Why is Bob smiling?
Meet Bob.
Bob is smiling. Keep reading to find out why.
Bob has a job and a boss. He is required to work on Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after. If he refuses, he will lose his job.
When Bob works over 40 hours a week, he does not receive overtime pay. He’s exempt. Bob doesn’t receive overtime if he works over an eight-hour shift.
Even though he’s a full-time employee, Bob does not receive “benefits” from his employer like health insurance, pension, or 401(k).
Work It
“What is the meaning of work?” a guru asked his friend.
His friend replied, “Well, son, it happens when your wits have reached their end.”
Life is work. Work is life.
Some people, I like to think of them as motherfuckers, would have us believe shit like this.
What is work? Is it something you do in order to survive? Or is it the meaning of life itself? It seems to me that maybe, just maybe, your perspective might be based on who you are. For example, if you are The King and lounge around all day with your turkey drumsticks, your opinion that servants should pursue a life of labor just might be biased. Ya think?
Me? I’ve never been all that enthralled with money and I was born and raised into a culture where work is something exclusively done in the pursuit of money. To me money is something that enables a standard of living and some of the stuff I want. Beyond that? Who gives a shit?
So I guess it’s not too surprising that my work ethic follows suit. I don’t work for fun. I don’t work because it is its own reward. I work because I have to. Period. No other reason. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. I simply see no other choice. How many non-work life paths are there and which of them could meet my needs?
Basically the only reason I work is so I can enjoy the times I’m not working.
And, right now, at this moment in my life as a citizen of the United States, I currently enjoy the maximum number of vacation days as required by law.
Zero.
Workplace Barflies
This image, just like this post, does not cut the mustard.
There’s really no point to this post. Leave. Now. -Ed.
Feed. It’s what’s for dinner. Mmm. That sounds good. I’ll have that! Yeah, I’m a hundred and six years old, and I still make my own bread! (Prideful braggart.)
Well, what do you want to eat? Mmm. Do you have biscuit with a little bit of mustard on it? Mmm.
I don’t know about your family but in my family we have this tradition. Any time we assemble to break break together (or biscuit or whatever) there’s one thing we’ll do for sure: Discuss and speculate about the next meal a comin’.
It’s pretty much the exact opposite of being mindful and appreciative. Someone went to a lot of effort and bother to put this food before us. First, they had to have a vision and plan the damn thing, and that may be the hardest part of all. Then they went to a grocery store and spent money on stuff and brought it home. Then, using recipes and their own skills, prepared, assembled and cooked it all together while we sat on our lazy asses.
Yeah, I think they deserve more appreciation than us talking about the next meal we plan to shove in our face holes.
That said, where do you wanna go? To eat? That’s the conversation my wife and I had last night.
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Work Job
The “Work Job” is a sexual act of the most scurrilous and despicable nature. It involves finding a partner, known as a boss, turning around, bending over to touch your toes and waiting for it. The rest? It’s so heinous I can’t even think about it, much less describe it, not even to liven up this post for your entertainment. Sorry, I just can’t do it.
I’ve noticed something. When I make predictions and statements that are born out to be 100% correct, the universe covers me in a pile of shit as way of thanks. When someone like Karl Rove makes predictions that are dead wrong, he is given somewhere between $90 to $160 million of other people’s money to throw down a toilet hole.
Something tells me it should be the other way around.
Take the topic of bosses and jobs, for example. I’ve been preaching the way things are for quite some time. Did anyone listen to me? No!
There are a few keys moments I can remember in my life. For a lot of folks they remember where they were when JFK was shot. Well, I’m too young for that. For me, those watershed moments are things like the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the morning of 9/11, and the SCOTUS ruling on DOMA.
It turns out there’s one more for that list. The day that Gallup released data indicating that 70% of American workers hate their jobs. No shit. Really? Now you’re justing repeating things I’ve already said! I made that case a long, long time ago, only more eloquently.
Where’s my piece of the pie?
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Staff Infection Meeting
I once quit a job over a staff meeting. True story. I’m sure it’s documented here on the blog somewhere, but long story short, they made us on the 6am crew stick around for a 5pm meeting. I asked, “Is it important?” Our managers assured us it was. “You have to be there,” they said.
The meeting started and the first item of business was rolling out birthday cake for our safety director. At 5-fucking-o-clock. It’s not like most of us would be consuming dinner any time soon.
Then, for the icing on the cake, the rest of the hour was consumed by our managers reading memos to us. Line-by-line. Word-by-word. Like we were in kindergarten or something. Memos that had previously been delivered to our inboxes. Memos I had already read on my very own. It was worse than an insult to our intelligence. It was calling us babies.
After the meeting I opted to go back to my desk rather than heading straight home. I sat there and wrote out a memorandum of my own. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s a classic piece of Americana called the letter of resignation. I plopped that puppy on my manager’s desk and then called it day.
Good times.
In another place and another time there was another staff meeting. This one involved the quintessential management tool known as the employee survey.
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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