and a professional ethical belief system based on reliability, accountability, and loyalty.  As our children grow, we watch our old systems become inundated and obsolete.

I have always pursued my dreams, reevaluated my goals over the changing times, and there have been a few times that I have failed.  For eight years I endured the stress and financial struggles of trying to further my career, work full-time, and raise a child alone with the added pressures of mental or medical disabilities, doctor’s visits, and medication.  My daughter and I have always prayed to work and achieve a more comfortable living.  We have struggled, my parent’s struggled, my sister’s family struggles and our grandparents struggled, all without a high school diploma or college degree.  My grandfather, biological father and step-father all served in some war.  Their wives and families were forced to quit school or discontinue managing the home and raising children to go out to work.  We know the story. 

Many of these men, our fathers their fathers served in our military years ago had parents who died early in life of various cancers, plagues, and viruses that had no alleviation or cure, and some even man made.  Some of these men and women were raising their siblings due to the early deaths of their parents.  Those siblings were left to fend for themselves, and the ripple effect progressed and grew on to this day.  Their families still struggle to become financially stable in an economy of abrupt fluctuation.  My step-father lost most of his split stocks for his retirement in 9/11.  He was taught to invest time and loyalty, devotion to the employer who fired him after 23 years in reorganization.  They worry every day if they will be able to live even at their current standard in their retiring years.  My mother is now 60 and my step-father is 64.  I am going to be 40 this year, and my sister is 35.  All three of my grandfathers are deceased.  Most of us didn’t think we would even make it past doomsday. 

We know there are too many people and not enough jobs.  It will take the strongest of us to change our lives.  It is necessary.  “Be part of the few, not the many” is the new idea of this generation and for generations to follow.  We have to use more of our powerful and empowered minds to embark on different approaches and technology that will work for us in the future.  Fearing and following our government is like allowing a 5 year-old child to drive your brand new BMW~if you are a politician.

My personal interest in growing my own food, building a cat sanctuary/greenhouse to study and develop the most nutritious, pest free vegetation so that when I retire, I won’t have to choose between heat and medicine, has been on-going for the last 10 years.

I am ready to endure whatever it takes to improve my life, and to help improve the geriatric years my parents face, my unborn grandchildren’s lives, and my children’s lives as they strive for the best education a lower to middle class, single-parent raised family can afford.

We have to come together Florida! America!  We have to finally bond with each other to improve our highest good, and come up with the greatest ideas.  We only follow others because it is the easiest, quickest thing to do especially if it makes sense.  It doesn’t make sense anymore! 

I am tired of giving everything and getting nothing.  Who invented this two week notice?  I cannot believe what we as a “people” have resorted to in these crucial times of change.

Today makes the age of a new way.  There are millions of you out there that need to WAKE up RIGHT NOW!

What are your ideas?  Do you realize you have been such a slave to the grind that you haven’t even been able to tune into the left side of your brain or maybe the right.  Some of us are so out of it that we walk over dead people laying on the floor.  We ignore a little girl who is screaming RAPE.  This is not who we are.  This is who we have become. 

People are dying.  Earth changes are happening, and our economy is faltering.

GIVE US some ideas you CHOSEN FEW! 

LET’S TALK, LET”S COLLABORATE, LET”S FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT!  WE DON’T NEED SOMEONE TO TELL US WHAT TO DO!  WE KNOW WHAT TO DO!  LET’S DO IT!

Tell me about the dreams you are having.  Tell me about your premonitions.  Hell you can even tell me about the ghost of your mother you have been seeing since you lost your 25 year old job, and have been sitting on unemployment for 6 months.

Tell me the problems, and let’s figure it out.  ALL of us!  IT is ABOUT TIME!

I have several pet peeves-well more like a laundry list actually- one of them is rude people and I have a special place in my heart for rude employees. It blows my mind-I have worked many many jobs in which I came into contact with the public and it was understood that customers (you know the people who make your job possible) were a good and desirable thing and it was also understood that a big part of working is…say it with me kids “WORK”. That means that when you punch in, clock in, sign in or otherwise report for duty-you will most likely be asked to do some things that you don’t necessarily feellike doing-but lest we forget-that is why they pay you-because nobody would do it for free and because alot of times it sucks. If like me you have worked ‘menial jobs’ then you know that a paycheck is a bribe of sorts-and by accepting this bribe-this money-you are agreeing to do this job that probably blows. So-when I was a waitress and I had a particularly heinous or rude table to wait on I reminded myself that this is what I was being paid for-and I smiled and did my job. Naturally when I’m out in public and I’m the customer(and a polite one at that) I expect that it is now my turn to be waited on graciously or at the very least politely. Imagine my dismay when time after time I (the paying customer) am treated as if I were a beggar off the street (or some other undesirable). For example I go to Subway on my lunch break-obviously I want a sandwich-I wait patiently on line for 15 minutes and when I get to the counter I ask the woman behind it what is on a particular sandwich-she looks at me as though I had 5 heads-sighs in exasperation and runs off a list of food items so fast I cannot catch a word of it. I give up on that sandwich-perhaps that sandwich makes her angry for some reason-perhaps a loved one choked to death on that particular sandwich and the thought of it fills her with rage. So I ask about a different sandwich-she does the same thing as before and I still have no idea what is on this sandwich so I figure whatever I’ll just take it-and I order that one. For some reason this enrages her and she screams at me: “WHAT KIND OF BREAD DO YOU WANT!!!!!” a little shaken, I say “Wheat” but before I can even get the word out she screams the question again. I had no idea that sandwiches made people so furious-and for a moment I’m simply shocked into silence but as I get to the cash register I”m starting to feel a little outraged. The women then yells the total at me and is standing there with her palm shoved in my face-even though I’m holding my money out to her. Finally I ask her-I’m sorry am I bothering you? She stares at me blankly so I continue-you know you’ve been extremely rude to me-she says (I can’t believe it) I don’t know what you’re talking about. I ask to speak to her manager-”I’m the one! I’m the manager!”Ok I say then I’d like to speak to the owner-”I’m the one! I’m the owner!”. Needless to say I wasn’t able to have my revenge on this woman and I was so angry I couldn’t even eat the damn sandwich-but I was left thinking that- especially in this economy-you would think that people would be holding on to their jobs by their fingernails if necessary. There are so many people right now who would gladly take that or any job and would do it with a smile on their face-so why am I dealing with some little asshole who obviously thinks she’s doing the world a great big favor just by showing up to work and standing there-and God help you if you have the audacity to ask for service.

        OK, so maybe this shouldn’t be going under the ‘job’ section, but I don’t see any tab for ‘out of work too long’. If there was one, I am sure it would be too full. I am one of ‘those people’, hit by a sagging economy, mismanagement and most of all, poor job choice. For 8 years, I worked for a record label. (I won’t say which one, and I’ve never been good at rhyming games, but it rhymes with Warner Brot…damn it!) Now the knock against labels is they are slow to react. However, I will give them credit; they cut about 500 of us or so loose far before the economy really went into the hopper. What I did wasn’t very much of the glamorous stuff. I did field marketing; I dealt with all our retail stores. And for the most part, I really loved the job and all the people I worked with. The perks were great; free CDs, meet the occasional rock stars, no dress code, and work from home. The pay kinda sucked, though. Man, if I could have paid the mortgage in crappy CDs, I would have owned my house years ago.

                This isn’t going to be all that’s wrong with the music biz. That could be many, many posts for another time. But it’s funny now, that I find there’s almost a stigma from working in the music business. A lot of my job was being out in the stores 4 days a week; living and breathing music. I was like the Santa Claus of music. Stores knew when they saw me they were going to get a bunch of new music to play (mixed in with the coal as well). Or maybe it was because I traveled with elves. Either way, it was all good.

                It’s not uncommon in interviews to talk more about my old job than this new job opp. “So, tell me what’s wrong with the music biz,” they’d ask. I know you’re not supposed to be critical of your previous job, so I’m diplomatic as possible. “Hey, did you ever meet so and so,” is another question I get a lot. If I like the job or the interview, then I will make it all up and say I did meet so and so, and they are very cool. If I didn’t like the job or interview, then of course so and so is evil scum of the earth; beats kittens, does drugs with dirty syringes and pushes old ladies down in the street. If I’m not gonna get the job, I might as well shatter some illusions or create new ones.

                I had one interview that was well over 90 minutes at this point. I was talking to the head of HR. She’s looking over my resume and tells me, “Well, I see you’ve spent a bunch of time in music. You know this job isn’t very glamorous.” “Well, my last job wasn’t very glamorous, either.”

                It’s coming up on almost 2 years with no real work. I have found “gigs” that help ends meet, but nothing I can put on a resume. Those big spans of no work are pretty brutal on a resume. I send resumes out all the time. I used to hold onto the fantasy that I wasn’t going to find a job, but The Job. With my background in sales and marketing, that is a pipe dream these days. Marketing budgets are getting scaled back and there is no one to sell to. Most of my time is spent trolling sites like Monster and Career Builder. Man, how did people find jobs before the Internet?

                I don’t think these sites are all that great either. I think those Monster commercials are pretty unrealistic. You’ve seen the one with generic guy with generic suitcase gets dream job. I don’t see many dream jobs in my Monster emails. Unless I want to work part time in the Sony store, or manage a muffler shop. Hell, in one email, I got a job opp for helicopter repair. Helicopter repair! Nowhere on my resume does it have any indication whatsoever that I have any proclivity to repair a helicopter. Trust me, you would not want to fly in any helicopter I repaired.  Today I got a generic looking email about an “exciting job opportunity”.  For a casino 400 miles away. What the hell is the screening processes going on here that I get crap like that?

                About every month or so, I switch a few things around in my resume. There has to be some trigger in these sites that when you do that, I get a flood of new email. All of it seems to be in the financial category. Again, nowhere on my resume does it say I have any financial experience. From experience-OK, one, experience, most of these are jobs where you try to sell life insurance and stuff to your friends. I got hosed into going to an “interview” with one of these companies. I did what you’re supposed to do, study up on the company, shave and look as presentable as I possibly can. I show up and am shepherded into a small conference room with about 30 other suckers.

                This torture ends with a woman who talks about everything except what the job exactly is. She throws the typical power words; lots of money, set your own schedule, own a boat, retire in a year. Everything except what you have to do to get such ambrosia. She ends with, “Well you must be crazy to not find out more! Now who has any questions?” I raise my hand and ask, “Can you grant eternal life, too?” That was pretty much my exit line. 2 months later they called me and asked me to come in again for another interview.

                I’ve always had a decent BS meter, and it doesn’t take long to develop one as you view the want ads. For example, just about every company is “the leader in the field” or on “the cutting edge”. Many claim to be in the Fortune 500. At this point, I think I’ve seen over a thousand companies claim that. Every job has a “fun” atmosphere. Well, I guess hyping the atmosphere as “soul deadening” and “crushing” won’t get many resumes sent in.  They are always looking for “talented” or “only the best” people. OK, that makes sense, no one advertises for slackers and dimwits.

                I once saw a posting for a toy company. Sweet! What can be better than that? The job looked pretty cool, so I started researching the company. Turns out they sold dolls; girls dolls. Girl’s creepy dolls. Like if you were ever in a room full of these things, you’d swear they’d come to life and rip your eyes out. I can’t be responsible for that. Besides, it’s tough to be all manly when saying, “Well, yea, I sell dolls for a living.” I’d almost be more inclined to say I was selling blow up dolls.

                I don’t have much of an office background. I fear that if I ever do work in an office, it will be like The Office TV show. I really laugh at that show, all the while desperately hoping I never end up in a place like that. I am not a suit and tie kind of guy. In fact, I only own 1 suit and 1 other sports jacket. If you look at any picture from me from any casual social function, I am pretty much wearing the same thing. I only own 6 ties. 2 are interview/casual/funeral. 2 are Looney Tunes, of which one has the characters in hearts so I wear that to weddings. 1 Simpson tie, and the 1 mandatory fish tie. Give me flip flops and board shorts any day.

                I could go on and on and on but that would just take away precious time looking for jobs. In the helicopter repair field.

                Ugh. OK, I feel better. Back to trolling the ads. I feel better now. Thanks for reading.