Fuck Managers

“Take this job and shove it", Jello Biafra said. Another punk anthem. I can't get a job to quit.

Fuck managers. Fuck their Canadian accents, and their love of martial arts and Bruce Willis movies, and crap culture. Fuck their banality, their empty heads, and their keen interest in the minutia of their professional niche. Fuck people with an inflated sense of power and accomplishment. They'd be cute, if they didn't preside over my fate. Fuck people who won't judge me on my performance but on their "perception" of me. When you train to be a manager, is there a test to make sure you're enough of an asshole?

He’s not 100% sure that I fit. I didn't show enough "aggression" in finding things to do. He said it was a slow week – not much to be doing, no opportunities for aggression, bad luck for me. So he sees my predicament – but he doesn’t give a shit. Fuck my opportunity. He’ll try some other people. I learned everything in two days, did my job as good as anyone there, proved I was a good worker. But if they keep moving down the list, someone will come along who LOOKS the part as well. Presentation. Cause it’s a fashion show, apparently. It’s Blue Steel. You gotta look good. So someone else will do my job, it’ll get busy again and they’ll look better. I’m sure they’ll need the work a lot more than me, too.

Hey asshole, think maybe you could have explained your dumb evaluation criteria to me at some point during those 14 fucking hours? Cause I could have ripped the bottle-filled flat out of my co-worker's hand with aplomb and yelled: "No, I'LL do this - I AM THE KEENEST DEPOT WORKER IN TOWN MUTHAFUCKAAAAAH!" I'm perfectly capable of doing that. If that would have allowed me to stay on, in your esteemed arbitration, good sir, I would have happily done it. If injecting amphetamines to appear more energetic than a normal human would have improved my chances, I’d have done that too. It's just, nobody told me it was required. I didn’t talk much, kept to myself. Well fuck that, you thought. Let's give HIM the axe, there’s a mountain of resumes, others we could hire, who would listen to our lame chatter.

So after my two day trial, I'm back to being unemployed. I thought I was in the clear there for a second, all the angst finally a thing of the past, but no. Maybe if the next crop of replacement losers turns out to be even more "non-aggressive" than me, I'll get to go back to work for mister dipshit manager. But probably not.

You'd think I'd be used to this sort of disappointment. But still, I got that jolt of vertigo, when my status was revoked, unexpected, out of the blue. That sick feeling. End of the day, I get paid, everything's cool. Finally I've got a job, what a relief, I'm done jumping through the hoops, all the bullshit, now it's security, money, then: Nope, false hope, back to zero.

They don't like my type. They don't like that I won't talk about hockey with them, and other bullshit I don't care about. Hey, I tried, I tried talking to you people but there just wasn't much to talk about. So sue me. Can't we just do our fucking jobs? Guess not. Maybe he's right, maybe they can squeeze out 5% more efficiency from the next poor fuck who tries out. But I doubt it. He'll be a regular drone. But he'll be on the right frequency, the keen frequency. He'll be one of those Nelson people who work at recycling bottle depots, one of the ones allowed in by the managers. He'll fit. They'll like him. They'll know him. Nobody knows me.

If somebody knew me, I could get a fair shake. They'd know I'm a good worker, honest, reliable, intelligent. They'd understand I'm over-skilled for blue collar shit work, but that I prefer it to leasing my brain to corporate Canada because I like saving mental labor for art and thought. They'd know that if I'm not hyper-chatty-keen, it's because I'm quiet by nature, and a little shy and neurotic, but nothing that gets in the way of me doing a good job. But there's no ministry of nepotism. There's no government agency that will coordinate a relative or friend of mine with a job opening in this absurd network of the working world.

I do have friends sometimes and they help me sometimes. I do appreciate it. But I'm so fucked in this society that it's rarely enough, their efforts. I need a fucking ministry. Shit like this is why I'm partial to communism. Although, ironically, it also makes me want to become an entrepreneur, just MAKE money, find a way. Hey... anyone wanna buy insurance? I’m starting an “alternative” insurance company. I’ll play it by ear. I, IV, V.

I'm so sick of working FOR these fucking people, with their irrelevant standards. I'm sick of being at the mercy of these fucking managers, of begging for a space in their workplace. Fuck trying to get their approval, and pushing myself to my maximum friendliness threshold, and having it not be enough.

It was the same bullshit at the Kalesnikov lumber mill, same manager asshole, same biased fucktard. I don't LOOK right to them. I'm too small, so of course I can't do manual labor, not like those normal people, with their normal speech patterns. And I'm not terribly terribly interested in everything. Just interested enough to figure out what I have to do, and do it well, efficiently, and fast. But I don't look like some barely cognizant ingratiating idiot boy who's just so so happy anyone is even considering him for anything. I actually WAS so so happy, but I had the dignity to hide it.

Fuck this town. Fuck this "community". They won't give me a place. I've lived here all my life, and I have no place, except my parents' house. I'm not allowed my own life here. Not even a 9$ an hour job at the fucking recycling depot. I'm not asking for much. JUST A FUCKING JOB AND A PLACE TO FUCKING LIVE. There is no community here. Just the usual cliques. Idiots with idiotic accents, saying things in a stupid way to fit in, to fit in, to fit in so they can keep their stupid jobs, their shitty low-paying jobs, so the enterprising people can make tons of money and live in the ring of mega-houses outside town, and their serfs can live in the shitholes below. You're not born with a Canadian accent. You acquire it, by playing along with the dumb fuck hockey jocks who can manage a puck and a stick and a bottle depot, the pinnacle of their careers. I've almost acquired that way of speaking at times, when I've been affable with the idiots around here when it seems like they aren't judging me, and aren't fucking up my future with the power they've been given by higher ups. But I shake off the stupid talk, because it's not me. So I don't talk right. I don't look right. Not like them. Even if I do my job right, it doesn't matter.

At least I can wash dishes to people's satisfaction. I can do housework. I'm valued by my parents and my girlfriend for cleaning and organizing things. Too bad I can't get paid for it. I could if I was an illegal immigrant. Desperation is so tasty to employers. I'm not desperate enough to act desperate. But I really wish some fucking person would hire me to do some simple fucking job for a barely livable wage. Is that asking a lot?

The only thing I can really do is music, because I can do it on my own terms. It'll have to be on my own terms. Fuck everything else.