Oh, how I hate The Man (part 2)

Greetings,

I just kind of want to rant a little about the last three days, but, I don't want to be accused of being completely negative, so I've decided to play a little game with my writing. Every good thing about these three days will be written in green text, and every bad thing about the last three days will be written in red text. Now, this system will not allow me to measure the quality of the good and bad things - only the quantity - but it should help me to keep a little perspective.

Day 1 - Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

I got up at 6:30am, freezing in my 57 degree house, because our furnace is not working properly. I began getting ready for my new three-day job at a large call center. I say "three-day" job, because that is how long I will be working there. Three days.

Here's the story with that: I got this job (and believe me, it's no better than working at McDonald's - in fact it might be worse) as a fall-back. It was one of those "Well, shit. The bills need to be paid" things. About two days after I got this job (which started today), I was hired on for a better job, with a better call center, for $1.20 more per hour. So, at first, I wasn't even going to go to the shitty job, I was just going to start the better one on Monday and call it good. However, I have a very big rock and roll performance coming up, and some of my guitar gear is in need of replacement, so my wife said "Why don't you just go to work for that other job for the three days, and use the money you earn there to buy your guitar gear?" I thought it was a great idea. So, here I am today.

I finished getting ready for my first of three days at this job, and I got in my truck, and I drove downtown. I did not have any coffee. One of the really stupid things about the three day job is that they don't have a parking lot, and their employees are on their own as far as pay parking goes. I found a free parking spot about six-and-a-half blocks away from work, and began walking.


I entered the building and signed in for my "training" class. I was then herded into a room with a bunch of people who were apparently all still under the delusion that they were in Junior High. The room itself was a 1/2 height cubical maze. It reeked of at least 14 different colognes and perfumes, along with body odor and halitosis.

The next 8 hours are kind of a blur. I sat there, bored out of my skull, while these Junior-High throwbacks struggled to understand the most basic concepts. On one of my breaks, I checked by voicemail and found out that the lawyer I hired to handle my lawsuit has decided that she is no longer willing to handle my case on a contingency-fee basis. I don't know how I mustered the courage to continue breathing at this point, but I did. (There will be more on the lawyer thing later.)

After the break, I went back into the odorous room and finished the remaining two hours of my shift.

When my shift was over, I began the six-and-a-half block trek back to my truck. On the way, I checked my voicemail again. I got a voicemail from a couple that will be getting married this weekend and are in need of my services. I called them back and booked it for $150. I also got a voicemail from my drummer, and set up a rehearsal for that night. I then called my wife, who told me that she was at the hospital with my sister-in-law, awaiting the arrival of my newest niece. I went home and got ready for rehearsal.

My newest niece, Alexia LeAnn Veilette, came into the world at a whopping 5lbs, 4oz.


Day 2 - Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

I woke up at 6:30am again, but it wasn't nearly as cold as it was on Wednesday. I got ready and went to work. I got the same free parking spot, with the same six-a-half-block trek. Again, it wasn't nearly as cold this time, though.

I sat through another 8 hours of training, but this time it was in a different room that added crammed-in seating to the ever present odor of various colognes, perfume, and bad hygiene. While I was sitting through this day, my mind stopped being so shocked at what I was doing, and started being analytical. I started to realize that out of a class of about 20 people, I was one of only about two other people who were truly miserable there.

All of these other schmucks were happy to be getting $9.00 an hour to just sit there. I am not content with that, and at the risk of sounding arrogant, I will say that I am better than that. My time is worth more than $9.00 an hour - especially if that time will be spent just sitting there, not contributing anything to the world. It is worth more than the $14.25 an hour I was making at my old job. In fact, this weekend I am going to be doing a wedding and making $150 for about an hour's worth of work. I will bring home more in an hour this weekend than I made over the last three days of working for this call center.

So when the training instructor broke us up into groups and gave each group a subject to "teach" the class, I just started laughing inside. Fuck you, Mr. Instructor, I'm not teaching anybody anything for $9.00. -I should probably mention at this point that this call center will be handling eligibility questions for an insurance company, and that I am a licensed insurance agent.- I could teach the whole fucking course, but not for $9.00 an hour. Hell, I probably wouldn't even do it for what they are paying the poor schmuck they got to teach the course. I'm just going to sit back and play dumb, because, with me, that's all $9.00 an hour gets you. You get what you pay for. Take that, Corporate America!

After work, I went down to a large concert house here in my city and picked up the tickets to sell for the big Rock and Roll performance coming up. After that, I went home and worked on some more preparations for the big event.




Day 3 - Friday, January 4th, 2008

I woke up at 6:30am again. The house was warm enough. It was Friday. I got ready and went to work. I got the same free parking spot, and the same six-and-a-half block trek. Again, it wasn't as cold. I did, however, forget to bring a lunch, and I didn't have any money on me, so I knew I was going to be very hungry all day. If you've ever spent a lot of time around me, you know that I get very, very cranky when I'm hungry. I'm just not a nice person when I haven't had anything to eat for a while.

On the bright side, it was my last day at this job. I sat through the morning in the original training room, just kind of doodling and doing math problems on scratch paper while the rest of the class struggled through their practice worksheets. The math problems I did were calculations of how many hours I would need to stay there for the day in order to make enough money to cover my guitar gear. I figured it out and made my plans.

After lunch (not eating anything, myself), I sat through about another hour and a half of drudgery. Then, at precisely 2:00pm, I packed up my things, went to the front of the room, and told the instructor that I needed to speak with him outside of the classroom. We stepped into the hall, and I said (in my best Bill Lumberg voice) "Yeah, I think I'm gonna' have to go ahead and quit now." I explained to the guy that I have another job starting on Monday that pays more. He escorted me to HR and I filled out an exit interview form, and so passed my employment at that call center.

I went home, made myself some food, and relaxed the rest of the day.

So what have I taken from these last few days?

For one thing, I've learned that there's almost always work available - if you're willing to do it. Additionally, I've learned that my attitude really does have an effect on my life, and I've come to accept that, at this point in my life, I still haven't figured out how to keep a positive attitude. The more I think about it though, I don't think I want to change my attitude. It's not that I like looking on the dark side all of the time, it's just that I think that the whole "positive attitude" thing breeds complacency (at least in me anyway), and I'm not willing to be complacent and content at this point in my life.

I started talking to my wife about all of this nonsense, and she says I'm thinking about it all wrong. She says that a positive attitude doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be complacent or content, but that I can take the attitude that I am working toward something brighter, even though the current situation sucks. I like that idea. I'll let you all know how it works for me.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I have approved this message.