Job Security

Today at Seattle’s Best Coffee I witnessed my supervisor casually throw their expired cigarette butt on the ground (which I noticed lay many other butts, all of the same brands of other co-workers) when I challenged this person they just shrugged. Later on when my supervisor told me to go on break, she said, "Before you go on break, clean-up outside and pick up all of those cigarette butts." I chuckled and looked at her realizing she was completely serious. Then I laughed loudly shaking my head and said, "I don’t smoke and I won’t clean-up your cigarette butts." She became annoyed but was wise enough to back off. Seattle’s Best is a second job for me and she knows it so she was unwilling to push too much. Later that day at my main job at the Fabulous Stardust Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, I witnessed one of our wonderfully considerate guests toss a piece of crumpled up paper onto the casino floor. I politely challenged them by pointing out that a trash can sat merely six feet away. The guest shrugged and said, "Job security." and walked away. Hmm, what an interesting coincidence. I told my good buddies Karl Bakla and Chris Blumpkin about this and we immediately fell into the whimsical fantasy discussion that co-workers often do. It went a little something like this... "Hey, job security, pal!" stated the guest with a stiff smirk worn on his face. Adam grabbed the guest and slammed him to the ground then proceeded to kick the guest. "There you go you son-uva-bitch! How’s that for job security!" Adam continued to kick, "Now the Security and the police have job security in arresting me!" The kicks continued, breaking the guests ribs "And the Paramedics have job security driving here and transporting your sorry ass to the hospital!" Adam did not lessen the assault, "And the Doctors and Nurses that treat you." Adam then began working the face shattering the guests teeth, "And the Oral Surgeon that has to repair your teeth! Ha-ha-ha-ha" A mad glint shown in Adam’s face as security tackled him. Yeah, good times. Good times.

Turn a Negative into a Positive or Fuck you and the Horse you rode in on.

It’s no secret to myself and the people that know me that I can be moody, negative and sometimes just downright angry. Too often in my past it has been a liability. It’s a fair argument and an accusation I can not deny. But why? Do I focus on the negative too much? Am I just so dysfunctional that I can’t see things any other way? Is life, our world or people in general so despicable and base that I can’t stand the hypocrisy? Well, I think it’s a combination, but am I wrong for believing this way? Maybe. I mean it certainly doesn’t put me into the norm of people in general. I have been questioning my thinking lately, y’know, just trying to sort of join the masses and get along and be part of the world at large. I mean, it would certainly make my life easier. Then, as if a sign from God him/herself (and I’m not opposed to this idea) in a conversation with one of my co-workers regarding our (humanity as a whole) mistreatment of the environment and it’s impending (if somewhat theoretical) consequences. My co-worker stated, "Oh look at the bright side, we have so many things to do and watch and make our lives comfortable that people in the past never had. You’ve gotta turn the negative into something positive." I paused, smiled and using my best Stardust trained acting skills, said, "Yeah, I guess you are right." But here is what I was thinking... "At what cost you peice of shit! Fuck you! You are a piece of fucking garbage and it’s people like you that are causing the world to die! Fuck you, you fucking fuck!" After my anger subsided (it only took three weeks this time) I realized that person is both right and wrong. You see, that person is wrong because they justify ignoring what is wrong as a need to simply be positive. They aren’t doing anything positive, they are simply avoiding the issue so that they can go on being happy about their life. Coincidently, that person is also right because it is vitally important to turn a negative into a positive. It was a painful reminder of my dysfunction and that I need to focus on doing what little I can to take care of the issue. As for issues out of my control, I think it is both frightening and dangerous to not be mad or upset about what is wrong with the world. If we simply ignore it to feel better about life, we are failing as responsible humans. Now, I do understand that my particular style of broaching a subject with others is not always conducive to progressive and constructive action and it’s something I must continue to refine. (How's that for coherent, if verbose, wordmanship?) That’s one of my crosses. What is much more important (and mentioned in a previous blog) is that we seem to have lost our ability to sustain our rage. (This is not my quote but I was unable to find the source). I mean does anyone remember the big push to improve our environment way back in the late ‘60's and ‘70's? What the hell happened? Oh yeah, most of those people sold out (Ralph Nader excepted). They exchanged their passion for comfort because their own depression era parents didn’t have that comfort. Did the hippies and progressives of that day even have that passion to begin with? I mean their own parents old school values won out so I argue that those movements of that bygone era lacked passion and were merely rebelling against the establishment. They didn’t really want change, they wanted acceptance. Bastards! I know what you’re thinking, "What the hell kind of tangent did you get sidetracked onto!" Well, I thought it was obvious. If you are truly angry and want things to change, don’t dwell on it, change it. Tell that ignorant fuck that likes to live with their head in the sand to fuck off and go out their and really make something positive happen. Don’t know what to do? It’s okay, start by reading more, paying attention to the news more (not FOX though, unless you good at critical thinking and want a laugh) and getting involved in local government, the rest will take care of itself. "Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt." - Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)