The Setting Sun (an anniversary of sorts)

It was ten years ago today that i walked through the doors of the Big World Bank Machine and they took my photo and handed me a badge, a badge that believe it or not could get me through police lines and into places most people could never get, of course it wasn't like a real badge just one of those plastic ID badges, so far in my almost 42 years it's the longest gig i've ever had but of course that will come to an end in exactly 2 months and 2 days, when they will take that badge and lead me to the doors, hand me a severance check and some benefits for six months or so and say goodbye and good luck, of course i shouldn't bitch, of the 350 or so people who worked there roughly 18 months ago when the so called "re-structuring" was announced there are a mere handful of us left, most days around 20 or so and on fridays when the special ones have off, they work 4 tens, sometimes there are less than 10...

Oddly enough it's the building guys who are the last ones standing, the guys who change the light bulbs and shovel the snow and set-up the conferences, the guys who make the shit run behind the scenes though there really aren't any scenes any more so fuck it... see when this all came down it was announced that bids would go out for the work we did here at the BWBM, but we in the burgh were a mere lowly branch and some hotshots in the upper midwest were a main office and since we were the only two who bid it came down to us, of course the fine people i worked with ran a good ship, we were cost effective and highly efficient and i knew people who spent months working on our proposal, of course i said early on to the few people i actually talked to that we should get it unless the fix was in and in this place the fix was always in, you didn't need to be the best qualified to score a job or get the promotion what you needed was sweet lips, the ability to kiss ass and a connection or two, of course it didn't help that we had a VP who shot up the ladder all while burning each and every bridge she crossed, a VP who acted as if the place was her own personal playground and ran around treating us commoners like shit and fucking whomever she deemed fit, of course at the announcement when it looked as if someone had pissed in her Cheerios the running joke was that she was fucking the wrong people but hey that's all water under the bridge what i'm here to do is look back at these last ten years... and for the record, she didn't fuck me... and also for the record, that branch in the upper midwest submitted a one page proposal stating what they wanted, and what Minnie wants apparently Minnie gets...

So it was a little over ten years ago that i interviewed at this place for a gig in another dept. and didn't get the job, a desk jockey production job and i can only thank my lucky stars i didn't get it cuz i most likely would've told my supervisors to go fuck themselves inside the first six months but low and behold i was such a memorable interview that they called me back a few months later when they couldn't find anyone else to take my job, the HR guy said it was the strong impression i made, maybe it was just that i was more qualified to unload trucks and change light bulbs and hump furniture than do shit like math, unfortunately i couldn't put my previous job and my resume, you know the one where i ran my own business, did my own books and distro and sales and muscle, but it was a legit job and after i passed a background check and a piss test (he-he-ha-ha) i was off and running on that famous road to nowhere...

Now let it be said that i've always had a strange luck with jobs, it seems that i've lucked into many that have given me that convenience of fucking off, sleeping or reading or wanking or taking walks, really this job was perfect and since it was for a quasi-guvment agency i figured it would be for like life and shit but after just 7 months the place almost shut down but i dodged that bullet and while the place wasn't making me rich it provided some top notch bennies for me and the girl and what would be 2 boyos in the future, i mean someday if i ever made a list of all the shit i've read on my job you'd probably choke on your chewing gum but that's for another time, and since the big layoff it's so dead that i've spent the last 8 months getting in top notch shape using what has damn near become my own personal gym, i mean who wouldn't be bummed that a gig like this was ending but basically as my first supervisor told me, this is a laid back gig, you're basically on call so just answer the radio and smile and get the shit done and no one will fuck with you and that advice has held true for the last ten years, seems i had sterling rep among the admin's as the guy to call to get shit done and done right but it wasn't exactly rocket science now was it?

Now working with a bunch of uptight banker types and production workers makes for some strange co-workers, most didn't know what to make of me, many mentioned that i seemed to be a bit under-employed in my current position and one day at happy hour with the co-workers i had a manager tell me that i scared the shit out of most of the people in his position, his words were "you seem really intelligent but you also don't seem to give a shit... you also tend not to sugar coat things and that scares the shit out of these people..." i just smiled, shrugged, necked my beer and headed to the toilet to do some more key bumps of the Charles, that was years ago though and in an nutshell he was right, i also can claim to be one of the few people who've done rails off his desk in a guvment building but like i said that was years ago in my wild and wasted youth...

Now i'm sure you might be saying, Kono why not try? and the answer is believe it or not i did one time, you see my supervisor got the axe due to catching that VP and her boyfriend on vacation in a bar, now did i mention she was married with 3 kids? of course i'm not judging, to each his or her own but needless to say she suddenly developed a dislike for my supe who happened to be a good guy, a bit un-hinged when off his meds but as bosses go he was easily one of the best i've ever had and when the shit came down on him i told him he had a lawsuit and since this place hates the L-word he should have mentioned it to HR and walked with a nice fat check or become one of the Unfireables as they were called, (there were a few of them around who had taken advantage of the culture) but alas he did not and was soon shown the door...

and so opportunity knocks and since the job called for a college degree, check... knowledge of the job, check... and one or two things i couldn't admit i had experience in (negotiating contracts) i applied and made the final round of interviews, an interview with my big boss and her underling, and so it came to pass that i went into my interview with high hopes only to be treated like a piece of shit, watched as both boss and underling got on their phone 3 times apiece because of some dire emergency, of course i was an inside interview and could have come in at any time but as they stated they just wanted to get it done and so i watched and waited as they played phone tag and then when my big boss asked some inane corporate question about how to get people to work as a team i answered, "well first i'd get us all together and have a group hug", she meanwhile wrote it down on her little notepad, paused for 20 seconds and then looked sheepishly at me and said "are you joking?" but having already blown her cover as this being nothing more than a courtesy interview to the weird guy i smiled and said, "Yep, just wanted to see if you were paying attention."  And hence if i had been an outside interview i would have stood up and walked out but since i wanted to keep my current job i finished out the charade and bounced... a few weeks later the I-mac would be born and in a way i was glad i wasn't learning anything new due to lack of sleep but when the one HR guy spoke to me about it later on i told him what happened and he looked appalled, he then stated that i got hosed, that i had the highest score on the test and was more than qualified but apparently probably scared the shit out of them...

But hell it's been a good run no need to ramble on, i've sat at my desk and handicapped horses, sat at my desk and placed bets on said horses, drank milkshakes in the park and watched the ladies stroll buy, drank my lunch on a few occasions, did the annual Chrimbo pints where each year at X-mas i'd go to a little Irish pub and drink Guinness and take 2 hour lunches and go back and read the paper, in all it wasn't a bad gig, in fact it was damn near great but as they say all good things must come to an end, the bad ones just go on forever, so happy anniversary to me, i got a tool set and a pin that i promptly threw out (the pin that is) and a framed certificate thanking me for my ten years, hell i should have thanked them, it's barely been like work at all...

(this record came out ten years ago while i was floundering my was into legitimacy, hence it's inclusion)