Fear of Paranoia

A few weeks ago I was visiting a friend and he produced this newspaper clipping from July 22nd, 2007. That's me in the bottom left, applauding Cindy Sheehan shortly before she went to DC and got arrested.
At the time of publication, I didn't know that I was on the front of Sunday's Metro section. If my buddy Mike hadn't saved it for me, I never would have known. Thanks Mike!



At the time of this photograph, I had a job as a legal documents clerk at an extremely conservative Republican-run law firm. It was a pretty easy job and I was good at it; even though it bored and depressed me, it paid the rent and I sorely miss that paycheck, if nothing else.

On July 26th, a mere 4 days after this was printed, a manager from company HQ came to my old office and told me that they "needed to put a new face on the operation" and that "perception is reality", hence my services would no longer be needed. When pressured, he was unable to give a single, specific cause for my termination, just a lot of weasel-speak about team-building and company growth- Virginia is an "at-will" labor State, an employer can fire you whenever they want- no reason needs to be given.

I can't help but wonder if one of the partners didn't see my face in the paper and place a call to company HQ , requesting a replacement.

No reason was provided to me when I was fired.... I'm still perplexed as to what happened- I have since seen my job posted twice, the hourly wage listed on the latest ad is $10, which is significantly less than I made, and they have added drug/background screening to their criteria, something I was never confronted with. Puzzling.

Since my firing, I've had a terrible time of finding employment. My resume puts emphasis on my work as a volunteer at the radio station; a station that some here would politely describe as "leftist".
I wonder if that is hurting me rather than helping me to find work...I reply to over 20 job adverts a week and get nothing. Nothing at all.

The temporary agencies that used to be very reliable also have nothing- and it's been that way for weeks. I have been to one agency's office three times in the last 30 days because they keep 'losing my paperwork' , which makes me 'inactive'. I am not sure if this is due to bumbling or if it's because I'm blacklisted, but in either case it means no work.

Well, I did get one call. I have an interview next week, 10/23 at 1300 hours- I was given a choice of days and times so I picked the one that contained as many personal 'lucky numbers' as possible, 13, 15 and 23 being my faves...the date 10/23 = 10 +2+3 = 15!

In other words, I'm applying the same illogic that people use when buying lottery tickets to my job search. If that seems like a sign of desperation, it should.

Not that I'm superstitious, *knocks wood* , but I feel jinxed.
Wouldja mind keepin' your fingers crossed for me?

Voyeur at Work

This is me peeking into a window. I'm pushing a modified shopping cart that holds all of my worldly possessions- a mixing board and a computer. It's a Green Machine, it's got a built-in electrical generator-as long as I keep pushing it, it produces enough electricity to power itself.
I am wearing special 'stealth' headphones that make me quieter as I skulk the alleyways, furtively seeking glimpses of...


Stop the cart. This might be the place.


Looks like something going on in there. It's Richmond band Marionette and it seems as if they are gonna play music...I just saw them last night and they were fantastic-here they are again!
Do they ever stop playing?
I'd accuse them of stalking me , but I'm the one peeking in the window at them.

In the hallway with the band.
Notice that I am not staring.
I may be a stalker, but I'm also a gentleman.


Photos by Lil Cerberus, who moonlights as James Bond's bartender.



Capacity crowd in the broadcast booth.

Eight bands in five days. Seven down, one to go.

Tomorrow night: Elvis impersonator Wrenn Mangum & friends on DJ Will's 12 Fluid Ounce show, Monday @ 7 pm. Tune in!

An Awkward Place

My cool boss didn't finish out his two week sentence. Tuesday morning he said:" Fuck you, you back-stabbing weasels" and stormed out of the building. I don't blame him, the company terminated him for no given reason and then they expected him to stay on for two weeks and train his replacement? I'm amazed he didn't walk out on Thursday when they gave him his notice. The area manager told me it was because he was playing video games (a false charge), but Hole never told my boss that- I believe Hole was in breach of confidentiality , perhaps even flirting with slander or defamation just by revealing the unsubstantiated charges leading to termination of an employee. It was this slimy rumor-spreading that cause my boss to blow his top yesterday. They were talking shit about him behind his back to his staff- that's pretty low. It's despicable, really.

I missed his explosive exit but not the aftermath. When I arrived at the scene, his replacement pulled me into the empty office she has been hiding in since her arrival.
She was stricken, overwhelmed with the reality of her new job and her utter inability to perform it alone. Her support system, area manager Mr. Hole, left the job site Monday after I walked out on him during a lecture on attitude. One would think that he would have fired me on the spot for such a blatant display of contempt, but I think it was starting to dawn on him that our job is a lot more complex than it seems and that they have already fired the person who knows the most about it. If they fire me, they are fucked, plain and simple. My cool boss pretty much created the system and we both know it by heart, but there are no manuals or guidebooks- we learned by doing it and I'll floss my ass with a barbed-wire toothbrush before I write a training manual for $12 an hour. If they want a training manual, they can hire me as a consultant and quintuple my salary.

Anyway, Replacement was freaked out and she made a very risky decision. She was honest with me.

I have been telling her how bad the company treats it's staff, how certain people in the Firm can get away with murder and some can't , and especially what an incompetent buffoon I think Mr. Hole is. I had a lot to say and most of it was negative. The only good things I had to say were about my old boss. She has been with the Company for a mere 10 days and still believed the bullshit they feed you in orientation about "team spirit" and "company growth" - I told her to forget all that.
She is on her own, I said. My boss did a great job for two years and they swooped down and canned him without giving cause and there is no reason she shouldn't think that it can't happen to her.
We have had four area managers in the last two years- the company fucks with the managers- after watching this "transition", I'm not even interested in staying. It's just a paycheck to me.

I meant every word I said.

So she took me aside and said: " I need you a lot more than you need me. That much is clear. I really need you to stick around for at least a week or two. Please?"

That sort of honesty is dangerous. She has admitted weakness and by doing so is appealing to my benevolence for help in an otherwise helpless situation. It was hard to resist eviscerating her once I saw that underbelly, but I didn't. None of this is her doing. I have nothing to gain by tormenting her.

I can't hate her anymore. She's a green first-timer, it wasn't her fault that my boss got pissed on; he was a scapegoat, she is a sacrificial lamb.

So I said I would try to help but I couldn't promise for how long. I also told her that if Mr. Hole came back to the office, I was going to get fired- it's one thing for me to disrespect him behind closed doors, but I'm going to tell him to fuck off in public, and he really won't have any choice after that-he'll have to fire me.
And they can't fire me because I have all the "secret formulae" locked in my head.
I also said that as soon as I am released from my contract, I would also be released from my no-compete clause. I was going to the partners and explain that the Company provides no equipment or support whatsoever and is , in fact, a wholly unnecessary middleman that can't even cover travel expenses for it's employees. The Firm, by my estimate, could save $125,000 a year by switching to an internalized Records dept.
Which I could organize.
As soon as I said this , I wondered "why didn't I think of that sooner?"
I should ask the Firm.

Mr. Hole was in town today. He didn't come to the office, the new boss went to meet him somewhere off-site. A site manager walks off the job in a hail of profanity and the area manager doesn't show up to do damage control with the client? Instead, he has a covert , off-premises meeting with the new manager.
Bizarre.
If I was the Firm , I'd be questioning company wisdom.

The new manager spends her hours behind a closed door in an office without network access. After five business days, she has yet to get an Outlook account or even introduce herself to IT.
Her main function is to relay messages to me from Mr. Hole , who is not allowed to talk to me, and to tell my replacements to do busy work. I have refused to do busy work, another cause for dismissal- I have been begging to get canned, really, I have.

I thought she was going to report me to Hole for talking so much shit and I fully expected a red-faced Hole to come charging into the office, incensed and maybe even ready to fight. I mean, I called him a chronic liar, a useless clown and a dunce, just to name a few epithets and I said it all knowing that my interlocutor would most likely repeat my words to him.

I wanted Hole to come in and attempt to deal with me. Godzilla help me, but I really wanted to beat him down verbally and force him to fire me. He has insulted me and degraded my friend.
I feel vengeful.
I want to strike back.
I know it's wrong, but I feel compelled to make him as miserable as he has made me- and it doesn't help that he really has placed the company at legal risk- I am tempted to contact HQ and send a letter warning them of the discriminatory practices used by Hole. Unlike the Replacement, I have no empathy or compassion for Hole. I may still write that letter.

The company wanted to put a new face on the Records team so they brought in a manager who
stays behind a closed door in an empty office and an area manager who allows himself to be bullied and intimidated by the file clerk.

I'm sure I'll be gone sooner than later, but for now I'm enjoying the freedom to say exactly how I feel. I have nothing to lose or gain- my relationship with the company is beyond healing. This change will, I think , be better for me in the long run. I wish I hadn't spent all my money on car repairs, but I'll get by, find a temp job, do sound...something will come up.

Meanwhile I feel like a platoon sergeant who's been in-country for years with the same team; the good louie just got fragged by friendly fire and the best rifleman was discharged for having mud on her boots during trench warfare.
The green replacements ask me questions like: " Is my hand grenade supposed to be making this sound?" and it's my job to keep them alive until they learn the jungle.

Then I get fragged.

Send the What?

When I returned from lunch there was a man from the Company waiting to see me. He ushered me into an empty office normally used by visiting attorneys.

He introduced himself. Ray Hole, the new area manager.

Shake hands. Hole handed me his card, shut the door and took a seat behind the desk.

"Did Tom (my boss) talk to you on his way out?", asked Mr. Hole.

"No. Why?"

Well, explained Hole, the Company has been 'put on notice' by the Firm. If we didn't address certain 'problem areas' our contract would not be renewed.
The first thing they were doing was firing my boss. Immediately.

This didn't make any sense. Tom did a good job. There haven't been any blunders or missteps that I'm aware of.

" Why did you fire him?"

"Well, we need to put a new face on the Company."

"I don't know what that means."
I actually had a pretty good idea where this was heading, but I wanted to hear it from Hole's mouth.

"Um, well, Tom is a great guy but we need someone who can better sell the Company."

"I don't understand. We charge a flat rate and we already serve all the Firm's offices. What is there to sell?"

He gives a long-winded sales pitch about document management.

"But we already do all that. What is the problem?"

"Perception. We need emphasis on perception. It's important to send the right perception. Perception is everything."
He stands up and paces past me to illustrate his point.
"Imagine that I'm the client and I walk by and see Tom playing a video game. What kind of perception is that sending? "

I wanted to tell him that it's not a video game, it's the Warcraft forum, but I really don't want to admit that I know my boss spends his spare time on Warcraft sites.

"Oh. I see."
Tom has pissed someone off and they have complained to the boss and now he is getting fired. It's a personal vendetta. Seen it plenty of times.

"Look, you can trust me," intoned Hole, " ask anyone who knows me. I'm straight-up. I won't lie to you."

Suddenly I feel like I'm in a cheap TV movie or a bad comic book. Did he just say "ask anyone...I'm straight up?" As a rule I distrust persons who tell me I can trust them. Ask anyone? What did he want me to do? Call his friends for a character reference? What a weird thing to say.

" I heard you and the temp...what is her name?...talking when I came in earlier. You were laughing."

I am flummoxed. Yeah, maybe we were- we sit two feet apart and do speak to each other. Duh.

"Yes."

"Now, you aren't in trouble ( really? thank god I'm not in trouble for laughing) and I want you to stay with the Company team, but if I can hear you laughing, then other people can too, and what kind of perception does that send?"

"That we like our jobs?" It's a chatty office- it's not at all unusual to hear someone laugh.

"Well, we need to put on a more positive face around here. Let's curtail the laughing."

"That shouldn't be a problem. In fact, I doubt if I'll ever laugh again."

This is the wrong answer. Hole glowers at me. He has pegged me as hostile.
After a moment he says he has to make a call. Dismissed.

Later I am introduced to my new manager and her stooge. Her stooge is transferring in to replace the temp and I strongly suspect she's a corporate narc.They set about inspecting my work area, looking for ways to optimize the processing to maximize the productivity- basically they were looking for ways to make us look busier than we actually are by turning simple tasks into logistical nightmares.

New plans:

- Remove all the furniture except our desks and use the space to store boxes. The boxes will send the perception that are really, really cramped and barely have room to maneuver.
"With luck", said an enthusiastic Hole, "we can have two hundred or more boxes in here. Look at all this wasted space, he says, indicating the blank wall above my desk.
We can put up a pair of heavy-duty shelves and put two rows of boxes there."

Those twin shelves will send the perception that I am having a constant low-level attack of claustrophobic anxiety.

The workroom is already far too small for two people and we have a storeroom down the hall. A lot of the boxes we retrieve are 10 or 15 years old and musty as fuck-all. Sharing a room with two hundred of the fuckers is going to send the perception that I am having severe asthma attacks.

- Move the two workstations to a side-by- side position with both screens visible from the hall. Currently, my monitor is angled just right but now it'll be wide open- and the Stooge will be sitting next to me- I am much more comfortable with someone working across from me, not next to me. I don't like people sitting next to me when I work. It fucks with my personal space.
Plus I can't blog at work anymore.

- Make a "non-compliance" list of all the typos that we catch( transposed number, mis-matched client # etc) and who made them and submit a monthly report to the Firm. We process thousands of documents a day- when a number doesn't match it only takes a second to figure out why- it's almost always a typo. I just fix them and move on- I'd feel like an asshole if I told a paralegal that matter # 17262.001 is really 17262.0010 every time I saw something like that.
Filling out a detailed report on exactly who made what simple error and then turning them into the Firm is a not a job I want. I don't think pointing out the typos of the legal assistants is going to maximize our productivity. I think it's going send the perception that I am a rat and make me into the most-hated man in the office.

I bet they fire me as soon as I train the Stooge.

Tomorrow is gonna be a long day.

New Plan

I broke down and closed out my vacation savings account. I have had only one vacation in the last five years- and this next one was gonna be a good one- I even got my passport!- but that was before I killed Bambi with my Volvo.

The car repairs are only a few pennies less than my savings...forty-six cents to be exact.

$.0.46.

Me at the Greyhound counter: " How far away from here can I get for 46 cents? One-way is fine."

A Country Drive

This was a beautiful morning for a drive, windows down, sunroof open, yeah baby, what I need is a long drive to clear my head.
I love a long drive on windy back roads. Usually, I crank the music really loud, but I'm enjoying the sound of the wind. You couldn't ask for better driving conditions. I have a feeling that by the time I reach the convalescent center where my grandma is residing, I'll be in a good mood. It'll cheer her up.

Then a deer comes out of nowhere.
Cue the split-second time freeze.
It's a small doe and it runs left to right in front of my car.
I hit the brakes and it crosses my vision, I think I'm gonna miss it.
Whew! That was close.
Bam!
Fuck!

But it doesn't feel that bad, I'm not going especially fast and the deer seems to have grazed my car, so I pull into the parking lot of a nearby church to assess the damage. Two cars pull in behind me.
A man and woman get out of one of them, a second woman gets out of the other car.The guy is walking very quickly towards me. He's awfully young to look so worried.

"Are you OK?", he asks.

"Sure, I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

I look at my hands. They are shaking.

"Uh...I need to sit down." But I don't.

"I have never seen a deer split in half before", says one of the women.

I look at my car. The right headlight assembly is gone. Not damaged, just gone. The front end is broken, exposed; the jagged, torn front of the right fender panel has a newly-serrated edge that is apparently capable of bisecting a deer at 45 mph.

Blood, shit, fur and deer viscera cover the entire passenger side. There are chunks of hairy meat embedded in the front grille. I pry as much off as I can and am surprised to find that the hood opens. That's a good sign.
My passenger window was down, yet no deer guts or blood went inside the car. The outside of the rear passenger is a mess. Lucky.

My car is a rolling total.

At least it runs. I spent $500 dollars on that engine less than a week ago, so it damned sure better run. The engine compartment seems unharmed. That's good.

Satisfied that I am OK, the drivers depart, leaving me to stare at my bloody, wrecked car. I'm calm. It was nice that they stopped. People are not so bad. I sit for a while, thinking about that and suddenly I'm on the ground, sobbing. I could have been killed. That thing could have come through the windshield.
I pull myself together, then I get back on the road heading home. There's a carwash not far away, I've gotta get there and wash this gore off before it fuses with my paint.
On the way back, I see the deer. It really was split in half, the front portion is a yard or so into the woods, the rear is in the roadside ditch.
I killed it.
It killed itself.
It could have killed me.
Calm down.

Have you ever been on the highway driving a car that is covered bumper-to-bumper with deer guts? It's not relaxing.
I really did expect to get pulled over, but I didn't. I got to the car wash.
OUT OF ORDER.
No biggie, they have eight other lanes.
OUT OF ORDER.
All of them.

I'm 25 miles from the next carwash. My car is dripping gore and it is already starting to stink in the sun. I go into the fast-food/quick shop and buy some Windex and a roll of paper towels and start wiping the deer smear off of my ruined vehicle. It's not easy and soon I'm using the windshield squeegee on the side of my car. It works pretty well.
Within a half-hour, I've removed the visible blood. During the entire time- in a busy, holiday gas station- only one guy asks me what happened.

"Hit a deer."

"Fuckin' hate that. Hit on last year. Cost me $3000, but my truck looks good now."

It does look good.
Sure wish I had $3000.


By the time my car is semi-clean, the wiper-fluid bucket looks like it's full of fishing chum.
Deer eat plants and so are usually full of chewed-up plant material; if a deer explodes on your car, there is considerable green matter along with the red. Half-chewed plant stalks and shredded animal tissue float in the bucket.

For a moment, I consider carrying the bucket inside and asking the staff: " Hey, I'm sorry, but no one can use this on their windshields. It's mostly deer blood and half-digested dung, not windex. What should I do with it?"

I think that if I do that, I will certainly wind up in some sort of trouble.

I decide to dump it into a storm drain.

I make it home. There's nothing I can do about the car today. It's a holiday. I can't drive anywhere to watch fireworks, I have no headlights, so no night driving.

I don't miss the fireworks, but I do miss having a car. My options are:

1) Borrow from family to repair/replace car.
But it's unlikely to be repairable -(Find a fender for a 1990 Volvo 780? Good luck, they only made 7,000 of them, ever...)-and I don't want to replace it. It's the only good car I have ever owned and the only reason I could afford it was that I bought it with the money that my suicided uncle Steve left to me. Losing that car would be like losing Steve again.

2) Don't drive.

Right.

I go back outside and look at my car. If I could get a lamp assembly and align it properly, it could almost pass our State inspection. Maybe a bodyshop could bend it back- it's about three inches pulled back and away from the body...more than I can do alone.

I think about all the blood that was on the car and what might have happened if the deer had come through my windshield.
Jesus.

I have terrible luck, but at least I'm alive to realize that.

To Bo or Not Hobo

The post that was here sucked . So does this one, but it's shorter and has a pic of a neat car. I'm not sure what make this is but it resembles an Italian or French military reconnaissance vehicle circa 1930's. Who knows?

Spent the entire day emailing and faxing resumes- 12 in all. I also signed up with two more temp agencies.
It's a new year, holidays are over and the wolves are at the door, huffin and puffin'...I expect I'll wind up taking on some really crappy jobs until I find something decent...

Saw something alarming this morning- one ad for an office manager said: "individuals with more than two j0bs in the last five years need not apply"- it's the first time I've see this on a job for which I was otherwise qualified- it stopped me from applying. If such notices become common I'll never find work again, since I've had about ten jobs in last five years...sheesh...maybe I'll become a hobo, beat the coming rush.

Hmmm...no, being a hobo might suck, come to think of it.