Call.Interview.Result

The Call
As I mentioned in Barback Me, Baby!, in the midst of my tenure as a barback, I received a call from a company that I had applied to earlier that summer. 

“Hi, this is blah blah blah from blah blah blah.  You had applied for a position here a few months ago and if you are still interested, we’d love to have you come in for an interview.”

“Sure,” I said flatly.

At that point, I was pretty jaded with everything and as much as I wanted that job when I first applied, I felt pretty blasé about it after the phone call.  I realized that I shouldn’t turn down an opportunity, no matter how I felt about it and no matter how out of reach it seemed yet I didn’t allow myself to get too excited.  I gathered that, at the very least, it would be more practice at interviewing.  If I got the job, good, and if not, who cares?  I had already given in to my misery so I wasn’t investing too much in hope.  Not at the time, anyway.

When I told my mom, she got very excited.  This company is like the best company in the area to work for.  If you can get a job there, you’re pretty much set.  They pay better than just about anyone else around, the benefits are fantastic and it’s good work.  As much as I tried not to get worked up over it, the thought of a regular 8-5 office job coupled with Mom’s enthusiasm got my excitement up as well.  I had to wait a whole week, though, before the scheduled interview.  Every day I was at work, I kept thinking that this could be one of my last weeks here in this hellhole.  The interview will go great, they’ll hire me, I’ll put in my two-week’s notice and then I’ll be up out of here!  That’s when I had to stop myself.  I tried not to get too excited, tried not to get my hopes up.  It’s pretty funny because as cynical and negative as I am, there’s a deep down part of me that is incredibly hopeful.  I think it’s because so many things have been screwed up in my life that I think things have to look up, that things have to turn around because I can’t possibly run into so much bad luck…can I?


The Interview
As soon as my dad heard about my job interview, he went to work.  He knows people that know people that work there and tracked down a guy who has a lot of pull there and told them to put in a good word for me.  Secondly, a lady that I used to work with at Paris Packaging now works there as well.  I wrote her down as a reference.  That made me feel a bit better.  Then, the hesitation set in.

I had prayed for my current job and hate it.  I was worried to pray for the other job because what if I hated it as well?  Sure, God came through for me but it almost felt like I was wishing on a monkey’s claw.  My wish came true but in a twisted, horrible way.  How could God allow me to get such a terrible job?  Maybe because I blindly asked for it without taking into account my happiness?  I decided to be a bit more cautious this time around.

“God, just let me do well during this interview.  I’m not asking for this job, I’m just asking to do well.  That way, if I don’t get the job, I’ll know it wasn’t because of me.”  I then prayed some more about God leading me where I’d be happy.  If I was really going to hate this new job, I didn’t want it and I’d just stay put.  There’s no sense going from one crap job to another.  Of course, I couldn’t see how I’d hate the job since it was an office job, something I had wanted since graduation.  But, I put my trust in God and gave it to Him, trusted that He knew if I’d hate the job and if I was going to, He wouldn’t put me there.  If I was going to love it, He’d put me there.  And there you have it.

I’m one of those people that take rejection personally.  It’s easy for me to forget that a business is a business and the business will do what’s best for itself.  It’s also easy for me to forget that a lot of times, it doesn’t matter what you can do but who you know.  It’s about connections.  It baffles me because I think I have a pretty good resume and I’m fairly articulate, especially for my small town of rednecks who can’t enough pronounce the word resume, much less produce one.  Yes, I’m negative.  Yes, I’m cynical.  No, I’m not that way during an interview.  Believe it or not, I can turn on the charm when forced to do so.

I walked into the building (fifteen minutes early, of course!) and sat down.  My former coworker from Paris Packaging came through one of the doors and spoke to me.  Fantastic!  She was there!  We talked for a bit until it was time for my interview.  And what an interview it was!  An hour and a half of charm, laughs, excellent articulation and answers to their questions.  My former coworker was also still around when the man who interviewed me led me out to the front door.  I stopped and told the man that we used to work together and he was like, “Aah, I didn’t know that, that’s nice!”  I left the two of them alone when I left the building.  I just hoped the man would ask her how I was to work with and she’d talk about how fun and hardworking I was.  Yes, a connection!

I think it was the best interview I’ve ever done and I felt really good about that.  Many thanks to God.  Now, it was in His hands.  I was trying to exercise some faith, although the more I thought about it, the more I really did want the job.  First of all, during the interview, the two people that interviewed me said that the job would be basically faxing, filing, creating documents, etc.  It was basically everything that I did at Paris Packaging and I enjoyed doing that stuff.  It was easy and nothing that was too stressful.  I’d have my own computer and cubicle and the best part is I wouldn’t have to work with the unwashed public.  Also, great benefits and only twenty minutes from home, unlike my current hour and a half hell drive.  I mean, really, how would it not be better than my current job?  But, I still tried to let God handle it.  It wasn’t easy, though, I will admit.  The bad part was the man told me if I was chosen, I’d hear something in a couple of weeks.  A couple of weeks?  Oy.


The Result
I think another reason why I wanted the job so bad was because I disliked my current job so much.  Every day I went into work, I thought to myself, “This could be one of the last weeks I work here!”  A small sliver of joy ran up my spine and lit my face in happiness.  That is, until some lame customer interrupted my daydream to order another beer that I’d have to clean up later. 

As we all like to say in these situations, it was the longest couple of weeks of my life.

I really wanted that job.  As much as I tried not to focus on it and worry about it and just have faith, I couldn’t help it.  That’s just how I am.  I am a thinker.  I am a worrier.  And that’s just what I do, no matter how much I try to deny it or hide it or give it to someone else to take care of. 

And with all the worrying, praying, hoping and faith, I finally got my answer.

After a particularly hard day of work, I came home and noticed an open envelope on my bed.  Obviously, my mom couldn’t wait.  I let out a sigh and knew the answer.  I took out the letter from the envelope, opened it up, scanned it and looked for my rejection.  Scanning, scanning…

There it was.

Earlier, I had told God if I didn’t get the job that I would be upset.  I said that I would be pretty angry because I wouldn’t understand it at first but I would eventually get over it.  Keep the faith, ya know, even if things don’t go your way. 

And there I stood, exhausted and now rejected.  I put the letter down, took a shower and then went to bed.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t as angry as I had suspected.  I was just pretty numb.  It’s like, of course I didn’t get it.  Another chance at happiness ripped away.  The anger came later.  I think I was too tired after the initial rejection to be angry.

I guess I just don’t understand because I didn’t even ask for this.  I gave up on that job this past summer when I didn’t hear anything back the first time.  And I was fine.  And then another chance at the job falls into my lap and I took it because it was still a job I wanted but I didn’t ask for all the trouble and mental energy that it was going to take up.  It just seemed like everything came together with that job.  Dad knew a guy.  I knew a lady that worked there.  I did so well during the interview.  The job came out of the blue during my unfortunate time as a barback.  It just all made sense that I would get it.  And I still didn't.  And I'm still stuck at my old job.

It's just another paper cut in my life, just another thing to make me feel crazy and unnecessarily hurt me.  Yet, I'm still trying to keep the faith, still trying to pray that I'll be lead to a job that won't make me contemplate cliff diving.

Categorically Correct

It just feels good to know that I’m not always wrong about people.  On my first day as a barback, I was introduced to a scary hairy man who was to train me.  He stood at about five foot nothing, his head coming up to my chest.  He had a ring of closely cropped hair that surrounded a bald spot on the crown of his head.  I guessed he was in his early forties by the lines that etched into his forehead and splintered off the corners of his watery blue eyes.  His face was small and square, a neatly kept goatee surrounding his thin lips.  His clothes were weathered and worn to the point of no longer having structure.  Tufts of hair poked out of his outstretched shirt collar and covered his short, stubby arms.  His voice was loud and carried a country cadence that grated my nerves.  I instantly didn’t like him.  He was too loud, too serious and too creepy when it came to the ladies.  He was a small man but a giant slime ball.  Any time an attractive woman would walk past, he’d make some sleazy remark and then follow them with his eyes as they walked by, an unsettling grin across his hairy lips.  You could just tell he was undressing them with his pervy eyes as the women walked by. 

As I mentioned before, he changed the soda fountain syrup bags like they were IVs and didn’t hesitate to sling the sticky stuff on my newly purchased ninety-five dollar shoes.  He was way too serious about changing the bags and keeping everything squeaky clean.  He also kept telling me every five minutes if I wanted a “drank” I could get a “drank” from the soda fountain and put it on one of the shelves but I was supposed to put it in a certain spot so he wouldn’t mix up the cups and drink after me.  The feeling’s mutual, turd.  I’d hate to choke on some of that his hair while taking a “swaller” of the Sierra Mist.   He was also quick to point out when I made a “booby” as he called it one time. 

“Um, you made a booby earlier over thar,” he shouted, although he was standing right in front of me, close enough that I could count the rough pores that spread out along either side of his hooked nose.  “You got the Diet Dr. Pepper and the reg’lar Dr. Pepper mixed up.  You gotta be real careful.”  Crap.  The guy made me so nervous that I couldn’t help but to make boobies from the intense pressure of trying to do everything just the way he preferred.  This isn’t chemistry, dude.

One day, while the intense man was away, I was sticking my hand through one of those barely accessible cardboard holes to check on the status of the plastic bag’s fluid content when one of the other barbacks came in to check on me.  He was much younger, taller, thinner and smoother than the other man.  His cheekbones prominently stood out in contrast to the rest of his sunken, sloping face.  His lips were round and chapped, his hair slicked down across his forehead and ending in a slight wave.

“How’s it going?” he asked, his voice deep and gravely, reminiscent of a pubescent boy getting used to his new enlarged larynx. 

“Alright,” I said reluctantly.  As much as I wanted to turn to him with my troubles over this new position, I knew I probably shouldn’t unload in front of this stranger ‘cause he’d probably think I was a total freak.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to.  He offered up his own observations on the scary hairy man.

“Nobody in the bar likes him,” he said.  “Everyone talks about him.  And the way he is around the women.”  He closed his eyes and shook his head in a disapproving manner.

I stood there with my eyebrows in knots, half surprised to hear I wasn’t crazy and half jubilant that I wasn’t.

“He’s just so anal about everything,” he added.  My pales eyes lit up as the barback continued to relay his dissatisfaction with the hobbit.

After he left, I felt so much better about the way I felt about the man.  A lot of times, I'm concerned that my general disdain for people might cause me to make swift, unfair judgments of certain individuals.  I admit that I can be pretty quick and pretty harsh in my estimations of others.  I often feel that sometimes I'm being way out of line but when I'm validated like that, it makes me feel like I'm less of a dick.  Furthermore, there's a guy on my team that I've mentioned briefly.  Talk about a dick!  I've had several new teammates come up to me and ask, "Is this guy a smart ass to you, too, or is he just like that to me?"

"No," I replied.  "He's like that to everyone."

Once again, feels good to know that it's not just me, that I'm not totally wrong. 

And that's not to say that I dislike everyone.  Just because I can point out jerks effortlessly doesn't mean I can't finger the friendly folks as well.  In fact, there's two ladies on my team that I genuinely like.  Sure, I might be heartless and have no friends but that doesn't mean I'm a bad judge of character.  I'm not saying I'm excellent, either.  It's just that, I don't know.  Is it just me or does everyone feel slightly apprehensive when someone gets on our nerves?  We know they irritate us but do they irritate anyone else as well?  Are we being too harsh or are we justified in our thinking?  I often feel that maybe I just have a low tolerance for obnoxious behavior but then when people come up to me and confirm what I was already thinking, it's kind of comforting.  

The Barback's Bad Luck

Written January 10th.

I knew I had made a huge mistake after the first night of my new position.  I tried to talk to my manager but he said he was too busy for me and that I should see him the next day.  I did.  I told him I wanted my old job back.  He said he’d talk to his boss.  The next day, he said I should be able to transfer back to my old position the next week.  Fine.  Only two more days with the scary and hairy hobbit man.  I can deal. 

Next week rolls by and I talk to my new manager and ask him what’s up with transferring back and he changed his story.  “Well, I talked to my boss and he said you have to either sink or swim.  You gotta stay with me and maybe on down the road, if he needs any other customer service person, he’ll consider you.” 

Uuuhhhh.

I stood there in a kind of shock because he had told me the week before that it wouldn’t be a problem for me to go back to customer service.  They still needed to fill two slots on my team and I could easily slide into one of those spots but the boss’ reasoning was that I had made this decision and now I had to stick with it or quit.  Really?  Really? 

“So, what do you wanna do?”

“Well,” I replied, “I can’t quit.  I need this job, so…”

I then asked him what my pay would be.  After repeatedly asking him days before, he still hadn't given me a straight answer.  If I'm going to be stuck doing this, I at least need to know what my pay is going to be.  He went to the human resources lady to ask her.  She replied with a salary that was about a dollar and some change less than what I was already making.  Really?  Really?  After my boss had repeatedly told me it would be a pay raise?  I sat with the human resources lady and my boss and claimed there was some definite miscommunication going on.  She sat stone faced and told me to come back at my scheduled work time and that she and my boss would talk about it to see what they would do. 

I left the building and sat in my car and cried a little bit.  How is it possible that things just consistently turn to crap with me?  How is it possible that I keep making the wrong decisions, keep digging myself deeper into this hole?  Even more than that, how is it that I can’t even get out of these situations that I put myself in?  People make mistakes, sure, but most are also able to clean up their messes.  Yet, for me, I'm forced to wallow in them.

I had a few hours to kill until my scheduled work time so I went driving around a bit.  A few minutes into driving, the human resources lady called me on my cell phone and told me that they had made a mistake with some paperwork.  They never offered me an offer letter outlining the job duties and pay rate and therefore I could go back to my old position.

"You got lucky this time," she said, "but in the future, you need to take responsibility for your actions."

Well, earlier, when I was talking to the human resources lady and my boss, I told them upfront that I wasn't trying to cause any problems and that I did take responsibility for not fully investigating the position but I take no responsibility for the pay.  I kept asking about that and kept getting different answers but it pissed me off because she was acting like I was being unreasonable.

She then went on to tell me she was concerned about my decision to become a barback because of the decrease in pay and the gritty nature of the work.  Well, she never bothered to come to me about her concern.  But, you know, other people did come up to me.  That's the funny part.  People that I didn't even know where coming up to me in the days before I changed over and asking me about it with a sort of bewilderment in their eyes.  I should have taken that as a sign that something was askew.  Apparently, everyone but me knew this was a bad move.

What really pissed me off was the fact that the human resources lady said without the slightest bit of sincerity in her voice, "I am just concerned that you're happy."  Complete bull.  If she was concerned with my happiness, then she would have allowed me to go back to my old position without any hesitancy.  And to compound my anger, I still hate customer service.  Don't forget that I might have made a stupid move but that was fueled by my complete dissatisfaction with customer service.  I was basically looking for a way out.  Unfortunately, I ended up screwing up worse but I'm still not happy with customer service.  I'm less miserable, you could say.  It just upsets me that I have to keep hoping and wishing for stupid, degrading jobs because I can't do any better.

And then comes the whole idea of not jumping from job to job and sticking things out when they get bad.  I understand that, I really do, but this wasn't me just hopping from one job to another.  This was me transferring to a different position, realizing it was a giant mistake and wanting to go back to what was doing.  I just don't know anymore.  All I know is I can't find relief.

She said I was lucky to get my old job back but if I was really lucky, I wouldn't have ever gotten myself into this situation in the first place.  No, there is no lucky Brannon.  There is only that dead guy who can't seem to get anything right, who keeps finding himself in these silly, sordid situations.  It's almost as if my life could be a sitcom.

 Except it's a lot funnier when it's not happening to you.

Barback Me, Baby!

Written January 4th.

The bartending thing isn’t going to work out and I am desperately begging for my old position back.

The hesitation set in long before I accepted the position.  People I didn’t even know where coming up to me and saying, “So, I heard you’re going to be a bar back now?  Did you do that by choice?” 

“Well, yeah.  And I’m actually going to be, like, a bartender’s apprentice,” I corrected them.

Or so that’s what I was told.

The slimy ten-dollar bill guy even joked that I was the first guy in work history to demote himself.  Bartending didn’t seem like a demotion to me.  Little did I know that everyone else seemed to have a better grasp on what I’d actually be doing than I did.

On the first day on the job, I knew I had made a huge mistake within the first ten minutes.  It was New Year’s Eve and I was given two minutes worth of training by some hairy hobbit looking dude before he dashed away, leaving me on my own to keep the soda supply flowing for the entire building, including two bars and three restaurants.  Wait, huh?  Where are you going, Mr. Hobbit man?  I need some supervision here! 

That didn’t happen but I did survive the night, barely.  Let me also say that I wasn’t given an access key to the bar so I couldn’t even go in to grab supplies needed to keep everything stocked.  I had to stand in line with the hundreds of New Year’s drunkards and flag someone behind the bar down with my flailing hands to hand me cups so I could refill the holders.  And that irritated the bartenders because they were too busy mixing drinks to take the time out to help me.  Well, crap, it’s not my fault these people #1) hired me to begin on one of the busiest nights of the year and #2) didn’t have the proper materials or training for me to do my job to the best of my ability.

The hairy hobbit man is also incredibly abrasive and intense.  He takes his job way too seriously.  There’s nothing wrong with working hard and having pride in what you do but he’s acting as if there’s life-giving blood in those plastic bags instead of soda fountain syrup.  He also talks about two notches louder than the average person.  I don’t know if it’s because he’s so small he feels he needs to yell to carry his voice to the ears of those taller than him or what but he always comes off like he’s yelling and I don’t like that.  I don’t like when people raise their voice to me or anyone else because it makes me incredibly uncomfortable.  I also didn’t like the fact that when he’d change a bag he would remove the old one, sling it on the floor, consequently slinging the sticky syrup mixture onto the floor, as well as tossing the perforated cardboard flaps to the ground and the caps that go to the plastic bags.  I suppose he was thinking the bags needed to be changed so quickly that he didn’t have time to just freaking hand the bags to me, so as not to make a mess, and that throwing them to the floor would be a better idea.  I found that action to be rude and inconsiderate, especially when he was throwing those sticky materials in my direction, possibly getting that goo on my pants or newly purchased work shoes.  As I mentioned, he’s not replacing vital fluids or anything so he needed to ease up a bit.

I rang in the new year by mopping the floor, breaking down and throwing away cardboard boxes and getting elbow deep in sticky syrup.  I was actually going from one bar to the other to check on the cups when midnight hit.  All around me, people grabbed their loved ones and pulled them in for a kiss.  From one point of my vision to the other, everyone came together and embraced and the scene only accentuated my singularity.  It didn’t help that I felt utterly alone with what I was doing.  At least when I was in customer service, I was a part of a team and not just one half of the Mountain Dew duo.  We all mostly got along but I surely didn’t like this new man that I was paired with.  It didn’t help that I was barely acknowledged by the beverage servers.  They only spoke to me when they wanted me to hand them a cup while I was refilling the holders or to get out of their way as they passed by with a tray full of drinks.  And I thought being a customer service associate was at the bottom.  And maybe it is but I somehow managed to dig a hole and crawl inside, making my position even lower, as evident by the dismissal of everyone around me.  I suppose you can’t escape high school.  There will always be cliques, always be people who think they are better and higher than you are and won’t hesitate to let you know with their turned up noses and condescension.

You wanna know the sophisticated way we check to see if the fountain syrup bag needs changing?  Why, you stick your hand through the tiny cardboard cut out hole and feel up the bags!  Might not seem like a big deal but sticking my hand through that impossible small hole provided many scrapes to my fingers and put my hands in a chapped condition.  It was easy for the hobbit man to stick his entire arm through the hole but I couldn’t even stick my hand all the way through.  I don’t have gigantic hands but those holes were just too small.  And when I tried to tear the cardboard slightly to provide more room for my hand, the guy admonished me and said that would lead to the box’s collapse.  After that, I just tried my best to shove my hand in as far as it would go, leaving read streaks and irritation on my hand and arm.

And when a bag would start to feel empty, the guy pulled the bag out of the cardboard box and hung it up, allowing for the last bit of liquid to drain before changing the bag.  It also allows for a visual cue for when the bag needs to be changed.  After he did one bag, I decided to be a good little follower, show him I was paying attention, took some initiative and pulled out what I thought was an almost empty bag while he left to go stock some beer or find a ring or something.  When he came back, I pointed to the emptying Sunkist bag and told him what I had done.

His fuzzy eyebrows merged to create a deep crevice in his forehead and he shouted, “NO! Put that bag back in the box, it isn’t empty enough!”  Holy crap, okay mister!  Talk about a soda jerk!  I hurriedly squeezed the bag back into the box and then left to check the cups.  When I came back, I saw that the bag had once again been taken out.  I suppose it was empty enough then, although there was basically the same amount of liquid in that bag.  This guy didn’t make any sense!  His philosophy was to “work smarter, not harder,” which was complete bull when you recall the way he would change the bags, you know, by sloshing the syrup and chucking the plastic caps over his tiny shoulder.  “Don’t worry about it,” he told me.  “You just mop up anything you spill.”  Well, uh, if you’d carefully change the bags, you wouldn’t spill anything in the first place, thus removing the need to mop. 

And on Saturday night, I was introduced to another bar back that would be helping me out since the little hairy man was going to be off that day.  Not trying to be rude but I don’t think he was all there.  It was in the way he spoke and his behavior.  Luckily, he was behind the bar most of the time and I didn’t have to interact with him regularly but every time I went into the bar to ask him for cup refills, he would always give me the wrong number of sleeves.  The bar was quite noisy so when I asked him for three sleeves of cups, I said the word and even held up three fingers as a visual cue.  He even repeated the number back to me as confirmation and yet when he came back, he brought back five.  This went on the entire night.  I’d ask for one and he’d bring me three.  I’d ask for five and he’d bring six.  Huh?  I didn’t know what to do with all the extra cups so I just placed them over the cup holders for the next time I’d need to refill them.  I suppose it was good that the extra cups allowed me to avoid interacting with the numerically challenged man.

I tried to talk to my new bar supervisor the first night I started to tell him I wanted to go back to my old position but he said he didn’t have time to talk to me and that I should come in early the next day to chat.  Uhh, okay.  The next day, I did just that and told him I didn’t want to do this anymore.  Before I did that, I asked him some specific questions about the job.  When I first applied, he told me he wasn’t even in need of a bar back but would train me as a bartender.  I assumed the soda room would be a one time deal just to get me acquainted with all aspects of the bar and drinks.  Yet, when I looked at my schedule, it had me in the soda room for the foreseeable future.  Even the hairy hobbit man said that I was better off in customer service.  Also, I asked the head bar guy several times about my pay.  He was really dodgy with his answer, first telling me it would be a pay raise and then giving me an estimate of how much I’d be making.  That’s how much I was making as a customer service associate.  Not really a pay raise.  And I wasn’t really a bartender in training.  I wasn’t even a bar back at that point.  I was the soda guy, the lowest of the low.  The head bartender guy had obviously misinformed me about what I’d be doing.  I went ahead and told him I just wanted to revert back to what I was doing.

“Well, the HR people have gone for the day and they won’t be back until Monday and you wont’ be back into work until Tuesday so come in and we’ll talk to someone.”

I didn’t really understand what the big deal was.  I had only been doing this for about two days at that point.  Why couldn’t I just go into work the next day back on my same team.  Sure, I understand if there’s some paperwork that needs to be done but couldn’t that be done later just to finalize everything?  Why should I wait for approval?  The part that really sucks is the bar guy said he wasn’t sure if I’d be put on my same team, if I was able to get my old position back at all.  First of all, they might have already found a replacement for me, which I think is ridiculous because we had two people on my team that moved on to different positions about the second or third week on the job and they haven’t been replaced YET and here I am, only having been gone for two days, and they’ve got someone lined up to take my place?  That sucks.  Secondly, the hesitation to send me back to where I came from stems from the company not wanting people to hop from job to job.  While I can understand that, I’m not hopping from job to job.  I simply made a huge mistake and just want to go back to what I was doing before.  Almost like it never happened, you know?  It really doesn’t have to be as complicated as everyone is making it out to be. 

It’s just all so frustrating because I can’t believe I keep getting myself into these situations.  It would be comical if it weren’t so pathetic.  Remember, I hate customer service.  And yet I’m hoping and wishing that I can go back there.  It’s just so outlandish to me that I have to lie in bed at night and hope that I can go back to scraping ashtrays and wiping away everyone's greasy fingerprints. 

And in an interesting turn of events, as I was writing this entry, I got a call from a company that I had applied for several months ago asking me if I wanted to come in for an interview.  It's an office job, what I wanted in the first place.  No smoke.  No public to deal with.  Sounds good, right?  I accepted an appointment for an interview.  I'm going to go and do my best during the interview and see where it goes from there.  If I don't get a call back I won't be upset but if I do get a call back and possibly a job offer, what am I going to do?  Should I take it?  I thought this bartending thing would be great but it turned out to be worse.  What if this is the same situation?  Should I take another risk and probably end up failing yet again or should I just play it safe and stick to what I hate but what I know?  Ugh, this is such bad timing, too.  Here I am, wanting to get my old position back but if I accept this other job I'll be leaving them again.  That definitely won't look good for me.

Slice, slice.  More and more paper cuts.

Afflictions

For the past few weeks, I've had an intense pain in my left shoulder area.  The pain starts around my collarbone and wraps around to my shoulder blade and often splits and spreads to my neck and back area.  I don't know why, I don't know how.  I don't remember pulling a muscle or anything so this pain is confusing and unexplainable and it only exacerbates my frustrations.  I've complained to a few of my coworkers and they've said it could be a pinched nerve.  That's a possibility.  I've been eating medication like candy and have been using those Thermacare heat wraps nightly and they've only provided slight, temporary relief.  I suffer daily.  As soon as I get to work, the pain sets in and only gets worse throughout my shift.  It gets so bad sometimes I can't lift my left arm to put on my jacket at the end of the night or wash my hair in the shower.  I know I should probably go to the doctor if it doesn't get better but I really don't like going to the doctor.  I had enough of that after my surgery this past summer.  I am just hoping it might go away on its own.  Until then, bring on the Bengay.

And to make matters worse, the lump is back.  You know the game Left 4 Dead and it's sequel?  You know how a disease broke out and spread and caused everyone to turn into rabid zombie-like maniacs?  Well, I know where the disease originated.  In a bingo pavilion, much like where I work.  I can't tell you how many times I've seen people sneeze right into their hands and then continue to put their hands on the machines.  They don't get up and wash their hands or even use any Purell.  And I'm the one that has to wipe down those machines.  My cleaning cloth is probably infested with all kinds of germs and bacteria and I'm just standing there, breathing it all in every day.  Well, anyway, my point was we had a sickness that spread throughout work about a week or two ago.  Day after day, someone else on our team caught it and called in sick.  I was not spared, although I didn't get the worst of it.  As soon as I felt my throat start to hurt, I started taking cold medication.  I felt crummy for about a week but never so much that I had to miss work or was tied to my bed for a day or two.  I guess it didn't matter.  Sick is sick no matter the severity.  And what has happened every time I've gotten sick for the past two years or so?  The lump returns to rear its ugly head.

To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement.  My doctor was hopeful the surgery would eliminate the lump but here I am, less than four months later, and it's already back.  It just makes it seem like that surgery was a complete waste of time and money.  As I've said, I don't feel like I can breathe any better and now the lump is back in my throat and so the surgery didn't help that, either.  I guess the only other option is more surgery, specifically removal of the cyst.  Yet, I'm not too thrilled about that because I'm pretty sure something will go wrong.  Doesn't something always go wrong with me?  After seeing that episode of Mystery Diagnosis, the thought of cyst removal has frightened me.  A lady had a lump removed from the left side of her neck and in the process, the doctor severed some sort of nerve which paralyzed the left side of her face.  Not only did she have to relearn how to talk, she now talks with a slur and the left side of her face hangs down.  I don't want to end up looking and sounding like Mary Jo Buttafuoco.  I can live with this lump or have a lazy face.  Either way, I'm screwed.

I've been walking around with my head down, trying to conceal the lump with my chin.  It's so embarrassing and I am constantly wondering who noticed it, who's wondering about it, who's asking about it behind my back.  "Did you see that lump in his throat?  What's wrong with him?"  I'm so tired of dealing with this and I'm tired of looking like hell despite my best efforts.  It's sad that I have to walk with my head down and be ashamed of myself.  Maybe I should just give it up and accept that I will always be deformed in one way or another.  It's just so intensely irritating because I worry about everything else enough as it is and this lump is something so unnecessary and something I shouldn't have to deal with, especially since I tried to do something about it, tried to get it fixed.  All my efforts were for naught.  As they always are.

Suffer Cycle

karma cuts
like the serrated edges of the boomerang
that you cast out so carelessly
see it slice through the air
and break the backs of boys
  it cleaves into their spines
and harpoons their hearts
you let go of the good
but grip tight to your grief
and as i lie in the grass
i’ll watch as your abandonment of others
cycles back into you
but i can’t grasp onto the satisfaction
  as the boomerang stabs you in your own back
because i’m still waiting for mine
to cut me down as well

Phase 2 Friday: Articulating Animation

I know it's not really Friday 'cause I'm a little late posting this but click here to check out my latest Phase 2 article.  It's about my thoughts on why I want to be an animator! 

Carcass Meets Concrete

creatures crafted in a restful repose
unperturbed by trembling tire treads

tiny vessels line the length of this highway
but what of their purpose, their passion?
find it plastered across the pavement

fur then flesh then blood then bone
ground into gravel until nothing is left

except the memory of an insignificant life

but even that fades away in time
lost in the hazy red distance

At Her Funeral

So, my aunt’s funeral was last Sunday.  As selfish as this sounds, I was tired from the work week and the last thing I wanted to do on the first of my two days off was get up and be steeped in sadness for several hours.  I got up and went anyway, to pay my respects and such.

I found the entire affair quite annoying.  It was too artificial, too generic.  Maybe I say that because I went to so many funerals last year that they’ve all started to blur together or maybe death is something so inexplicable that no one really knows what to do except offer an apology and a hug but it all seemed so surface and standard.  I sat several rows away from my uncle and cousin and watched as person after person hugged them, patted them on the back, offered a condolence and then moved out of the way for another person to do the same thing.  It was like a conveyor belt of bereavement.  Even when the preacher stood up at the podium to speak, he chose a generic verse from the Bible and basically used the time he should have been talking about my aunt to get on a soapbox about salvation. 

I didn’t look at her body.  I never look at the bodies.

After a prayer and dismissal, we were in the car and it was over.  And that was the end of my aunt. 

You’d think after experiencing a real death in my family, it would put my metaphorical death into perspective a little bit, almost like I shouldn’t be talking about being dead and taking it so lightly when death is something so real and permanent and serious.  But, that’s just not the case.  I’m actually not taking it lightly at all.  There are times when I truly feel dead on the inside and that is not a feeling to take lightly and it’s certainly no laughing matter.  I don’t throw around these terms for dramatic effect or for attention.  I’m just trying to express how I feel as accurately, genuinely and creatively as I can and the closest concept I can connect with my feelings is that of death.  And really, isn’t death a disconnect of some sort?  When you die, your body is disconnected from your soul and from the earth.  Your expression, your language, your communication is cut off from everyone else.  You are in a different place entirely.  And really, doesn’t that sum me up?  I’m just as disconnected as the dead, maybe not physically, but mentally and emotionally.  I am just…off.

I suppose that's easy for me to say because my aunt and I weren't that close.  Her death really didn't affect me at all.  Maybe I can continue to keep up my fatal facade because the gravity of true physical death has never hit me.  When it does, I might cast out my death mask as insensitivity and nonsense.  Hopefully it won't even come to that because I hope to regain my own life before anyone else's is taken.  Unfortunately, things are looking rather bleak on that front.  Recent circumstances have actually only reinforced my cadaverous condition.  Things just seem to keep getting worse and the worst part of that is that I'm the one exacerbating my own entropy.  It's funny because my initial goal once I found out I was dead was to preserve myself the best I could until I could find life again but I've only managed to scrape deeper the grave that I've slowly been carving for myself.

Yet, life goes on.  But, I'm not a part of life anymore so where does that leave me?  I fear I'm falling behind more and more each day. 

2009 Book/Movie List

Well, I've been working on this entry all year long.  At the end of 2008, I saw a blogger who had listed all the books they read that year.  I thought that would be a good idea and decided to do the same for 2009.  Unfortunately, I didn't read very much at all.  I did watch a lot of movies, however.  So, I decided to list every movie I watched along with every book I read.  I have a lot of trouble remembering what I've read and what I've seen so I figured this would be a good way to keep track of everything that I watch or read.


2009 Book List
January
Twilight  (3.5/5)
I Was Told There’d Be Cake  (2.5/5) 
How to Make Love Like a Zombie (1.5/5)

February
:(

March
:(

April
:(

May
:(

June
Serial (1.5/5)

July
:(

August
:(

September
:(

October
:(

November
Twilight: New Moon (3.5/5)

December
:(


Books I Wanted to Read (But Was too Lazy to)
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Lucky
Chuck Klosterman IV
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Exquisite Corpse
Invisible Monsters
Haunted
The Spinal Cord Perception (reread)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower  (reread)
Siddhartha
Animal Liberation
The Undertaking
Weekend
Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Go Ask Alice


2009 Movie List
January
Pineapple Express (4/5)
Twilight (3/5)
My Bloody Valentine 3D-2009 (Theater) (4.5/5)
The Dark Knight (3/5)
Project: Ako (4/5)
Project: Ako (Blue Side/Grey Side) (4/5)
Superman: Doomsday (TV) (3/5)
Prayers for Bobby (TV) (4/5)
Redneck Zombies (2/5)
The Thing (4/5)

February
Resident Evil: Degeneration (3/5)
Return of the Living Dead (2/5)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (4/5)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (1.5/5)
Lakeview Terrace (3/5)
Quarantine (4/5)
Choke (3/5)
Cannibal (1.5/5)

March
Dead Like Me (Life After Death) (3.5/5)
Static (TV) (3/5)
The Midnight Meat Train (3.5/5)
Let the Right One In (3.5/5)
The Skeleton Key (3.5/5)
Silent Hill (4/5)
Tetsuo: Iron Man (0/5)

April
Wishmaster (4/5)
Wishmaster 2 (3/5)
Rest Stop (3.5/5)
Rest Stop 2 (2.5/5)
The Zombie Diaries (1/5)
Role Models (2.5/5)
Casshan: Robot Hunter (3/5)
Cold Prey (2/5)

May
Cheerleader Camp (3/5)
Donkey Punch (2.5/5)
I, Zombie (1/5)
Sex Drive (4.5/5)
My Bloody Valentine-2009 (DVD) (3/5)

June
Haunting Sarah (TV) (1.5/5)
Splinter (4/5)
The Uninvited (3/5)
Zombies Zombies Zombies (4/5)
I Walked with a Zombie (TV) (1.5/5)
Dirty Love (5/5)
The Willies (2/5)
Bad Boy Bubby (0/5)
Friday the 13th (2009) (2/5)
The Deviants (4/5)
Mirrors (1.5/5)
One Missed Call (1.5/5)

July
The Messengers (3.5/5)
I’ll Bury You Tomorrow (3/5)
Ozone (2/5)
Slashers (3.5/5)
Feast (3.5/5)
Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds (4.5/5)
Feast 3: The Happy Finish (4/5)
The Haunting in Connecticut (2.5/5)
True Blood: Season One (TV Series) (5/5)

August
Laid to Rest (2.5/5)
Gut Pile (1.5/5)
Stumped (Short Film) (2/5)
I’ve Killed Before (Short Film) (2.5/5)
Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (2.5/5)
Visiting Hours (1.5/5)
Meat Market 2 (2/5)
The Majorettes (1.5/5)
Dexter: Season 3 (TV Series) (4.5/5)

September
Lisa Lampanelli: The Queen of Mean (3/5)
Crazy Eights (TV) (1.5/5)
Last House on the Left (1.5/5)
Last House on the Left (2009) (4/5)
The Ten (2.5/5)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2/5)

October
Slaughter (TV) (1/5)
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (TV) (3/5)
I Love You, Man (3/5)
Zombieland (4/5)
From Within (3/5)
Sex and the City: The Movie (3.5/5)
My Super Psycho Sweet Sixteen Party (TV) (3.5/5)
Orphan (4.5/5)
Edges of Darkness (0.5/5)
Stan Helsing (1/5)
Trick-r-Treat (3.5/5)

November
Elfen Lied (TV Series) (3/5)
Drag Me to Hell (3.5/5)
Deadgirl (4/5)
The Hills Run Red (3.5/5)
Last Holiday (TV) (3/5)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (TV) (2/5)
Spring Breakdown (2/5)
Black Sheep (3/5)
End of the Line (3.5/5)
House of the Dead II: All Guts, No Glory (2/5)
Toxic Avenger II (2/5)
Twilight (DVD) (3/5)
Twilight Saga: New Moon (3/5)

December
Grace (2/5)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (TV) (4/5)
100 Feet (TV) (1.5/5)
The Devil Wears Prada (TV) (4/5)
The Ring Virus (0/5)
The Hangover (2/5)


Best of the Year
My Bloody Valentine 3D-2009 (Theater) (4.5/5)
Sex Drive (4.5/5)
Dirty Love (5/5)
Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds (4.5/5)
True Blood: Season One (TV Series) (5/5)
Dexter: Season 3 (TV Series) (4.5/5)
Orphan (4.5/5)

Worst of the Year
Tetsuo: Iron Man (0/5)
The Zombie Diaries (1/5)
I, Zombie (1/5)
Bad Boy Bubby (0/5)
Slaughter (TV) (1/5)
Edges of Darkness (0.5/5)
Stan Helsing (1/5)
The Ring Virus (0/5)

Phase 2 Bonus: Reluctant Resolutions

So, this is the new year, eh?  Check out my article here to read my thoughts on new year's resolutions!