So Long, and Thanks for All the Pish
Déjà vu for the last time. The Decade of Despair is over. More details as they become available.
It’s official. I am out of The Shit Hole, Galactic Empire Designation Death Star One.
I have done punched that clock for the last time.
Yah, me!
To think I’ve been blogging about hating my job for well over a year now. I never imagined this day could actually come.
I don’t really have a lot to say about it right now. Here’s a little run down on some official Last Week goodness:
Late last week, one of my fellow employees, recently code named The Waffler, had finally had enough. Like me, his big beefs with the job revolved around things like nanomanagement and how employees are treated.
A few weeks back The Waffler had been put on notice by management. He had to improve or he’d be fired. Like me he’s been with the company for over five years, and, like me, the boss always says that he’s “family.”
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A breath of fresh despair
Another year has passed me by, still I look at myself and cry, “What kind of man have I become?”
Next week I’ll have been at my new job for a whole year. Anyone who’s read my blog will know that the change from Job #2 to Job #3 (as numbered in the Decade of Despair*) didn’t quite go as well as I’d hoped.
Ever curious, I had a eye-opening thought. “Hey, thanks to the blog, I can go back in time and find my first mention about the new job. I wonder how long it took for me to get my feet wet then turn to the blog to vent?”
By now my rails against Job #3 have become so frequent my wife had to order me to limit them to once a week. But what was it like back in the beginning. Sometimes I tend to forget.
October 22, 2010: My last day at the Job #2. I celebrated with a post entitled “So Long, and Thanks for All the Pish.” Good times, good times. And one of my favorite Photoshops, too. Just look at me back then. All glowing and full – dare I say it? – optimism for the future because I was getting out of something bad. Oh, the heady days of yesteryear!
Exactly how long did that feeling last?
If I remember correctly, October 25, 2010, was my first day on the new job. The first sign of trouble was a mere four days later, still my first week at Job #3. Wow!
Even I am impressed by the epic fail of such a short period of time.
By that very Friday I celebrated with a post entitled, “This post is IN STOCK.” This humble missive griped about the rampant dishonesty and unethical business practices I found myself dealing with during a week that consisted mostly of sitting in a chair and watching my boss work on his computer. (That’s what he generously called his “training program.”)
Yes, the Universe didn’t waste any time in letting me know that the small business I’d just hitched my wagon was remarkably similar to Job #1 and Job #2 – only worse.
It made a perfect bookend to my personal journey through the Decade of Despair, a decade that began with the presidency of George W. Bush and me literally staring at Job #1 on Sept. 11, 2001. That particular date was necessary so I’d never forget exactly when it all started. Or my place.
Next week I celebrate a year at Job #3. Those wishing to express condolences can send them to my attention at the local funeral home with the giant Las Vegas-style sign.
* Decade of Despair. This is a term I coined to refer to the ten years starting on Sept. 11, 2001 and ending on Sept. 11, 2011. During this period of time I worked a series of three different ecommerce jobs where I was ostensibly hired for my webmaster skills yet primarily worked as a whore.
The Bush Effect
This will not be a meaty post. It will be short and sweet. I personally don’t think it requires a lot of explanation because it should be self-evident.
At the end of a year media bombards us with “let’s look back” type of stuff. You know, the “year in review” and all that jazz. At the end of a decade we get that times ten.
Out of all that blitz something caught my eye. I’m going to call it The Bush Effect.
As we all know, George. W. Bush was President of the United States for eight whopping years out of the last decade that some are calling The Oughts. Fitting. So I submit that when Americans are asked their opinions regarding The Oughts what they are mostly doing is passing judgment on the Bush years.
We’ve all heard the news stories about “historians” (whoever the hell they are) arguing over how history will view the Bush years. They usually make the point that although it seems grim now, history make be more kind, and that we’ll just have to wait and see. I submit that we’ve already got our answer.
So what does the data show? A new poll from the Pew Research Center, under the headline “Current Decade Rates as Worst in 50 Years,” provides some answers. When asked about The Oughts, 50 percent of Americans responded that they had a “negative” impression. 27 percent were “positive” and 21 percent said “neither” and two percent said they “didn’t know.”
Wow. That seems to be quite damning. Let’s try to put that in historical perspective by comparing the “positive” results from the last five decades:
“Positive” responses by decade:
1960s: 34%
1970s: 40%
1980s: 56%
1990s: 57%
2000s: 27%
Wow. Was Bush a wrecking ball or what? That is quite the reversal of a trend.
Meanwhile, after one year with Barack Obama at the helm, the results regarding the future are markedly different. 59 percent said the next decade will be better. 32 percent said the 2010s would be “worse,” with 4 percent responding about the “same” and two percent saying they “don’t know.”
That’s my take on providing some context to one slice of how American’s feel as we leave one decade behind and embark on another.
Tater tots with their eyes all aglow
Nothing too heavy for Christmas Eve. It’s sort of like a mandatory break from bitching.
I am proud to say, however, that this year I finally got into the spirit and put up a negativity scene in our front yard. ‘Tis the season ya know!
Encouraging job data sent stocks up to 2009 highs in a shortened holiday session on Wall Street:
New claims for unemployment benefits fell 28,000 to 452,000 last week, the Labor Department reported, the latest sign of improvement in the job market. It was the best figure since September 2008, just before the credit crisis peaked, and better than the 470,000 new claims economists had predicted.
In other tidbits today:
- Stocks pushed higher in December amid “optimism” about the economy
- Orders for durable goods (excluding transportation sector) jumped two percent last month, double what analysts had predicted
- Even with the east coast slammed by recent storms holiday spending appears to be up from last year
- The Senate pased the health care reform bill this morning, voting along party lines – 60-39 – in the first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.
There will be a lot of jabber-jawin’ in the lead-up to New Year’s Eve regarding the “end of a decade.” Whoop-dee-do. For me it was decidedly the worst decade of my life. But I’ve often heard it said that every cloud has a silver lining. If so, for me Mrs. Abyss must be that lining. If this decade hadn’t unfolded the way it did I would never have met her.
If we’re going to insist on the humorous human tradition of measuring time and celebrating integer values, I will grudgingly look to the future in an attempt to put this decade behind me. The beauty of being at the bottom of the barrel is that you can only go up.
The end of 2009 also marks a year where the so-called “bystander effect” got a lot of attention, and deservedly so. In Oct. a 15-year-old woman was gang raped for two hours while as many as 15 to 20 people watched or took part. We need a law that makes every bystander 100 percent guilty of the crime they are watching if they do nothing to stop it.
Yes, 2009 can kiss my ass as well.
For today, however, it is time for celebrations, especially the fact that I don’t have to work in the shithole for four glorious days. Hallelujah!
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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