Total mindfuck...and not in a good way

So, something good happened. But then I realized it's not going to turn out to do anything but create false hope. They have finally given me actual work at my job, which I may have talked about in my last blog. (I've been wrapped up in creative stuff, which has been pretty groovy, but it's incredibly time consuming.) The new responsibilities have caused me to step back and take a look at things, such as making progress.

In an ideal world, my new responsibilities would set me up for a promotion and a raise, and I would stop doing the stupid mindless piddly shit that I do on a daily basis. But I don't live in an ideal world. I work for the shittiest company in the world. (Okay, that's hyperbole, but it's probably up there.) I will continue to do the shitty work as well as the good work, and I will not be paid for the good work even though someone in any other company doing what I do now gets paid twice as much. So I'm a glorified intern. Although the "glory" really only amounts to a teensy wittle "weekly allowance." (Actually, I've been an intern, and I was treated like a princess compared to here.) There is no progress to be made at my company. I will never move forward, up, sideways, or even down. I'll just stay exactly where I am.

But now there's a chance I can go somewhere else. I have a connection at another company who is trying to help me out, but since he's busy, I have to pester him. And that makes me feel like a dick. I hate being a dick when it comes to getting help from friends, but he actually knows firsthand how miserable I am because he has my company as a client. He is dealing with the very people who have created my bordering-on-scandalous work environment.

So, I'm at the job where I can't go anywhere and I'm delicately annoying the shit out of someone at another company that might not have a job for me anyway. And there are, at this point, no other jobs out there. For a long time, I got used to having absolutely no hope of finding another job because of the complete and total lack of skills I've developed at my current job. But now that I have been given an actual responsibility that other jobs require - or rather proof of a marketable skill that I'd always had, but for which there existed no evidence - it's kind of worse. Because now I should be a commodity, but there's nowhere for me to go. This feels like solitary confinement. Being stuck in a tiny room with one window, and you know a guy who might be able to open it, but he's not making any promises. And he probably can't deliver anyway, even though he's gonna try. But I know the way out. I know exactly how to get out, someone just needs to open the door for me because they're all locked from the outside. This feels like mental torture. My head is going in circles all day long, like a hamster in a wheel. That's what I am. A hamster in a wheel that has wedged itself into a corner.

If anyone is reading this, please send every positive karmic vibration my way. I'd never ask this of others, but this is the most mindfucked I've felt in a looooong time.

Conflict of interest

So here I sit, flipping back and forth between American Idol and the Olympics, waiting for a phone call, contemplating my next plan of attack at work. I still hate my job, but my hate marathon has hit a snag. They've finally given me something to do that I like that is an actual marketable skill, not to mention a path to an actual career. I've been asked to write web content. Something that always bothered me about my shitty job was that even though I work in an editorial department, I can't consider what we do to be writing or editing. We reassemble as many messes as we can in a day. How much, not how good. And that always really chapped my ass as an actual writer. If there was something that the idiot sales reps neglected to write down while they half-mindedly interviewed members who were paying hundreds of dollars for an imaginary service, which was then "edited" by India by people who don't speak the fucking language, it oftentimes comes back to me unclear. When I was told that we were not supposed to contact the people about whom we were writing to clarify the information, I was honestly a little shocked.

But now, I write personalized content and communicate directly with the members. Holy shit - I've always wanted to do this. I actually used to do this, when I worked at a legitimate publishing job. I've done two of these assignments so far, leaving both members satisfied with what I wrote for them and, I felt, well taken care of. It's a good feeling. I even forget that I'm doing this for a company that is horrible and treats everyone like shit, and scams innocent, vulnerable people. So now I'm faced with a conundrum. Do I try to advance in a company I feel is morally wrong? Do I stick around and build a portfolio of clips, even though the clips are material produced for a scammy, dirty place?

Most importantly, I need to ask for a raise. They are giving me work that is for a position that pays twice as much as I make now. They can't ask me to "chip in" or "take one for the team" - this isn't a fucking internship. (Even though I get paid as much.) We're veering into new territory here - new media. New media does not make a tiny wage, not even in my area. After consulting with a staffing person from across the hall - who tells me people from my company are in her office constantly - I've decided that I'm going to be paid what I'm worth. If I'm writing web content, I need to be paid like a content writer. I'm not an intern. I'm not a volunteer. And if they want to fire me, it's their loss.

Or - I fake it till I make it. I pretend to like the company - glgh - and express genuine interest in wanting to work for them in this area. I try to get promoted, maybe I get promoted, then I split for something better.

Or - I ask for a raise. They ignore me. I bring it up again because I won't be ignored when it comes to being paid what I'm worth. They stop giving me the work. I'm back to writing angry, vitriolic tirades and have even more proof that this place is a shittyass dump.

Numbers

Like many people, I'm watching the Olympics right now and thinking about the training, the accomplishment, the honor and pride, the disappointment, everything that goes into the games and makes them gigantic and global. There's no shortage of dedication and discipline at the Olympics, even for those who don't qualify (this time). I've never watched before, and I'm glad I finally have.

Because when compared to real life and this shitty job, there is a real drought of inspiration.

Everything about the Olympics is fast and precise, and a lot of attention is paid to numbers. A tiny number will decide who becomes a champion and who will have to try again another time. Events like downhill skiing and speed skating take place in relatively small amounts of time. Athletes are training for the most important minute of their lives.

Minutes last forever in a shitty job. And nothing happens. The numbers don't matter because you are the numbers. Scrooge McDuck was walking around my office during my lunch hour today, probably expecting all of us to be at lunch. I was still there, working on personal things that required the computer. Since we're moving, they're bringing in all these people to look at the office. But the bosses are still whispering about it and being pointlessly discreet. Kind of like talking about an elderly relative dying while they're sitting across from you at Thanksgiving. Anyway, McDuck says, "There are like 22 of them." Not "We have [an exact number] of members in our editorial staff." Just "like 22 of them." Like desk chairs. Or piles of crap. "We have like 22 piles of crap."

As numbers, we have nothing setting us apart from the other. We could produce and produce and produce, and they'd say, "Good - we've met our goals." We are simply part of the machine, and the things we produce are useless, empty, inconsequential. Working in a horrible job is probably the exact opposite of the Olympics. Instead of fighting and training for the perfect timing, precision, and zazz, we just fester. I seek the satisfaction of creative victory outside of work, but work is where I spend the bulk of my day, and there is no avoiding that until I can find something new. I can fight and train for another job, but as long as I'm at this place, the fight will never have my undivided attention. Nothing can. The best I can do is give what I can before collapsing into a glob of eyestrain and lack of sleep.

What a fucking downer. Plus they fired our IT guy. He was this perfectly friendly guy who vaguely reminded me of my dad. But if something is going wrong, it's always the IT guy's fault if he can't fix it immediately. He was a sweet guy. I hope he realizes that this was the best thing that could happen to him. He will surely find better work at a better company, and I really, truly wish him the best. He was at our beck and call every waking moment of the day, and got so much shit if he couldn't rectify a situation to their liking. Fuck them, IT guy. I am sending positive karmic vibes your way. Godspeed to you, and may you find something soon. In the meantime, enjoy your time away from this fucking shitheap.

Holiday! Celebrate!...Never mind.

I had to work President's Day this week because the Best Company Ever doesn't believe in holidays. (And probably not Santa Claus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, those bastards.) The business of ripping people off is way to important for silly federal holidays! I know that many people had to work President's Day and that it's not exactly something we celebrate or anything like that, but coming to work and confronting reminder after reminder that most people in America were not working that day doesn't quell the rage. Here's a shot of my near-empty parking garage.

And here's a shot of the sign that greeted me as I tried to enter this god-forsaken building.

Yup. Because America was supposed to be CLOSED, assholes. The completely and utterly unwarranted self-importance exhibited by the people in charge of this company is fucking stunning.

At least we all knew that we weren't getting this day off, the same way we don't get Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, etc. But what this company likes to do is print out a calendar with all the holidays we have off and then renege on them days before said holiday arrives. You know, after plans have been made in advance. The first year I was here, we were given the day after Thanksgiving off. I refuse to work that day. It's the official kickoff to the holiday season and the day I allow myself to start eating way too many things in the name of sparing delicious desserts from going stale and being wasted. And after a day of marathon eating and drinking with my family, the last thing on my mind is going to work. So, less than a week before Thanksgiving, HR comes up to my office with their pre-programmed "sad/regretful" face to tell us that we do, in fact, have to come in to work the day after Thanksgiving. But they'll only be open for most of the day, and if you made plans and want to use your own time to take the day off, it won't be "frowned upon." Gee, thanks! How fucking nice of you! You dillholes are definitely being added to my Xmas card list for being so fucking generous! I will get you a most-throughtful fruitcake for this kindness!

They did the same thing Xmas Eve and then the day before the 4th of July. It was then that I realized that they were doing everything in their power to be total assholes. Halfassholes? Not they!

But then there was the time I volunteered to come in on Labor Day, something, I think, might be considered whoring myself out since I only did it for the time-and-a-half. Yes - this company was open on Labor Day. The day specifically created for giving rest to oppressed workers and recognizing them for their laborious efforts. But I needed the money, so like a dirty, desperate hooker, I went to work. That Saturday and that Monday. My job was to proofread an Excel spreadsheet for hours. Generally, when in this situation, a sentient human being seeks out something else at which to look for a short time, so I went on Facebook. My immediate boss/manager/supervisor/director superior/Mother Superior caught me since she sat a few feet away. So from a few feet away, she sent me an email.

I need to digress and talk about the sheer laziness exhibited by this place. We don't have a big office, our department. We can all see each other. We are in earshot of each other. We are certainly within walking distance. Yet some people will avoid leaving their desks at all costs and call people on the other side of a room or in the room next door and/or email them with passive-aggressive threats or short, work-related questions that could have been asked and answered in probably half the time it took to click over to Outlook, wait for it to settle itself on the shitty computer system, open up a new email, find a name in the contacts, think of a subject or decide to go without, type up a message, send it, and then wait for it to arrive minutes later. "Did you send this file to this person?" Wow. I usually just say, with my mouth and vocal cords, "Yes." Hey, lazyass - We're all right here.

Anyway, to avoid any confrontation or inconvenience on her end, my boss sent me an email: "While you are here, you are here to work, not check your email or look at Facebook." You know what? Fuck you. I came here on my own time, on a holiday weekend when nobody is supposed to work, to stare at your spreadsheets for hours, and now you're scolding me for having the nerve to look at something else for a few minutes? Fuck you. Make this job more interesting, pay me more money, stop stealing my holidays, and maybe I'll stop looking elsewhere to keep my sanity.

Hiring and Firing...or Not Firing

Holy crap, just let me GO.

Every single morning I wake up, praying for God - who might not even believe that I exist anymore - to be laid off. I know, it sounds like an awful and counterintuitive thing to wish, considering how impossible it is to find work nowadays. But at this point, my job has assaulted and ravaged my psyche so much that I wonder if spending so many of my waking hours at this greedscheme has caused the parts of me that make me a viable human being to start dying.

But one the sickest things about the Best Company Ever is that they kind of avoid firing people. They'd rather just rather screw with ouur heads until we wave the white flag and quit. Their hiring is also freakish. Basically, it's run the way a kid picks and rejects friends at recess, lacking any sense of logic, ethics, morals, thought...

Something that will haunt me forever is that I interviewed for this job a year before they hired me. And I was rejected. Then they changed their management structure completely. I applied on a Wednesday. I interviewed on a Thursday. By 5:00 that day, they made me an offer. I started the following Monday. It happened so quickly that I forgot I was starting a job while at my friend's wedding that Sunday. I remembered while drinking my third or fourth glass of wine. My first day at this company, I was hungover. How appropriate.

Another killer - I had interviewed for another job the same week. A far superior position at a far superior organization. But they were too slow to get back to me. I couldn't wait a couple more days. I had to take the job at the place that rejected me.

Wow, this really is like an abusive relationship, isn't it? I stick with the place that didn't want me, but then they were all, "No, baby, listen. I was just being an asshole. Give me another chance. I won't let you down. Look - I can give you everything you want right now." And the other job was like this really nice person who was kind of shy and was really busy being awesome, so they just couldn't get back to me right away. Plus they were letting other people down easy before letting me know I'd be perfect for them, which they ultimately did. But no. I chose cheap, dirty, short-term satisfaction with this asshole. And we've been together almost two years now.

Sorry, but I'm just going to wallow in regret and self-loathing for a moment.

Okay. Anyway, less than a month after I was hired, we moved to another building and they fired half my department after assuring everyone that no one was being fired. Later that year, we moved again and they hired about six more people. Then they fired half of them. Then we moved again, and...I've officially lost track in my head. But they hired a bunch of people a couple of months ago and another move is being planned.

After we move again, my department will have been moved five times since I started working there less than two years ago. We are not employees. We are an old box of Xmas decorations that they wish they could just get rid of. But they can't. Not because of sentimental attachment, but because they might need the boxes to prop something up or something.

So, what they do now is make us sit around wondering whether or not we're going to be fired, threaten us with being fired for doing something completely inconsequential, let us assume we're going to be fired until 4:50 on Friday...and then not fire us. Pretty much every week. It's kind of like "Deal or No Deal," except instead of opening suitcases that may or may not contain large/small amounts of money and making deals with Howie Mandell, it's walking into work where you may or may not be fired/merely treated like shit and making deals with HR! Is it wrong to want to open that suitcase and just find an unemployment check?

Human Resources

Human resources used to be called "personnel." Then they changed it to something that sounded like the part of the corporate hydra that farms, harvests, distributes, and ultimately controls humans. And that's exactly what it does, except that instead of thinking of them as "humans," they are just entities that exist to support and nurture the company's profits.

But that's not what they tell you when you meet them.

I'll never forget reading "The Shining," when Jack Torrance visits the Overlook Hotel and is instantly disgusted by the guy's "PR smile." The smile that is meant to be welcoming, inviting - "I like you! I'm your friend and we want you to be a part of our family!" What it really says? "I couldn't possibly give half a shit about you! I hope you have no ambition and will roll over and obey everything that comes out of my mouth, because everything that comes out of my mouth is complete and utter bullshit that the owner of this dumpsquad told us to say because we need more cogs in the machine to keep this scam going forever! And that means I get paid! Way more than you do!"

I won't go into the woman who runs our HR department because it would be mean to smear someone with an obvious mental illness. And our healthcare plan doesn't cover mental health professionals, so that would just be damndarned bitchy of me to go after someone who can't afford the proper care she really needs. But man alive, I could hear her shiteating grin over the phone in her message of not-even-halfway feigned concern for the company's employees after the record-setting blizzard that overtook my area.

"Good morning! It's Thursday, February 11th. We are open and looking forward to everyone returning to work after the snow. The roads are clear, and I've been here since 7:30 this morning! So we expect to see everyone's bright, shiny faces back to work before 9 AM!"

Dear god and heaven. True, the roads were pretty clear. They were pretty clear of cars too, because most people were smart and stayed home another day. Many of them, like me, stayed home yesterday, not willing to drive over 30 miles in a BLIZZARD to support Scrooge McDuck's insatiable greed. But if you think my company thought it was important enough to stay open, you were right!

"Good morning! It's Wednesday, February 10th. It's 8:35 AM and we have eight people in the office. Many people have called in or turned around. We're trying to get in touch with Scrooge McDuck. If you do decide to come in, we have a form for you to sign when you get here and we may close early so everyone gets home safely."

"Good morning! It's Wednesday, February 10th, and it's 9:35 AM. We have 50 people on the floor, so we are open for business..."

Wow. At least 50 people, including some people in my department, risked life and limb, put this scamwad before themselves, and drove in a blizzard to get here. I feel infinitely sorry for them. Unless I shouldn't. I haven't decided yet. All I know is that the heartwarming concern expressed by our caring, cuddly HR department really touched me deep in the cockles of my heart, especially the part where they cared so much for our safety and well-being that they sent Nice HR girl instead of Schizo McGee to tell us that if we took the snow day, we were using our own personal time and/or not getting paid. Ahh, the warm, glowing embrace of the company that loves us.

Turning my ills into art

I am Cubicle Jones, a nondescript office drone, stuck in a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad job. I'd just quit, but that means I don't get unemployment. I am the most miserable I have ever been and feel like I may never trust another job again to treat me well, recognize me for the valuable person I am, appreciate the effort I put in...

Yes, it's true. I am in an abusive relationship with my job.

But, as I mentioned, I can't afford to quit. I also can't afford to go to therapy because the stellar health insurance offered by my company doesn't cover it. So it's kind of like wanting to find a new romantic partner because the one I'm with should be in prison, but everyone else is married. They could just take me in/find me a temp job, but they just don't have the room/aren't hiring. But they're really sorry, so hang in there!

When I took this job, I was desperate to get work - as many of us have been in the past few years - and didn't do the proper research beforehand. Had I exercised a bit more discretion and better judgement (the way I do with lovers), I would have found out that I was about to take a job at a company that was actually scamming people, ripping them off hundreds, thousands of dollars a pop. The pay is bad, the commute is horrible, the insurance is terrible, the work actually hurts people. I can't even put money into a 401(k) because I need whatever money I can get in my account.

They give us holidays then take them back less than a week ahead of time, so if we've made plans for that day, we have to cancel them or take an unpaid day off. Happy Holidays!

We have no paid sick days because we have to accumulate them per month, something which was not mentioned in the manual I signed, to which they consistently refer when they get up my ass about being late, something about which I have stopped caring completely. I don't know why I have to adhere to the manual if they don't, but hey, I don't work for the department that makes them any money, so I should have realized I was of no worth to them from the beginning.

This company is run by a convicted felon. I know he's a convicted felon because he regularly jokes about it, including when he said he couldn't vote for the president because he was a convicted felon. What a card! He shows up whenever he wants and runs about 12 other "businesses" in addition to this one. Two of them are restaurants that have gotten horrible reviews in the local press. He's asked us (and printed out fliers!) to go online and write good reviews about the restaurants and then we will get coupons for said horrible restaurants. I believe that's bribery, but I'm not sure just because I'd think bribery would include an attractive payoff and not coupons to horribly reviewed restaurants.

He struts around the office like the self-important prick that he is (in his manshorts during the summer), checking in on all his minions via the monitors in his office. There are cameras lining the walls of the office, watching every inch of the place. There are also hand scans to get in and out of the office. The bathrooms are outside of the office. So everyone needs to punch out to take a piss. Seriously. It's because of this, as well as the overcrowding, that I now get sick at least three times a year instead of my usual annual autumn throat thing. If you're wondering if I work for NASA or some high-security government agency that would require such high security, you are sadly mistaken. In order to protect myself, I can't tell you where I work, but I can assure you that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for such high security measures. My only theory is that the guy who runs this place is just supremely paranoid and high strung while trying to pass himself off as some sort of easygoing frat boy. More like Scrooge McDuck.

This job has caused me to develop a bad spending habit. Every purchase is a vain attempt to introduce a positive change, something new, something pleasing and satisfying, as I spend hours and hours of my life wasting away and getting dumber. I have had to run out of the office to cry and cut myself more often than I used to when I first developed that habit as a teenager. I drink more than I used to and sometimes depend on it at the end of the day. I've had days where I could not bring myself to come in at all, and every single morning requires every ounce of effort and fortitude to just get out of bed to go to this hellhole.

So stop telling me to be grateful for my job. It sucks. I'm not happy. I am fortunate in many ways including relatively low debt levels, a supportive family - with whom I still live because of the "salary" I make - amazing friends, and creative pursuits that make me thrive. But the fact is, I spend many hours of the week and attempt to make money doing something truly awful and damaging to others, and I do not have to like it.

I was recently told to turn this despicable hot mess into art. It is certainly not the first blog about evil office BS, but guess what? I need to get it out of my brain and my soul, and other people need to know that it's okay to hate your job.

So welcome to Tales of the Underemployed by Cubicle Jones!