Unemployment: How I Pass Time

Two weeks ago I was sitting in a forty degree house in Massachusetts and today I find myself sitting in the warm climate of Southern California. I spent two and a half months in Southern California at the end of last summer, now I'm back and I still have no idea what I'm doing. This past weekend my Dad and I were out on leisurely drive. While waiting for a stoplight to permit us advancement down the street, I peered out the widow to the street corner where I saw some dude. In typical big city fashion this dude was standing at the street corner begging for money, rather standard. What caught my eye was the sign this guy had propped up next to him, which read "Need Money for Weed Please." I love the brutal honesty. No bullshitting, just straight up I need money so I can purchase some marijuana. I would be willing to bet that a lot of the dudes begging for money most likely use any money donated to them for drugs and/or alcohol, but this was the first time I've seen someone openly ask for weed money via a handwritten sign. I think this dude should get extra credit points for honesty.

Now when I was in California last summer, while walking down the street, some other dude was walking down the street in the opposite direction coming toward me. Clearly this man was deranged, he was talking to himself some kind of gibberish. When we got to the point where we were passing each other, he looked over to me and said "like this ugly faced mother f**ker." I don't know how many people this disturbed guy calls an ugly faced mother f**ker a day, but I'll take it as a compliment and pretend he doesn't call people that all that often. Not to mention the guy in downtown LA who told me he was known as Batman and has been roaming the streets of LA for 27 years, longer than I've been alive at this point. There are a lot of strange people in big cities.

This is my second stint in LA within the last six months. The first stint ended with little progress and not much to speak about. Just some general disappointment and anger that I believe I wrote about months ago. This stint has picked up where the last one left off, so far useless with not much indication that I'm going to make anything of it. However, I don't want to discuss any of this east coast, west coast crap right now, I think I've done plenty of that over the past year. Specifically, I want to focus on what I do to not go insane during unemployment. I mentioned in my last post that I had to leave my last job to preserve my mental sanity and happiness. I was in a bad spot mentally a year ago driven by the hate for my job and supplemented by the insanely horrible winter the northeast had in 2014/2015. Since leaving that job, going on a whole bunch of interviews, working at a temp job for a month, and still not having a full time job about ten months later, I've managed to keep myself happy by tapping into the things that things I enjoy.

Let's begin with comedy. I love comedy. Without work, I spend countless hours each day listening to stand up routines and watching comedians on YouTube. I enjoy the work of comedians such as Dave Chappelle, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Stephen Wright, Jim Breur, Dan Cummins, and Daniel Tosh. However, currently my two favorite comedians to listen to are Bill Burr and Anthony Jeselnik. I listen to these two guys almost daily right now, their stand up routines, podcasts, roasts, anything they're involved in and damn they are hilarious. If I had to pick a spokesman for men, without a doubt I would pick Bill Burr. I like Bill Burr because he speaks the truth about everyday topics with a major shade of comedy. I think Bill is quite smart, even though he often says he doesn't read or research anything, but his observations are spot on.

Anthony Jeselnik is my favorite, though. I love that he tells offensive jokes and doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks. He enjoys when people get offended by his jokes and the he's an intelligent guy. I'm a huge fan of how he ended his show, The Jeselnik Offensive, by telling viewers to go read a book. And I love how he shits on people who don't read and aren't familiar with well know literary and historical facts in his stand up routines. If you think Anthony Jeselnik is funny, then you understand my sense of humor perfectly.

Another thing I do is play video games and I finally have a reason/understanding why. I'm reading a book titled Reality is Broken, check this out if you like playing games or if you just want to read something interesting about today's culture, which explains why people enjoy playing games. My short abbreviated synopsis type thing about the first couple chapters of Reality is Broken argues that people play games because the everyday grind of life is not satisfying for people. Many people have jobs that don't have clear cut end goals or a feedback system that shows progress toward your goal. Games, whether video games, mobile games, card games, board games, etc. all have clear cut objectives, a goal to accomplish, and indications on your progress in accomplishing the objective. That's why I play video games. I enjoy both single player games and online multiplayer games because I feel like I'm working toward a defined end goal and I can actually track my progress. Games are fun and allow us to continuously accomplish objectives unlike everyday life.

Check this book out!

Mention of Reality is Broken brings me to books, the final thing getting me through this strange time in life. At the beginning of the new year I decided I want to always have something to read. Once I finish a book, I want to begin another. I don't have a specific number of books I want to read in a given year, but I want to constantly read with no gaps. Right now I'm simultaneously reading Watchmen, 1984, and Reality is Broken. I'm going to finish Watchmen very soon, I'm at the later stages of the story, then I'll bring more focus back to Reality is Broken. Reality is Broken is more of an academic book, still great though, but I need to read something with a story which Watchmen and 1984 sufficiently provide. If you haven't read either of those titles, please check them out, both equal very good so far.

Back in high school, and even college, I didn't appreciate the power of literature. Now that I'm discovering how interesting books are and how much knowledge you can gain from them, I strongly encourage everyone to go pick up a book and give reading a chance. So there you have it, my recipe for enjoying myself: comedy, games, and reading. I'd like to leave you with this:

Unemployment: What Happens Next? Who Cares?

Many months have passed since I held a full time job creating an abundance of free time. Free time dedicated to finding new work, but more importantly, free time to reflect. The past tells the story of a young man following the path created and manufactured by the generations of people before him. Go to school, go to college, earn a degree, obtain a job. Simple in design, yet complex in completion. What happens when the path ends in failure? Does blame fall on the individual or the system?

I left my last full time position because of the dreadful nature of the work. I knew every day I didn't quit meant at least two more weeks of misery. Eventually I snapped and gave notice of departure with no further plan. Call me shortsighted, stupid, whatever adjective you'd like, but I'd rather not torture myself given the choice to willingly stop the abuse. I didn't dedicate four years to college to take verbal abuse over the phone daily. Even without income for months, I'm happier now than under previous dreadful employment.

Hours spent scouring job postings and sending out resumes yielding less than desirable results leaves me wondering how did I get here? The largest issue lies in the actual work. I cannot find any work pertaining to my degree or work experience that I find marginally interesting. Apparently issue two involves my work experience. Job interviews I thought went well returned negative results with the hiring party choosing another candidate with more experience. The work experience monster and I met before..... just after graduation when my professional job experience rounded up to zero. Meeting the work experience monster again makes me feel like the past 3 years of my life spent working equals worthless.

One job interview stands out above the rest. While speaking with the CFO, which stands for certified f**king ordure in this special case, I got THE QUESTION: why did you leave your last job? I told him why. We spoke about the answer a bit, but he kept going back to that question: why did you leave your last job? This CFO, famous in my memory for at least a bit longer, asked me if looking back at that decision now, would I have made a different decision because of the job market and how long I'd been unemployed, if the decision was shortsighted. I looked him in the eye and told him I'd make the same decision again given the knowledge I have now. Needless to say, the job was offered to another candidate. Fine by me, I couldn't work for someone who presumes to know a thing about me after less than an hour of speaking with me. Maybe the person they did hire will shoot the place up one day, but who cares, they had good work experience and no long gaps of unemployment.




Unfortunately, telling the whole truth in interviews remains a non-option. Tales of unhappiness and feeling undervalued won't land a job. Before I quit, I hated myself every day I didn't quit. I hated commuting to work knowing my final destination was torture for next eight or nine hours. In the beginning I ate lunch at work, but in time I had to leave because the place made me sick. I broke two telephone receivers out of rage from the constant nagging and verbal abuse I received from customers. Also note that I have never worked in customer service or at a help desk, my function has always been in accounting, and at this particular job that meant dealing with any type of money issue a customer for the multi-million dollar company could have.

Do I need a career change? Do I need more schooling? Should I settle for a less than ideal job? Am I so damn strange that I don't fit into "system of life" instilled in our modern world? I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I don't need to know the answer to any of these questions. If I'm happy, that's all I care about. Right now, definitely not happy. Life feels constricted and contrived. Do this, then do this so you can have this and do that. The older I get the more I believe George Carlin:




I highly doubt the discovery of the meaning of life, hell, the movie Prometheus remains highly debatable, but I want to go through life laughing. I've been unemployed for several months and endured a whole bunch of rejection, I find all of it hilarious despite remaining in a constant state of predicament. Ultimately my contribution to society and the world equals meaningless. I want to spend time with friends, play games, and laugh at offensive jokes, that's my happiness equation. Friends+ games + offensive jokes = happiness. My send off message to everyone, lighten the f**k up, damn it.

One Man, Two Masterpieces

Over the past few months, an excessively large amount of free time has provided me the opportunity to explore one of my personal favorite expressions of art: movies. More specifically, I watched two insanely well made and entertaining movies directed by Ridley Scott, Alien and Blade Runner. These two movies are absolutely amazing and on my list of all time favorites (that has never been compiled). I find that movies today and recent history don't have the same kind of magic that Alien and Blade Runner have, making me feel kind of like an old curmudgeon claiming that "they don't make movies like they used to." But in all honesty, I feel that the style of movie portrayed in these two Ridley Scott classics is a lost art. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever see another movie like Alien ever again. What I am going to do here, is break down what, in my opinion, made Blade Runner and Alien so damn good. If you haven't seen these movies, I would suggest reading no further than here because some of the things I write about will probably ruin certain things that should be experienced when watching the movie for the first time (spoiler-esque stuff).

Let's begin with Alien, a near perfect horror movie, at least in my estimation. First thing I want to say, I love this movie. What I really enjoy about Alien, and Blade Runner, derives from the era these movies were made, 1970s and 1980s respectively. With low tech special effects at their disposal and no CGI, these movies focused on creating a good, solid story that makes you think, and in Alien's case, does a masterful job at creating tension. Let's take a step back, though, and begin with the trailer for Alien.

Fantastic is the word that comes to mind when I watch the Alien trailer. No words are uttered, none of the plot is given away, but the trailer leaves the viewer with a sense of intrigue, a wonder of what the heck is going on. Many trailers today give away far too much of the plot or show too many of the funny parts. Most importantly, the Alien trailer doesn't show any glimpse of the Alien. The sense of wonder and cause for fear only revealed in the actual movie. I wasn't alive when Alien came out in theaters, but I wish I could have had the experience of seeing this movie for the first time on the big screen with no idea what the movie was about. The title Alien itself is fantastic. Working as a noun or adjective, the word "alien" has a double meaning as the title for the movie. The title coupled with an outstanding trailer make practically a perfect marketing tool, and I didn't even mention the insanely good tag line "In space no one can hear you scream." But I digress, let us look at what makes the movie so good.

The plot of Alien is incredibly simplistic: a crew of seven people aboard a commercial towing vessel (the Nostromo) are waken prematurely out of hyper-sleep when the ship detects a distress beacon on a foreign planet. The crew investigates, one is member, Kane, is attacked by a facehugging thing, brought back on the ship. An extraterrestrial being bursts from his chest and terror ensues. The plot is simple and easy to follow. I would also like to note how there are only seven people on the Nostromo which allows the story to build personalities around the characters. It gives us a reason to give a crap about what's going on. I personally love Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto. In the opening scenes up until the incident, each character's personality is built, how they speak, how they react, sense of humor, those types of things.

C'mon man, the food ain't that bad

Good stories, whether movies, books, short stories, whatever, allow you to connect with the characters, make you give a damn about them. Then the next fantastic aspect following the initial character development is the tension building. When the crew finds the downed ship on LV-426, there's this steady decent into darkness, where you're wondering when the heck is something going to happen. Even as Kane peers at the mysterious looking eggs, the subsequent facehugger was something no one had ever seen before and goes straight for Kane's face. Remember, too, that this movie came out in 1979 and no creature shots had been revealed. I think that's incredibly awesome!

From the time the Nostromo crew sets down on LV-426 the tension continues to mount until the movie comes to an end, where only Ripley and Jonesy the cat make it out alive. One by one the alien takes out the crew. There are no overlong action sequences or battles, just overpowering extraterrestrial rape? Why bring up rape? Well, the only thing more terrifying than getting raped, is getting raped by a clown. And the only thing that might be more terrifying than getting raped by a clown might be getting raped by the xenomorph in Alien. Discussions of Alien have covered practically all aspects of the movie including what the alien does to its pray. In Alien, you never see the violence, you have no idea what in the hell it's doing to the victim. Then you also notice that the bodies are never left behind. What is happening to these people? The concept that the alien in a way rapes it's victim adds to the terror created in the movie. Even if you go back to the facehugger, what does it do? It jumps on the victim's face and puts it's proboscis-like tube down their throat while wrapping it's tail around the neck. That is damn horrifying!

There's also this sweet deleted scene that indicates the alien isn't killing its prey:

I'd like to think that this scene was not included in the final cut of the film for pacing reasons. The movie does have wonderful pacing and it probably just didn't fit. However, I choose to believe that what's seen in this scene is what is happening to the alien's victims. Ripley just doesn't discover the cocoons that the alien has been creating. Again, this just adds to the terror in the movie, these people are attacked by the alien, who the hell knows what the alien does to them, and then it cocoons them. Then you add in that this foreign creature cannot be killed, the android even calling it the "perfect organism." That's horror done right.

Now let's switch gears to the other Ridley Scott classic, Blade Runner. This movie is straight up science fiction gold. This movie, like Alien relied on something outside of giant action scenes and crazy special effects that didn't exist when the movie was made. Blade Runner relies on a great story to build a memorable movie. Set in future Los Angeles, blade runners are hunting down a group of replicants, the Nexus-6, who have gone rogue and come back to earth to find their creator. Replicants are androids, and the Nexus-6 are a particularly advanced model. Please stop reading and go watch Blade Runner if you haven't seen it. Without going through the entire plot to this movie, what makes it great is the realizations of both the Nexus-6 replicants and blade runner Deckard, played by Harrison Ford.

Once you've seen the whole movie and taken some time to think about it, you realize that the Nexus-6 replicants want the answers to the same questions we humans have. The Nexus-6 seek out their creator and want to know why they were created, why the are here, and how long will they live. While this movie is made much better, I believe Ridley Scott was attempting to tell this story from the human perspective in Prometheus. You get all these questions raised by a mechanical race created by man and at the same time there is this kind of strange thing going on in the background making you wonder if Deckard, the blade runner tasked with hunting down these replicants, is actually a replicant himself. The movie makes you think beyond the events of the movie. I'd now like to end this post the same way that Blade Runner ends:

Impending Doom

Damn it, damn it, damn it, I'm heading back to the northeast next Saturday (10/24/15). I can't find decent work in the LA area and by decent I mean anything that I'd want to do. And everything is so damn expensive that if I have to take some shit job I don't know if it would be viable to do it in such an expensive place. I've spent the last year or so of my life preparing to get out of the shit hole that is the northeast only to head back there after just 2 months right in time for the shitstorm that is winter.

The thing that's difficult for me is that I absolutely hate the weather in New England, but all my friends are there. I hate the fall, winter, and spring. I could give a shit about the changing seasons, I want warm sunshine. It's so depressing knowing that once I get back it won't be nice until next June, and that's not even guaranteed. I remember a June a few years back where it rained almost every single day and was overall very, very shitty. I would imagine the horrid weather is why, in my opinion, New England is filled with miserable f**ks. I mean, that's what I feel like when I'm there. I know most of the country hates LA, but at least there's a good variety of stuff to do here besides going to bars and shoveling snow.

At some point this past April I'd had enough and rage quit my job (which I was not happy at) and left for LA a few months later. Since I've been out here the weather has been nothing short of amazingly nice and it has even precipitated for a few brief instances. I just can't find a decent job and what is really frustrating is I know I'm going to have that problem once I get back to Massachusetts. My job experience is not very good and I've only been working for 3 years, so I don't really have all that much experience any way, not to mention that I haven't worked since June. My main concern is going back home, getting another shit job, and continue the unhappiness. I haven't been satisfied with anything that has happened since I graduated college. I haven't liked either of the two jobs I've had and the weather from October until June makes me want to inflict pain on myself so I can be distracted from awfully depressing it is.

I've had some people ask me if something in particular happened that made me want to leave, like a bad experience or something. You know what the answer to that is? Yes, something has happened, and it's been mounting over the years, I hate New England, Why is that so hard to understand? Sure some things have happened in life that I don't particularly like, but those things fade with time. You know what's not going to go away? The shitty weather, that's permanent. I think it's dumb to have regrets in life because you can't go back and change anything, but if I were to change one thing in my life, I would have gone somewhere nice to go to college. That way I could have made connections somewhere nice and hopefully obtained work somewhere nice. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get back home. My worst nightmare is to sentence myself to more fall/winter/springs in New England. I also have experience to go off here. I have lived and worked in Massachusetts and I hated it, that's what pushed me to come to LA. Now that I'm going back to Massachusetts, what's going to be different?

Prediction time. I predict that about two hours after landing at Logan in Boston I'll regret going back. Here's the true dilemma, though. What really sucks is that I have (had? I don't know what the hell I'm doing) to chose between to shitty things. This isn't a win/win situation. I either have to live in a place I hate and have a bunch of great, already established friends to do stuff with, or I live in a place that I like and have no established friends to do stuff with. Both have potential to cause unhappiness and over the past few weeks I've been attempting to decide which would be more miserable. I still don't have an answer. All I know is that I was not happy doing what I was doing. I can't even begin to describe how unhappy I've been over the past few years. I feel that over the past 4 years I've been becoming slightly more bitter with each passing month. I just don't think that going back to the same situation I was immensely unhappy with is going to solve any problems. I really like Southern California, it's an interesting place with a lot of variety. I like outdoor things, like running, biking, and playing sports. These types of things are greatly hindered in New England by the cold weather. I think the main thing that killed my excursion to California was simply location. I'm not a huge fan of large cities, in the sense that everything is super dense, there are lots of homeless people always begging for money, and bad traffic. I would rather live on the outskirts of a large city and work either in the city or also on the outskirts. I have had very limited transportation available to me and LA's public transportation can only get you so far. Not to mention the horrid experience I had dealing with a temporary employment agency out here.

The bad experience I had with the temp agency was all one particular dude's fault, this guy single-handedly tanked most of my hope of finding some kind of work to test what living and working in Southern California would be like. I think part of the problem was that I wasn't specific enough with what I was looking for, but this guy just called me up and told me to show up at a job without consulting me about the position before hand. He did this to me twice. The first time he sent me to what looked like a sweatshop, I don't know for sure because I was only there for 3 or 4 hours one day. After that day the employer wanted to cancel the arrangement which was fine by me. Then a few days later I was once again called by this guy and told to report to another job, again without providing me any details on what the position entailed or what company it was for. I told him I didn't want to commit to this job because I was working on another lead I had garnered on my own, but he told me I had to show up because he already told the client I was coming. It would be unprofessional to change anything now. Well, what do you call promising my arrival at the job without ever consulting me? I knew absolutely nothing until they called me. I would categorize that in the "unprofessional" family.

This whole situation culminated with me leaving this job after 3 weeks because it isn't what I wanted to be doing or with a company that I had any interest in working for. This could have been avoided by communicating with me before telling me to show up there, so I don't feel bad at all for leaving and at this point I was done working with this agency. I was going to try to do it on my own. However this agency has multiple branches and another of the branches that had no knowledge of what transpired over the last few weeks contacted me about another position. I received a voicemail about something that might "fit me." My first reaction was that I wasn't even going to call them back and I think that's exactly what I should have done. Instead I called them back and drove another nail into my hopes of finding a job I wanted. I agreed to a phone interview and did some research on the company. Again, it was something I'm not terribly interested in. So I went through the phone interview, not interested, hoping they wouldn't select me, but planning to reject if they did. A few hours later I got a call from the temp agency and they told me their client wanted me to start tomorrow, in this moment of shock and after a pause I said I'd go. That was a huge mistake. I got the confirmation email, looked at it briefly and then broke into a massive fit of rage that involved me yelling and swearing at myself while pounding repeatedly on my thigh. I decided to eat lunch and think about it. I didn't want to go, so I responded to the email and told them couldn't commit because I was waiting back for the final word from an interview I had the previous week. This is true, I was waiting to hear back on a job I actually wanted. After sending the email I decided to shut everything down, I didn't respond to any phone calls, voicemails, text messages, or emails from the agency. I was done, still angry and fed up with this agency.

The next week I heard back on the job I put everything on hold for. It took them 15 days to tell me they didn't choose to pursue my candidacy for the role any further. So here I was with no work and no leads. I had been applying to other jobs while waiting to hear back and continued to apply for jobs. So far the only one I've heard back from is the one that eventually decided not to go with me. I have learned that I'm really good at obtaining jobs I have no interest in. So there's that.

Now the best solution I've come up with is going back to Massachusetts and let the misery fester! I hated living there before, so I'm going to go do that again, how logical! Living there is like having an abusive partner. I don't know why people stay with abusive partners, much like I don't know why I'm going back to Massachusetts.

I consider the end of the baseball season until the beginning of the next baseball season the dark ages because I absolutely hate that time. I guess I may as well couple the dark ages with the shit-tastic place that is New England to make the perfect shitstorm.

The Near Future, It's Uncertain

Two weeks ago I had an interview for a job that I believe would do me some positive things for my "career," or whatever I should call it at this point. As of now, 8:40 p.m. on the fourteenth day since that interview, the phone has been silent, the email has been receiving messages, just not from the interviewing company. So what's next? I have no idea, but I'd really like to know if I'm still a potential candidate for the job or not. I'll be realistic, they don't want to hire me, which taking a realistic approach again, I can't really blame them for. Let's take a brief look at my so-called career so far. After college, I spent 8 months basically paying bills, then for the next 2 and a quarter years I basically called people and told them the owed money to the company I worked for. What great experience!

Honestly, I feel like my intellect has been insulted since joining the world that exists after education. Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm a dumb shit, but what I've been doing is mind numbing and down right insulting. That is why I left my two previous jobs and why I am search of something that doesn't make me want to physically harm myself every day because of how stupid it is. So at this point I've been out in Southern California for about a month and a half, it's almost October and the weather is great, but I have some issues. The first issue was the unpleasant experience I had with a temp agency that I have since cut ties with and the lack of success I've had applying to jobs on my own. It's looking increasingly like I might need to work another shitty job for a while, hopefully one that at least has valuable experience, but now the question is where do I want to do that?

I love the weather in Southern California, but now I'm beginning to doubt the decision to move out here, at least at this time. California might be too far away from New England, where I for the most part grew up, for me right now. The largest problem I have with the distance is actually the time zone differential. A three hour difference from the east coast is rather large and even with the awesome technology at our disposal, that can't reduce the time difference in these two regions. Having said that, I do not want to go back to living in the northeast. Going back to live in the northeast is low on my personally made option list. However, I would consider going back east except to a central/southern state, somewhere like North or South Carolina. I don't know how feasible that is right now. For me, the locations of California and New England are very unfortunate. I hate the cold and snow, but I also don't like the pacific time zone. I feel like the pacific time zone is behind the rest of the country and it makes it rather difficult to stay in touch with my friends the way I'd like, but damn the weather out here is nice. It still feels like the middle of summer and it's September 30th!

On a positive note, I have discovered a talent of mine! I have found that I am good at getting job offers for jobs I don't want. A lot of the displeasure I mentioned with the temp agency had to do with the assignments they were giving to me. This is partly my fault because I could have been more specific on what I was looking for. However, I can't do anything when the agency calls me up and tells me to report to a job without consulting me, telling me what the job is, or giving me any information at all. And according to them, I have to go because it would be unprofessional for me not to show up because they already told the client I would be there... without consulting me. That doesn't sit well with me and it pissed me off to the point that our relationship had to be severed.

Well, I've got some thinking to do! I've left the northeast and gone to Southern California, but I still have no idea what I'm doing with my life. Hooray for indecision!

New Things in a New Place

Ten days ago, August 14th of 2015, the day I finally made the move to Southern California. Feels like I've been bitching about the weather in the northeast for an eternity and talked about moving to California for about as long. How long this experiment will last, I know not. I might be here for a month, I might be here for years, there are a lot of factors at work. Now I've only been here for ten days, but I've already been called an ugly faced MFer by a presumably homeless man, seen a guy getting a blow job in his car, and met some dude on the street who said he was known as Batman and he's been prowling the streets of LA for twenty-seven years. That's longer than I've been alive. But let's talk about the guy who was getting a blowjob.

This morning I was on the way to my first assignment job thingy. Assignment job thingy is my way of describing my work life right now. I'm using a temp agency to find work since I was too stupid in college to secure myself a good job upon graduation. So I was in one of the many LA public buses minding my own business en route to the industrial sector of the city (not my choice). While stopped at a red light, I glanced out the window to my left and couldn't help but notice what was going on in the car stopped along side the bus. This guy was straight chilling in the driver seat while the woman in the passenger seat was bent over giving him a quickie in the car. At first I did a double take because I've heard of this, but this was my first time seeing it take place. So naturally I stared. Not really, though. I only glanced over a few times in an effort to not be creepy. Then the light changed and the bus started moving before the car, but when the car caught up I could see she was still down there as they took a left at the next intersection. Now I have no idea what that guy does for a living and I have no idea who the woman was next to him, but this guy was getting his dick sucked on a Monday morning in one of the biggest cities in the US. This guy must be doing something right. What an inspirational sighting.

Then I got to the assignment job thingy, sat around for four hours and did basically nothing, then happily found out later that this particular company didn't want to extend my temporary work assignment there because I didn't speak Spanish. This was news to my ears because this job was honestly embarrassingly below my intellect, not that I'm smart, but this job was painfully boring and required no thought. However, I received this news a few hours too late. I have some moments of extreme anger and the continuous search to find a good job has driven me mad many times. Today was one of those days that it got the best of me. In a fit of rage, I punched my knee with my right fist, which I've done many times, but this time I had the unfortunate bad luck of hitting my knee right on the cap which has bruised the bottom of my right hand. I don't think I broke anything and will continue to hope that it is just swollen. I wish I hadn't done that, but I just get so damn angry sometimes.

Well, I have new assignment job thingy to interview for tomorrow and I'm happy to an actual interview. The thing I went to today was one of those suspect no interview deals. Anyways, I'm in LA and attempting to look for a way to make a living. Until next time...

The Decision

With a mixture of unhappiness and rage, I finally went through with something I've been considering doing for quite some time. On April 24th of the year 2015, I gave notice at work that I would be leaving and quit my job. Some will consider me crazy for quitting my job without having a new job lined up and would probably really think I'm mad if they found out I have also declined two potential job opportunities, one which is only about ten minutes from where I live. I'll get into the declined job opportunities later, but first let me do my best to describe what I've been going through for the past two plus years.

The best way I can describe the place I've worked since the beginning of 2013, I'd describe it as a horrible place that creates tortured souls. From the exterior it's a growing company in a growing industry, but what can't be seen is how terribly bad things are internally. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone who is truly happy there, but at the same time it does sound illogical to leave a company trending upward. What it came down to for me was quite simple, the painstaking daily responsibilities handed to me far outweighed the nonexistent positives of the role. I found myself hating every waking moment and hating myself for every day I let go by that I didn't quit. By the 24th of April, I met my breaking point, I just couldn't take it any more and finally quit. I knew it was getting really bad that week because I had only been to work three days that week and I was still insanely angry about everything that was my job.

My anger and disgust boiled over to the point where I didn't care what the company was, how much it was growing, or about anything, just that I knew it was time for me to leave before something bad happened. My job isn't worth my mental sanity. Now you're probably wondering what was so terrible about my job, so a good place to begin is my personality. I'm not one to verbally fight with people, in fact I hate it and I get frustrated very easily when I'm personally hung out to dry. My role with this soul torturing company evolved into primarily collections. Basically I've been spending the last two years telling people that they owe us money from obscenely long times ago, some dating back as much as two years. Then of course there's no way this can be right and I, let me repeat that, I am responsible for the mess. I can only take so much of that before I want to break my phone and everything else at my desk. I'm sure the people who sat in the cubicles near me must have thought I was crazy from all the swearing under my breath and whatever other things I did while I was being tortured daily on the phone. Oh and did I mention that I was the only person to deal with any issue that involved money? Cue 100% of phone calls that had to do with invoicing, account balances, payments, I need someone to yell at, coming to me and me alone. I stopped answering my phone on incoming calls because let's be serious, I don't give a shit about these people's problems. I was basically a secretary for myself. Sometimes when I'd get back to my desk after lunch, I'd have 10 missed calls. I don't think I should have 10 calls in a week, never mind an hour. Basically my role evolved into a collections/customer service job. If I wanted to answer customer phone calls, I would have interviewed for a customer service role.

I figured as time went on things would get better, but a year and a half later and it's the same shit. My position was a newly created role, and to put it kindly, what the company has found it needs is not at all what I want to do. Frankly the job sucks and has been the worst experience of my short life. I won't ever be able to look back fondly on my time there, it has been marred by the years of horrible experiences my anger.I'm so full of hate toward that place that you could call me Anakin Skywalker. Another way to describe the job is an abusive relationship. The benefits of the job are the salary, but man does it beat the shit out of you on a daily basis. Why do I keep going back when all it does is abuse me?

The best way for me to relate/rationalize things is in baseball terms. To sum everything up, I feel like 2008 Manny Ramirez. I'm disgruntled and I'm ready to force a move away from the Boston area. I've taken the next step and left my job so now all that's left is to see where I end up. Hint: Manny went to Los Angeles, that sounds nice.

When Can I Move South?

Well, another few months has passed and I'm still confused as hell about what I want to do with my life. Yesterday I went for a job interview in New York City and today I had another interview about ten minutes away from where I currently live. I came out of the NYC interview feeling much better about how the whole interview went. Both companies are good, but there was something that didn't quite sit well with me after the second, closer to home interview. Unfortunately for me, I'm still finding the same issue with every job that I've currently had any type of interview for, they're all in the northeast. I don't know whose d*ck I have to suck, but I really just want to get the hell out of the northeast and its horrible weather. I'm approaching the point where I'll look for a job at a convenience store somewhere in the south, where its warm, and there's no snow, and you can't really tell when the seasons change. You know, somewhere nice.

I'll look on the bright side of this, at least I got to miss two consecutive days of work. I also called out one day last week to go for another interview, which makes me wonder if my boss is catching on at all. I called out of work in my first two years with the company, and now I've called out for a morning and two consecutive days in the past week. That's two and a half days that I haven't had to deal with any of the aggravations and crap that occur at work daily. Regardless of what happens from here, it was nice to have a little adventure into NYC, a place I hadn't been since my sister was looking at NYU back around 2004 or 2005. Of course it was raining, though. It's like a reminder that NYC is still in the northeast and subject to the same garbage weather that New England is. I didn't have any time to go exploring while in NYC, but I saw a whole lot of taxis and heard a whole lot of honking.

Now I can't crap on the city of New York, I don't know much of anything about it, all I know is that the winters are still harsh, it still gets really cold there and it's less than ideal from a weather standpoint. I've also been saying for years that New York is a place I never wanted to live, along with Fitchburg and a whole bunch of other places. So the saga continues. I'm just hoping to have everything not necessarily figured out, but to have made some kind of a move before next winter comes around, because if there is one thing I know, I don't want to be here for another winter. I've been living in the northeast for the past fifteen years, and looking at the past 3 years since college graduation, I'd say this isn't really working for me. I can't say that I've been all that happy since I graduated. I've had two jobs, neither of which have satisfied me in their own unique ways, and I absolutely hate the weather.

Did I mention that I don't like the weather in the northeast? Anyway, I've given the northeast a fair chance, I'd say, but I'm ready to at least give another place a chance. I don't see why I shouldn't relocate either, it's not like I have anything tying me down here. I've said it once and I'll say it again, the only thing I'd miss about this place is my friends. At the same time, though, I don't see my friends that often as it is because of the different paths our lives have gone down since the completion of college. Times change and I think a major change would do me good at this point. I'm looking for a change to nicer scenery (meaning nicer weather), it's simply not working for me in the northeast and I'm ready to leave.

Give me the Crowbar, not the Monkey Wrench

Now that I'm a quarter of a century old, I decided this is a good time to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life. Up to this point I've been lollygagging along with very limited direction. Everything has been very standard: graduate high school, graduate college, obtain a job, move out of my parents house. That brings me to where I am today: a 25 year old operating in a peon position at a multi-million dollar company. Now for the last year and a half I've been either slowly or rapidly (I can't really tell right now) growing more unhappy each day. This all stems from one area of my job that I don't like at all.

What I've been seriously contemplating since sometime in July (of 2014) is moving to Southern California. This are of the country is very appealing to me because of the phenomenal weather, plus I've been out there before and it's definitely a place I could get used to. I think now is the time to do this since my Dad is currently out there on work and my Mom is going to join him at some point in 2015 (I think). What a great opportunity this is to have some help getting settled in to a new place. I've already squandered a few opportunities to move my life out west, such as the $17,000 annual scholarship I was offered by a college in Southern California to run track. At that time I wasn't ready to make such a move because I didn't want to part with my friends and I thought I had a good thing going with a girl from back home. Looking back I wish I had applied heavily to schools in Southern California and chose to attend one. That's all in the past and now I'm ready to go. I hate the weather in the northeast and I'm not attached to the region or any of it's cities one bit. The only thing I'd miss are my friends, but I don't see most of them that often anyway, but mostly I'm such a weirdo that I don't fit in with the typical crowd. I don't really enjoy drinking alcohol, I go out with my friends more as a function of being a friend and I want to support the happiness and well being of my friends because I do care about them. I'm kind of a loner/family guy and I'm ok with that.

Recently a monkey wrench or two have been thrown into my very loose hope to leave this dreadful (my opinion, I realize that some people really like it in the northeast) area. I'm just saying there's a reason Dante wrote about harsh cold in the layers of hell. For one, I feel like there's actually a conscious effort occurring at work to make my job suck less. One day last week I'm pretty sure some of my coworkers thought I was having a mental breakdown or something. I wasn't, it was actually just a normal day, I was just expressing my displeasure a hell of a lot more than usual. My friend at work told me some people were asking if I was ok and later on that day my boss asked me the same thing. Then the following day the VP had me come to her office and pretty much asked me the same thing as everyone else. I've shared ways to improve the problem that we face in my department and I truly believe that there will be an effort to make things better. However, I think part of me doesn't want this to get fixed because it would make leaving the company easier. As I stated before, my work happiness has been on a decline for quite some time now, dating back to October of 2013. I still remember the day it started. It was game one of the ALDS between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays. It was the day I first heard The One Man Thrill Ride on WEEI. In short it's been a while since I was truly comfortable at work.

What I feel like at work

What's so bad about my job? Well, it all stems around one problem that has been plaguing my department since I've been there. The 1,000 plus unread email I have and countless voice mails I haven't listened to are a big factor, too. I don't think this was intentional, but basically any customer issue that has to do with accounting/finance gets funneled to me. The problem here is that it's absolutely ridiculous for one person to manage this for a multi-million dollar company. Especially when that's not really my job either, I have other shit to do. I've developed a new policy for answering my phone: I always answer if one of my coworkers is calling, but if it's an outside number I don't answer it unless I'm not in the middle of something, which is never. Currently my voice mail inbox is full with messages I haven't heard. I'd probably need to allocate an entire day or week to sort just the voice mail out. So... f*ck that, I'm not customer service.

Anyways, I'm getting a bit of topic here. I'm not very happy with my current employment situation, but the simple effort to make things less miserable certainly make me at least a little reluctant to leave. However, when I think about it, I should do what makes me happy and that always has me leaning toward making a change. At least we live in a wonderful world of technology today and I take full advantage of this by looking at the job market on a daily basis while I'm at work. Going to work to look for a job, it's a thing of beauty.

 The other side of the work conundrum is finding a job across the country. If I want to move to Southern California, I kind of need a job. I've sent my resume to a few job postings in California and haven't heard a thing. It could be that they don't like me as a candidate or it could be that the hiring people are thinking what in the heck is this guy from way out east doing applying to this job? Although, if I made up my mind and decided, screw all this, I'm moving, and just quit my job and picked a date to pack up my shit and move to the other coast I could always use an agency to help me find a job. I did that here and I landed myself a job.

Excuse me while I pry away at this problem

Friends are the biggest road block in my master plan to move. I have a few very good friends that I've had some great times with, times I won't forget anytime soon. I'm such a weirdo, though, that I don't exactly fit the mold of a person my age. Most people my age have one common interest: drinking alcohol. Sure I have an alcoholic beverage every now and then, but there's no consistency and I could easily give it up in an instant. I'm just not interested. It's the way I'm wired or something. For most of my life I've been what I'll refer to as an athlete, though not a very good one. I really miss running track and playing baseball and soccer. On many occasions I've seriously considered returning to competing in track, but the problem is the lack of facilities and time to properly train. It would be a dream come true to earn a living by playing a sport, but that has pretty much passed me by. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'd rather use my spare time to train and better myself physically than go out drinking. It's only fitting that my best friend shares this same passion for bettering himself physically. We used to workout together for some time until I moved out of our hometown earlier in 2014. Not many people share this type of passion because let's face it, it's hard to stay in good physical shape. I workout on my own now, for the most part. Let's not get too far off the point here. Despite the friends I've garnered in my time in the northeast, I don't really see them all that often and again we live in this wonderful age of technology. As long as there is an effort made, you can stay in touch with relative ease.

The people I've discussed a potential relocation the most with are my parents. I'm not sure if my Dad is for or against me moving, but my Mom seems to really understand that I'm not particularly happy with where I'm at. I would love to live somewhere winter doesn't really exist, except as the name of a certain time of year. I want to live in a place where I can go outside in shorts and a t-shirt and be comfortably warm almost year round. This is all simply a personal preference of mine. Southern California is not for everyone, but I believe it's a place for someone like me. All I ask is for people to see this from my point of view when considering the decision that racks my brain daily. I envision making this move solo. Most of my friends don't want to leave the area we currently live in, and that's fine, that's their preference. I think it would be easier to make this move on my own. The exception I would make is if I had a girlfriend who shared the passion to move with me. My sister basically did this when she decided to move across the country and she's been happy ever since! Maybe I should take a page from her book and just buy a plane ticket and then tell everyone. I guess I'd have to quit my job, too, but my sister decided all on her own that she was moving and I respect that decision. She knew what she wanted to do and stuck with it. Granted she was moving to go live with her boyfriend, but she did what she thought was best for her. That's what I want to do with myself. I don't like those "where do you see yourself in five years?" questions, but when I think about that now, I just think that I don't want to be here.

You know what the funny thing is? Despite all the desire I show about wanting to move, I'll probably still be living in the northeast in five years and working at the same job. I'll admit, I would find that a bit funny myself. If my uncertainty about what I'm doing with my life was hate, I'd be the number one Sith Lord. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on. Currently everyday is like the last one, same shit different day. Am the only one who would love to go live elsewhere not only for my desire of better weather, but also for different culture? Maybe it's because of how I grew up. As a young child my family and I were some kind of nomads. We didn't live in any one particular place for an extended amount of time. Two or three years in one place, then two or three years in another place which included a stint in Brazil. At the time I didn't really notice the difference in cultures, I was too young. But looking back at those days in Brazil, it was quite the experience. There was a period of time, probably an entire year, that I almost never wore shoes. I was a little second grader running around with my sister outside in the sun barefoot taking in the nature that surrounded us. I feel like I've spent long enough in the northeast and I'm ready for change.

Misdirection

Every day I when I wake up my first thought is "f*ck." Then I lay in my bad for a few minutes and think "f*ck." Why are my my first thoughts this wonderful obscenity? Well, I've about had it with my job at this point and to make matters worse from a personal standpoint, the damn weather is beginning to change for the worse. I f*cking hate the winter and its cold weather and shitty snow. That's beside the point, for now at least. Over the past year I've become increasingly unhappy with my job and all the shit that doesn't work, most of which I'm beginning to think will never work correctly. I think my boss summed it up best when he said that we were the funnel for all the bad things. He couldn't be more correct

Part of my problem is that I don't really know what I want to do. Eventually I would like to find a new job, but I'm almost certain I do not want to live in the area I currently live. As a young, stupid adult, I think I'd like to experience living in a new place with what I consider nice weather. Also, who the heck is Derek Jeter?

I often do this thing where I like to change the subject of what I'm writing about with little warning. So how lame is it that Netflix has delayed the release of season 2 of Arrow until October (was originally scheduled to be released in September)? Now they're forcing me to watch it on streams that might be frowned upon, but honestly, what am I supposed to do?

Stephen Amell, he's so hot right now. If you haven't watched Arrow yet, the picture above should give you plenty of reason to... whether you're a girl or a guy. In honor of Stephen Amell and the return of Arrow, I'm considering watching the premiere without my shirt. I feel that would only be fitting and encourage you to do the same, again, whether you're a girl or a guy. And of course you're welcome to come watch it with me... without your shirt of course.

Speaking of shirts, one of my favorite posts of all time is about loose-leaf books, go look it up if you haven't seen this email I got from some dude on eBay. The week I was on vacation to the very beautiful Hilton Head, South Carolina, I received a strange email, this time at work and not to my personal email. I'm contemplating posting that email here, but I'm not sure how appropriate that is, but then again I don't really give a shit. It's bad when I would be happy if I was fired from my job. So, here it is:

While I was reading this, I was wondering which grade this person dropped out of school (feel free to offer your best guess) because they do not know how to form a complete sentence. The lack of punctuation and run on sentences is down right appalling. My brain hurt attempting to read this utter piece of garbage. Needless to say, these people hate me, along with a whole bunch of out other customers because I'm apparently responsible for managing the finances for every single customer of a multi-million dollar company. That's ok, though, if they don't want to speak to me that's fine. They can just go speak to nobody. Of course I haven't responded, but if I did, I think the only appropriate response would be "what?"

Well, my bed time is rapidly approaching so I'll abruptly end right about... here?