So i have this office job. i go to work sit in a cube anwser the phone and have some other office duties that i wont really get into. now ive been at this place for about 9 months. i pretty much hate the place, not because customer service fucking sucks (never ever ever ever take a customer service job if you like your life) i mean its better than digging holes or framing houses ni the winter and pays better and i have benifits but.... this fucking place drains all life from people. it makes you compcent, it makes you feel like ill just sit right here and keep getting paid and this will be fine.

when i fist started i wore very nice cloths and shoes and shaved every day and made sure my apearance was the nices i could make it. soon i found that i was not just going to be a cs rep but also i was going to be the running bitch in the office, which i dident mind since it got me out of the cube of hate i live in, but i started interacting with the factory and getting boxes and clibling pallets all of this to hopefully advance my way out of cs. figubug going above and beyond would make that an easy transistion. nono how wrong i was. all it got me was alot more work for the same pay and no chance of advancement in a company that has some of the most severe ceilings in movement i have ever seen.

so i started an experiment, how far could i go before i got spoken to. i dident care about what, my appearance, my work, my attitude anything at all. i started going to work in jeans and sneakers, noone has said anything about this to date 5 months now. i dont do work i dont want to do nothing has ever been said about this, i have even just thrown people folders away because they pissed me off, nothing has ever cme back to me. ive had meeting and told the bosses that i think this place is bullshit, that my manager is a hack that our proceadures are the kind of garbage that belongs deep in space and that i could give a shit about the customers. and what has all this gotton me. MORE FUCKING WORK. not disaplinary action that i so craved but just the oposit more respociblitly and people coming to me for anwsers and desisions.

all i wanted really was to get fired so i could collect unemployment for a little while fuck off and play music. instead im a god damned soot after commidity in my department.....fuck.

Yeah, you bastard, get out of the filthhole.

I went to the new branch for the first time today. Easy commute into central Jersey. Not surprisingly, it's a lot like the old place. It looks different, though - the california branch of the company has an office that looked like it was built during the mid-90s. A lot of space, airy. The New Jersey branch looks like an elementary school built during the mid-80s, exposed brick, like it would've been modern looking 20 years ago.

The people are all very friendly, different from Philadelphia. I don't know if it's a New Jersey thing or if it is just about their working for McMaster-Carr. People advance in management more slowly there than they do in LA, which is going to make things more difficult. People are nice. A lot of the younger people in the branch live in Manhattan. Inexpensive gas in Jersey, and the state is full of trees.

I like Philadelphia a lot. It's like New York at half-speed, Manhattan's junior cousin, slightly less attractive but easier to get along with. Parking's hard, but it's a good town to walk around - I know where things are in center city. I'm going to stay in this house for 2 months and then get a place in the center of downtown, I think. I miss Los Angeles a bit.

The end of this season is shaping up well. I guarantee that the Red Sox are going to take the division.

Stone

Well, I just started my new job on monday. It seems like a really chill place and my co-workers seem like a real fun bunch of guys. I spent 8 hours yesterday reading company manuals and filling out these assinine worksheets that asked questions that basically amounted to "Sexual Harrassment is bad. True or False" or "Your coworker screams out the word 'nigger' in the store. Do you A.) Pull him aside and calmly explain to him that that was not proper busines conversation. B.) Punch him in the head. C.) Give him a high five." All the fun policy and procedure of working for a major corporation. I don't know, right now it seems like the type of place where I could grow to hate or I could love it... could go either way. But the pay and benefits are good, so that will keep me going. If nothing else it will give me motivation to move higher. See, at Caron's, I wasn't happy with my job, but I didn't hate it. I'd grown complacent. It wasn't good, but it wasn't really bad either. If I like this job, I can stay reap the benefits, and even move into Bose Corporate if I were thus inclined. If I hate it, It will light the fire I need lit under my ass.

On the bright side I get my wheels tommorrow. 97 Jeep Cherokee. Looks like a fun ride... 4 wheel should help me in the snow. I just pray i don't tip the bastard. Also, I'm worried it won't have as much soul as the Smurf Rocket. Ya know? Smurf Rocket was like me. It was big, it wasn't pretty, but it had it where it counted. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Also, this time without wheels has really made me realize how little human contact I have these days. I mean, on sundays we have D&D and a few of us get together. But of course Bill leave this week. I hang out with Logan occasionally, and sometimes spo will make a surprise visit, but that's it really. All saying that I have to get out more. I've been in too long.

You guys (anyone with an account) ought to post more - it's strange not talking to you all.

I got promoted a few weeks ago, which was good - I'm now doing what I came out here to do.

Some of the people who I manage call me "sir", which is disconcerting, since a lot of them are twice my age. Some of them have been at the company as long as I've been alive, which is odd.

When the operation runs poorly, I feel like it's my fault, and end up going home feeling like a fuck-up. Whenever we do well, I feel like an asshole for wanting to take credit, since I haven't really done anything - it's everybody else that is actually doing the real work.

I got into a gaming group out here, playing Warhammer, but I don't think I'm going to keep going to the games. It's just not that much fun when you're playing a RPG with people you're not yet friends with. I guess if I actually spent the time to make friends with the people I was gaming with, it would've changed things, but, ah. When you've stopped playing RPGs for a while, it's odd to go back to a game that isn't competitive. I could probably enjoy running a game.

The first few months I spent out here feel further away in time - farther away from me - than the last few months I spent at school, or last summer back home, periods chronologically before my coming out here. A lot has changed.

Stun

Apple has made it official now. Hopefully, my certificates will come soon!

Finished my requirements for Apple Certification yesterday at 10-ish in the morning Pacific time. I am now a fully certified Apple Technician. Praise may be sent in donations of cash (of which I am always needing), gifts, letters to Congress, and the like. ;)

Please excuse the gigantic images. Just wanted you all to see. I did really well on the test yesterday, too.

Well, I recently reached another landmark on my road to becoming an adult... My first job interview.  While it could be something that grinds my soul and spits me out... the job looks promising, and if I get an offer, I think I'lll take it.

Meh... I hate everything. My day started off well enough. I had a little cash, so I went grocery store. They had fantastic prices on meat, also a good thing. I even got a Phat RPG book. Then... the shit started. I got to work and put they me in the dish room... FOR THE FIFTH CONSECUTIVE SHIFT. Not to mention that the kid working next to me was a useless fucking meatwad. Then I got home, fully prepared to write the next in a series of my horrible bullshit papers for my women's studies class. And then what happens? The fucking site I'm supposed to get my assignment from is giving me a fucking 404! meh.

You wanted it, Caniprokis, you got it.

WHY BOTHER?
by Me

Alrighty. Since I've moved on from the gas station, I think you've all noticed a visible change in me. I don't think I've been sincerely really angry since I started at the video store. At the gas station, I used to hate everything and everyone. I hated working and I hated people. Now, I love everything and everyone. I love working and I love people.

That, however, doesn't mean that people aren't still idiots.

People are mindless. The mass majority, that is. Most people just fit right into that cookie-cutter mould; none of that square-peg, round-hole thing. The media market machine dictates pretty much everything to most people. We Insult folks may not be influenced by things like commercials or billboard ads, but a lot of people are. Did you know that, in actuality, spam e-mails bring in a lot of revenue for a company? And most people tend to believe the hype, even though our good friend Flava Flav used to tell us otherwise. What I mean by this is that I see a lot of dumb things every day, dumb things that customers in my store do.

I don't know if any readers have been to a video store, but I think that most, if not all, have special "BOB'S VIDEO" cases for the movies and then they put some styrofoam in the actual movie box. I mean, I could be wrong; maybe in Stupidland they just put them in their sleeves. Who knows? Well, anyway, customers constantly bring up just the box and think they're going to rent that. Most don't even notice the actual movie in the clear, plastic case behind the box. "Oh, really? The movie's not in there? I thought it was a bit light."

Right near the door is a counter we use to display information and pamphlets and etc. We also give the movies to our customers on their way out by placing them on that counter. There's two signs on the counter that say, "Do not leave your movies on the counter." And we have these signs because there's nothing to stop someone from taking a movie off the counter. A lot of people come in and simply return their movies by placing them on said counter. It's not like our metal detector thingy which beeps when someone walks through it with a movie is inconspicuous - it's clearly not at the door, so if it's busy and someone just plops five movies on the counter and leaves, someone can take them. Most people don't make that connection, though.

Now, I don't understand why you would rent movies if you don't especially like them. And if you have to ask the person at the counter when the damned Grinch is coming out (November 20th), you clearly don't like movies enough to want to keep on top of release dates. I also don't get why you would rent movies when you don't know anything about them. Did you know there are people who don't know what VHS is? There are people who ask me if we have a movie and I'll ask them if they want it on VHS or DVD. The most common reply to this is a dumb stare and then, "No, just regular video." HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU NOT HAVE HEARD THE TERM "VHS" APPLIED TO A VIDEOCASSETTE IF YOU'RE OVER EIGHT YEARS OLD?!? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING?!?

People also don't like to look up. Even the slightest bit. They also aren't fond of looking around and finding things out for themselves. The most common question I get is, "Where are your DVDs?" Well, asshole, if you would maybe look around the store you'd see these big signs that say "DVD" on them. Several of them.

Worst of all, though, is what people do to our DVDs and video games that come on discs. Why would you let stupid kids handle a DVD disc? Why, for any reason, would you ever touch the fucking bottom of the disc? "This wouldn't play in my DVD player." Well, maybe if you weren't holding it like a cracker and getting your greasy fingerprints all over it, it would fucking play, you dolt!

More to come, but I must head to class. Good evening.

Goodbye.

Goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye.

Good riddance!

Oh, it feels so good to know I will never have to get up at 5:00 am on Sunday anymore! I can watch SNL! I can stay up! I can hang out with my friends! YES YES YES! Fuck the gas station! FUCK IT IN IT'S ASS! WHOO!

Sorry, had to get that out.