Iron Fist

Think you’ve had a hard time working with an insurance claims agent?

So…who’s going to see Dark Night this weekend?

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Really, I am doing plenty of creative writing these days, it’s just that instead of taking place on my blog most of it winds up in the email I send to my coworkers, filled with completely random observations or vitriol filled rants. For example, there’s this oldie, or recently when a coworker asked whether an incident I’d dealt with was fairly typical for my department, I responded with the following:

Dude, that’s pretty much our whole life. Seriously, sometimes working here is like working with handicapped third-graders, only I know that these office types all have college degrees and mortgages, which doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s nothing short of a fucking miracle that someone can get up in the morning, button up their shirt and put their shoes on the right feet, OPERATE A MOTOR VEHICLE AT SPEEDS EXCEEDING 60 MPH WITHOUT TOTALLY DYING, and yet come to work here and call in with something like “I can’t make the door work.” And then you call them back and you’re like “you can’t open a door?” and then they’re all “well, I can open it. But there was this one time, like last week, it didn’t open right away and I almost hurt my finger, ALMOST, but not quite. Also I think we’re out of napkins.” It’s hard not to say, “WTF? Aren’t you a grown-up? Don’t you do your own taxes and feed yourself every day and even somehow fucking RAISE CHILDREN and you’re completely crippled now because there’s not a napkin with five feet of where you’re sitting?”, but if you say that then they go, “I don’t think I care for your tone. I’ve known your Director for like forty years, you know. We were in ‘Nam together.” And then you get your ass chewed.

That’s pretty much it. Okay. How’s your day going?

I write screenplays involving people from other departments on my floor, I write recaps of conversations I have with incompetent people I speak to on the phone, I write pointed rants about pointless things we all put up with in corporate America. Some of it gets sent to co-workers to seem to appreciate my sense of humor; a lot of it just gets deleted.

I write all this stuff because it keeps me sane, also because it beats doing the crap I’m supposed to do for my job. But you know, I’m tired of feeling like my job is draining me of all my creativity. Actually, I’m just tired of going to work.

Therefore, I am calling for Blogger Ditch Day. This Friday! Let’s all ditch work! Call in sick, forge your own doctor’s notes, even use the old “my grandma is in the hospital” if you have to (although be warned karma will probably bite you in the ass if you do, and then it will be your own damn fault when your grandma actually is in the hospital). If you can’t ditch work all day, then just show up for morning roll call and sneak out at your first break! That way you get credit for showing up.

Then, we’ll all meet at the beach! I’ll bring some beer. If someone brings hot dogs and some wire coat hangers we can totally cook them over a bonfire. We’ll crack open tallboys and smoke cigarettes. There might even be making out! (Please note that I cannot guarantee this last one. Also, although I seem to know a staggering number of smoking hot bloggers, please do not ask me if I can “hook you up” with one of them. Dudes, you are on your own.)

Let’s hear it for ditching! In the meantime, you should continue your subversiveness in the workplace by walking around with some monkey themed flair.

See you at the beach!

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“-but then my friend Maria came over and brought drinks with her and then we totally were just all hanging out after that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sweet.” She was a cool enough girl, and we’d gotten along great before, but as far as dates went I had lost interest in this one some time ago and was sleepwalking my way through the rest of it. I went to my next generic conversation question and tossed it her way. “What else are you up to these days?”

“Oh, you know, trying to get a writing job. Hopefully. I mean I hope I can get one. I haven’t looked around much. I’m still technically freelancing for the paper, but that’s some work, you know? I mean, you really have to put yourself out there, and pitch a story, and then bust your ass to go do some research and then they still might not want to run it.”

“Sure,” I said. And there it was again.

I have any number of skills I excel at, but are neither marketable nor worth mentioning to an employer. For example, “Able to keep an interested smile in place when fury suddenly bubbles up inside” is not something you’ll ever see listed on my résumé.

She was still talking. I had turned my head to one side and looked down, contemplating my pint glass, in a pose that might mean I was listening, but maybe not to anything in the bar. Jesus. Urr.

-Little upset, are we? You figure out why yet?

Figure out what?

-This is the third time since you sat down that she’s said something that you reacted to by getting angry inside. There’s a common theme, if you haven’t put it together yet.

And what’s that?

-She fancies herself a writer. But each time she brings it up, she immediately follows it with some excuse for not actually putting in any effort towards becoming one.

Maybe. So?

-Remind you of anyone else?

I looked up then, at the mirror that lined the back of the bar, and locked angry gazes with my own reflection. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it does.

Suddenly I was draining my glass, bringing the empty pint down onto the bar, following with a stand-up-reach-for-wallet combo. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

“I - what? Okay.” She finished her drink. “Where to?”

“It doesn’t matter. The next bar. I’m just tired of being in this place.”

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So I’m behind on my self-imposed deadlines again. Whatever.

Fortunately I ate something like seven pounds of fresh blueberries over the weekend, which I think antioxidized my addled wits and left me capable of finally writing something. All this fruit did not, however, cause my pee to change color. I confess a small amount of disappointment about this.

MOVING ON, NOW…

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