Tag: job

Even Better

April 7th, 2019

Life for me has improved.

I look back at the year and a half of misery, confusion, suicidal thoughts, etc and need to ask myself what changed to get me centered. I don’t even take any nootropics. No adderall. No drugs. Nothing.

Not even meditation.

What I do know about life is, there are “up’s and downs’…feast and famine. Normalcy and insanity. Times where life is good and when times are bad. Don’t get me wrong, these things are still happening.

The difference is the length of feast over famine …the amount of good days over bad … that I am controlling. Yup, it all circles back to ‘me’ and how I handle it all.

Let’s start with the first easy workable change: I’m working consistently. 

Not exactly an IT job — more like a whole lot of grunt work — but I’m paid weekly good money. Also have a second job opportunity with another company to work with the census soon. I’ll have to drop one for the other if I decide to take it. I’m going through the application process. Jumped through a few of the usual federal application hurdles already so it looks good.

Both jobs will have me traveling. Both jobs have ups and downs to them.

But this journal entry has nothing to do with the jobs as much as how I have been handling life with these jobs and the people I work with.

As you know, I can’t stand people and that still stands.

So, the job I’m working with now has the largest collections of jerks and assholes anyone could possibly work with.

How do I manage? That, my friend, is where I reveal the good stuff.

It’s a little bit of everything I learned over the year especially during my time at Walmart. Remember that time I expressed the best way to ignore the people around me is to use my height and look above and beyond them?

The idea was if I looked above the heads of people and not AT people, I can focus on what’s important and stop worrying about who’s looking at me. Of course, it worked and over the year I’ve removed needing to have eye contact with anyone unless I need to speak directly.

As a result, i carry myself as arrogant, I’m sure. But guess what? The expression of arrogance and unapproachable works for me and it works on the job place.

I work with grown-ass men and they like to pick on one another. Stupid jokes, etc, etc. Some people are worse targets than others.

In past jobs, I would get mad and say something and create enemies or quit if people tried to label me as a target to joke on.

Quitting jobs put me in this financial hole. Then I’m looking for work. The circle goes round and round.

In order to keep a job, I had to improve how I handle people.

The trick for me is the ‘above and beyond’ routine — expressing a singular focus to do the job I am working on. No socializing. No joking around. Anti-social 100%. 

It sounds terrible, but even my expression emits “If it isn’t about work, don’t fuck with me”

And it’s working.

People talk to me, immediately and on first contact, with cautious respect. Do you understand how much that means to me? To be left the fuck alone, but when they need to say something, it comes from a place of joke-free respect?

The problem up till now has been I left myself open to be non-confrontational, friendly black man. Not too unlike President Obama, who was disrespected every hour of his presidency by even high ranking leaders.

It’s a sad world — where you need to be considered a bitch/bastard to gain respect. And trust me, it’s never that people give respect that’s earned. You could be a Black president of the United States and still have another world leader NOT shake your hand in public.

Or you could be a new employee, greet people and do the job, and someone will find a need to say something smart-ass.

The focus on doing the job also provides consistent good results toward my financial needs so why the fuck would I care what anyone thinks of me if I’m just doing the job and keeping to myself?

The secret to my current success, believe it or not, has been a healthy amount of “Fuck everyone” and “leave me alone”. The results are showing in my freedom of thought and clear mind to get what’s important to me done.

Still haven’t been on Facebook in going on two years soon. I really have nothing to say to anyone — and I’m happy! Money is rolling in. I’m writing a little here and there and I have an animation project I’m eyeing at the end of the month to start.

People do suck — so let them burn. 

Which kind of brings me to my wife’s grand-kids.

As you know, they were staying with us and these ghetto trap kids are about to go home soon. Thank god.

I had a recent heart-to-heart with my wife about what led up to this and how it will never happen again.

She literally blames me for saying “Yes” to allowing these brats stay here. No lie. if we talk about it, the conversation flow is always “Well, you should have said something different.”

This goes back to being the ‘non-confrontational asshole I was a year ago.

Her daughter’s third child was sick. She needed help with the other two. Where else were the kids to go? Of course I said yes. I didn’t want it. But what else could I have done?

Now I know what I could do: fuck no. 

Especially if, being her husband, she’s telling me saying ‘no’ to help her family was on the table. That it even an option???

Then fine. Fuck it.

She has a son in New York. Age 22. I hear he’s fucking up. When we go to New York to drop the fuck-brats off, she will want to consider the idea of bringing her son back with us.

I was already over this and talked to her a few weeks ago and said: It can’t happen. Sorry about what your son is going through, but when we go to NY, it needs to only be us coming back home. I can’t live with another person under our roof no more.”

I said it politely. I know she’s troubled. Hell, it’s her son. I feel like a dick because it is her son.

But fuck it. No.

I hear her daughter is going though some shit, too.

Fuck it. No.

Not going to happen.

The price for being sane and happy is to be an asshole in the eyes of others.

What you are experiencing is the death of the “nice guy” and the birth of a person I never knew.

Someone happy.

Grade F

July 20, 2018

Rough week, but in two more weeks, this math class will be over. As it stands now, I am going to get an “F” in this class and I’ve been taking the past few weeks learning how to swallow that fact. No matter what I do, It’s not working. So, I expect the GPA to plummet. 

In other news, I have been exercising each day, ramping up with incremental reps and sets of simple things: push-ups, morning runs, crunches, situps. The idea here is to break a bad habit of NOT exercising. 

This is all about not letting things define who I am — nor letting things eat at me. I have been killing myself — hating myself — over the failure of getting this math that I’ve overlooked one simple fact: you can’t accomplish all things and define yourself poorly over one or two things.

For instance, I applied for a job recently that required I should not have a lot of debt, nothing bad on my credit report, etc, etc, etc. Some sort of ATM maintenance position.

I certainly didn’t qualify for this job; which used credit and debt as a gauge if I would be the kind to steal from them. They asked me some questions over the phone. At first, I lied about my debt and credit history. Then it started bothering me that they wanted to judge me on my credit to decide if I was going to be a thief.

I have NOT stolen from any company I ever worked at no matter how much debt I’ve been in. But, this company tried to define me by my debt and thinks I would steal. Meanwhile, people who seem not to be in debt, are stealing, and will likely get the job and steal from them. Suddenly, surprise, surprise. So-n-so is caught stealing and they went through all this judgment process to swear they wouldn’t be the type to steal.

I won’t be defined by what they think a thief is. I declined the position before it even got too far into it.

I’m getting an “F” in this math class. Does that make me stupid? Does that make me less smart? Bigger picture question: if I was to never get this degree, does that make me less smart?

No, of course not. At least to me. The rest of the world needs ‘things’ to define what a person is. A degree makes me smart, even though I have seen degree-holding idiots. Regardless, have the degree, get the job.

I’m done beating myself up over it and just pushing through. I can do exceptional in other classes coming up. 

I’m still going to get the job done.

Purpose Theory

July 11th, 2018

I’ve been struggling with wondering what “this is all about”. This being my life. I’m struggling with this College Algebra class. I’m going to fail it and it’s going to bring my GPA down. I’ve tried everything but beg online for help. No one I knows even uses this stuff.

So, if I am going to fail in this, and I have no idea what happens to my grades and momentum moving forward, and I can’t find a job that pays well that I can stay at — destined to keep moving from job to job as I have — not liking what I do. Not successful in my writing as I would like. Getting older. Weaker.

What was all this about? What was my life for if people who are doing bad things and say bad things can still succeed and be president — and self-righteous white supremacy fucks can say and do what they want and still claim a sense of being — or any dreg from any race on the low end of the mental equation —- why can’t I? It’s like I’m struggling to just ‘be’ and find a place in this ugly world.

Then, the other day, my daughter asked me a question about inventing things — and she listened.

No, I mean, really listened. Like I was telling her absolute truth.

It took a day to realize I’ve been so selfish.

There was a time, long ago when I was her age, that I believed strongly I could help the world with new ideas, stories and fall in love with one woman and help people.

My mother was bitter and angry and would tell me it’s a fantasy.

No, I don’t do that to my children. There has been a place still untampered in my heart to still tell my children life is great, make a lot of friends of all races; no matter the person, help everyone and anyone.

It’s a small place but it’s reserved for them. Because I don’t want to give them what my mother gave me: no support for my ideas.

I didn’t know my father.

My children know me. 

So my ‘purpose’ theory is really simple: Don’t be the dick your parents were.

I know it’s all relative and everyone has their own parenting styles. But I feel the universe tries to teach us to be better along the way. Like granting me the heart and mind to go back to school. There is a common way everyone can be as one, love each other and make the world better. I believe it. It’s just humans don’t want it.

As you know, I can look inward and report when I’ve been wrong. As I said, I have been selfish. On low days, feeling I’ve done nothing successful when, in fact, I’m contributing to a better world every day I teach my daughter the beauty in it. I’ve been so concerned about what I was leaving the world when I die, that I I didn’t realize I was leaving children like my daughter who still have a pure heart to want to build, invent and tell greater stories than me.

I’m not working, but I have a job.

Fall and Rise

June 28th 2018

I was offered a job. In IT. $19/hr 28/hr overtime. By my current status, it’s considered a jackpot. It’s with a temp agency that I worked with years back. They changed the name but name dropping old supervisors got my foot in. From there, I was on boarded.

So what’s wrong? Well, though I will be called for jobs that I am qualified for, the first assignment out the gate I am NOT qualified for. Server network admin. I just don’t have enough background in that work for a big business.

Part of me felt like I should’ve lied. Said I could handle it and do as much research as possible. I know I said that I would “create“ a better resume so I can get the work I’m looking for, but I do usually stay within the framework of things I do know so I wouldn’t have to lie when I get there.

I feel, because I didn’t lie, that I was not aggressive enough.

On the other side, if I did lie and I got caught in a lie I probably would lose the job and everything.

So, taking it from that perspective, I don’t feel so bad. I’m in a holding pattern waiting for the next job but I did sign off at $19 an hour. Armed with that knowledge, I now know how much I’m worth. I’ll still look for other tech work with the same resume I gave them knowing I’m asked by for 19.00.

This experience taught me the importance of really knuckling down to get these certifications. Not just A+ either. Network +, Security +, etc.

Im being brief because I’m entering this entry from my phone from sketchy internet service. Just know I realized recently that I am not the same man I used to be anymore, and how easily I can fall back into that man when I feel defeated or depressed.

As of this day, with all I am actively doing, I am a better man and its important I drop people and things from a dead past. Any attempt to connect with even people from a self destructive past —— even if not so destructive but associative from who I was —— isn’t very healthy and forward in motion.

I sometimes seek old friends and old habits when I feel down.

Instead, I will play my guitar. Eventually get back to animation.

Practice is going okay. I’m learning to fit in finger drills at all free moments. Which means the guitar travels with me when possible.

Got all “A’s” in last units assignments.

Once I’m working officially, I’m looking into a new wardrobe also. Throwing all the old crap away.

I want everything in my life a fresh start.

Weeks Notice

June 24th, 2018

I gave that temp agency a week’s notice working at this soda warehouse. My body is done with this place. 

It’s not a career move and I want to get into tech work. Stuff that I have been applying for months without luck, but do I keep going to this job making almost nothing, working a lot of hours and it’s not part of any upward move career-wise? Or stay, collect $200 a week working 50+ hours and too tired to get my school work done?

I don’t think I’ll be unemployed for long. The ‘just take anything’ isn’t smart anymore. I said this before — until I just needed something. Now that I just ‘got a job’, it sucks and it conflicts a little with school.

Life choices suck for the financially strapped.

Half-a-Zoloft

June 21st, 2018

I took half of a Zoloft this morning. I felt the anxiety coming on last night; dealing with the boneheads at the job, the child support situation mentioned the other day and suddenly memories of my own past stupidity started rushing back to me. I tell you, my mind fucks with me that way…magnifying my awkward life moments like an unwanted home video presentation. Making me very anxious and jittery.

Here’s the thing: I have an acutely accurate memory of the worst times of my life. Almost 360-degree imagery of the same instance from all sorts of angles but I have to work so fucking hard to remember things for exams.

I’m going with the idea that I actually have a very good memory — long-term memory things, I guess. Things that leave impressions. Like I remember a lot of good things, too. Like my first girlfriend and the things I did for her. Not just the emotions and faces. I’m talking full segments of conversations and events 20-30 years ago. 

Odd. If I really stopped to assess my memory, I really do have a solid memory of a lot of things. Why did I ever think I had a bad memory? HAHA…I forgot why I thought that. LOLOLOL. 

I think I have a bad memory when I struggle to commit schoolwork to memory. Or I panic when it is time to take tests and feel I forgot everything.

Then I can go ahead and recall stupid events from when I was a kid that my mother doesn’t remember.

Well, anyway, the Zoloft is to settle me down because I dreaded going to work again today and I want to do a lot of schoolwork and keep studying for the A+ exam. I told my wife that going to work now, with less pay, makes it difficult to swallow the usual shit I was taking at this job. Now it’s all magnified. It’s a mental thing, but seems so much worse.

Taking a full Zoloft would have made me lethargic. Half keeps me on my feet but mellow.

It’s already starting to work.

See? Even a sensible psychotic can get through society if he takes his meds when he’s supposed to.

This Job

May 27th, 2018

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Almost forgot about it being that I slept all day yesterday and today. It’s Sunday and there is so-called mandatory overtime.

There’s a couple of reasons I don’t foresee myself at this job past Monday or Tuesday:

1) It’s hard on my feet. I’m too young to grind my joints down for just being a guy that sweeps fucking floors.

2) My wife has no way of getting home from work while I have the car, forced to take Uber every night. That adds up and it’s bad enough we don’t have extra money. No, it won’t get any better if I quit — but when a job becomes expensive to GO to work, you have to start really doing the numbers. I didn’t even include the gas and more food I’m eating.

3) She has a job-sponsored event to go to Tuesday and Wednesday where she needs the car. I entertained taking the bus but after mapping it out via my usual mass transportation app, it will take me 4 hours by multiple buses and trains to get to a job that I’ll be on my feet for the next 8-10 hours after I get there. 

Call me a lazy American all you want, but that shit isn’t worth it. Plus I have to figure out where to get the bus cards and load it up with cash I don’t have.

4) The job hinted at giving me more jobs to do outside of sweeping. Picking actual orders and what not. My feelings on that is simple: I do not want any further responsibilities that will force me to stay past a time I want to leave. Typically, people at this job have been leaving at 4, 5 or sometimes 6am. Technically, they expect me to stay until the end of the shift — as of now — sweeping the floor.

I’ve been leaving at 1am. Maybe 2am because I was done and sticking around was a waste of time. You might say: fuck it. You’re getting paid. Why not stay the extra couple of hours?

So you’re suggesting I stay on my feet for 16 hours a night? Sweeping and mopping floors. Looking busy when there is, most times, nothing to do?

I need the money. I can’t deny that.

But, as you can agree, I also need my sanity and my sleep is connected to that.

45-minute drive to and from work. At 4am, I am serving on the road exhausted. I chose to leave at 1am to give me ample time to come home, shower, eat, sleep and be well rested for the next day. It’s balanced giving them the work they need and the sleep and rest I need. Keep this also in mind, this is supposed to be a 12 hour shift Monday through Friday. Most 12-hour shift jobs I know have three off – two on days alternating weeks. These dudes working this job are doing five days straight.

Let’s also be clear: they are riding around on electric pallet jacks. Less foot time, but they do lift a lot and have other responsibilities for picking orders. None of which I want to dig into at my pay rate.

Lastly, there’s ….

5) I start classes again this coming Wednesday. I had a week off (some sort of Summer break I guess) and my next two classes are focused on my major. 
Discovering Information Technology and Information Technology and Society.

They ‘sound’ easy stuff. Not so much trouble as, say Algebra coming up after these. But with my goal to not just do well but do OUTSTANDING (fuck Environmental Science and that instructor that fucked my GPA a little), do I have the energy to do this cornball maintenance job, take a four-hour bus ride and still concentrate on what i have to do for class? 

The argument can be made that it’s only two days and I have plenty of time to catch up on all the class stuff over the weekend — possibly.

But four hours is insane.

What I might do is tell them I’m not coming in Tuesday and Wednesday. Leave it like that.

I’m getting ready to go in today. If there’s more talk of me picking orders and doing more than mopping, I’ll consider it but it’s putting one of my feet out the door. You see, I want this job to be simple since it’s already taxing on body and expenses as it is.

That said, I’m reviewing my resume/job search game. I got this one, with a few calls from others, with a particular format that worked. The IT jobs I want, but not getting, are being overlooked by that ‘honest’ resume I had help with from AIU’s career center. As mentioned, lying and cheating works, I need the time to adapt the resume that works into the IT sector. 

It can’t be all lies and cheating because I am ACTIVELY in a major IT Bachelor’s Degree program. I just got to find a place that will take on students and talk up that part of my resume. I’ve seen IT jobs at 18.00 an hour doing things I know I can do even if I wasn’t in this degree program. Might I also add, stuff I can do that the degree program hasn’t touched on yet or even plan to.

I need to make this degree talk the talk these fuckers only want to hear.

This is the American way of working: paid more, less work. Working smart.

Making Money

May 23rd, 2018

You owe me a dollar from a previous post.

The job is still going. Almost quit the first night, but got back on the saddle the second night and now moving toward a third. It’s a really easy job and I was just complaining because my feet were killing me. Just using muscles I haven’t used in awhile.

Essentially,  I’m maintenance. I sweep this soda warehouse for 8-12 hours while guys zip around on electric pallet jacks picking orders. With the summer upon us, soda is big business (apparently) and there is lots of work. No, I mean LOTS of work. People who start this job usually quit and they seek more people all the time. They were surprised I came back but I realize my job is the ultimate in simplicity and I thank God for it. I truly thank the lord for it. He knew this was the job I needed and mentally could do. WITHOUT Zoloft.

You know my aversion to people, right? With this job, I come in and sweep the floor. Maybe even mop here and there. I don’t have to talk to anyone. The full-time workers there have quota’s to make (so many pallets of soda on trucks by a certain time). They get paid per pallet or something like that so they have no time to talk to me. I clean up spills and sweep the broken pallet wood from the floor so they don’t get slowed down.

Easy fucking peesy. $12.00 an hour to sweep floor, plus time and a half for overtime and they often ALWAYS go 12-16 hours a night.

Weekends off.

Like I said, at first, I was going to quit because I was a pussy. My feet were swollen the first night. My legs were killing me. I was looking at getting out at 4am and I was bitching like a bitch. Drove home almost crashing the car I was so sleepy.

After a personal struggle that morning to stop being a pussy, I decided to go back to work the next day and I think it impressed some of the guys. They apparently seen people come and go. I hear them talking about people who didn’t come back. I’m even on a “hi” “bye” thing with some of the guys. It’s social baby steps.

At first, I thought my job was non essential. I’m not trying to make my job any bigger than it is, but I was told by a guy last night that he appreciated the work I was doing because it helps him and the other guys out. When there is soda all over the place and wood and the place is a mess, they can’t get the job done fast as they need.

I walk around at my own pace, sweeping like ‘old Leroy’; mopping when I need to mop, picking up cans, emptying trash. My math is bad, but I think I came up with $150-$160 per night for 11 hour shift (after lunch). That’s overtime (time and ½). Five day shifts and I get paid weekly around $750-800 a week. After taxes and child support (grrr) about $500 a week.

Can I live with that? Fuck yes. It’s free money to walk, sweep and shut the fuck up. I’m working out the leg and foot pains which will turn into firm muscle sooner than later (lugging around steel toed shoes all night).

My first check is next week Friday. It’s already Wednesday of my first week. I don’t lead anyone. I don’t need to talk to anyone. Not even management talks to me. I have no responsibilities other than sweeping a damn floor and I was going to quit???? This is why I keep this journal. I need to document my potential fuckery.

Is it a professional job? Like tech support, or working in a law office? No. My pride was hurting a little in the beginning. But it’s money. Legit, bill paying, child support lowering, cash saving, credit paying off cash flow that I’m getting in my pocket for standing on my feet rather than at home playing video games and bitching about how broke I am because nobody is reading my work. I’m not working on ANY projects so money is just going directly to the necessary things of life. Like my children finally.

Except every now and then. On my second paycheck (around the 9th of June), I’m taking my wife down to Savannah. She liked it down there when I was researching for a book I was writing. I’ll be happy to take her knowing it can be ‘my treat’. I’m off weekends so why not.

Still going to school. Still going to take the paralegal classes. 

I’ll push through and adapt to these long hours for a few months before I start it. I couldn’t do it right now if I tried. Way too tired after work. 

The good news is I’m adapting. The first night was hell. The second night was better. Tonight will be a walk in a sore park.