Now, this is something I had not expected.
On September 21, 2011 I was terminated from employment at a company that I will not name. My reasons for allowing the company that terminated me their anonymity is so that I can speak freely and without possibility of reprisal or any nastiness that would befall. Now being among the millions of unemployed Americans in the United States, and not being fully able to avail myself of top legal counsel, I don't want to find myself standing in front of a judge pleading ignorance of libel statutes in the state of New York. What I will say is, and I'm sure most who are unemployed right now will agree, being unemployed sucks.
It is on one hand a bit liberating, and of the other fantastically sobering. It cuts into very harsh relief that your ability to sustain yourself, and those that you are responsible for, has been curtailed drastically.
I've lived and worked in this city for a number of years, more than I can count. Actually, not more than I can count, but more that I am willing to count. And I have never regretted one moment of one year that I have lived in the city. I love New York. And will love it every moment that I'm here for however long that will be, because this is the city that both I adopted and adopted me. However living in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world, it is without meaning to gild the lily at all, it's hard. Harder still when you're unemployed, harder still in an economy that heaves and wheezes with every passing day, and every significant world issue that crops up.
New York is very much like the country we live in, on a form of life support with an extraordinarily capable physician, overworked and underpaid nurses, yet with the administration (House and Senate), whose ineptness borders on making the Keystone cops look like a seal team that finally caught Osama bin Laden.
But I digress. The company I work for, foreign-owned run by Americans was a 10 year exercise and education in both personal responsibility, maintaining one's cool under pressure, working with the handicapped, anger management, grace under fire, and most importantly how will avoid throttling grown adults until they soiled themselves. So with those lessons learned I would say that I came away with the better of the bargain. I did not throttle someone until they soiled themselves, although there were many times where an odd smile would appear on my face as I sat in my cubicle, a smile and sure most found unsettling. But it's better that than having the hands of a large black man laced around your throat while he gleefully laughs as your face turns purple.
I have to say, I'm not a violent person, I am infinitely patient but not overly tolerant. I have my moods once in a while, as everyone else. I wake up in a funk and salvage my day as best I can and do something that is positive and upbeat. I am exceptionally goofy at times, I find humor in just about everything, I have been known to be both sarcastic and satirical in the same sentence, and I am a man of infinite with and jest. But there are times where the lack of regard, and mutual respect attacks my tolerance and leaves me fuming. As I write this blog the words of Harlan Ellison are ringing in my head.
If you don't know, and you really should, Harlan Ellison is one of America's greatest fiction writers. The man is responsible for some of the most powerful imagery that I've ever read, he and his work bear the integrity of being the last sane man on the planet, and his integrity speaks in both his writing, and his lectures, and in every quote he has ever made that has ever been televised or recorded. And he has remained a devout man of integrity from the very beginning. I love his work, I love his beliefs, I think he's brilliant, and he can be the most eviscerating commentator on both society bad writers, and the inability to tolerate hypocrisy in any form.
Now having said that, I'm thinking of any number of rant he may have gone on, on any subject that was brought to him and the level of anger and honesty in his voice is astounding. But it's the most pure thing I’ve ever heard, it's like a punch in the face. No holds barred knuckles to flesh to bone, hits you instantly and you get it. And if you don't get it that you're not the type of person that should ever listen or read Harlan Ellison.
So as I'm thinking about my job, as I'm thinking of the things that I would do on a daily basis, and on the methods that I would use to ease my temper on a daily basis, I think back to the times where I wasn't so successful. My fist would beat the Formica of my desk and rattled both the computer and my cube mate, and I would get up from my desk search for a hot cup of coffee, or some form of sweet pastry, and try to calm myself. And those instances would happen more frequently, especially when those who supervised me would lose what little fortitude they had, and effectively soiled their panties and we have the Smalltalk in the office.
A singularly one-sided conversation pointless on nearly every level yet it gave you a chance to stretch my legs, so there was some benefit to it.
But I'm digressing again.
That being unemployed sucks it is not something that I would recommend to anyone if they can avoid it, it is a vacation that you really would love to end, and there are no boat drinks, there are no shapely stewardesses, waitresses, or native girls wearing biodegradable yet tastefully made costumes.
There are no endless stack of multicolored chips and the din of several thousand electronic beeps bops and whistles in the background. It's not the kind of vacation I think most people know that.
The search for work continues daily unabated, and stark contrast the numbers of telephone calls returning with optimistic news continue abated but not with optimistic news. And you fight to hold back the worry and the concern, and you watch far too much CNN and CNBC and other news shows to scrabble through the messages to find some nugget of hope that the economy is going to rapidly turn around.
And the country will not be run by Republican nimrods, and that those same Republican nimrods that are currently in office will do something to aid the people who put them into office in the first place. And that the wanton posturing of seemingly perplexed GOP's, will cease being a fashionable and they will actually do the work that they are being paid for.
Again I digress.
The point being I am currently unemployed, tirelessly looking for another position that will at the very least afford healthcare, and allow me to remove one thumb from the dam, and take one worry biscuit off my plate, and relax a bit. But for now I will write, I'll resume my attempts at the various projects that I tried while I was employed, I will pursue the small businesses that I initially started, for it is almost easier to start your own business then to find a job in this economy.
So that's it for now, no more digression, no more aggression, just bright hopes for a new year to those I love and the world.
