Why I Hate People: Coworkers

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Next in my series concerning people that I hate, I decided it would be good to blog about the idiots with whom I work. I noticed on the forums someone bellyaching about the office in which they work so I decided it was time to share my experiences in the matter.

As previously mentioned, I work in a factory and I manage people. Working in a factory puts me in a position to manage the best and brightest souls that our local slums and trailer parks can muster. If they've been to jail or are prone to eventually go there, they usually work in my factory. Those are my employees. Sure, I have the occassional goon that is clean but just dumb through heredity but for the most part I get to enjoy the company of crackheads, dopefiends, rednecks and the product of our great Alabama judicial and correctional system.

As much comedic material that the dopefiends and other trailer dwellers provide me through the day, the real winners are the mental heavyweights that make up our office staff. I'll never understand how 4 years of beer-bongs and panty-chasing on a college campus make these silver spoon-fed, pimple-faced brats qualified to run a company but nevertheless, there they sit - in the Air Conditioning - making decisions that affect the lives of tens of thousands of people and related to a product they have never laid eyes on much less understand. Most are children and benefactors of genepool-lottery winning parents who themselves inherited similar upbringings in suburbian aristocracy. The men are usually overly-ambitious future workaholics that struggle to prove themselves through their careers, are beginning to bald and one day will divorce over a secretarial love interest or have a premature heart attack from obesity, beer and self-induced stress.

The office women ususally come in different flavors. Some are home-wrecker ex-cheerleader trophy-wife secretaries that land positions through their abilities under the desk, against the copier or bent over the board-table rather than their skills at the desk, with a copier or sitting at the board-table. Others are frigid, bra-burning overzealous icequeen femonists constantly proving they can compete with the men in everything from intellectual prowess to leg hair. Both are the type of women who apply makeup while driving carelessly to work, threatening the lives of schoolbuses full of retarded children, church choirs and kids on fieldtrips; with any justice the gates of hell would open to consume them on the way to nail appointments but instead they too have a say in the futures of tens of thousands of laborers. Still others are bible-thumping recent grandmothers who are regretting their time spent in youth as home-wrecking secretaries and wishing they had thought sooner about retirement -- the kind of gullable people who forward emails containing every possible joke, chain letter, african bank scam or cheesy spiritual motivation that has been watered down for the simpler understanding of all of the above.

Sure, I know - it sounds cynical but I can't always help it. Being a manager I spend just as much time with these people as I do with the workers in the plant that they exploit and often it's my job to tell someone in the plant, already holding down two jobs to make ends meet, that their overtime is restricted or healthcare costs are going up because someone in the office gets a bonus for cutting operational costs or doesn't feel like waiting 6 mos on their new beach home in order to absorb such rising costs.

It amazes me that companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put measures into place that save tens of thousands or less. When the office braniacs decided that providing coffee was too great a burden, I noticed the spoiled office staff wasted even more time gossiping amongst themselves about the tyranny of the matter. How much did the company loose in produtivity of high-paying jobs slacking off because of the decision or spend in man-hours to make the policy known? Meanwhile a father of 3 in my crew, clean for 8 mos and counting on a little overtime to help offset the cost of gas and summer cooling bills has to find another way to make ends meet. Does he spend that time harping about it at the watercooler? Hell no.

So, this blog posting I send out to the millionaire geniuses that run the plant -- glad to see that your high dollar college education killed any remaining common sense. Enjoy your sports car, vacation home and boat while the dumping on the little guy and leaving me to try to be a company man and put a positive spin on it.

John

Why I Hate People: Family

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 05:00:00 GMT

I thought to myself, "Self," (that's what I call myself) - "what better way to start off my debut in blogging than to talk about how much I hate people."
It all started when I was born. Here I was, completely happy - hanging out in the womb and next thing you know - some asshole is cutting on me, putting me on a cold metal table and eventually into the arms of some schmuck that later came to be known as "mom".

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure she was a good mom sometime between hits on the crackpipe and trips to the liquor store when she was forced to sober up because she used up my college savings to fund her chemical endeavors. I did learn alot from dad. Hey, I turned out okay. Except for a small chip on my shoulders and an appreciation for stupidity - I'm a pretty normal guy.

I work in a factory. I work on cars and I manage people. If God ever decided to kill off the least educated rednecks in the world - he wouldn't flood the earth. He would flood factories and hunting stores in Southern Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. No need to use more water than necessary, ya know.

I have a family, a great (and hot) wife with a family almost as dysfunctional as mine and two awesome kids that despite their heritage, amazingly enough seem to be normal thus far. (well, as normal as any awkward-feeling teenager can be)

Speaking of family, what better group to alienate on my first blog entry than my family. Memorial Day weekend, I have my family and my wife's family over for a cookout on our new deck (mistake no 1). Aside from the typical, superficial border-line catty banter between her mom and mine, I find myself as with most holidays - talking about nonother than work.

I know what you're thinking-- yep, another suburbian workaholic dad. I assure you, there is nothing in the world I would rather NOT being doing on the rare occasion of a day off than be stuck by my grill with an empty beer in my hand with an obscure relative asking me trivial questions about the transmission in their 1980's model riceburner.

I sat there, listening to my cousin (is a cousin really a relateive ANYWAY?) pondering the thought of pressing my forehead to the hot coals on the grill to end the madness. Then, out of nowhere - it happened. I snapped. I believe the words spoken (or.. slurred...) were something to the affect of "Look, Chuck - I don't give a damn about your civic and I'm tired of working on it for free - especially on what seems to be every holiday weekend - now you or your trailer-trash wife need to hand me another beer or I'll burn the hamburgers and really be pissed"

So, looking back, maybe it wasn't such a good thing to say. People are way too damned sensitive.

A small fistfight, a call to the cops in what seemed to remind me of a Springer episode and I'm sure after the ego wounds heal, all will return to normal. The summary of this blog posting -- people I hate #1 - pushy, drunk, redneck, illiterate half-relatives with crappy cars and a shoddy left-hand jab.

This ones' for you, Chuck.

John

The Mad World Blog

Why I Hate People: Coworkers

Why I Hate People: Family