Did No One Else Get This Memo?

  So a few weeks back, one of my subordinates told me she had emailed my bosses' boss about some issue involved with the workspace at our office. To which I asked "did you CC me? Did you CC my boss", which she had not. I then proceeded to explain to her the unwritten rules of email etiquette (not to mention common courtesy and chain of command) which include, if you're going to circumvent the chain of command via email with a very nonsensical question, you might want to CC those you are circumventing so they don't get blindsided by the recipient of the said email.

  She looked at me as though I was talking Greek and had lobsters crawling out of my ears.

  Sweet Moses. Now I will give her this, she's in her early 20's and has never actually worked in an office environment before, but it just terrified me that this idea hadn't even crossed her mind. I then began to question myself about what I take for granted in terms of experience based knowledge in the workplace?

  Thinking through all the office space etiquette and office norms I've learned over the years, this are a few that immediately come to mind:

- Unlike anywhere else, and as Guy Code dictates, if you fart in the office elevator, you never claim it.

- It is unacceptable to eat any one's food from the break room fridge, but for some reason, NOBODY else honors this rule. I mean seriously? How big of a shit-bird do you have to be that you purposefully chow down someone elses' lunch?

- If the Internet and/or email goes down, everyone is pretty much done for the day.

- Unlike the military, civilians think they can just tool on in to any meeting, regardless of who's running it 10-15 minutes late and think there isn't a problem at all with it.

- As above, civilians also think it's totally fine to dink around on their cell phones during a meeting.

- There is always that ONE co-worker that has worked for the organization since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and for some reason SHE (because it's usually a she) is just adamantly against retiring and will work there until she dies faxing a TPS report.

- In advocating for the employee, most HR shops are about as useful as a shit flavored lollipop.

- Someone will always, for some reason, have a craving for popcorn at about 2pm, and will burn the ever living shit out of it in the break room microwave which in turn, stinks up the entire office.

- Any employee/new mom will always, at some point, find a reason to bring in her brand new kid to show off to literally everyone. IT, HR, Accounting, Me of all people...everyone. Never really figured out the reason.

- Too many working people have too many photos of too many personal things in their offices at all times.

- The mega-tools are the ones with not only too many photos, but also a screen saver slide show of their tooly vacations/weddings/camping/etc.etc.etc. excursions.

- Some female employee will almost always wear some type of shoe that sounds like you're setting off M-80's with each of her steps, regardless of whether the floor is carpeted or not.

- All workplaces have at least wildly inappropriate male employee, for various reasons.

- People who reek up the workplace at lunch with fast food are usually considered dicks right up there with the popcorn-burning-dick.

I could keep going but I won't. Wow, the more I go back and look at this list, I can definitely say that I have worked with a lot of ass hats in my small foyer into the civilian workforce (along with bits and pieces of the military). What I can say with some amount of confidence is that there are a lot of ass hats in workplaces everywhere, however, their type and style is apparently limited.

Maybe they requisition these types of idiots when they first start a company? Never-going-to-retire guy, burn-the-popcorn asshole, shoes-too-fucking-loud chica, etc.etc. I could almost see a checklist circulating somewhere....

Stop With The Hero Shit

fig. 1-1 Trying so hard to care....still don't.

 

 

  So at the risk of having to deal with politics, just like the piss poor of an excuse Lt. Watada, let's talk about Snowden.

 

  All sorts or people (read: stinky hippies, crazy-ass conspiracy theorists, and anti-vaccine wackos) are claiming that Snowden is a hero. For the basic fact that he disclosed certain government secrets that may or may not infringe on the rights of the American people.

 

  People who think this guy is some sort of a martyr need to get over themselves and get back to reality. In the grand scheme of things, yes, the government may be reading your emails via computer and looking into your records and whatnot, but seriously, who the fuck cares? If your life is as mundane as mine, yeah, the NSA might find out that I check my Facebook entirely too much, I send pictures of LOL cats to everyone I know, and yeah, I receive regular (however, old, and unwanted) porn website updates to stuff that would make your head explode. If they want to find out that I have a shell of a social life and watch porn on occasion, then so be it! I don't think the Men In Black are going to come busting down my door if I use the word "bomb" in an email.

 

  People that honestly think the government is going to take viable action against innocent citizens are the same kind that think that any kind of gun control will mean the government will come to your door and take the guns out of your hands. Fuck no they won't. The government is too busy stepping all over their cocks to even think about doing something like this.

 

  And furthermore, in the absolute worst case scenario in which the government did conduct an arrest based soley on an email for anything other than definitive terrorist plots or plans, wouldn't someone think to ask where they got the evidence which is required prior to a search/arrest warrant?

 

  To build on this, it's the same people that hate traffic cameras or even public security cameras on street corners because they "feel it infringes on their rights to privacy". Uh. no. It doesn't. Rule of privacy is anywhere you can reasonably rub one out and not be arrested for doing so in that location. That's privacy. The instant your foot hits the sidewalk, you belong to the public. Same rule as garbage. Once that shit hits the street, you have "relinquished control" of it, and all your nudie mags in it are fair game.

 

  Furthermore, once you send an email, or make a phone call, those signals, other than going through your IP service provider, are indirectly being sent into OUTER-FUCKING-SPACE. While I understand the idea behind "privacy on the Internet", the bottom line is, there is ZERO privacy on the Internet, and should be accepted as so.

 

 But again, all your boring emails, your Internet history, your cell phone calls, your texts, etc.etc.etc. The Government could give two shits about all of this. And for God's sake, it's not like there's a giant room full of people somewhere in the desert literally reading every email that gets sent. That's not how it works. Government ain't going to arrest you for an email, they aren't going to take your precious guns, and they don't give a shit about you sending a lol cat to a friend. Your life isn't that interesting, get over it.

 

  So back to Snowden. So he sent information about a Government program to Wikileaks, and suddenly he is elevated to "hero" status. What this spineless piece of shit did was not only violate his security clearance and the oath of confidentiality he took as a contractor, he also inadvertently (or advertently) shit on the Country by airing our dirty laundry to an International intelligence board. And at the very least, instead of doing the honorable thing and sticking around for his day in court, he stuck his tail between his legs, and went scurrying off to Russia where he lived in a fucking airport like a hobo. Yeah. That's real "hero" material there. At no point did this man exude any semblance of bravery in what he did. He didn't "whistle blow" to the proper channels, he didn't make a stand to face his day in court, and worst off, he sold out our bad shit to the International Community. He handing over intelligence just like Benedict Arnold did 200+ years ago, and ran away.

 

Yeah, real fucking hero. Anyone that idolizes this pile of crap needs to seriously rethink their definition of the word "hero".

At What Point Did Men Lose The Right To Choose?

Holy crap.

So I made the mistake of reading the news on my "lunch break" (I say that because I pretty much count Red Bull as "lunch") and ran across this story about embryos.

Basically in a nutshell, couple have eggs fertilized, break up, guy doesn't want a kid with the woman now (obviously), but the woman still wants a kid (weird...and that's sarcasm).

After reading further down, I came across this quote tying in other court decisions on the same topic:

"In a similar case, a Pennsylvania appeals court last year awarded frozen embryos to a woman who hoped to give birth over the objection of her ex-husband, who wanted the embryos destroyed. Like Dunston, the ex-wife was believed to be infertile due to cancer treatments. The decision upheld the trial court ruling that the ex-wife's desire to have biological children outweighed the ex-husband's disinterest in becoming a father."

Okay, after reading that, I'm going to highlight the part that should make not just men, but pretty much EVERYONE cringe (even though I know the baby-lovers out there won't)

"The decision upheld the trial court ruling that the ex-wife's desire to have biological children outweighed the ex-husband's disinterest in becoming a father."

You GOTTA be fucking kidding me. A woman's desire to have kids outweighed the fact that the man didn't want kids? So in a nutshell, this is basically backing the guy into a corner to forever be on the hook for child support, all because the woman MUST HAVE BABIES.

I don't fucking get this. At what point in society did men lose the ability to decide whether they wanted to become fathers or not? This ruling should be clear as day. If both parties are no longer consenting, you're fucking done! Case closed! The fact that the woman is decrying her biological clock ticking, and can't have babies after x y and z, it shouldn't matter a goddamn iota if the guy doesn't want kids. Women who MUST have kids because they have this weird sense of urgency disturb me a great deal. Woman who MUST have kids for the sheer reason they just want babies, and willfully go out and appropriate a "baby daddy" disturbs me even more.

I might even be so bold as this is almost a mirror of the current abortion debate. The government is taking away men's right to choose. Yeah, we got it, women do all the work, but until the fetus is actually in the woman, it belongs to BOTH parties. Now obviously that being said, I personally would never deposit my baby batter anywhere that I couldn't directly control it. Maybe a sperm bank that had containers that I could remote detonate if I change my mind would be good, I'd do that.

Bottom line is this. Guy doesn't or revokes his consent, dump the eggs OOOOORRR the guy becomes liability free from any and all future child support payments, etc.etc.etc.

As for the woman, if she just MUST HAVE biological children (so she can placate that certain mental illness with the need for something to love), then she can post an ad on Craigslist, I'm sure someone will hook her up.

FUCK.

Fall Is Here And I Forgot!

fig. 1-1 For long time readers, everyone knows Fall

means boot season! Woot!

  Been a while since a blogged, not for lack of trying, but rather just getting home and spacey from repairing the damage done by the person I replaced at my current job. With my experience in leadership, I never grow tired of hearing "well, so-and-so was a great person and they're going to be hard to replace", only to find out they typically did less than nothing, leaving me with filing cabinets full of ancient paperwork, and a bunch of focus-less staff working with me.

  That being said, I never can really bring myself to complain too much about having so much to do. Even though my focus tends to wane every once and a while when it comes to getting projects done, they still end up getting done among the chaos that typically ensues from a poor leadership climate. 

  Beyond all that, it's pretty much just been alot of work/home/game/eat/sleep/work/wash/rinse/repeat. Really need to get back to the gym more, but we'll see how that goes. 

  Baby steps!

So We're Doing This Again Are We?

End of week 3 and I'm beginning to wonder what I've gotten myself into job wise. Don't get me wrong, everyone including my boss is awesome and I can't really complain about the schedule or the environment. The pickle here is that the person who had the job before me apparently has done NOTHING in the past 6-8 months.

The battle cry since I started in with my "new-guy" questions is "where's the policy for that"? No policy. Anywhere. Whatsoever. And the "policy binder", is actually, a giant three ring binder full of one page "policies" which only say nicey-nicey things about what the intent of it is. And apparently it hasn't been updated in a while because it's printed on what I can only assume is a dot matrix, and signed by John Hancock.

Why is it every time I walk into a new position, it's always the same story. Everything that governs my job is extremely out of date, there are filing cabinets of shit that date back to pre-WWII, and everyone operates under the flag of "it was that way when I got here".

Sooo there's that....

Back In The Saddle

 Soo I'm back in the working world after being unemployed for about 4 months (pay wise, 6 months in all actuality) and so far so good.

  I'm stoked about the fact that my supervisors are awesome all the way up the chain, even the president of the company. What's even better is my new boss is stoked about pretty much most of the ideas I'm coming up with.

  After working in an unholy place for almost four years, it's almost surreal when you actually get a job where you don't work for assholes and you arn't getting underpaid.

Phew! Living the dream, at least for the time being.

BOOYAH!

fig. 1-1 F**K YEAH

 Just accepted a job offer after several weeks, literally, of daily interviews. Now obviously this being the anon-type blog, I can't really say where, but I can say this:

1) I will NOT be working for a mentally retarded a-hole.

2) I WILL be getting paid more than my last job.

3) I will NOT be working for a mentally retarded a-hole.

Yeah yeah, I know #1 and #3 are the same, but it's a pretty important thing to point out at this stage in the game....you know, because noone likes a-holes.....well, unless you read this blog, then I guess I'm the a-hole writing these posts.

Anyway F**K it! I got a job!! BOOYAH.

Oh Goddamnit....

  Well, I've gone and dood it. The proverbial tides have turned and now I'm starting to get more job interviews than I can handle. Yay and booooooo at the same time.

   Today I got scheduled for an interview for a pretty sweet gig, and no less than two hours later, I'm contacted by the state for testing for a potentially better position.

   While most HR professionals can agree you can typically reschedule an interview, it's basically saying to that hiring manager "I'd love to interview for the aforementioned time for a job at your company, but I got better shit to do, soooo, can we reschedule?"

  Sweet....

Hollywood Is Officially Dead

  Taking a break of my epic quest that I call "holy-shit-can-I-please-get-a-job-yet?" I digress to a review of a movie I watched last night.

   I had the opportunity to watch "Movie 43" or "Jack The Giant Slayer". Naturally going currently with my luck, I went with Movie 43.

   Wow....did I fuck up.

   I'm not going to peel this movie apart to show how bad it is because I wouldn't exactly know where to start, and I'd never stop. Let's just say this is probably the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. That takes the coveted spot pushing gems like "Date Movie" to 2nd place.

   This is another example of movies where I wonder just how high or mentally retarded I need to be to actually think this shit is funny. My brain wanted me to think this was funny because it had ALOT of big stars in it, but it wasn't there.

   This must have been written by a 5 year old, because it's just littered with genital and toilet jokes, ironically, none of them that actually landed.

   What the fuck Hollywood. Have your standards all but just evaporated at this point? This is a serious argument to pirating movies again just to make sure I don't lose $6 watching movies on demand.

    I'm not the only one who thinks this. This steaming pile of movie recieved a 19/100 on Metacritic and a 4% from Rotten Tomatoes. It would have been lower, but naturally the shills are on the boards screaming about how we "just don't understand good humor" and that it had "laugh out loud moments".

  Ugh.

My Sobriety Has A Shelf Life, And Unemployment Has Just Invented Time Travel

   So in my daily doses of crappy daytime television, I see ALOT of banking and insurance commercials. Just a ridiculous amount of them. They all have the same common theme which typically boils down to "your family is your everything, now go out and make shit happen." Which now that I type it out, doesn't make alot of sense, but that's pretty much it.

   Problem #1, what about us fuckers that don't have familys? Are we lesser beings as the result thereof?

   Problem/Issue #2, the statement "go out and make it happen/follow your dream" makes me want to donkey punch a nun. Fuck you. If shit was as easy as "going out and doing it", I'm pretty sure all disease would be curable, and people would know how to shit diamonds right now.

   Entering my 5th month of unemployment, I'm noticing that oh so familiar shift of my sanity from being optimistic and upbeat about potential job prospects, to wanting to burn down a school everytime I get the same canned rejection letter.

   Don't tell me "you had impressive qualifications, but we decided to pursue another candidate" because obviously you don't know what the fuck "impressive" means. It means "damn, we should interview this guy". I would rather the statement said "you had nothing on the other guys, and your cover letter pretty much left you shitting the bed in hopes of getting this job."

   Who the fuck is getting hired these days???