Blah Blah Blah

I had a pretty decent three day stretch at work, which was much needed after the previous work week. They've hired a few people, the trucks weren't too huge, and we only had one truck each night. The only thing that really sucked was having to go out to push carts a couple of times on those days. I think they need to hire more cart pushers. I also got to miss out on a lot of fun stuff on Saturday, including a showing of Tron at my favorite theater.

I've mentioned recently that Main ex-Employer was partnering with a temp agency for the holiday season. It was all over the local news Monday that they would be hiring 3000 people for the season. Like every year, I'm thinking that most of the people who go there hoping that their jobs will become permanent will be disappointed. Any news about employment going up from October through December shouldn't be seen as an indicator for anything. I don't see myself getting called up, and after remembering what a clusterfuck the parking lot was last year and imagining how bad it could get this year, I don't think I'll be missing it.

I'm approaching the end of three days off. This "weekend" was a disaster. 'Nuff said.

Sick of it all

I'm sick of everything. Well, almost everything.

• I'm sick of Corporate America.
• I'm sick of the politicians that Corporate America helps get into office, including all Republicans.
• I'm sick of the poor morons who vote against their economic interests.
• I'm sick of working for The Devil.
• I'm sick of looking for work, especially warehouse work.
• I'm sick of being told to apply somewhere that I've applied before, like that will do any good.
• I'm sick of religion.
• I'm sick of looking for love.
• I'm sick of alcohol and drugs, since most women won't even look at me unless they're under the influence. (Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol!)
• I'm sick of small towns.
• I'm sick of living with my parents.
• I'm sick of having no health/vision/dental insurance.

I don't know what to do.

• Telling me to "Hang in there!" doesn't really help. I've hung on as long as I can possibly stand.
• Telling me to go to school doesn't really help. I'm trying though. Sort of.
• Telling me to give my life to God or Jesus doesn't help, since religion is the biggest joke of all time, especially when people take it literally. And I probably know more about your religion than you do. I don't care for any other religions, either.
• Telling me that love will find me when I quit looking for it doesn't help. Some of us are so far outside the radar that if we don't put ourselves out there, than nothing will happen either.

Seriously, it's like I only live for two reasons:

1. I don't think my family could take it if they lost another child/sibling.
2. Being a burden to Republicans, the ultra wealthy, and other assorted haters is just too much fun. It's like I live just to make their lives Hell.

That last point is one that I definitely need to keep in mind.

The week of August 18th (so far)

Updated 9-28-2011: Geez, I was so out of it when I wrote this that it took me almost a week to figure out that I put the wrong month in the title! Of course I meant September.

I mentioned on August 15th that I had an interview with a major employer. Today, I got a rejection e-mail from them. This basically means that there is no reason not to go to school at this point. Now, if only I can get this "pre-going to school" thing sorted out. I'd still like to find a higher paying job to work until I do start school so I can get away from Mega Lo Mart.

I ended up with a flat tire on my way to work on Tuesday. I got to work about a half hour late. With the exception of hurting my thumb, it actually wasn't a bad night at work, and that's one of the rare times that the night at work was better than the drive.

Wednesday was actually fun as Hell. Went to Waterfront Park for 91.9 WFPK's last Waterfront Wednesday. It was a much better lineup than the last time I went, with They Might Be Giants, J. Roddy Walston & The Business, and Louisville's own The Deloreans. Saw lots of people who I hadn't seen in a long time, including some ex-coworkers. According to one of my ex-coworkers, she now works with a few people that we used to work with at Main ex-Employer. Funny.

Last but not least, I HATE the new Facebook changes, and I'm not looking forward to what they have in store. I've learned of some hints to make it more bearable, but it's still a freaking mess. I'm kind of bugged by the people who bitch about people bitching about the changes. It's not that the bitching-about-bitchers crowd don't have some good points, but it was a Comfort Zone of sorts. Yes, if the FB changes are the worst thing to happen to you then yes you're having a good day. But if you've been overwhelmed with bullshit like I have, dealing with the changes makes things even more aggravating.

Not one damn, shit, or fuck was given.

I have a hard time working more than two days at a time at Mega Lo Mart anymore. This recent four day stretch just about did me in. Thursday wasn't too horrible. Friday was a two-truck night, and we only had four in our crew, plus our supervisor. They've taken away at least half of our empty bin space where we used to put the pallets that we stacked freight on, to use them either for overstock or supposedly for layaway items. We barely have enough room in our room for one big truck, and we actually have no room anymore for a two-truck night! One of the day-shift managers assigned the breakpacks to me, which I'm usually not too bad at, but I got bombarded, and spent the entire night working on them, even working a couple of hours over to finish them. They brought in a bunch of people who had never unloaded before to help with the second truck, but instead of being any help, they just made a huge mess. Three of the crew left just after 1:00 a.m., leaving just me and the supervisor to try to finish everything up. Honestly, the only reason I didn't leave at 1:00 was because I felt obligated to at least finish the breakpacks. Around 3:30-ish, the supervisor told me what was left to do, and not to worry about cleaning, and then clocked out. Then he came back and told me that he was off the clock, so he couldn't really tell me what to do, I think he just came back there to thank me for staying over. After he walked away, I considered trying to finish everything up, but then I was like, "Fuck it", and did a couple of important things on my way to the time clock. Had it been approaching 2:00, I might have wrapped everything up, but since it was approaching 4:00, I decided I really didn't give a fuck. Hell, I'm normally in bed by then!

Something else about Friday that really aggravated me was this one redneck bastard customer. After lunch, I went out to the Sales Floor for the sole purpose of changing tasks (Don't get me started!), and as I was making my way to the back room, some customer hollered at me to get my attention. I can't quite remember, but I think he was asking me if I had a key for the video game case, which I don't. He said that one of the Electronics guys walked off when he tried to ask him something, said he was rude and then implied that the guy was probably gay, then apologized in case it offended me. I had no idea who he was talking about. I did see one other Electronics guy, but he was busy with some customers. Then one of my crew finished up with his Task crap and helped me with talking to the guy, and I eventually saw the guy he was talking about. I eventually walked away. I seriously had to suppress the urge to smash that guy's face! For one, do NOT fucking yell at me like that! And two, do NOT disrespect my coworkers like that! I've seen a lot of morons shopping there, but I'm actually surprised that I haven't had more like him.

I came in on Saturday wore out and not giving a fuck. We had a mid-size truck, but only three people, and the supervisor was off that night. I got lectured by the same manager who assigned me to breakpacks the day before about not doing some of the stuff that I was supposed to do before I left that morning. I didn't say it, but I didn't give a fuck. We got some help unloading the truck. We were told to try to hurry up. I didn't give a fuck. Then they sent some of us out to bring the carts back from the parking lot. Then we went back to finish the truck. We got done with the truck a half hour later than we were scheduled to. After our break, which was about an hour before lunch, they sent two of us back out to push carts, when we could have been helping get stuff straightened out in the back room. But even if they didn't send us out to push carts, they would have had us do some other bullshit instead. We busted our asses trying to get the freight onto the floor. Around 12-something, one of the 3rd Shift managers bitched me out because she had supposedly been paging us for an hour to log out of our tasks (Again, don't get me started!), then she said that she wanted to talk to us at some point, I figure probably to bitch. But I guess we were too busy actually doing our jobs for her to get us all together in one place to bitch. I left at 1:15, the other two guys left at around 1:30, and I think one of the 3rd shift guys from the back room finished up what little there was left to do.

Oh, and there were two birthday parties I could have gone to had I not had to work on Saturday.

I came in Sunday virtually the same way I came in on Saturday, wore out and not giving a fuck. The good news was that we had a similar sized truck as the night before, but we also had two extra people, and at least one person from outside the department helping with the unload. But we spent our first half hour in the parking lot bringing carts back in. Around 11:00, two of our more experienced people were sent to stock, leaving me with the supervisor and one of the newbs. The supervisor works 3-midnight instead of 4-1, so at midnight I was left with the newb. I think we got most of what needed to be done, but not quite everything they wanted us to do. I had Monday off, so not one fuck was given either way.

I'm seriously trying not to quit until I have something else lined up, but these past four days really tested my patience. I wonder sometimes how much mind I have left to lose. I think of "Should I Stay or Should I Go". There would actually be more trouble if I go, but I feel like if I stay too long, then I'm liable to go Full Retard (or something) on somebody, most likely a manager, but possibly even a customer like the one I had on Friday. I don't even want to think about going back in tomorrow, even if I do have two nights off after then.

Something's got to give.

Detecting b.s. in job ads

When I got home from work on Monday night, I saw the local paper sitting on the kitchen table, and decided to check out the Help Wanted ads. By "local paper", I'm referring to Shepherdsville's paper The Pioneer News, and not Louisville's Courier-Journal. The jobs section of the C-J these days is pretty pathetic, so there's usually a good chance that The PN's jobs section will be pretty slim pickin's as well. As I predicted, the only ads for the kinds of jobs of which I have experience were for temp agencies. When I got up the next day, my dad told me that he wanted me to check out The Pioneer News because there were some jobs he wanted me to see. Then I told him that I already checked it out, and that the only jobs in there that were worth a crap were from temp agencies. He then opens up the paper and asks me which ones were temp agencies, and I point to three ads. He asks me where they say "temp", and I'm like, "Trust me, they're temp agencies!" Then he points to some other ad, and asks, "What's that?"  The ad he pointed to said this:

ATTENTION

$20/START

Local company has 15-20

immediate

openings in our

Customer

Service

Dept.

No experience

necessary!

We train!

Must Have Own

Transportation.

Management Available.

No layoffs.

PLEASE CALL FOR

INTERVIEW

(Then it lists the number)

Having actually been unemployed and looking for work at various times in the past 13 years, and having checked out some places or done some further research on the web, I've developed a pretty good Bullshit Detector when it comes to job ads. "Customer Service" isn't a bad thing, but I don't trust seeing those words attached to an ad where no company name is mentioned, and for that matter I don't trust any ad where a company name isn't attached. When my dad asked me what I thought it was, my first thought was that it was probably something shady, but I wasn't sure how to tell my dad that. Instead, I was like, "I don't know, probably answering phones or something." Then he said something to the effect of, "Well for $20, surely you could answer a fucking phone?" I don't know if I've mentioned it here yet, but I have issues with telephones, especially when it comes to using them for work, so I absolutely avoid phone jobs. So, I told him, "I'm not good at working with phones." Then he asked me, "Well what are you good at?" I told him that I was good at what I did at Main ex-Employer, to which he replied, "Well, you must not have been good enough since they never called you back." Then I told him that there were lots of good people who got laid off from there who didn't get called back. We were probably talking about two different eras, since I was referring to the job I did when I got laid off, while he might have been talking about when I worked there on a seasonal basis the past two years. Of course, what I really wanted to tell him was "Well fuck you old man!" I absolutely love starting the day with an argument...not. Needless to say, a Lorazepam tablet was consumed.

Wednesday night, I finally got around to looking up the number that was listed in the ad, and it seems that my suspicion was justified. It seems to be some Sales type of job, and possibly even a pyramid scheme. From the number, I found a company name, so I looked up the company name, and found this. Make sure to hit "next page" when you get to the bottom of the thread, the second page is probably even more revealing about the job aspect of the company.

So, to answer my dad's question, I guess I'm good at detecting bullshit in job ads. If I were a really good blogger, I'd tell you what to look out for.

On this date ten years ago...

...Slayer released "God Hates Us All"! I'm surprised that some kooks haven't tried to say that the attacks were God's punishment for that album being released, but pseudo-Christian band P.O.D. released their "Satellite" album on the same day. If I believed in a God, I'd think he'd probably be more angry over P.O.D.. Being a fan of Slayer, I spent a good portion of 2001 looking forward to September 11th ever since it was announced as the release date for the album. Turning on the TV late that morning to find that the towers had collapsed was a surreal experience. I was unemployed at the time, and realized after a few days that although life had seemed to come to a halt, that bill collectors wouldn't necessarily stop calling, so it was time to resume the job search. I eventually did buy the Slayer album that Friday, too. It's far from being my favorite Slayer album, but it was still better than most of what passed for Metal at that time, or even now.

One thing that's a shame is that while P.O.D. thankfully no longer stink up the airwaves, songs that were out at this time ten years ago like Nickelback's "How You Remind Me", Staind's "It's Been Awhile", and Puddle Of Mudd's "Control" don't seem to be leaving anytime soon.

That's all I'm really going to say about 9/11. I share the opinion of this blog post on Buzzflash.com.

Crew update

Another one of our new guys quit, supposedly because some woman pissed him off when she told him that he couldn't go to the bathroom until break. The woman was described as being white haired, and there is virtually know one we know of who has any authority with white hair. So basically, if anyone told most of us that we couldn't go to the bathroom, we'd tell them to kiss our ass. This guy had another job making $10/hour, and had a bit of a short fuse, so I figure he was just finding a reason to quit.

To update, seven people were hired in August, excluding the new supervisor. Two have already transferred to 3rd shift, four have officially been fired or quit, and I'm not even sure that the one remaining guy is still with us. For the amount of work we do and the amount of pay we get, you either have to be stupid, crazy, or really desperate to do our job. I'll cop to the last two. The only good thing I can say about the past two weeks is that the "stupid" element has been weeded out. But seriously, how can you expect to find good help when you only pay minimum wage for a job that most places would pay $9-$10/hour for? The only reason I even make $7.65 is because of my previous experience.

Blue Period

I found out on Saturday that another guy from my crew got fired for calling in too many times, leaving our crew down to six people, seven if you include the new lead guy. I was only scheduled to work three days this week. I might try to volunteer to work on Thursday, even though it's one of the support group nights. I'm scheduled to work both Tuesday and Thursday next week, so I won't get to go to the group at all then.

Speaking of the group, I was talking to a girl from the group last Thursday, and she asked me what I was doing for Labor Day. I told her that I'd probably just stay home and eat grilled food. It didn't occur to me until later that a better response might have been, "Why? You Wanna hang out?", or something like that. That kind of thing happens all the time, and is possibly the biggest reason why I've never been in a relationship. Granted, this girl doesn't date in the group, but it would've been nice to hang out with somebody, especially since my dad didn't do any grilling on Labor Day. Instead, him and my mom went out shopping and ate at Golden Corral. Had I been invited to something, I would've went out, but I purposely didn't go to a movie or coffee shop or anywhere because I didn't want to exploit the people who had to work.

I've been feeling lately like I have nothing to say. Not in here mind you, but to people in general. I don't really talk to my friends unless I see them out somewhere, and that's really just a select few people and not very often. Sometimes, I'll feel like messaging somebody on Facebook or wherever, and ultimately decide not to because I have nothing to say. It's even worse when I get on a dating site and want to message somebody who might seem date-worthy, because I feel like I'll come across as a total nut-job or something. On that note, I went to a bar about a month ago to celebrate a friend's birthday. I had a few friends there, but I was determined to try to talk a female who I didn't know before I left. Not any one in particular, just one. I failed. For one, I was paralyzed with fear trying to figure out what I was going to say, and second, I hate approaching people who are already talking to people, because I feel rude if I interrupt. But then if I approach somebody and try to wait for an opening to introduce myself, instead of just barging in like most normal people seem to do, and hang around not saying anything while waiting for that opening, those people are probably thinking, "Who is this creep?" It sucks being an introvert sometimes.

This past Thursday, Friday and Saturday were oppressively hot, at least by September-in-Kentucky standards, like around 100 degrees with a heat index of 108. These past three days have been at least 30 degrees cooler and rainy. I hate when the weather changes drastically like that. As if I didn't have enough to be depressed about, the gloomy wet weather seems to have activated my Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don't care for it being really hot, and we could've used some rain, but damn! I wish some of the rain would go to Texas, where they really need it. I don't regret going off of Lexapro, but I have been wondering if I should've tried some other antidepressant. But since I don't have insurance anyway, how would I have paid for it? I can't help but think sometimes that it was brilliant (sarcasm implied) of Main ex-Employer to lay off the guy who was emotionally hanging by a thread as it was.

Something's got to give.

(Suggested listening: Blown To...:The Best of The Smithereens)

Glad I missed that one!

I had Saturday August 27th off so I could go see my favorite theater's midnight showing of "Road House". I was doubly glad that I didn't have to work that day since a Pop-Country singer was making an appearance at my store. (I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I despise Pop Country, or Cuntry for short.)  I was triply glad I wasn't there after I heard on Sunday what a clusterfuck Saturday night ended up being. A lot of stuff had to be moved into our room to make room for the performer's area, it was a two-truck night, and my crew got a late start on the unloading. This particular singer is now a scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.

If I'm not mistaken, seven people were hired for my crew in August, excluding our new lead, who seems to be an alright guy. Of the seven, only two are still working with us. Two other people moved to 3rd shift stocking, and the last three either quit or got fired. Besides those people, we've also had one person get fired, and two people move to 3rd shift. I'm not great at math, but from what I understand, we basically have as many (non-management) people now as we did at the beginning of August. Smooth! On the upside, if you count our lead guy, we actually gained one person.

One of the books I bought when I went to Borders was the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America. I had the original hardcover, but wanted to get this new edition since it had a new Afterword. This book is an absolute Must Read! I had forgotten that it had a whole chapter dedicated to my current employer, and I realized that it was one of the reasons why I resisted getting a job there for so long.

Despite my anxiety mentioned in my previous post, the thought of working at my current job for much longer, or even at Main ex-Employer's warehouse no matter how much I liked it there, makes the idea of going to school more and more attractive.