How do I explain this to grandma?

A long time ago, in a city not too far from here, I had an awfully awesome idea for a Halloween costume.  The emphasis, of course, is on the awful.  Luckily for those near and dear, I was talked out of my despicable machinations.  Some of you know about the costume that has only been whispered about by alcohol-kissed lips during lascivious sidebars.  That’s right, I’m referencing him.  The one, the horny, the psyche-scarringly wrong… Professor Porn.

… except this kind of “getting it in the eye” is technically SFW.

That’s right, the 18″ double-dong-wielding madman known as Professor Porn never saw the light of day, or the dark side of the moon, or even the rings of Uranus.  No assjacks tasted the mushroom-stamp of justice.  Nobody benefited from hiding behind his splash-guardian cape constructed of clear shower curtain– and that’s about as far as these are going to go.  Long story short, it was an idea that was miscarried into existence due to my (former) habit of watching Jenna Jameson get blasted during particularly boring fraternity meetings, but that‘s another story entirely.  Anyway.

Fast forward a bunch of years, and here I am slinging job apps like manchowder at any potential place one might stick.  Now, have you ever applied to a job– never expecting to get a phone call back?

Here’s where the aborted Professor comes into play– and no this doesn’t mean I’m gonna enhance/ruin your spank session by showing up on your screen (nor am I going to be some entry-level fluffer).  I got a phone call today from a certain…  purveyor of assorted “adult novelties” looking to interview me for the assistant manager slot.  It doesn’t help the situation that my cousin is a web content developer for Girls Gone Wild.  I’ll give you a second to process this, but I’m warning you–  you’re laughing prematurely.

Now, riddle me this: how does one interview for the ass. manager position at a fap shack?

Hurts your head, don’t it?

No jocularity spared here, I have more questions than…  yeah maybe that analogy is a bit too far.
However, here are the major ones that come to mind:

1. What does one wear to an interview like this?
2. What kind of questions is she (yes, the store manager’s a she) going to ask me?
3. How loaded should my responses be?
4. What kind of product knowledge ….  yeah gonna stop there.
5. Will there be an employee discount?
6. What in the Nine Levels of Hell should I tell my little Italian grandmother if I get the job?

I mean, yeah, it’s pretty funny to think about being the “ass. manager” of the sex smorgasbord…  I may be a touch overqualified for the job (don’t judge me), and yeah— I have no choice but to take the first job that comes my way.  I just didn’t expect the possibility of said job being this… sticky.

Savor that.

Unplug.

Snap-Crackle-Pop (Repeat)

They say that while searching for a job, you need to find purpose– or create documented results for the time spent.  Well no shit, ladies and germs, because otherwise you’ll go full-on Gary Busey watching your email box get the occasional denial-of-employment letter from an automated system– and nothing else (unless you’re me, and you get a glimmer of hope).  Something has to drown out the sounds of your bank account starving to death like it’s in a goddamn Sarah McLachlan commercial, and knowing you’re too broke to justify getting shitfaced, you need to find other diversions.

Since Cortana and I are getting married in less than 3 months, I’ve turned gym rat again– because after all, being a stupidly hot groom is a totally viable wedding expense.  Not to mention, we’ve got another Tough Mudder coming up in August.

This does, however, raise a bit of a problem.  Jill 2.0 still acts like a Rice Krispy Treat, and she’s done her fair share of hampering my workouts.

Remember this?  Atrophy’s a bitch, even a year and a half later.

That said, I’m hovering around a quasi-lean 172lbs and getting stronger every day– with or without Jill 2.0’s help.  Something tells me that I’m going to not be down to my target of 165 by Old Heads Night Out III.  That said, there’s also another reason for it– I’m sizing up again, not just focusing on cutting fat, so I can’t get an accurate grasp of my gains/losses with just a mere scale.

But here’s where it gets weird, and this is me almost mocking myself with the realization.  Bear with me.  Trying to go to the gym every day, sometimes twice a day, kinda sucks when we’re getting a decent winter.  It takes some motivation to even get my ass out the door, I’ll admit it.  So, thanks to YouTube, I’ve been watching a lot of Dragonball Z, and Dragonball Z Abridged.

Stop laughing, I’m not done yet.

This gets better… or worse, I’m not sure yet.

Some of you are asking yourselves what character is my favorite.  There are a few of you who just realized that I was right when I said that this gets better.  So seriously, stop laughing.  I’m just warming up.

Oh yeah, the character.  I almost forgot.

It’s not funny yet. Trust me. This is just the set up.

Yeah, this kind of ties back to my “that guy” moment, but still.  Hold your laughter.

So, Cortana’s “motivating show” is “The Biggest Loser” because it’s inspiring.  I will admit, because of her, I watch it– and that’s all I’m going to own up to.  The thought that just flipped through your head as you looked up at the picture, and back again, is partially correct.  Again, it’s not funny yet.  I’m getting there.  Patience.

However, yes, my motivator is that guy up there.  I go snap-crackle-pop at the gym, and I keep going.  I actively want a freaking gravity room.  Stop laughing, you can’t judge me yet.  I get mad because I can’t push myself hard enough because of Jill 2.0’s persistent wusstacular nature.  Why?  Because I want that build for the next Mudder.  Oh yeah, I want Vegeta’s build to run the Pittsburgh Mudder.

Dammit, people, slow your roll–  I know I’m 5″ taller than he is without the hair.

Now you can start laughing… but keep it to the “oh holy shitnuggets” chuckle, because we’re not quite to the funny part yet.

So yeah, I’ve set myself a body-image goal that is almost unattainable (especially considering that I like my dick original size, so ‘roids are completely out).   Now, we couple it with the fact that to be one of T.H.E.M., you have to wear the jersey…

That’s right, I tapped in to Maxie last year. If you don’t get the reference, that’s all well and good… for now.

This year, the other captains realized that all black doesn’t attract the attention of the photographers very well, so we’re possibly opting for hot pink.  I had no part in this decision making process, but I wholeheartedly support it…  Why?

It feeds into this:

Playing connect the dots yet?  If so, you’ve already figured out that I’m already devising a way to make a foam wig– and keeping it stuck to my noggin.

That’s right, I’m all for it because it plays perfectly into the original idea.  I want an anime build akin to the Saiyan Prince up there to run the Mudder…  why, you ask?  Wait, you’ve stopped laughing long enough to ask why?

All for a picture:  when I go off the obstacle entitled “Walk the Plank,” I’m going to be falling in a 3/4 dive… so that I can time the perfect freaking DBZ punch to impact the surface of the water.

Narcissism aside (or I should say, at the forefront), I derive this motivation and goal just for the most epic cosplay picture ever taken.

Now… you can laugh.

I am.
Now Jill 2.0 had better get on board with the plan, because failure’s not an option– and no matter what, the physical result will be sweeeeeeet.

Unplug.

My Holy-Shit-o-Meter Just Broke…

You’re asking yourself any of these questions right now: “What, exactly, does it take to break a holy-shit-o-meter?”  “Do those come with lifetime warranties?”   “Yours was way more durable than the rest– how in the Nine Levels of Hell did yours break!?”  Well, on Friday– January 25– at precisely 4:39pm, whilst conveniently and coincidentally taking a dump, my cell phone alerted me to an email.  I opened said email, and the ensuing colonic evacuation caused the porcelain goddess tap out– because I got the green light email from the Cracked Comedy Workshop.

For the first time in my life, I’m getting published…  I mean getting paid for my writing.

I thought I knew what this felt like. It has, again, been redefined for me.

Those of you who’ve been dedicated enough to read my slaphappy collection of miscarried thoughts, rants, and jokes– you know that getting published has been something I’ve been wanting with various degrees of conviction since I graduated from college.  While recovering from surgery, I took a slightly more serious stance towards getting published.  As you can see, “slightly” is a very relative term.

However, at long last, I got the green light.  It’s a damn good thing I was coincidentally subjecting a deuce to the witch test when I got that email– because believe you me– the individual witch had the rest of her odious comrades delivered on the double.  As it turns out, dozens of friends, family, former classmates, and former coworkers were right–  I actually can be a professional wiseass.

Wait.  Scrap that thought.  I am a professional wiseass!

Needless to say– I will hyperlink the article from the blog for you all to see.  I will be using a pen pseudonym (that some of you will definitely recognize), because I threw the Human Resource industry (and yes, it is an industry as well as a department) under the bus– backed that summbitch up– and then hit them again.

Sure, I’ve done that around here with my comparatively small reader base– but at Cracked.com…  I’ll garner literally hundreds of thousands of hits.  Since I’m still doggedly searching for a job (albeit with some success), I don’t need some butthurt sociopath blacklisting me because they read my article and realized that I’m onto their bullshit, and I just called them out with extreme prejudice.

Article subject matter aside– having my Holy-Shit-o-Meter blown to bits had a sweet side-effect.  I have a February 8 deadline for the article– but I wrote the whole damn thing in one night (proofread and edited it this morning).  I haven’t had this level of motivation to write (and ability to obliterate a writer’s block) since college.  I missed this feeling, and I’m all sorts of about feeding this addiction.

I’m getting published…. do dahhh do dahhh…

So yeah!  Let this be the beginning of a beautiful thing!  I’ll be emailing the finished article this afternoon after Cortana has a chance to give it an eyeball– then starting up on my next pitch.  I finally know what it’s like to make a dream come true.

Damn, it feels good.
I highly recommend it to every last one of you.

Go out.  Do it.

Unplug.

Chemical Imbalances are Fun! (Yeah, right…)

Once upon a time, I had “normal” stresses.  In the time before I broke Jill, they were very simple.  You could even call them manageable.  “Why does my job suck?  Why did I go and get a degree to be a collections douche?   When will I find a break and get some writing published?”

For most of those questions, I didn’t have an answer.  That last one?  Yeah, that was a gimme– it’s because I haven’t really sent much out yet (and by “sent much out yet,” I mean tried twice and then got too busy working to do the proper research).  Boom.  Jill got broken, got reincarnated, and I got this little corner of the intarwebs to cope with the boredom.  It was a nice little package.  I’d grown accustomed to the stress profile, and for once– I felt stable.

This is saying a lot– for a card-carrying lunatic.

There’s a fine line between brilliance and madness, and I’d like more opportunities to toe that line. The brilliant side, that is.

So after this little (ok, not so little) shake up, and in the wake of the Tough Mudder, I’ve found myself devoid of purpose.  There are few things that can drive me up a wall faster than lack of purpose, even if it is masquerading in the auspices of a dead-end job.  Having income is purpose, in the most basic sense of the concept.  Now, here I am, dealing with a serious headache and insomnia.  Leave it to me to ask the $64,000 question:  why?

Then it dawned on me.  As an unmedicated martini shaker of awesome and crazy, I tend to pick out patterns of behavior (aka symptoms) that tell me when I’m about to stop being fun.  This lovely tendency to bounce myself out into the third person often manifests as talking to myself— but it does allow me to pick up on red flags of things to come.  In this case, depression (cue ominous music).  I’ve walked down that road enough times in my early 20’s to know the early warning signs of the FML’s.

Let’s see… been pretty listless.  Yup, check.  Curtailed physical activity (Hell, all activity) also resulting in a reduction in caffeine intake.  Ditto.  Hey, there’s the source of the headache– withdrawals!   Hate those damn things.  Backtracking from the headache and racing mind, I got back to square one.

This breakdown is pretty crappy– and accurate. Now, let’s factor in how employers treat applicants like cattle. No, scratch that, hamburgers get served faster.

Could I step out and grab a throw-away job at Taco Hell or some other food mine?  Possibly, but it’d take a month to get hired– because employers are dicks (but that’s another rant entirely).  Not to mention, nothing reeks of fail more than a thirty-something working with a bunch of teens at a McJob.  Thanks but no thanks, I can flip myself off in the mirror without having to further defecate upon my bachelor’s degree.  Like many other graduates, I’m left asking myself, “I fought this hard for… this?!”

Damn right I did, and having that degree hanging on my wall only serves as a reminder that I need to stop accepting what comes my way– and find ways to get what I want.  No, scratch that, make that need— borderline deserve.

For now, however, there’s only so much I can do at 2am.  So here I sit, after having murdered my caffeine-withrdawal headache with Excedrine, a complete insomniac.  My mind finally figured out why I’ve lacked even the motivation to work out in between application after resume after application.  Yeah, chew on that one, the narcissist didn’t even want to do a single push up.  This, coming from a guy who loves being a gym rat.

Now the fun part of managing my imbalances with naught but my iron will (and sometimes beer):  once I’ve identified what’s making me into something I can’t stand—  I can snap manic.  It’s akin to bottoming out, but without the whole “bottom” part.  Screw that noise, especially when the chemicals in my head like to play with each other in ways others don’t.

It’s just like the adage says, “Some people suffer from insanity.  I enjoy every minute of it.”  Well, to say “every” might be a touch of a lie, but I’d hate more to be boring.

Unplug.

Of corporations and cowardice…

You know, it’s no wonder why people in America are constantly in a phase of “what can I get for nothing?”.  Oh yeah, I’m fired up right about now, so this is going to be a far more comical rant than when I stood up for the troops where the mainstream media swept it under the rug.  Hey Corporate America, bend over, it’s my turn to wield the asswhipping stick– but unlike you, I have an identity.  I have a face.  I am not afraid to pose with said asswhipping stick, and stand by my decisions.

Oh yeah, here we go.

So it’s no mystery among my friends that I’m looking to find new employment while I recover from wrist surgery.  Going back to the job that I worked at for 8 freaking months with torn cartilage is not exactly something that looks savory to me.  I’m not going to badmouth my current company, Hell no.  Aside from that prolonged amount of torture– the pay rate was right, I’ve had benefits, and my bills are covered.  It’s more than most people have, so I can’t really argue.  So for that, thanks, but I’m really trying to find an amiable method of parting ways so I don’t have to deal with another situation where I get my ass kicked by a refrigerator.  I have a degree, and this kind of punishment just wasn’t on my bucket list to begin with.  Thanks though, you’ve been great.  Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but still– you get the point, right?

It’s the employer/employee equivalent of the “it’s not you, it’s me” breakup, minus the defenestrated objects.

No, this entry isn’t about my current job.  Today’s about the shrouded anonymity of hiring managers for larger corporations.  Any corporation that hires through a cattle-drive process like Taleo, yeah, I’m talking about them.  Strap in, and get your boss out of the room, because this is going to be on the level of a Sheen Rant.  Ready?  Good.

Part of every company’s “mission statement” involves people in some way/shape/form.  There’s always some stupid way that each faceless corporate entity attempts to seem like that they actually give a flying rat’s ass about the cogs in their greed-mongering machine.  This facade, however, doesn’t apply to applicants.  The applicant is, in fact, the embodiment of pigeon shit– and shit gets treated better.

First off, they start with a PETA-banned cattle drive process– which makes anonymous the initial screening process.  Back when business had a pair, they had a freaking HR department– so you at least knew who to address for your freaking cover letter.   Now, you have a shitty interface that may or may not work with Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer–  and you may have to switch in mid-application once you realize your error (or depending on the moon phase).  You have no idea whether or not you have a sentient being checking out your “job fit analysis,” an OCR program reading your resume, or a freaking intern throwing darts.  The best part is, you get email replies– sent from addresses that they say specifically will never be checked.  That’s right, you can’t even ask a question.  Feeling like a number yet?  Don’t kid yourself, numbers are more important.

Let’s say you get past the Taleo portal (or whatever equivalent is being used), you’re going to get a call from a random location in the country– from a faceless operator for a phone interview.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get one who has a semi-sentient command of the English language.   These cheery, faceless phone-jockeys are the ones in charge of giving you the hook– if you’re unlucky enough to pass whatever criteria that they may or may not have.  Whomever you speak with (I’m still not convinced that it’s not an alternate voice for HAL 9000) will instill a false sense of urgency and hope by giving you two or three different appointment times available– and nothing else will do if you want the interview.

You’re not even worthy of his level of condescension.

Still with me?  Most of the masses don’t get past Step One.  If you get to phase three, well, hold on to your taints, because the impersonal nature of this affront to civilized society just got personal.  You get to face an insulated hiring manager– who will forever be inaccessible to you except for this one opportunity.  These are career bureaucrats not unlike the talking heads that run for political office.  Their sole purpose is to conduct antiseptic interviews, and are trained not to give any sort of cues as to how you’re doing.  In fact, most won’t even have a business card handy to give you– to prove they even exist.  There will be no record of them on the company directory, half of the time.  In fact– if you are stupid enough to apply to the same company and make it to Tier Three twice, the first manager can screw you– even if you nail the second interview.  Oh yes, this insulated caste of employees can and do toy with the fate of the applicants– because they can.  All it takes is slander from one person, and you’re ranked even lower than a first-time applicant.   God help you if you end up with an after-interview glitch with the original automated system, but I digress (or do I?).

Now, let’s just say a hiring manager says that you’ll get a response in 3-4 days time, and you get the customary “sorry, we picked someone else” email from the same unchecked email address about three hours after the interview.  Guess what?  You can do nothing about the blatantly suspicious situation.  You don’t even have the ability to ask why, and if you’re a white male like I am–  you can’t even pull the race card to try and trump their douchebaggery.  Hell, with the way they hide behind mission statements (and other smoke-n-mirrors bullshit)– not even the ultimate field-leveler would matter.  You know what you can do?  Nothing.

That’s right, this guy had the solution….

Then again, welcome to the abomination that has become the American Dream– where it’s an employer’s market, and that means inhuman treatment is an acceptable and condoned business practice to applicants and employees (after all, there’s a 10% unemployment pool from which to snap up your replacement).  Welcome, my son.  Welcome… to the machine.

Unplug.