Is This Thing On?

Is anyone still out there? Jesus. It's been a long time since my last post and you know what? I still don't have anything relevant to say. Not that I'm going to let that stand in my way. I never have, why should I stop now?

Anyhoo... I'm back in my old post at Large Corporation making the world safe for data management and things are things. My cubicle this time around, although equipped with a delightful ass caressing, lumbar supporting, real deal, gen-u-wine Aeron chair, is tiny. Miniscule. The cube is teeny-tiny. Insulting. More insulting - they have taken internet access away from all of the contractors in the department. More humiliating than insulting I suppose, but what can you do? Certainly not check gmail, live-stream NPR, read blogs or get a weather forecast. It's a drag, a huge donkey cock suck if ever there was one although I do enjoy endlessly bitching about it to anyone who will listen, so there's that.

It's great to be working again, and trust me I don't forget it. I keep reminding myself of it every day.

Since Bag O'Mice and Hey Mr. DJ both retired guess who got assigned both of their workloads? It's me! Hooray! Actually, so far it hasn't been all that bad and I'm not nearly as swamped as you might think. Come to think of it, now that I'm fully aware of the scope of the projects they were working on I'm not sure at all what those two old coots were up to all day before they left.

At least in the case of Bag O'Mice it seems he must have spent around three quarters of his day puttering back and forth between his desk and the copier as I have discovered that the heaving, giant dossiers, nearly bursting at the seams that I inherited from him are mostly full of printed email correspondence. Yes. Apparently Bag O'Mice printed all of his emails. Jackass.

What else? People I actually got offered a job one week after I started working for Large Corporation again. Not a great job. In fact kind of a shitty job working for the state and I turned it down. It was the right thing to do. It boiled down to pay (although surprisingly it wasn't that much less), but also the work was not exactly what I would call stimulating. Filing. Data entry. Been there. Done that.

I would have felt totally differently about it if I hadn't taken the call from the state's HR lady while luxuriating in the awesomeness of my fabulous new designer office chair and sipping a gratis vente Starbucks in front of my two 20 inch flat screen monitors, which were at the moment displaying the very latest in database software technology.

During the interview, which by the way took place the week before at an office located in a run down strip mall in a questionable part of town, when I had asked them(because I come prepared for that shit so when they say "do you have any questions for us? I immediately whip out a printed list and go to town) what was their most challenging obstacle to accomplishing the long term goals of the department (eh? eh? a good one I think) they replied that it was that a lot of people balk at using a computer, not using the new software we just got, but the fact that they have to use a computer, like at all. This is not the place for me.

The whole interview experience was like that Sesame Street song, One of These Things Is Not Like the Others. I mean if you could have seen the other people who were interviewing - I got to see the competition because they corralled us all together in this big giant room while we waited our turns to meet with the HR people. It was like a casting call for creepy losers and pressed, dry cleaned, prissy me. A couple of the creepy losers were already doing the same job in a different city and were merely interviewing to be transferred, a formality I guess, and spent their time commiserating between themselves at top volume about what a shitty job it was.

So between listening to that, the disconcerting interview-ee holding pen concept and the fact that I had gone through the trouble of hot rollering my hair and wiggling into pantyhose and was sitting next to a rumpled man wearing scuffed white (white!) cowboy boots, enough pomade to wax a Buick who smelled like he hadn't washed his suit since the civil war, when I realized that we were all interviewing for the same position I almost bailed.

I don't normally like to think that I'm better than anyone else, maybe that I'm better off, but not better. But in this case, better, better off, either way I knew that I didn't belong there. I stayed for the interview, but the whole thing felt wrong, wrong, wrong and I knew that it would be a huge step down. Clearly some of those other folks needed that job worse than me and if that's a snobby thing to say - well I just don't care.

Did I mention that the job was shitty? Have I harped enough on that or do you need to hear about that some more? Oh and it wasn't even a permanent job. Yeah. Up to 2 years. Not even a guarantee of two years. Only possibly two years. To me I might as well stay at Large Corp where I have so many friends and a new comfy spaceship chair, challenging work that I enjoy and a small modicum of hope.

It's funny though the feedback I got from different people that I talked to about it. Some people were like oooh a job with the state, like that in itself was a boondoggle. Even when I explained that it was a temporary, low paying, shitty job, some still insisted that it was a good opportunity and a "foot in the door". Perhaps I might feel it was a good opportunity if Large Corporation hadn't asked me to come back, or I was 21 and freshly out of college or didn't have a bachelor's degree and over 15 years of professional experience. To me it felt like a huge step in the wrong direction.

Anyhoo... (you get a bonus anyhoo because it's been so long since my last post) going back to Large Corporation has been like going to a family reunion only the people there are happy to see me and nice to me. It's been like putting on a pair of old slippers only not really because it smells better than my old slippers, which frankly still kind of smell like Cool Ranch Doritos even after I run them thru the wash.