Lester, apparently, made his entire living by buying used media in the city and selling it for a slightly higher price in more remote areas, where people had less accessibility to second hand stores. His dingy white van was full of crates of CD's, cassettes, vinyl LP's and VHS tapes. This was at the dawn of DVD technology, so those were pretty rare, but he managed to snag a few every now and then. How he could sustain an entire life on such a meager margin was beyond me, but he seemed to do all right. He had a circuit, basically, that he made around the state, which meant we would we would see him at our used CD store in roughly three week intervals. He was always a welcome sight, not just because his voracious purchases ensured a decent day of profits, but also because a visit from Lester also meant a visit from Mister James.
The exact relationship between Lester and Mister James was never quite clear. They were roughly the same age, older than fifty, probably less than sixty, and the had similar haircuts and beards. They were both graying and a little paunchy, but Lester always seemed far more put together than Mister James. Where Lester always had his longish coif neatly combed, and always seemed to be dressed in relatively neat, clean clothes, Mister James couldn't have been more unkempt. In a strange way, he looked like a wild version of Lester, like Lester had been left to fend for himself a while in the woods and came out looking like Mister James. Mister James' hair was a tangled shock and he always seemed to be wearing the same, stained pink and white striped shirt every time I saw him. He looked, actually, to be a little bit crazy... and I think he legitimately was.
The prevailing theory was that Mister James was Lester's brother, although I found it odd that Lester would refer to his brother as "Mister James." It may have been a nickname from childhood, I suppose, or a more current term of affection, but I never got the feeling that the two of them were related at all. They definitely shared a bond, and Lester was certainly protective of Mister James, but I don't know that their relationship was familial. Mister James, I think, was Lester's friend, and I think there was a time when he wasn't crazy at all.
Now, that craziness wasn't wholly apparent from a brief conversation with the man. At first blush, he may have come across as slightly eccentric. My first encounter with him consisted of him traipsing toward the front counter, happily slamming his hand near the register and saying, loudly, "Shuggie! Shuggie Otis!" I didn't know what this meant, but he seemed genial and excited, so I pressed for more information. He explained, to me, that Shuggie Otis was an unfairly obscure soul-rock touchstone, a genius on par with Jimi Hendrix that had somehow become lost to time. Mister James demanded, there and then, that I promise that at first opportunity, I buy a Shuggie Otis album and give it a good listen. He guaranteed me that I wouldn't be disappointed. This was Mister James at his most benign. Subsequent conversations included grotesquely detailed accounts of his doctoral visits, dissertations on the cruelty of nuns, theories on the creatures living in his lungs and nearly incomprehensible screeds that were surely racist in origin, but so utterly nonsensical that it was hard to be offended. What became clear in a vast majority of his monologues, however, was a very real feeling of persecution, both from sources real and imagined. I am no psychologist, but I think the man may have suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
Lester was an ace at calming Mister James down. He had it down to a science. When Mister James would begin to become agitated, often signaled by an increased frequency of vulgarity, Lester would stop his browsing, and quietly sidle up to Mister James, grab the man's arm, and somehow drain the anger, fear or excitement right out of him. It was practically magic. He didn't seem to be doing anything other than exerting a presence. It almost always worked straight away. I couldn't imagine what a boon this was for Mister James... without Lester, I think his delusions and his fears would have easily overtaken him. Nearly anything could set the man off, and once he began a rant, it seemed to spawn a new angry worry with every word. Without whatever medicine Lester practiced, it didn't seem unreasonable to think of Mister James spiraling wildly out of control. Somehow, something Lester offered allowed Mister James at least a semblance of a normal life. I wondered if Mister James even recognized that.
I wondered, too, what Lester got out of the deal, and how he had come to care for his slightly mad friend. Lester probably found the company comforting. He spent most of his life on the road, after all, and he probably got quite lonely. I think the pair lived out of that van most of the time... Lester never spoke of a home, although that doesn't preclude the existence of one, I suppose. Still, I knew their Wisconsin sales circuit pretty well, and I can't imagine Lester's income afforded them too many hotel stays along their trip. Under such cramped conditions, a companion might not seem ideal, but three weeks of isolation is an awful lot. Every road trip is better with a partner.
And Mister James, when not rambling incoherently, was a pretty interesting man. He was a virtual encyclopedia of psychedelic rock. He had elaborate explanations for the meanings behind the songs of Cream, the 13th Floor Elevators, ? And The Mysterians and Pink Floyd. He knew the biographies of hundreds of musicians, and how they interconnected to one another. He could expound eloquently on music theory, and who had innovated what and when. I learned a lot from him... I don't know how much of it was true.
Lester and Mister James stopped coming around in the winter... I'm sure that the cold was not conducive to their lifestyle. I don't know what they did from November until April, and I never found out. Our store shut down in February, and I never got to see either of them again.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
1.25.2010
1.23.2010
Remedy
Minutes tick by and Benjamin sits in the dark, listening to the motion on the clock and checking his wrist, every so often, for a pulse. This fear of dying, it's irrational, he knows it, but it's all he's dreamt of, all he's imagined, now (against his will) for so long. It's gutted him. Once that realization of mortality (an honest realization, not the sideways and muted understanding that most people give it, but the very visceral and powerful fact that his life is ebbing away, tick by tick, tock by tock) set in, it wriggled its way into his consciousness, laid parasite eggs and took over. And now he's literally listening to life end. In any moment of concentration, any moment where he is not distracted by hunger or lust or something interesting on the television, he imagines scenario after scenario after scenario and he wonders how his imagination will dovetail with his actual demise. He fears his fear most of all. Second to that, he fears that he will die before he accomplishes anything. Sometimes, that fear is mutated into a palpitation-worthy worry that he will die JUST as he accomplishes something, thusly being robbed of its reward. However, at three in the morning, with work mere hours away and no sleep in sight, it is unlikely that Benjamin will need to worry about the latter case.
His life, he sometimes realizes, is a monument of incompletion. He has three quarters of a necessary ambition, and it serves him well, up to a point. Beyond that, boredom sets in. Or, rather, what Benjamin calls boredom sets in. What it is, really, is worse. There is another horrible realization, similar to the gut wrenching knowledge of his own mortality, that plagues Benjamin. Unlike many successful people, Benjamin is all too aware of his own mediocrity. And so, as a project winds down, as a genuine accomplishment nears, Benjamin takes stock of his work and he dismisses it as too banal, too mundane, too pedestrian, too dull to be meaningful. Completion, he decides, is only a waste of his precious, dwindling time. And he surrenders progress for depression, vowing not to try again. His projects, like hunger, lust and good television, are a very viable distraction from worrying about death. The abandonment of his work, then, opens the door to these long, interminable nights of irrational terror. The whole of it is compounded, then, by the lack of accomplishment, the surrender which pushed him down in the first place, and an increasing amount of crazy brought on by the resulting insomnia. He finds himself in the middle of a vortex of self-created lunacy, and he struggles to free himself of its hold. He spends waning minutes of his life (waning, in the fact that he is on a slow march to the grave... there is no valid reason to believe his ending is coming soon, although he can cite, with chilling detail, how very thin the line between life and death is, and he will expound in unpleasant volume about how no one is guaranteed an average lifespan) fretting over his seeming inability to do anything of value, and as he wastes those waning minutes, he only has reason to chastise himself more.
He is at a loss. He wonders, then, if he would be better served by lowering his expectations of life, by embracing his mediocrity and enjoying the bland pleasures that seem to sustain most people. He has a hard time swallowing it. He wants to offer up something, to create something of substance, to be known, to be admired, to be respected. He does not want to just give in to a daily grind of punching a clock and being told what to do by an army of superiors all working to keep some indifferent and colossal cash machine running, oiled with his blood and sweat. But, given his lacking skill, given his inability to rise above the middling, he wonders if he really has any choice at all. Maybe he's only making himself ill by peppering everything with expectation and a desire to elevate. Maybe he's killing himself with delusion, losing time that he could appreciate the simple things of life. Without the constant want, perhaps he could settle into a pleasant rut and develop a comfort that would mitigate his menial and unimportant place in the world. That thought is both seductive and the most absolutely depressing thing he's ever considered. And so he continues on, stuck in a stasis of his own creation, unable to live up to his own expectations. His ambition is outsized. His capability is puny in comparison. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to remedy the situation.
As time slips by and daylight creeps up, he thinks there might not be a remedy at all.
His life, he sometimes realizes, is a monument of incompletion. He has three quarters of a necessary ambition, and it serves him well, up to a point. Beyond that, boredom sets in. Or, rather, what Benjamin calls boredom sets in. What it is, really, is worse. There is another horrible realization, similar to the gut wrenching knowledge of his own mortality, that plagues Benjamin. Unlike many successful people, Benjamin is all too aware of his own mediocrity. And so, as a project winds down, as a genuine accomplishment nears, Benjamin takes stock of his work and he dismisses it as too banal, too mundane, too pedestrian, too dull to be meaningful. Completion, he decides, is only a waste of his precious, dwindling time. And he surrenders progress for depression, vowing not to try again. His projects, like hunger, lust and good television, are a very viable distraction from worrying about death. The abandonment of his work, then, opens the door to these long, interminable nights of irrational terror. The whole of it is compounded, then, by the lack of accomplishment, the surrender which pushed him down in the first place, and an increasing amount of crazy brought on by the resulting insomnia. He finds himself in the middle of a vortex of self-created lunacy, and he struggles to free himself of its hold. He spends waning minutes of his life (waning, in the fact that he is on a slow march to the grave... there is no valid reason to believe his ending is coming soon, although he can cite, with chilling detail, how very thin the line between life and death is, and he will expound in unpleasant volume about how no one is guaranteed an average lifespan) fretting over his seeming inability to do anything of value, and as he wastes those waning minutes, he only has reason to chastise himself more.
He is at a loss. He wonders, then, if he would be better served by lowering his expectations of life, by embracing his mediocrity and enjoying the bland pleasures that seem to sustain most people. He has a hard time swallowing it. He wants to offer up something, to create something of substance, to be known, to be admired, to be respected. He does not want to just give in to a daily grind of punching a clock and being told what to do by an army of superiors all working to keep some indifferent and colossal cash machine running, oiled with his blood and sweat. But, given his lacking skill, given his inability to rise above the middling, he wonders if he really has any choice at all. Maybe he's only making himself ill by peppering everything with expectation and a desire to elevate. Maybe he's killing himself with delusion, losing time that he could appreciate the simple things of life. Without the constant want, perhaps he could settle into a pleasant rut and develop a comfort that would mitigate his menial and unimportant place in the world. That thought is both seductive and the most absolutely depressing thing he's ever considered. And so he continues on, stuck in a stasis of his own creation, unable to live up to his own expectations. His ambition is outsized. His capability is puny in comparison. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to remedy the situation.
As time slips by and daylight creeps up, he thinks there might not be a remedy at all.
8.14.2009
One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t take my education seriously enough. I bumbled my way through high school, only graduating because of a kindly English teacher who didn’t flunk me even though it would have been perfectly understandable and defensible if he had. I was, however, still a walking disaster through most of my junior and senior years, and the whole concept of college eluded me. I just never applied. So, after my inauspicious graduation, I stumbled through a terrible semester of menial labor and then enrolled in the local community college. I actually excelled, there, in what I affectionately dubbed “high school part two.” As bad of a rap as community colleges get, however, I met wonderful people there, students genuinely interested in learning and professors genuinely interested in teaching. Most of my classes eschewed busy work and rote memorization for honest-to-goodness discussion, understanding and intellectual growth. It was a wonderful environment where I developed a passion for ancient history, philosophy and western literature. And then I decided to take the plunge into the larger university system where I failed as miserably as I’ve ever failed at anything ever. Several factors added up to this spectacular educational cataclysm, but all of those factors were well within my control. At the core of it, I was bored with what school could teach me and I was arrogant enough to think I could learn it all on my own. I skipped classes to do personal projects, to fret over a suicidal girlfriend, to waste the opportunity laid out before me in an effort to preserve a life I didn’t even want to lead. I was put on academic probation, lost my financial aid and dropped out unceremoniously and so abruptly that I had to sublet my room in the apartment I’d leased for the forthcoming year. I went back to work, returning to the place that had employed me in my initial school-less gap, and quickly lost even the idea of returning to college.
The chip on my shoulder became unwieldy and huge. I was angry. I was angry at my brilliant friends with their fancy degrees and interesting, well paying jobs. I was angry at the vague system that had allowed me to fall through its cracks and wind up as laboring detritus still living with my parents. I was angry at employers for demanding some sort of proof of intellect before opening their doors to applicants and I was angry at society for valuing a piece of paper over actual reasoning assets. But mostly I was mad at myself for frittering away my youth, for squandering my abilities and for just surrendering because I was too lazy, proud and stupid to do what needed to be done. And I’m still mad at myself for it a decade later. The idea of returning to school crops up periodically, but it feels hollow to me now. I respect and admire adults who work their rear ends off and hold down and job and get a new degree, or finish an old one, I really do. But for me, I feel like the victory would be lacking. At this point, I feel like all I’d get is a participation ribbon years after the golds, silvers and bronzes have handed out.
Part of the problem, of course, is that I lived past thirty. I never really planned on that. Honestly. I just assumed I wouldn’t make it. I felt like a weakling, a runt kicked around by circumstance, too lacking in form and structure to hold up under the seemingly continuous bad weather of my youth. But time has a way of blunting disaster and eventually I just stood up, brushed myself off and continued on with my life. But the time spent in fetal position depression, or trying in vain to shake off crippling anxiety or just accepting the sub-mediocrity of my post-dropout days left me with very little infrastructure for success. Had I crumbled when I assumed I would crumble, it would all be moot. I always lamented all the preparation my brother put into his infrastructure. He worked hard to build up, brick by brick, the foundation of a successful life. And when he had gotten to the tipping point, the rollercoaster crest where all of that labor and tedium was about to pay off with almost limitless possibility in front of him, he got cancer and was slowly killed. His hard work evaporated in a steam of medical bills and handicap. It all vanished and he died and he never got to really enjoy the fruit of his labor. My assumption was I, too, would be gone before my thirtieth birthday, so why bother? Work was hard. Screwing off was ridiculously easy. I was out of my parents’ house, making a living enough to always eat and have a roof over my head. What more did I need? As my friends developed adult habits and acquired adult accessories like houses and kids, I withdrew deeper into my menial existence. My twenties slipped by, unremarkable, uninteresting and unfulfilling. I blinked at the halcyon days of my youth were gone. A decade went by with little to show for it. And I was still alive.
And now, of course, I struggle with my mediocrity. Now that it seems I'll be here a while, such a basic life devoid of responsibility, of challenge and of achievement seems awfully horrible. But I have no solidity upon which to erect a more interesting existence. I'm 31, lacking in practical skills and my work experience amounts to that of an industrious teenager. Worse still, I seem absolutely incapable of advancing myself... I sabotage myself under the banner of not being able to fit in with the talking piles of b.s. that make up the majority of management. But in reality, even if I could stomach the non-stop nonsense that goes along with being in the upper echelon of a multinational company, I can't imagine I could ever really succeed in that world. It's nice to pretend there's some nobility in it, but it truly comes down to my utter lack of follow-through, commitment and maturity. I didn't plan to end up this way. And I need to make a change. But I'm not sure how.
It's not a new issue... I've dreamt up more possible futures for myself than I could recount. I've found myself being passionate about a topic for as little as a week, dedicating myself to it wholly and then backing out because it's grown tiresome, stagnant and dull. My poor wife can't keep up with the multitude of lifelong dreams I seem intent on living out for small stretches of time. And while variety in one's dreams is certainly pleasant and makes, maybe, for interesting conversation, my absolute inability to focus is crippling in regards to actually making something out of myself.
In the end, though, the worst of it is that this is probably where I've topped out. It may not be the fault of my stunted education, my unwillingness to plan, my fear of responsibility or my lack of discipline that is keeping me from excelling. Maybe, scarily, my mediocrity is solely the result of the fact that I'm just mediocre. Most people are, of course. It's explicit in the word. But nobody wants to be mediocre. Nobody pushes ahead with their life's plans thinking, "How wonderful it would be to have my work, my achievements, my existence be basically on par with the rest of humanity." But that's what happens, right? Most of us tumble into the big space beneath the apogee of the bell curve and we never get out. As much as I would like to think my talent or my brains or my encyclopedic knowledge of Beatles' songs would separate me from the rest of the herd, they probably don't.
But as another work week ends and a new one looms just around the corner, I can't help, sometimes, but feel defeated. I can't help but feel like I should be doing so much more. Maybe that's the biggest problem of all.
The chip on my shoulder became unwieldy and huge. I was angry. I was angry at my brilliant friends with their fancy degrees and interesting, well paying jobs. I was angry at the vague system that had allowed me to fall through its cracks and wind up as laboring detritus still living with my parents. I was angry at employers for demanding some sort of proof of intellect before opening their doors to applicants and I was angry at society for valuing a piece of paper over actual reasoning assets. But mostly I was mad at myself for frittering away my youth, for squandering my abilities and for just surrendering because I was too lazy, proud and stupid to do what needed to be done. And I’m still mad at myself for it a decade later. The idea of returning to school crops up periodically, but it feels hollow to me now. I respect and admire adults who work their rear ends off and hold down and job and get a new degree, or finish an old one, I really do. But for me, I feel like the victory would be lacking. At this point, I feel like all I’d get is a participation ribbon years after the golds, silvers and bronzes have handed out.
Part of the problem, of course, is that I lived past thirty. I never really planned on that. Honestly. I just assumed I wouldn’t make it. I felt like a weakling, a runt kicked around by circumstance, too lacking in form and structure to hold up under the seemingly continuous bad weather of my youth. But time has a way of blunting disaster and eventually I just stood up, brushed myself off and continued on with my life. But the time spent in fetal position depression, or trying in vain to shake off crippling anxiety or just accepting the sub-mediocrity of my post-dropout days left me with very little infrastructure for success. Had I crumbled when I assumed I would crumble, it would all be moot. I always lamented all the preparation my brother put into his infrastructure. He worked hard to build up, brick by brick, the foundation of a successful life. And when he had gotten to the tipping point, the rollercoaster crest where all of that labor and tedium was about to pay off with almost limitless possibility in front of him, he got cancer and was slowly killed. His hard work evaporated in a steam of medical bills and handicap. It all vanished and he died and he never got to really enjoy the fruit of his labor. My assumption was I, too, would be gone before my thirtieth birthday, so why bother? Work was hard. Screwing off was ridiculously easy. I was out of my parents’ house, making a living enough to always eat and have a roof over my head. What more did I need? As my friends developed adult habits and acquired adult accessories like houses and kids, I withdrew deeper into my menial existence. My twenties slipped by, unremarkable, uninteresting and unfulfilling. I blinked at the halcyon days of my youth were gone. A decade went by with little to show for it. And I was still alive.
And now, of course, I struggle with my mediocrity. Now that it seems I'll be here a while, such a basic life devoid of responsibility, of challenge and of achievement seems awfully horrible. But I have no solidity upon which to erect a more interesting existence. I'm 31, lacking in practical skills and my work experience amounts to that of an industrious teenager. Worse still, I seem absolutely incapable of advancing myself... I sabotage myself under the banner of not being able to fit in with the talking piles of b.s. that make up the majority of management. But in reality, even if I could stomach the non-stop nonsense that goes along with being in the upper echelon of a multinational company, I can't imagine I could ever really succeed in that world. It's nice to pretend there's some nobility in it, but it truly comes down to my utter lack of follow-through, commitment and maturity. I didn't plan to end up this way. And I need to make a change. But I'm not sure how.
It's not a new issue... I've dreamt up more possible futures for myself than I could recount. I've found myself being passionate about a topic for as little as a week, dedicating myself to it wholly and then backing out because it's grown tiresome, stagnant and dull. My poor wife can't keep up with the multitude of lifelong dreams I seem intent on living out for small stretches of time. And while variety in one's dreams is certainly pleasant and makes, maybe, for interesting conversation, my absolute inability to focus is crippling in regards to actually making something out of myself.
In the end, though, the worst of it is that this is probably where I've topped out. It may not be the fault of my stunted education, my unwillingness to plan, my fear of responsibility or my lack of discipline that is keeping me from excelling. Maybe, scarily, my mediocrity is solely the result of the fact that I'm just mediocre. Most people are, of course. It's explicit in the word. But nobody wants to be mediocre. Nobody pushes ahead with their life's plans thinking, "How wonderful it would be to have my work, my achievements, my existence be basically on par with the rest of humanity." But that's what happens, right? Most of us tumble into the big space beneath the apogee of the bell curve and we never get out. As much as I would like to think my talent or my brains or my encyclopedic knowledge of Beatles' songs would separate me from the rest of the herd, they probably don't.
But as another work week ends and a new one looms just around the corner, I can't help, sometimes, but feel defeated. I can't help but feel like I should be doing so much more. Maybe that's the biggest problem of all.
8.04.2009
Addicted To Buzz
So, there's not much I like about corporate culture. In my admittedly limited experience with suit-n-tie types, I've found a disconcerting lack of substance made up for with an overabundance of cliches, worthless aphorisms and buzzwords. Corporate stupidity is a target that's as big as the broad side of a barn, and yet these types of folks still seem to permeate the highest levels of management (and bubble up from the ranks of we in the underclass) despite the obvious ridiculousness of their world view.
Tonight, I overheard two young execs speaking in a tongue that can only be mastered after sitting through endless meetings and watching far too many Power Point presentations. It was as if, after seeing their hundred thousandth consecutive slide, their brains melted into an utterly useless goo unable to string together a sentence that wasn't lifted from the spiral bound materials they foist upon the attendees of management training seminars. I was embarrassed for them... even though they probably have a lot more money than I do. It's just such nonsense, and it bothers me that they are either unable or unwilling to see that. It makes me hate them oh so much.
In the effort of restoring some semblance of respect to the men and women who run our nation's great corporations, I'd like to propose a moritorium on the following phrases that make them seem like mindless idiot lemming drones ambling for the nearest cliff. To wit:
1.) "Throw him (or her) under the bus."
I actually think reality television is to blame for the proliferation of this phrase's usage, but it's been adopted, now, by the suits and they use it ad freaking nauseum. Scapegoating is one of the most widespread of corporate hobbies, and it seems like hardly an hour goes by without somebody throwing somebody under the bus. And it's always described that way. Always. No one is ever cast to the wolves or crucified by their coworkers... nope. They are invariably thrown under the bus. It doesn't take much of an offense to be thrown under said bus, nor does being thrown under the bus always bear out some great consequence. "Dale took the last cup of coffee," one suit might say to another. "Way to throw Dale under the bus," the other suit might respond. And then a hearty laugh will no doubt be shared. It takes on an even more annoying cast when a suit will declare their own integrity by refusing to throw somebody under the bus. It takes guts to not blame somebody for your own failures... it's less impressive to not hurl them under a large machine.
2.) "Drink the Kool-Ade."
This started out correctly, a reference to the Jonestown massacre and a sly warning not to get suckered into buying into a bad idea just 'cause everybody else is doing it. Somewhere along the way, though, its connotation morphed, and suits decided (unaware of the irony) that drinking the Kool-Ade was, in fact, a fantastic thing to do. There's no shortage of stupid ideas in corporate culture, and the execution of those stupid ideas requires people with some semblance of critical thought to throw their hands up in disgust and obey the poorly designed policies, even knowing the outcome will be bad. These poor workaday schlubs are forced to drink company Kool-Ade on a regular basis... and since their compliance validates the ill conceived ideas of the suits, they obviously think that drinking the Kool-Ade is beneficial. It's sad and funny how appropriate the phrase is, but it's maddening to know that the people using it incorrectly (and all too often) will never understand the joke.
3.) "Low hanging fruit"
Yes, yes, I get it. This can, I will begrudgingly admit, be sort of a useful phrase. There are legitimate instances of companies being festooned with easy-to-correct problems that should be tackled prior to investing a lot of time into more involved and costly programs. But in the hands of a clueless suit, EVERYTHING becomes "low hanging fruit," regardless of whether it's low hanging, or even fruit at all. By tossing around the term like so much confetti, corporates muddy the meaning of it. "We need to start with the low hanging fruit," one of them might offer up, uselessly, when pitching a project. He doesn't know, in this case, what that low hanging fruit might be, but he's fairly certain starting with it is a good idea. When the project begins, one of his bumbling supervisors is sure to ask, "Did you get the low hanging fruit?". And God forbid the project leader can't answer in the affirmative! "Of course we did! We started with the low hanging fruit." "Ah," the superior suit thinks. "That's a good place to start." I guarantee that no low hanging fruit was harmed in this exchange.
4.) "80/20 Rule"
I don't know if this is as egregiously misused in every workplace as it is in mine, but I hope there's a special circle in Hell reserved for people who throw this phrase into their speech like they'd throw croutons onto a delicious chef salad. The real 80/20 Rule is sometimes called the "law of the vital few," (or something similar). The premise is that, for a lot of things, 80% of the outcomes are determined by only 20% of the causes. In business, it's often true that about 80% of a company's profits come from about 20% of customers... not always, but often. The gist is, of course, to focus on that "vital few," because that's your real bread and butter. What I have heard, time and time again, however is the "80/20 Rule" being used as a replacement for the idea of something just happening about 80% of the time... like, if a suit wants to know if something you're doing is common, they'll say, "How often does this occur? 80/20 Rule?" Or, say, in the course of a dialog on a recurring problem, somebody brings up a rare or unique set of circumstances... a corporate type might chime in with, "Let's stay on track here... we want to focus on what's happening the majority of the time. Keep the 80/20 Rule in mind." It's another case of interpreting the phrase absolutely incorrectly. They're not focusing on the vital few, they're focusing on the majority of cases... wouldn't it be easier to substitute the esoteric "80/20 Rule" with the more commonly used (and harder to muck up) phrase: "most of the time"?!
5.) "Value added"
Sweet merciful buttercrackers, if I never hear this phrase again, I'll be thrilled. It crops up daily, as suits with no practical experience try to determine which parts of an underling's job are and are not "value added." Determining how something adds value, or why it might not, is usually beyond the scope of their inquiries, but figuring out whether or not things are value added is a crack-addictive pasttime to the folks high-up on the ladder. What constitutes value added, exactly? That's easy... any action that adds value is value added! If an action doesn't add value, then of course, it's not value added. It doesn't matter that knowing the value an action is adding is generally not feasible for execs who have as little understanding of the jobs they oversee as possible, and it's unimportant that they are in no posistion to correct any action that isn't value added. The money's apparently in making long lists of the steps required to do a job and then assigning them to the appropriate value added or not value added category. If only another suit could step in and point out that ignorant dudes and dudettes compiling lists of meaningless assertions on whether or not things are value added is distinctly not value added. But that would blow their minds.
So please, let's stop all this making fun of corporates behind their back and get them the help they need to ween themselves of the buzzword habit!
Wouldn't that be thinking outside the box?!
Tonight, I overheard two young execs speaking in a tongue that can only be mastered after sitting through endless meetings and watching far too many Power Point presentations. It was as if, after seeing their hundred thousandth consecutive slide, their brains melted into an utterly useless goo unable to string together a sentence that wasn't lifted from the spiral bound materials they foist upon the attendees of management training seminars. I was embarrassed for them... even though they probably have a lot more money than I do. It's just such nonsense, and it bothers me that they are either unable or unwilling to see that. It makes me hate them oh so much.
In the effort of restoring some semblance of respect to the men and women who run our nation's great corporations, I'd like to propose a moritorium on the following phrases that make them seem like mindless idiot lemming drones ambling for the nearest cliff. To wit:
1.) "Throw him (or her) under the bus."
I actually think reality television is to blame for the proliferation of this phrase's usage, but it's been adopted, now, by the suits and they use it ad freaking nauseum. Scapegoating is one of the most widespread of corporate hobbies, and it seems like hardly an hour goes by without somebody throwing somebody under the bus. And it's always described that way. Always. No one is ever cast to the wolves or crucified by their coworkers... nope. They are invariably thrown under the bus. It doesn't take much of an offense to be thrown under said bus, nor does being thrown under the bus always bear out some great consequence. "Dale took the last cup of coffee," one suit might say to another. "Way to throw Dale under the bus," the other suit might respond. And then a hearty laugh will no doubt be shared. It takes on an even more annoying cast when a suit will declare their own integrity by refusing to throw somebody under the bus. It takes guts to not blame somebody for your own failures... it's less impressive to not hurl them under a large machine.
2.) "Drink the Kool-Ade."
This started out correctly, a reference to the Jonestown massacre and a sly warning not to get suckered into buying into a bad idea just 'cause everybody else is doing it. Somewhere along the way, though, its connotation morphed, and suits decided (unaware of the irony) that drinking the Kool-Ade was, in fact, a fantastic thing to do. There's no shortage of stupid ideas in corporate culture, and the execution of those stupid ideas requires people with some semblance of critical thought to throw their hands up in disgust and obey the poorly designed policies, even knowing the outcome will be bad. These poor workaday schlubs are forced to drink company Kool-Ade on a regular basis... and since their compliance validates the ill conceived ideas of the suits, they obviously think that drinking the Kool-Ade is beneficial. It's sad and funny how appropriate the phrase is, but it's maddening to know that the people using it incorrectly (and all too often) will never understand the joke.
3.) "Low hanging fruit"
Yes, yes, I get it. This can, I will begrudgingly admit, be sort of a useful phrase. There are legitimate instances of companies being festooned with easy-to-correct problems that should be tackled prior to investing a lot of time into more involved and costly programs. But in the hands of a clueless suit, EVERYTHING becomes "low hanging fruit," regardless of whether it's low hanging, or even fruit at all. By tossing around the term like so much confetti, corporates muddy the meaning of it. "We need to start with the low hanging fruit," one of them might offer up, uselessly, when pitching a project. He doesn't know, in this case, what that low hanging fruit might be, but he's fairly certain starting with it is a good idea. When the project begins, one of his bumbling supervisors is sure to ask, "Did you get the low hanging fruit?". And God forbid the project leader can't answer in the affirmative! "Of course we did! We started with the low hanging fruit." "Ah," the superior suit thinks. "That's a good place to start." I guarantee that no low hanging fruit was harmed in this exchange.
4.) "80/20 Rule"
I don't know if this is as egregiously misused in every workplace as it is in mine, but I hope there's a special circle in Hell reserved for people who throw this phrase into their speech like they'd throw croutons onto a delicious chef salad. The real 80/20 Rule is sometimes called the "law of the vital few," (or something similar). The premise is that, for a lot of things, 80% of the outcomes are determined by only 20% of the causes. In business, it's often true that about 80% of a company's profits come from about 20% of customers... not always, but often. The gist is, of course, to focus on that "vital few," because that's your real bread and butter. What I have heard, time and time again, however is the "80/20 Rule" being used as a replacement for the idea of something just happening about 80% of the time... like, if a suit wants to know if something you're doing is common, they'll say, "How often does this occur? 80/20 Rule?" Or, say, in the course of a dialog on a recurring problem, somebody brings up a rare or unique set of circumstances... a corporate type might chime in with, "Let's stay on track here... we want to focus on what's happening the majority of the time. Keep the 80/20 Rule in mind." It's another case of interpreting the phrase absolutely incorrectly. They're not focusing on the vital few, they're focusing on the majority of cases... wouldn't it be easier to substitute the esoteric "80/20 Rule" with the more commonly used (and harder to muck up) phrase: "most of the time"?!
5.) "Value added"
Sweet merciful buttercrackers, if I never hear this phrase again, I'll be thrilled. It crops up daily, as suits with no practical experience try to determine which parts of an underling's job are and are not "value added." Determining how something adds value, or why it might not, is usually beyond the scope of their inquiries, but figuring out whether or not things are value added is a crack-addictive pasttime to the folks high-up on the ladder. What constitutes value added, exactly? That's easy... any action that adds value is value added! If an action doesn't add value, then of course, it's not value added. It doesn't matter that knowing the value an action is adding is generally not feasible for execs who have as little understanding of the jobs they oversee as possible, and it's unimportant that they are in no posistion to correct any action that isn't value added. The money's apparently in making long lists of the steps required to do a job and then assigning them to the appropriate value added or not value added category. If only another suit could step in and point out that ignorant dudes and dudettes compiling lists of meaningless assertions on whether or not things are value added is distinctly not value added. But that would blow their minds.
So please, let's stop all this making fun of corporates behind their back and get them the help they need to ween themselves of the buzzword habit!
Wouldn't that be thinking outside the box?!
7.21.2009
Another Self-Induced Sleepless Night
So, I have a tendency, sometimes, to fall into a bad pattern of insomnia/mild caffeine abuse that just perpetuates itself and becomes an annoying vicious circle. I'm on, I don't know, day four or five of running with three to five hours of poor sleep per night. This isn't terrible, but it isn't exactly great. I can feel myself headed for a monster crash... it will most likely involve a crippling migraine, hallucinations and a whole hell of a lot of being ridiculously crabby.
I almost feel like insomnia is a character trait of mine, a sort of shorthand for the type of person that I am. I know that's a bit silly, but it reflects two important things about me: When I'm excited to do something, I will put everything else, especially sleep, on hold to do it; and, when I'm dreading something, I will do everything I can to postpone it for as long as possible. These two facts, flaws you might call them, create a sort of perfect storm of insomnia.
Currently, I'm working on consolidating all of the creative aspects of my life into one nifty little website hub (www.jasondangerblock.com, of course). And it's going pretty ok. I like doing it and I feel like I'm accomplishing something and I like that there will be something to show for my work when it's done. It also means I want it to be done as soon as possible. I'm not patient, especially when it comes to my output, and I am a much bigger fan of the product than I am of the process. So I want to finish it. So I've been putting in late nights trying to get the thing to work and drawing up nifty little pictures for it and reconfiguring it and so on and so forth.
This, coupled with my increasing disdain for the vapidity and stagnation of my day job (and the rapidness with which slumber brings on a new morning), makes sleep seem like an obstacle to my goals and any hope of a measure of success. So I stay up all night, working on things that will likely only ever be seen by a handful of people, trying desperately to keep my dreams alive while staving off another fruitless day of mediocrity. Eventually, of course, morning does come, and bleary eyed and still gauzy from my ceaseless parade of whacko wee hour dreams, I wake up, muddle through a shower and riddle myself with caffeine in an effort to join the living for the day. This, of course, isn't novel or unique or anything, but it does, I think, go a long way, in tandem with the factors listed above, toward hampering the next night's sleep and the cycle continues undaunted and unbroken until I have a whopping meltdown and fall into a twelve hour coma. This can take weeks. And when the coma ends, the whole process starts slowly up again.
I wonder, sometimes, if the majority of my normal waking hours were spent doing something even mildly fulfilling, would I still have this problem? Would I still push myself in an all-too-likely futile march toward some sort of achievement? Or, would I be content with my day's accomplishments and go to bed looking forward to the possibilities of a new morning? I can't even fathom what that would be like... the concept is so alien to me. I imagine, though, under those circumstances, that my output would be quicker and far more competent. But maybe it's the feeling of being trapped in such abject mediocrity that spurs me to try to do more, even if there's little hope of success... I'd like to think that I'd try to do better no matter how well I was doing. And that, I suppose, is good and bad. Contentment is murder to improvement, but it's still something we all strive for, isn't it? Is a life of always pushing against what you've done to achieve something more inherently better than just accepting a life that's fine, but not as good as it could be? My official goal, I guess, is to aim for the middle of those extremes, but I can't really see ever being content even if I wasn't just treading water every day.
Still, this sort of behavior, as self-aware of it being self-induced as I am, probably can't continue. I need to find a better way, at least for now, to balance what gives me substance with what pays the bills. Luckily I've got all night to think about it! Just let me crack open another Diet Coke...
I almost feel like insomnia is a character trait of mine, a sort of shorthand for the type of person that I am. I know that's a bit silly, but it reflects two important things about me: When I'm excited to do something, I will put everything else, especially sleep, on hold to do it; and, when I'm dreading something, I will do everything I can to postpone it for as long as possible. These two facts, flaws you might call them, create a sort of perfect storm of insomnia.
Currently, I'm working on consolidating all of the creative aspects of my life into one nifty little website hub (www.jasondangerblock.com, of course). And it's going pretty ok. I like doing it and I feel like I'm accomplishing something and I like that there will be something to show for my work when it's done. It also means I want it to be done as soon as possible. I'm not patient, especially when it comes to my output, and I am a much bigger fan of the product than I am of the process. So I want to finish it. So I've been putting in late nights trying to get the thing to work and drawing up nifty little pictures for it and reconfiguring it and so on and so forth.
This, coupled with my increasing disdain for the vapidity and stagnation of my day job (and the rapidness with which slumber brings on a new morning), makes sleep seem like an obstacle to my goals and any hope of a measure of success. So I stay up all night, working on things that will likely only ever be seen by a handful of people, trying desperately to keep my dreams alive while staving off another fruitless day of mediocrity. Eventually, of course, morning does come, and bleary eyed and still gauzy from my ceaseless parade of whacko wee hour dreams, I wake up, muddle through a shower and riddle myself with caffeine in an effort to join the living for the day. This, of course, isn't novel or unique or anything, but it does, I think, go a long way, in tandem with the factors listed above, toward hampering the next night's sleep and the cycle continues undaunted and unbroken until I have a whopping meltdown and fall into a twelve hour coma. This can take weeks. And when the coma ends, the whole process starts slowly up again.
I wonder, sometimes, if the majority of my normal waking hours were spent doing something even mildly fulfilling, would I still have this problem? Would I still push myself in an all-too-likely futile march toward some sort of achievement? Or, would I be content with my day's accomplishments and go to bed looking forward to the possibilities of a new morning? I can't even fathom what that would be like... the concept is so alien to me. I imagine, though, under those circumstances, that my output would be quicker and far more competent. But maybe it's the feeling of being trapped in such abject mediocrity that spurs me to try to do more, even if there's little hope of success... I'd like to think that I'd try to do better no matter how well I was doing. And that, I suppose, is good and bad. Contentment is murder to improvement, but it's still something we all strive for, isn't it? Is a life of always pushing against what you've done to achieve something more inherently better than just accepting a life that's fine, but not as good as it could be? My official goal, I guess, is to aim for the middle of those extremes, but I can't really see ever being content even if I wasn't just treading water every day.
Still, this sort of behavior, as self-aware of it being self-induced as I am, probably can't continue. I need to find a better way, at least for now, to balance what gives me substance with what pays the bills. Luckily I've got all night to think about it! Just let me crack open another Diet Coke...
7.19.2009
www.jasondangerblock.com
So, I have been talking for months and months and months (also, technically known as "years") about creating a website for myself and my many mediocre works. I thought I should probably have a piece of internet real-estate (virtual estate?) all my own, and as I push toward my goal of being an honest-to-goodness professional artist/writer/bon vivant, it has become increasingly more necessary.
I am not a technologically adept person. Not really. I have a faculty for technology when I can do something useful with it. I quickly learned the value of even a rudimentary word processor, like the old school green screen Appleworks, and how it crushed the electric typewriter like a grape. I figured out early on that databases were marvelous ways to keep track of Dungeons & Dragons spell lists and monster statistics. I was at the forefront of the mp3 revolution because the idea of fitting 175 songs onto a single CD appealed to me. But I've never been into technology for technology's sake. I like my computer, but I'm pretty much wholly disinterested in how it actually works. As far as I'm concerned, it works no differently than a car, the human digestive system or a toaster: magic. So, even in this era, fully immersed in the internet as I am, I have very little practical skill with making a website.
Actually, that's not entirely true. While in college, when I should have either been attending classes or playing Microprose's "Civilization 2," I spent some of my valuable time using Microsoft Frontpage to make a website for the greatest fake band in all of human history: The Ho-Chi-Minhs. It wasn't a difficult program, really, but it did require a bit of manipulation to get the site to do what I wanted it to do. I spent untold hours laboring over it, making it far more detailed and realistic than any fake band's (best known for a song about a fish mask that smelled like beer) website should be. It was modeled on ridiculously minutiae-obsessed music fan sites of the late 90's, especially ones dedicated to Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins. For my fake band, I created a crazily intricate and fabricated discography, full of ep's, promotional singles and import only vinyl records showing that our fake songs were remixed by our turntable alter egos DJ Marky M-Bop and DJ Danger B. I gave each release a catalog number and a kick-ass cover made with Image Composer. Every song was hyperlinked to its lyrics. It was colossal and it was bizarre and it was, in my opinion, wicked awesome. It never made it to the internet, however. Before it could be completed and uploaded, it fell victim to the aptly named Chernobyl virus and it was lost forever.
That was over a decade ago, now. I hadn't tried again, instead getting sucked into the pre-fab worlds of Myspace and Facebook, and ready-made blogs like this one here. Still, none of those options quite match the niftiness of having an honest-to-goodness website of my own. So I mucked around with Godaddy, got bucketloads of helpful advice from my cousin-in-law Erika, and FINALLY began to work with Firefox's Kompozer program to create the skeleton of www.jasondangerblock.com. And it's looking ok, I think. There's no flash animation or dancing hamsters or anything, but for a guy who doesn't really know what the heck he's doing, I think it could be worse.
It's not even close to complete, yet, but I'd still like to hear what people think of it (if they think anything of it at all). My one goal for Jason "Danger" Block Dot Com? To have it not suck rancid goat butt. I think it's a goal I can meet.
I am not a technologically adept person. Not really. I have a faculty for technology when I can do something useful with it. I quickly learned the value of even a rudimentary word processor, like the old school green screen Appleworks, and how it crushed the electric typewriter like a grape. I figured out early on that databases were marvelous ways to keep track of Dungeons & Dragons spell lists and monster statistics. I was at the forefront of the mp3 revolution because the idea of fitting 175 songs onto a single CD appealed to me. But I've never been into technology for technology's sake. I like my computer, but I'm pretty much wholly disinterested in how it actually works. As far as I'm concerned, it works no differently than a car, the human digestive system or a toaster: magic. So, even in this era, fully immersed in the internet as I am, I have very little practical skill with making a website.
Actually, that's not entirely true. While in college, when I should have either been attending classes or playing Microprose's "Civilization 2," I spent some of my valuable time using Microsoft Frontpage to make a website for the greatest fake band in all of human history: The Ho-Chi-Minhs. It wasn't a difficult program, really, but it did require a bit of manipulation to get the site to do what I wanted it to do. I spent untold hours laboring over it, making it far more detailed and realistic than any fake band's (best known for a song about a fish mask that smelled like beer) website should be. It was modeled on ridiculously minutiae-obsessed music fan sites of the late 90's, especially ones dedicated to Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins. For my fake band, I created a crazily intricate and fabricated discography, full of ep's, promotional singles and import only vinyl records showing that our fake songs were remixed by our turntable alter egos DJ Marky M-Bop and DJ Danger B. I gave each release a catalog number and a kick-ass cover made with Image Composer. Every song was hyperlinked to its lyrics. It was colossal and it was bizarre and it was, in my opinion, wicked awesome. It never made it to the internet, however. Before it could be completed and uploaded, it fell victim to the aptly named Chernobyl virus and it was lost forever.
That was over a decade ago, now. I hadn't tried again, instead getting sucked into the pre-fab worlds of Myspace and Facebook, and ready-made blogs like this one here. Still, none of those options quite match the niftiness of having an honest-to-goodness website of my own. So I mucked around with Godaddy, got bucketloads of helpful advice from my cousin-in-law Erika, and FINALLY began to work with Firefox's Kompozer program to create the skeleton of www.jasondangerblock.com. And it's looking ok, I think. There's no flash animation or dancing hamsters or anything, but for a guy who doesn't really know what the heck he's doing, I think it could be worse.
It's not even close to complete, yet, but I'd still like to hear what people think of it (if they think anything of it at all). My one goal for Jason "Danger" Block Dot Com? To have it not suck rancid goat butt. I think it's a goal I can meet.
3.23.2009
Disaster
The impending disaster was spelled out in a flurry of yellow Post-Its and ragged edged notebook paper. It was nonsense to any outsider looking in, certainly, but as it was my hand that scratched the angry words in ballpoint, I had a different perspective. This is not to insinuate that I was, in any way, in control of what was spilling out from my clutched pen. I was not. But I was there, inside of my eyes, watching it all happen. And I understood it. I understood what it meant and I was scared.
Despair is a rotting disease, culling the tissue from your brain and melting it into a sort of useless, frightening sludge. I could feel it burning away. I could feel my sensibilities crumbling like termite-infested timber and as it gave out, any hope of my escape was thwarted. I was trapped within the confines of a mind unfit for piloting. This part of me, this reasonable, normal part of me, was lodged within a splintered, broken mess of a structure fully decimated. Debris should have been falling from my ears. Smoke should have belched from my mouth.
The process of degradation was slow and nearly imperceptible. It came in inches. I had begun with such a slew of hope raging around in my guts. I wanted nothing more than to do well, to provide for my family, to do an honest day's work for an decent wage. The money, at first, was slight... but it was understandable. They had taken, I assumed, some pity upon me. They had propped me up, given me a chance and so it was only fair I proved my capabilities to them. I wanted, desperately, to show them that I was worthy of the kindness that had shown me. I worked hard. I tried to do well. I assumed that competence and loyalty would be appreciated and repaid.
Looking back, it's all my own naivete that led to this point. It was silly of me to believe in some sort of reciprocation, especially from people so assured that they were my betters. Degrees hanging on their walls and beautiful cars in their driveways, I suppose, easily led them to the conclusion that I was less than they were. And in many ways they were right. My assets were intangible: a mind willing to dissect their problems, however menial, and solve them; an ability to untangle logical knots; a genuine desire to help my benefactors in any way I could. It was easy enough for them to pluck the thoughts from my brain and steal the credit. But I didn't mind. It was only a matter of time, I figured, before the truth would come out and I would be acknowledged for my utility. I toiled away for them, a minion at a flourescent lit desk, watching their conversations drift to the edges of bad taste and moral delinquency. These were not good people. But that was unimportant.
Imagine a dog being kicked for so long that the abuse becomes baseline, so that a lack of pain is translated as a shower of affection. I became accustomed to their rudeness, to their snake-tongued lies and manipulations. They all hated each other. My peers were little more than chewed-up waste, barely there bodies punching clocks at very regular intervals. They were chair-fillers and everybody knew it. The drones were content in their sub-mediocrity. Their superiors were thrilled to have such a vile pool to elevate themselves above. I was locked, however, in the space between. My competence and my ethic led me to easily crawl over the heads of the slaves, but my lack of formal education and politcal savy kept me cowed under the bloodshot gazes of the fraternity of drunkards signing my paychecks. I was kept at bay by their plundering mentality, their casual villainy. They were invested in my work, my usefulness, but wholly disinterested in me as a human being. I was more like a calculator or three hole punch in their eyes. I was, in all respects, a tool.
Slowly, I guess, the injustice of it began to seep into my conscious like a leaking beaker of acid. This was tragically coupled with a new found understanding of just how very trivial my work had been. I was increasingly aware of how worthless my presence was, and how my only impact was to benefit a veritable army of idiots and grotesque pirates who lived solely to grow a business through any means necessary. It was my own fault for being stupid enough to care. The changes in me were not swift or even noticeable. I tried to shift my mindset. I tried to relegate my many hours of labor into the category of unpleasant necessity. But I was failing. I tripped over the ideas and began to curse myself for having been such a company man. I hated myself for ever having worked so hard at something so innately ridiculous to aid a cadre of disgusting people.
My brain began to melt inside of my skull, and I watched it happen, detaching from my day to day life. I was chastised by my superiors. Interest was feigned in my declining well being and I feigned thanks for their fake concern. I saw my projects topple under the weight of my neglect. The niche I had carved between captain and private was being eroded, and so was my peace of mind. I lost sleep, worrying about my past and its wasted years and fretting over just what the hell to do with my future. That lost sleep spiraled into full on insomnia, and this left me further remote and ever weirdening in the long hours of staring into darkness.
This is my life, I would repeat to myself. This is my life and it's draining away. I have so little to show for it. No advancement. No money. No fulfillment. Nothing but the sour taste of being used. I was a whore for a company of bastards, just another means to a higher profit margin. I should never have expected anything to be anything more. But I let them fool me. And that made me angry.
Anger fueled my sleepless nights and the broken part of my thinking became obsessed with the scum that had been cheating me. I became focused on the faceless, foul-mouthed and blatantly horrid executives that had taken advantage of my inexperience and my enthusiasm. I had listened to the outskirts of their talk for so long, listened to their misogyny and ignorance. I held my tongue, kept my thoughts to myself and fretted at the guilt of it all. I let them run roughshod over me and laugh at me. I took their abuse, but I kept record of every slight, every insult, every transgression against my sensibility. I never forgot. Never forgave. And that grudge that I held so tightly, it began to live on its own. It became a rotting thing, a writhing machine of grubs and millipedes squirming around in my skull and sending me into a sort of silent whirl of despair.
And then I began to split.
This living thing, this living despair, hijacked me. It did. The normal, rational and justifiably angry bit of me was pushed aside and control of the whole works was given over to this charred, squirming pilot. It was just handed over. And then, suddenly, I was stuck inside of myself. I was watching as a crazed version of me began to plot.
Post-It notes and scavenged loose leaf started to fill with a sort of anti-corporate manifesto. My hand was writing it, but my head was not. It was someone else. Someone far more bitter and far sicker residing in my brain and making my clutching, aching hand scribble out rant after rant after rant. Most of the words were indistinct scribbles, furious scrawls that looked lifted from a psychopath's case file. But others leapt from the pages. "LIARS." "CHEATS." "BASTARDS." Other expletives stood out. I wasn't writing them but I could sure feel them being yanked from my skull. I wasn't writing them, but I could sure feel them angrily marring the tattered sheets that surrounded me. Cruelties began to slip from my mouth while my hands worked on autopilot. I wanted to make my tormentors suffer. Make them pay. But that's not quite right. I didn't want that. Not this me. The other me. Not my bruised ego, not my sucker punched normal self. The other one. The worm riddled and foul mouthed creature that snuck in, that built itself up from ruins of despair left behind by broken promises and needless machinations. That thing, that living thing of despair spelled out in frightening chaos and pitch black lettering exactly what it planned to do. Disaster. And I was trapped, helpless to stop it, horrified at what was coming in the guise of me.
It took days and days to formulate its plan. And while it did, I was cut off, tossed into some nightmarish cell of gray matter and impulse. I watched from behind those synaptic bars as power struggle dreams flooded my conscious. I watched the thing of despair tower in its ego and its pufferfish pride. It was growing. It was stronger than I was by far. Meaner. Angrier. And worst of all, it was unhinged. It was unbound by logic or threat of consequence. I could see what was happening with all too much clarity. I saw it all through my unclouded eyes and I was trembling, by God. I was absolutely quaking inside of my prison. Outwardly, I'm sure, I showed no signs of anxiety. There wasn't a shred of it to be found in my monstrous pilot. It was moving through my life without a trace of fear.
And then it acted.
The motion of it is still a blur. The logistics of it were simplistic in execution. A gun was procured. It was cheap and it was old. It smelled like oil. It left a strange film, a strange odor on my hands. I've never fired a gun in my life. I've never held one. I don't like it. It's like holding a bomb. Inside of my cell, I shuddered, worried that a false move would send a bullet into God-knows-what-or-(worse)-who. This did not deter my captor. It elevated him. It bolstered him. He took to its use without a problem. Rounds were discharged into a decaying tree stump the night before the disaster. The ejecting shells hit my hand and it burnt. I felt it. He didn't seem to. This was hellish. This was pure torture. I wanted out. But I had nowhere to go. We stayed up that night, awake and wired in my rocking chair. My family was gone. I barely noticed their absence. I was terrified. I was awake and wired and terrified. And when the morning broke, I drove to work like I would on any other day. The gun was tucked in my pants, hidden by a long, black shirt.
And I walked in, a jumble of nerves and sweat, but outwardly calmer and more content, I suppose, than I had seemed in months. My anger had become commonplace. If there was any hint as to my motive, that day, it was belied only by a seemingly better mood. The thing even whistled, nonchalant, with my damned lips. It was grotesque. And I marched, determined and swift, from the timeclock to the big boss' office upstairs. I bounded, two steps at a crack, upward practically in a sprint. And the despair addled thing inside of me, it painted my face with a horrific joker's grin. It moved my arm and it twisted the boss' doorknob and it moved my legs and paraded me in, smiling like the devil, and it used my hand to close the door behind me.
And then, using my voice, it spoke to him.
"How's it going?" it asked, mocking interest. My boss looked up from his big oak desk, his big oak desk covered with important papers and catalogs and stacks of business. He looked up with such a withering look of disdain, of disgust. He was angry that I had barged in. He was angry that I had dared to bother him. His big ruddy face was a mask of sourness. It was jowly and wide and was so much bigger than it should have been. His cornflower blue shirt was buttoned up and practically strangling him. Fat poured over the collar in bulbous tumors. He was an ugly, toadish man and he felt like I had no right to be there. "No seriously," my despair asked again, how's it going?"
My boss did not answer. Instead, he asked who I was.
Years of working with this man, years of toiling for his benefit, of working long hours to sate his appetite for profits and he didn't even know who I was. He didn't know my name. My despair didn't tell him.
Instead, my voice cackled. It was mirthless. It was creepy laugh that even jolted my fat, red faced boss. He sat up straighter when it happened. His eyes opened a little wider at first, and then he narrowed them again and spat out a "what do you want?".
And my hand reached for the weapon tucked into my pants. And, slowly, it curled my fingers around the handle and revealed the gun to the angry man behind the big oaken desk. And then the balance of power shifted. He wasn't going to ask questions in such a disdainful tone anymore. He wasn't going to begrudge my presence in his beautiful office. He was, instead, going to listen. There was a fear in that man's eyes that I would've thought would've bought me an ounce of joy. But it didn't. It made me sick. It made me sick with worry, with guilt. My brain was rocking back and forth as I threw myself against the walls of my cell, pleading with my despair-born jailor to please let me out and end this before it went too far.
"Your life," my despair said to the terrified, sweating man, "is nothing, do you understand? You have elevated yourself above everybody, so proud of your achievements, so pompous in your success. You have stood on our backs and built your miserable little empire out of our blood and bones. You have lied and cheated and stole and manipulated your way to this position. You have kept me under your polished heel, and God, you don't even know who I am! But you are just as pathetic, just as fragile as anybody else. Your money isn't going to buy a way out of this. Your perceived power isn't going to keep you safe from my wrath. Do you understand?" My despair was making my voice absolutely thunder. My cheeks ached from the constant grinning. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
My boss, the imposing tower of masculine rage and bellowing command was sobbing like a little girl. Big, sloppy tears were pouring down his pore-riddled, blotchy cheeks and snot ran free from his nose onto his upper lip. He looked absolutely pitiful. He looked so afraid, probably because I looked so damned crazy. This was not bringing any satisfaction. None. It was horrific. I didn't want to watch it. I didn't want to see this. My despair pointed the gun between the fat man's eyes and I watched my poor, terrified and awful boss follow it, cross-eyed and about to vomit. "Please, please, please..." he whispered. "Don't."
And then: disaster.
I tried to close my eyes, but my pilot, my despair, wouldn't let me. The shot rang out louder than anything I'd ever heard and it rattled every bone in my body. There was nothing to stop it. There was nothing but a thin layer of skin, a bit of skull and then my boss' brain. Hunks of him flew like splattered watermelon, showering me with gore and staining the walls with white, pink and deep red. And it was over. He was just a smoking rind of a person, a mess of busted bone and ripped, burnt flesh and tissue. The smell made me absolutely sick. Inside of my head, I was shrieking. I was screaming for mercy, for forgiveness for the sin that had been carried out with my hands. I was broken, a wrecked thing left behind and smoldering almost like the corpse that spilled over the desktop. The grin stayed plastered on my face.
And my despair fired another shot, just for good measure.
(c) 2009 Jason "Danger" Block
Despair is a rotting disease, culling the tissue from your brain and melting it into a sort of useless, frightening sludge. I could feel it burning away. I could feel my sensibilities crumbling like termite-infested timber and as it gave out, any hope of my escape was thwarted. I was trapped within the confines of a mind unfit for piloting. This part of me, this reasonable, normal part of me, was lodged within a splintered, broken mess of a structure fully decimated. Debris should have been falling from my ears. Smoke should have belched from my mouth.
The process of degradation was slow and nearly imperceptible. It came in inches. I had begun with such a slew of hope raging around in my guts. I wanted nothing more than to do well, to provide for my family, to do an honest day's work for an decent wage. The money, at first, was slight... but it was understandable. They had taken, I assumed, some pity upon me. They had propped me up, given me a chance and so it was only fair I proved my capabilities to them. I wanted, desperately, to show them that I was worthy of the kindness that had shown me. I worked hard. I tried to do well. I assumed that competence and loyalty would be appreciated and repaid.
Looking back, it's all my own naivete that led to this point. It was silly of me to believe in some sort of reciprocation, especially from people so assured that they were my betters. Degrees hanging on their walls and beautiful cars in their driveways, I suppose, easily led them to the conclusion that I was less than they were. And in many ways they were right. My assets were intangible: a mind willing to dissect their problems, however menial, and solve them; an ability to untangle logical knots; a genuine desire to help my benefactors in any way I could. It was easy enough for them to pluck the thoughts from my brain and steal the credit. But I didn't mind. It was only a matter of time, I figured, before the truth would come out and I would be acknowledged for my utility. I toiled away for them, a minion at a flourescent lit desk, watching their conversations drift to the edges of bad taste and moral delinquency. These were not good people. But that was unimportant.
Imagine a dog being kicked for so long that the abuse becomes baseline, so that a lack of pain is translated as a shower of affection. I became accustomed to their rudeness, to their snake-tongued lies and manipulations. They all hated each other. My peers were little more than chewed-up waste, barely there bodies punching clocks at very regular intervals. They were chair-fillers and everybody knew it. The drones were content in their sub-mediocrity. Their superiors were thrilled to have such a vile pool to elevate themselves above. I was locked, however, in the space between. My competence and my ethic led me to easily crawl over the heads of the slaves, but my lack of formal education and politcal savy kept me cowed under the bloodshot gazes of the fraternity of drunkards signing my paychecks. I was kept at bay by their plundering mentality, their casual villainy. They were invested in my work, my usefulness, but wholly disinterested in me as a human being. I was more like a calculator or three hole punch in their eyes. I was, in all respects, a tool.
Slowly, I guess, the injustice of it began to seep into my conscious like a leaking beaker of acid. This was tragically coupled with a new found understanding of just how very trivial my work had been. I was increasingly aware of how worthless my presence was, and how my only impact was to benefit a veritable army of idiots and grotesque pirates who lived solely to grow a business through any means necessary. It was my own fault for being stupid enough to care. The changes in me were not swift or even noticeable. I tried to shift my mindset. I tried to relegate my many hours of labor into the category of unpleasant necessity. But I was failing. I tripped over the ideas and began to curse myself for having been such a company man. I hated myself for ever having worked so hard at something so innately ridiculous to aid a cadre of disgusting people.
My brain began to melt inside of my skull, and I watched it happen, detaching from my day to day life. I was chastised by my superiors. Interest was feigned in my declining well being and I feigned thanks for their fake concern. I saw my projects topple under the weight of my neglect. The niche I had carved between captain and private was being eroded, and so was my peace of mind. I lost sleep, worrying about my past and its wasted years and fretting over just what the hell to do with my future. That lost sleep spiraled into full on insomnia, and this left me further remote and ever weirdening in the long hours of staring into darkness.
This is my life, I would repeat to myself. This is my life and it's draining away. I have so little to show for it. No advancement. No money. No fulfillment. Nothing but the sour taste of being used. I was a whore for a company of bastards, just another means to a higher profit margin. I should never have expected anything to be anything more. But I let them fool me. And that made me angry.
Anger fueled my sleepless nights and the broken part of my thinking became obsessed with the scum that had been cheating me. I became focused on the faceless, foul-mouthed and blatantly horrid executives that had taken advantage of my inexperience and my enthusiasm. I had listened to the outskirts of their talk for so long, listened to their misogyny and ignorance. I held my tongue, kept my thoughts to myself and fretted at the guilt of it all. I let them run roughshod over me and laugh at me. I took their abuse, but I kept record of every slight, every insult, every transgression against my sensibility. I never forgot. Never forgave. And that grudge that I held so tightly, it began to live on its own. It became a rotting thing, a writhing machine of grubs and millipedes squirming around in my skull and sending me into a sort of silent whirl of despair.
And then I began to split.
This living thing, this living despair, hijacked me. It did. The normal, rational and justifiably angry bit of me was pushed aside and control of the whole works was given over to this charred, squirming pilot. It was just handed over. And then, suddenly, I was stuck inside of myself. I was watching as a crazed version of me began to plot.
Post-It notes and scavenged loose leaf started to fill with a sort of anti-corporate manifesto. My hand was writing it, but my head was not. It was someone else. Someone far more bitter and far sicker residing in my brain and making my clutching, aching hand scribble out rant after rant after rant. Most of the words were indistinct scribbles, furious scrawls that looked lifted from a psychopath's case file. But others leapt from the pages. "LIARS." "CHEATS." "BASTARDS." Other expletives stood out. I wasn't writing them but I could sure feel them being yanked from my skull. I wasn't writing them, but I could sure feel them angrily marring the tattered sheets that surrounded me. Cruelties began to slip from my mouth while my hands worked on autopilot. I wanted to make my tormentors suffer. Make them pay. But that's not quite right. I didn't want that. Not this me. The other me. Not my bruised ego, not my sucker punched normal self. The other one. The worm riddled and foul mouthed creature that snuck in, that built itself up from ruins of despair left behind by broken promises and needless machinations. That thing, that living thing of despair spelled out in frightening chaos and pitch black lettering exactly what it planned to do. Disaster. And I was trapped, helpless to stop it, horrified at what was coming in the guise of me.
It took days and days to formulate its plan. And while it did, I was cut off, tossed into some nightmarish cell of gray matter and impulse. I watched from behind those synaptic bars as power struggle dreams flooded my conscious. I watched the thing of despair tower in its ego and its pufferfish pride. It was growing. It was stronger than I was by far. Meaner. Angrier. And worst of all, it was unhinged. It was unbound by logic or threat of consequence. I could see what was happening with all too much clarity. I saw it all through my unclouded eyes and I was trembling, by God. I was absolutely quaking inside of my prison. Outwardly, I'm sure, I showed no signs of anxiety. There wasn't a shred of it to be found in my monstrous pilot. It was moving through my life without a trace of fear.
And then it acted.
The motion of it is still a blur. The logistics of it were simplistic in execution. A gun was procured. It was cheap and it was old. It smelled like oil. It left a strange film, a strange odor on my hands. I've never fired a gun in my life. I've never held one. I don't like it. It's like holding a bomb. Inside of my cell, I shuddered, worried that a false move would send a bullet into God-knows-what-or-(worse)-who. This did not deter my captor. It elevated him. It bolstered him. He took to its use without a problem. Rounds were discharged into a decaying tree stump the night before the disaster. The ejecting shells hit my hand and it burnt. I felt it. He didn't seem to. This was hellish. This was pure torture. I wanted out. But I had nowhere to go. We stayed up that night, awake and wired in my rocking chair. My family was gone. I barely noticed their absence. I was terrified. I was awake and wired and terrified. And when the morning broke, I drove to work like I would on any other day. The gun was tucked in my pants, hidden by a long, black shirt.
And I walked in, a jumble of nerves and sweat, but outwardly calmer and more content, I suppose, than I had seemed in months. My anger had become commonplace. If there was any hint as to my motive, that day, it was belied only by a seemingly better mood. The thing even whistled, nonchalant, with my damned lips. It was grotesque. And I marched, determined and swift, from the timeclock to the big boss' office upstairs. I bounded, two steps at a crack, upward practically in a sprint. And the despair addled thing inside of me, it painted my face with a horrific joker's grin. It moved my arm and it twisted the boss' doorknob and it moved my legs and paraded me in, smiling like the devil, and it used my hand to close the door behind me.
And then, using my voice, it spoke to him.
"How's it going?" it asked, mocking interest. My boss looked up from his big oak desk, his big oak desk covered with important papers and catalogs and stacks of business. He looked up with such a withering look of disdain, of disgust. He was angry that I had barged in. He was angry that I had dared to bother him. His big ruddy face was a mask of sourness. It was jowly and wide and was so much bigger than it should have been. His cornflower blue shirt was buttoned up and practically strangling him. Fat poured over the collar in bulbous tumors. He was an ugly, toadish man and he felt like I had no right to be there. "No seriously," my despair asked again, how's it going?"
My boss did not answer. Instead, he asked who I was.
Years of working with this man, years of toiling for his benefit, of working long hours to sate his appetite for profits and he didn't even know who I was. He didn't know my name. My despair didn't tell him.
Instead, my voice cackled. It was mirthless. It was creepy laugh that even jolted my fat, red faced boss. He sat up straighter when it happened. His eyes opened a little wider at first, and then he narrowed them again and spat out a "what do you want?".
And my hand reached for the weapon tucked into my pants. And, slowly, it curled my fingers around the handle and revealed the gun to the angry man behind the big oaken desk. And then the balance of power shifted. He wasn't going to ask questions in such a disdainful tone anymore. He wasn't going to begrudge my presence in his beautiful office. He was, instead, going to listen. There was a fear in that man's eyes that I would've thought would've bought me an ounce of joy. But it didn't. It made me sick. It made me sick with worry, with guilt. My brain was rocking back and forth as I threw myself against the walls of my cell, pleading with my despair-born jailor to please let me out and end this before it went too far.
"Your life," my despair said to the terrified, sweating man, "is nothing, do you understand? You have elevated yourself above everybody, so proud of your achievements, so pompous in your success. You have stood on our backs and built your miserable little empire out of our blood and bones. You have lied and cheated and stole and manipulated your way to this position. You have kept me under your polished heel, and God, you don't even know who I am! But you are just as pathetic, just as fragile as anybody else. Your money isn't going to buy a way out of this. Your perceived power isn't going to keep you safe from my wrath. Do you understand?" My despair was making my voice absolutely thunder. My cheeks ached from the constant grinning. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
My boss, the imposing tower of masculine rage and bellowing command was sobbing like a little girl. Big, sloppy tears were pouring down his pore-riddled, blotchy cheeks and snot ran free from his nose onto his upper lip. He looked absolutely pitiful. He looked so afraid, probably because I looked so damned crazy. This was not bringing any satisfaction. None. It was horrific. I didn't want to watch it. I didn't want to see this. My despair pointed the gun between the fat man's eyes and I watched my poor, terrified and awful boss follow it, cross-eyed and about to vomit. "Please, please, please..." he whispered. "Don't."
And then: disaster.
I tried to close my eyes, but my pilot, my despair, wouldn't let me. The shot rang out louder than anything I'd ever heard and it rattled every bone in my body. There was nothing to stop it. There was nothing but a thin layer of skin, a bit of skull and then my boss' brain. Hunks of him flew like splattered watermelon, showering me with gore and staining the walls with white, pink and deep red. And it was over. He was just a smoking rind of a person, a mess of busted bone and ripped, burnt flesh and tissue. The smell made me absolutely sick. Inside of my head, I was shrieking. I was screaming for mercy, for forgiveness for the sin that had been carried out with my hands. I was broken, a wrecked thing left behind and smoldering almost like the corpse that spilled over the desktop. The grin stayed plastered on my face.
And my despair fired another shot, just for good measure.
(c) 2009 Jason "Danger" Block
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