NARCOPETROL $$$ / HOUR - Soreness of the lower back as a factor of overtime calculations.

Sitting at the kitchen table with the folks this morning, I was touching on the subject of marketing - namely men's razors - i.e. the redundancy of multiple blades being contained in one safety razor. Mom brought-up the bagel slicer. If you haven't seen one, it's simply a wooden chock with a bagel-sized cavity and lateral slots to keep the cut of a bread knife more or less evenly and centered in relation to the bagel as you saw it into lobes. I think it might qualify to classify as a chuck or a chock or a jig or something in mill work woodworking terms.

"Who would ever need something like that?"

"Someone suffering from Parkinson's disease," I quickly replied. 

And I could have gone-on with a baker's dozen of other reasons someone might greatly benefit from such a potential breakfast changing culinary contrivance, but alas, it has become painfully obvious to me that some people aren't interested in having their shortsightedness exposed as I am. Not everyone is like me. 

Experience has taught me that it often proves so much easier to just bite my tongue and nod in agreement with unimportant, narrow-minded judgments than risk pointless headache inducing arguments by challenging someone who might just anxiously be awaiting any excuse to blow-up. Go ahead, shoot the messenger for pointing-out a few irrefutably practical alternatives to a weak proposal. Going along to get along... that's me!

I live in my own wee world of abstractions and wherewithal. I can rhetorically convince myself of the validity behind untruths as easily as I can reduce a perfectly sound empirical assertion into a set of unlikely and absurd components.

I don't know if that makes sense... it's like a way of decontextualizing widely held, common, yet unproven belief structures.  

The other day, a family friend was over having a beer. Although they didn't refrain from sharing their disapproval about my lengthy reprieve from the world of everyday wage work, I decided to keep silent in regard to my distaste for nearly half of the selections in their otherwise agreeable cross-section of their iTunes library. I usually make an effort to be sociable and entertaining, but I really had no advance notice they'd be there upon my return from a friend's place, and I was already intent on finishing-up a couple of media projects. The sort of pursuits that cause people to wonder where you find the time after they ask you to free-up your schedule for the next week. I'm sure the guest didn't feel shirked in the least... it's just rare that I'm not busy doing something or feeling a tad anti-social. 

Call it selfish, but my own determination to engage in artistic pursuits often wins out when I'm presented with a choice between free time or money. If I had a nickle for every perplexed look I've gotten over the years in response to an employer asking if I wouldn't mind staying late, I'd be out the door and on my way to find the nearest friendly neighbourhood booze-istan for a nine-shy-a-flat of discount peasant swill and a free t-shirt. 

Don't you want the overtime? What's a few more hours behind the wheel of a big noisy diesel truck anyway? Got plans or something?

There was a time in my life where I thought it was the coolest thing to get a slightly better than average wage for doing very little. These days, it's as if the very opposite is true. I would rather be paid nothing to demonstrate to myself I can achieve something meaningful, novel, or interesting, than act in capacity of a company rascal who is paid 'X' dollars and a half a point per hour, to achieve nothing more than what ultimately amounts to demonstrating your subservience to the dollar in exchange for a sore back if you're a simple unskilled labourer like myself. 

It really depends on the nature of the work and whether or not you enjoy being there enough. Some people are willing enough to endure a little extra tedium in their lives just to make the utility payment early or go on a vacation. I understand. Or hey, if you have a nice easy job and the good boss uncharacteristically finds themselves in a bind one day, what sort of jerky employee wouldn't make that occasional sacrifice for the benefit of the very person who not only throws you a party once a year, but makes your very job possible in the first place? Consider your wage as more of a salary if you like. Heck, I might even make that sacrifice for regular time if I happen to need a solid excuse to weasel out of a bad date! 

Anyway, my point is, is that if you're already a good employee, you shouldn't be afraid to tell your direct supervisor to go ahead and shove their whole guilt-tripping propositional dilemma as you pack-up your briefcase and hit the remote start button on your car's key chain.    

It's not that I don't appreciate the incredible value of the narcopetro buck, or understand that not everyone has it anywhere near as easy as I have; just because my long list of media projects might not have generated any profits insofar, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of a future hit. You'd almost have to drag me kicking and screaming into yet another full-time nightmare of a work-job. 

You can lead this Manchild to the nearest HR intake stream, but you cannot make him drink the Kool-Aid. As weak as this might sound, it's doubtful my patience is enough for too many eight-hour-days in a row. I can't suffer managerial incompetence, and I'm bothered by  murky expectations in which my time begins to feel like more of a liability than an asset when it's simply due to bad planning... I seem to have a keen sense of when a dollar isn't being optimized, and I don't feel the need to waste my time at the beck-and-call of some overlooked overseer who thinks it's funny to waste capital because they can. I won't be a party to someone else's wastefulness, and it's also why I prefer part-time commission or contract jobs where my expectations are clear, my time is valued, and I feel accomplished and fairly compensated at the end of the shift.    

I've witnessed enough clearly preventable madness in the warehouses, kitchens, and big-rig cabs to begin to suspect that some people might even thrive on it. Not me. I'm also not big on allowing myself to be swept-up into a mass hysteria movement. Big crowds are always a potential powder keg of chaos primer. I'd just rather stay home and write about my boring old life! LOL!

cHEErs