Day 46

It's been a while since I was gainfully employed, and part of me (the part that reads my bank statements, so the eyes I guess) misses having a job, but most of me realizes that if I did have a job right now it'd be a shitty one, and who wants that? The worst part about having a job that sucks isn't the bad pay, nor is it the annoying/demeaning work that you have to do. The worst part about having a shitty job is that, generally, shitty coworkers come with shitty jobs. It may be depressing to do something like making tacos in an assembly line or recording songs for Nickelback, but isn't what's more depressing the fact that you spend most of your day, most of your week, most of your life with the fat, retarded, possibly insane people you call your coworkers? And maybe Chad Kroeger too? For me that's the worst part by far. Throughout my high school and college life I've had numerous jobs. Some that sucked, some that were awesome, and in pretty much every single one the determining factor of whether or not I liked the job was if I liked the people I worked with or not. One of the worst paying jobs I ever had was maybe my favorite one of the bunch. Meanwhile jobs where I'd pull in some decent money were at times unbearable.

The reason the people at these jobs suck (if they suck), even the ones that payed well, is for one of two reasons. One, they are legitimately so dumb that they are incapable of obtaining employment that requires more intelligence than the minimal amount required of them at their current place of work (myself excluded of course). Two, if the job payed well (sometimes especially because the job payed "well") they are delusional idiots who think because they're making $27,000 a year and only have rent and minor bills as expenses, that they're ballers, and act as such (myself excluded, of course). I guess that was a really long winded way to say that people at these jobs are stupid, and subsequently annoying. Sorry, I really didn't have to write all that. It's just that, I don't have a word limit to reach or anything, but I feel bad when I don't fill up some space, SO LAY OFF ME!

The genuinely dumb ones you can't hate too much, they're just dumb. The good Lord didn't bless them with intelligence (or if he did their mom's lust for crack robbed them of it while they were still in the womb). Unfortunately these people sometimes do like to talk...to me. This generally doesn't end well for me because A) I don't care, and B) They're crazy. A few examples:

- A coworker of mine once explained to me why he had recently converted to a new religion. That religion? Ancient Egyptian. Yes, he had become an ardent follower of Osiris, Ra, Ptah, and the whole gang. He asked if I was interested in learning more about it, or possibly joining him in his quest to meet the great crocodile headed man in the sky, I declined, he gave me some literature anyway. Yeah, there was literature. At least it wasn't Scientology.

- One morning while doing some prep work at a restaurant, myself and an especially retarded former (possibly not so former) crack head got into an argument about why I wasn't cultured because I thought the show "Baretta" was stupid. If you're wondering why that came up it was because of the Robert Blake trial going on at the time. I thought it was a lame celebrity trial because Robert Blake was a lame celebrity. The crack addict countered by mentioning "Baretta". I acknowledged that twenty years ago it would have made for an interesting trial, but that since wasn't 1981 Robert Blake sucked, and that the show was stupid anyway. This is when she claimed that I wasn't in touch with culture. Twenty years from now, when a regular from the show "24" is on trial for something and I'm ironically on the other side of this argument (the moronic crack addicted side) I'll know that my life has come full circle, and then I'll weep.

- Maybe the most awkward first day I ever had on a job was the time my truck mate (yeah I had a job that involved riding in trucks, chainsaws too, because I'M A FUCKING MAN!) asked me about a bar I pointed out while driving by it. Did he ask me about the drink specials there? No. Did he ask me if attractive women frequented the establishment? I don't think he'd understand that sentence, and no. He asked me if a lot of (I'm debating whether or not to write this word out...ummmm no, not gonna do it, I know no one reads this blog but I'd hate for the first one to be a black person and then have them immediately hate me) "N Words" hung out there. Keep in mind at this point I had known this guy for about twenty minutes. But apparently that was an important concern for him. I wonder if after he said that he immediately felt awkward and thought to himself "Oh crap, man I hope he's as racist as me." Sorry buddy, not racist, but I am polite (or a social pussy, you decide!) and turned the other cheek on that comment. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy, and not even racist really, okay he was racist, but not hateful or violent, just ignorant and ill informed. Neither is good, but at least it's the lesser of two evils. Regardless, better first impressions have been made.

- I had to work on 9/11. While I was washing dishes a very opinionated (and very stupid) coworker of mine started spouting off theories and opinions on 9/11. She told me that Nostradamus had predicted it, apparently she had an encyclopedic knowledge of his predictions. If this is true then that's kind of messed up. I mean she told me this ON 9/11, why didn't she call up American Airlines or the FBI the night before? She also told me that the Bible had predicted 9/11, and that the government had robots, I don't know how the robots even related to anything, but she decided to bring it up. I think she was trying to sound smart, I'm pretty sure this was her thought process before bringing up the robots: robots=science=smart. She did look pretty smug every time she said the word robot. Of course she ruined it when she said things such as "robot like" and "robot stuff" instead of "robotics", but that's a tough thing to figure out. I think I'm setting the world record for using the word robot in a paragraph. I haven't read "I, Robot" though, so I can't be sure. All those "robot" 's counted by the way.

Anyway I asked her if, by robots, she meant military robots. She said yes. Then, since the show was mildly popular at the time, I asked her if by military robots, she meant BattleBots. She said yes. Maybe she thought since I was fifteen at the time I would believe her because she was an adult (although only her age could support that claim), but I definitely knew she was too dumb to realize that I was referencing a show about robots that fight each other for sport. In two thousand years when robots are treated as equals in society, this will be the equivalent of Christians being fed to lions in the Roman Coliseum . Except instead of being a forgiving religious people they'll be cold calculating robots...with gun hands.

I decided the conversation was too fun to end, so I asked my coworker what part of the Bible mentioned the robots, she said the Old Testament. So not even the New Testament, the newer part of the Bible, when BattleBots were a mere two thousand years away, nope, some prophet had predicted BattleBots some three to five thousand years ago apparently. Maybe that chariot of fire Elijah rides off to Heaven on was really some bad ass flame throwing robot, I wasn't there, I don't know. Either that or God saw fit to mention an obscure Comedy Central show to some confused ancient Israelite, maybe he was bored and felt like fucking with someone, or maybe he was lamenting aloud the fact that he had put Sean Salisbury on the waiting list for life. Either way she made an already terrible day worse, because when people say never forget, that's one of the things I remember.

Unlike the dumb coworkers, who were at their worst annoying, the people I worked with who I really despised were the ones who took their jobs too seriously, or thought they were cool because they made (what they thought was) a lot of money.

- There wasn't one person in particular who took their jobs too seriously, there were several, scores if you will. Generally these people were waitresses. I have both cooked and bussed tables at sit down restaurants, and I can say without hesitation, hell hath no fury like a bitchy waitress. I can fully empathize with waitresses, I've waited tables before, the job sucks. But you don't need to tell me I'm "fucking retarded" because I forgot to put French fries on your burger platter, I know I'm retarded, that's why I'm making the fries. It's rubbing salt in a wound, salt that could be used on those French fries you wasteful hooker. Also, you know what other job sucks? Cook. At least you get tipped when you're waiting tables.

Nothing good comes from being a cook. The old saying is true, shit rolls downhill, and at a restaurant it's no different. Everyone blames the cooks, for everything, shit rolls downhill right to the kitchen, which is dumb because shit is the last thing you want in a kitchen, it's just not sanitary, because it's poop. But honestly, who the fuck cares? You're a waitress, I'm a cook, I'll get the fries, or fix whatever mistake I made. 99% of people you wait on are understanding, and if they're not, fuck 'em. You don't need to be a huge bitch to me, the guy you see four times a week.

Bitchy waitresses do get their just desserts though, ironically sometimes it's by not giving them their desserts when they ask for it. One restaurant I cooked at, literally the second day on the job, a mean waitress comes back and asks for an order of something (can't remember what) and walks away. The interaction between her and the kitchen manager seemed harmless enough, definitely not friendly but it didn't look too unfriendly either. As soon as the waitress walks away I look at the ticket and start to grab the food to throw it on the grill or whatever. The kitchen manager stops me and the following conversation occurs:

Kitchen Manager: What are you doing?

Me: Um...getting the food, to cook.

KM: Naw, fuck her, she's a fuckin' bitch. She's not gettin' this.

Me: Why?

KM: Because she's a bitch.

Me: Oh...

KM: (looks at ticket) We'll put it on in twenty minutes (motions to ticket) sucks to be this douche bag.

Maybe being a cook was more fun than I first remembered.

- My least favorite type of person I've ever worked with though, by far, is the guy that thinks he's cool because he thinks he makes a lot of money. We've all at least met this guy. This guy sucks. This is the guy who thinks he has connections because he got his Ray Bans for 10% off. Never mind that the 10% was a mall discount (the discount you get at other stores if you work in the same mall). I'm pretty sure I worked with the king of these douche bags. The guy I worked with (who was unfortunately my boss) was a fat, dumb (really dumb, like had trouble spelling simple words dumb), and completely full of himself. So much so that he'd even brag about his diarrhea, which apparently was as frequent as his frivolous spending. This wasn't like funny "poop joke" "guy humor" bragging, this was just legit him explaining his diarrhea. This guy was basically every character from the film "Idiocracy" (funny movie if you haven't seen it).

Despite the fact that he was fat, out of shape, and didn't mountain bike, he bought a $2,000 mountain bike, and thought he was the coolest mother fucker in the world for doing it. If he dies of a heart attack in twenty (actually with his diet and horrific shape more like five) years it's because he decided to take a ride on his bike. His girlfriend was at best a but-her-face (not sure how to spell that) but the first conversation he ever had with me was about how hot is girlfriend is. He bragged that she was a 9/10. This may sound like sweet admiration of a boyfriend for his girlfriend, but two seconds later he said she'd be a 10/10 if it weren't for her thighs (this is the guy who's 250 lbs by the way). He wasn't talking about her to make conversation, he was talking about her to make himself seem really really cool. He then segued that conversation into one about some really sweet car he totally probably (not) used to own.

His taste in women was further on display when every time a hot girl walked by and was pointed out by someone other than him he scoffed and talked about how she either wasn't that hot or how he'd been with someone hotter (again, DOUBTFUL). Although maybe in his mind he had hooked up with hotter girls, because every time he pointed out a girl he thought was attractive, she looked fifteen, or was fifteen, it was creepy. If you think "Hello Kitty" is sexy, chase after Asians, not children. Between that and his diarrhea he may have been the most mentally AND physically unhealthy person I ever worked with. I don't think he ate anything other than pizza, nachos, meat, and soda. To further his douchedom, he always gave me shit for being unhealthy because I drank. Sure thing buddy. He claimed he didn't drink anymore because he got all his partying out of the way in high school (yeah he was "that guy" too). Maybe he did party a lot in high school, he was there for five years (yeah, he was "that guy" too, he was all kinds of douche bag).

But he wasn't just a douche. He was a bad person. He talked a ton of shit on other employees when they weren't there, stole sixty dollars from the register one night, and then made the entire staff pay it back. We knew it was him but couldn't prove it. Why did he need sixty dollars? Probably because he forgot he had an extra bill to pay and had blown all his money on obscure, $20 an issue, car magazines so he could whack off to cars he'd never own. He was OBSESSED with cars, if he does own a sweet car one day, he'll go from being the "that guy" he is now to the "that guy who has a cool car but is a total douche about it because he has nothing else going for him".

This may sound more bitter than entertaining at this point. But I don't really mind, because this guy may have been my least favorite person I've ever met, and I've met John Salley.

And that, 100,000 words later, is why I don't have a job. Because I don't want to work with these people...yeah, that's it.