Job Woes

Do you ever feel like the universe is just screwing with you?

Nothing seems to go right and as corny as this sounds, I'm actually relating to that annoying theme song from "Friends." And the thing is, I'm not about to go kill myself, so that doesn't leave all that many options. You've just got to deal with the total assness of your life.

What kills me is how you still hope for the best. Hope is the worst thing in the world to feel, 'cause it only sets you up for an even bigger fall.

What I don't get is how some people seem to have it all and yet their lives just keep getting better.

After graduating from university, I feel...well...let down, I guess.

It's not like I'm expecting everything to be handed to me on a silver platter, but sometimes, I just wish the universe would cut me a little slack.

The whole job thing depresses me sometimes.

It's like, I know I have all these skills and that if only someone would just give me a chance, I could show them what I good worker I am.

Instead, you find yourself talking to all sorts of lazy, stupid people who are gainfully employed and you wonder if HR people make low IQs a requirement in the whole hiring process.

I heard there's this Buddhist prayer where you actually ask for "appropriate" troubles so that you'll learn something from life. Good grief. I don't want to learn anything more.

Laziness Taken To The Extreme

Three feet of personal space.

Is that really such a hard concept to grasp?

Hey, on the surface, I might look all zen-like and cool, but all I really wanted to do was kick the guy in the balls and scream, "Get out of my face!" And why is it that the guy squished up next to you on the train, in the middle of rush hour, is the one guy who doesn't believe in using deodorant?

So, the Toronto Transit system put in elevators and wheelchair-accessible ramps in for most of the stations 'cause they were stopping the Wheel-Trans service a few years ago.

But every day, you'll see a whole group of people standing in front of the elevator --- the elevator that's for people who use wheelchairs --- to take them up to the main floor.

Okay, I get that you might be tired at the end of the day, but to me, that's just so fucking low to be using the friggin' elevator when you've got two legs that can probably get you upstairs faster than it would to wait for the elevator.

Same thing goes with the escalators, where you'll invariably come across some cow who'll just stand there, causing a long line to form behind him/her.

And why does this always happen when you're late for work? You're standing there, fuming, ready to shove the person out of your way 'cause you know showing up late isn't generally a good thing, but what can you do?

People are just so fucking lazy that it amazes me.

Every time.

A Request For Assistance

Ever get this e-mail?

[Trust me. You don't need to read the whole thing. The subject line, alone, is all you need to read before hitting DELETE. Unless, of course, you have no life and decide it's worth wasting a couple of minutes over.]

---

Hello,

REQUEST FOR AN ASSISTANCE,

I am Mr Daniel Fona,a Sierra-Leoneian and the son of late Major GeneralPeter fona of Blessed Memory. My fatherwas among the people who died in detention as are sult ofhis involvement in the government of Major Johnny PaulKoromah who was the rebel leader in Sierra-Leone but now in exile following the fall of his government.

Before my father's sudden death, he made me tounderstand that he has the sum of US$10,000,000(Ten MillionAmerican Dollars) he deposited in a Bank in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.He also gave me the deposit slip,which the deposit wasmade. I have since contacted the Bank as regards thedeposit and my intending plan to transfer it,because mylate father reached an agreement with the bank,that themoney will be transfer to ovsea country of my chioce,for onward investment.

I there fore seek your assistance to provide me with an account where the money will be transferred and probablyhelp me in investing the money for a profitableventure, since my father is no more. I will be willing to offer you 10% ofthis money as commission and another 5% for expensess you may have incureduring this transaction.I hope that you are a sincerely and God fearing person.Please, do reach me on this above email address for more explaination.

Thanks and God bless.Yours faithfully,
daniel fona and sister.

---

I get a variation of this e-mail every fucking week.

But there are assholes --- complete fuckwits --- out there who've fallen for this scam. "Sincere, God-fearing" idiots who fall hook, line, and sinker for a badly-worded sob story.

But then again, why the fuck should I be surprised? Sometimes, I'll notice instructions for something --- say a calculator or a microwave or any electronic device --- and I'll think it's pretty stupid to explain something so blatantly obvious. But then it'll hit me that some moron out there has actually done the very thing that the instructions are warning against.

I once covered a fraud trial where this "model agency" bilked thousands of dollars out of hundreds of would-be models. And I looked around the courtroom and thought, "Jesus H. Christ. You have got to be kidding me."The vanity of some of those assholes.You just wanted to hold up a mirror and say, "C'mon, people, let's be real here."

If you're stupid enough to fall for a scam like that then maybe you deserve to have your money taken from you.

Setting Out On An Ice Flow

The idea of setting myself out on an ice flow and freezing to death sounds really good.

Learning about the Native Americans was always the best part of history. The old and sick really knew their place. If you weren't of any use any more, you'd just wander off somewhere to die.

Simple as that.

I'm just in one of my moods...a mood that hasn't lifted for about a month or so. The older I get, the more depressed I get. I should really go see a shrink, but the vain part of me finds that so distasteful.

I don't like weak, indecisive people...maybe it's because I see a bit of weakness and indecisiveness in myself.

I tend to dislike people who remind me of me.

Does that make any sense at all?

I was watching an old episode of "Northern Exposure" the other day where Ed is being followed everywhere by this little green man. The medicine man, Leonard, explains to Ed that the little green man is Ed's demon: low self esteem.

Leonard's thinking was that we hate others because we hate ourselves.

It sort of made sense to me.

I don't know. My mind's pretty warped right now. I can't stand being around anyone. All I want is to be left alone, but at the same time, I wish there was someone I could talk to.

The problem with telling other people your problems is that nobody ever really wants to hear them. People aren't really good at listening. All they want to do is blab about themselves. Like, who gives a shit about your life?

When I'm talking to someone, I really listen to what they have to say. They're always so amazed when I remember stuff they've told me before.

I find when there's something bugging me, it's better to just write it down somewhere instead.

Gross Food

Parmesan cheese smells exactly like vomit, but it tastes okay. How can something smell so foul yet taste so...not foul?

That's pretty rich coming from someone who'll eat practically anything. (I'd like to think, though, that if I were in some awful accident, like in that movie, "Alive" where I was trapped without any food and there was nothing to eat except the frozen corpses of my fellow travelers that I'd draw the line at that. But never say never, you know?)

You know how on "Survivor", there's always an immunity challenge where the tribes have to eat gross stuff? I didn't find most of the stuff all that gross. Granted, I've never eaten anything that was still alive, before.

I don't think I'd want to try it.

I know in South Korea, live squid is considered a delicacy. I couldn't stop staring at the guy who was eating it. The tentacles kept poking out of his mouth and it was moving.

Why am I thinking about food right now? Whenever there's nothing else to do, I think about food.

It's not like I eat a lot, either. I just like thinking about food. I get kind of grossed out watching other people eat sometimes, though. Like when you're on the subway and there's a fat person sitting across from you eating a bag of chips or ice cream. That's just nasty.

There's a scene in "Trainspotting" where Renton talks about how much he hates fat people. It's irrational (his hatred, that is), but some of the stuff he said made sense, you know? Like, if being fat is so natural, then how come you never see fat people in Ethiopia?

My sister's a bit on the pudgy side. Whenever someone says something about her weight, it pisses me off. Why do some people think it's okay to spew their negative little snide comments? I mean, do we really even care what they have to say?

It's amusing, really, when you think about it. Hardly anybody ever bothers telling you nice stuff, but they don't hesitate to point out each and every perceived flaw that you have. I wonder if people do that to make themselves feel better about being flawed, themselves.

Who the fuck knows?

Running With Scissors

I was reading about turds while eating my lunch.

And maybe for the first time in my life, I was actually a little grossed out --- but not enough to make me stop eating. Fortunately, nothing grosses me out to make me stop eating.

I bet if you cut me open, you'd discover my stomach lined with steel. Or maybe it's because I routinely eat gross things.

Chicken feet, anyone? Cow brains? Blood pudding?

I'd totally kick ass in Fear Factor.

So, anyway, I'm reading "Running With Scissors", a memoir by Augusten Burroughs, who probably isn't anybody famous or important or who's done anything of substance in this world except to prove that there is at least one person out there in North America who had a shittier childhood.

I mean, the guy's whacked-out, psychotic lesbian mother gave him away to her equally whacked-out, psychotic shrink to raise. And from what the guy wrote, it was apparently a shithole of grand proportions. We're talking about landfill-type grossness.

Anyways, the shrink, at one point, decides that God is speaking to him through his shit.

One of his turds was pointing up out of the toilet water and the shrink took this to mean that things were pointing up in their life. This wasn't the gross part, though.

The gross part was when he asked his daughter to get a spatula to scoop out the turd so they could dry it out on the picnic table in the backyard --- for what purpose is completely beyond me.

Achieving Real Clarity

Sometimes, the answer seems so close, I can taste it.

It's like the Holy Grail for me.

Sometimes, though, I have to wonder what I'd do if I really did have the answer.

What is it about us mortals? We're shlepping it day in and day out, some of us struggling against the current, trying to figure out this earthly ride while others swim with the tide, okay with where they're heading even if they're not really sure where that destination is.

I suppose, in the long run, we're all headed to the same place. But where is that place exactly?

Consciousness, man. It's a heavy burden, some days. You walk around with all these thoughts buzzing in your head like flies you can't swat.

Achieving real clarity --- a moment of absolute silence and stillness inside your head--- seems like a real challenge. It is a real challenge.

But then some mornings, you wake up and you think, things'll be okay; no matter what happens, things'll be okay --- 'cause really, you don't have it all that bad. And you've got to stop and think what it is, exactly, that gives you that pause --- that little pat on the back that makes everything click into place for a moment. Of course, there's no guarantee it'll stay that way, but for one moment in time, you can feel it and know it.

I suppose the trick is to remember that.

Sometimes, I think we're all afflicted with a little bit of Alzheimer's, though.