Tag: job

The homeless co-worker

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure that he’s not actually homeless, but honestly there is reason for me to joke about making this claim.  But I work with a guy that if he weren’t such a blabbermouth at times talking about his living situation, there would likely be legitimate reason to believe that he might actually be homeless.

It’s not uncommon for people who work in offices to bring a sweatshirt, a hoodie, or some sort of house coat to wear while in an office environment, because everyone’s temperature gauge is different, but there can typically only be one temperature for an office.  That being said, Mr. Homeless in my office has this sweatshirt that he hasn’t taken off since his second day of starting here.  I wish I were kidding too; the day he was introduced into the office, he was wearing a typically office-complaint dress shirt, but I guess it was decided that the office was far too cold for his internal thermometer, and the sweatshirt was brought in and there hasn’t been a single minute since that I had no seen him in it since.

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The most obvious of “I give up on life” cars

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny whenever I think about cars that belong in the I give up on life category, Saturns never really crossed my mind.  But in a way, it’s fittingly appropriate in several ways; one, because Saturns are the most forgettable car manufacturer in history, and two, Saturn as a car company is dead, and has been dead for going on three years now.  Unfortunately, three years isn’t enough time to wipe them from existence as their turds on wheels are still being capably driven on roads across America as we speak.

Saturn was essentially a joint venture between General Motors and Rubbermaid (not actually true) that put out mediocre plastic (mostly) cars that were cheap to buy, cheaper to maintain, and supposedly cheap to repair when necessary (often, being a GM), in exchange for your dignity (factually accurate).  But after twenty years of sucking souls, Liu Kang and the automotive industry had enough of Saturn Tsung’s soul-sucking tendencies and putting an end to the Saturn brand, hopefully for good.

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One of those weighing-the-options moments

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So I was sitting on a rocking horsey at a party recently, sipping on a Miller High Life.  I can’t say this line of thinking was a result of the aforementioned scenario, because I do know it’s been on my mind for a little while now.  I was people watching, and thinking about just how fascinating some people really can be, but also thinking that I don’t know any of these people.  How would I get to know these people?

Obviously, I’m not exactly the most socially graceful person on the planet, and I lack the charisma to be able to inject myself into others’ conversations and interactions without being completely paranoid that I’m coming off as a creep-o or feeling unwelcome.  So most of the times, I don’t make an effort at all, and probably give off the impression that I’m anti-social or ambivalent to others.

To get to the point, lately I’m feeling like my line of work is kind of socially inhibiting.  I look around at the people I know, and so many of them work for cool places, or at least, places where they can potentially meet like-minded people, relatable people, and people who might have even the potential to be cool and worth knowing aside from an at-work relationship.

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This is not how business is conducted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There is this guy at my office that doesn’t like me.  Now I’m not saying that in that teenage kind of way in which I’m just speculating, because I have every reason to believe that this guy just does not like me.  He’s significantly older than I am, and kind of symbolizes the old world.  He was once in a position of managerial power, but was demoted at some point.  My peers here who remember his regime of management cite that he was the utmost of micro-managers, and describe the kind of authority that would have made me quit, had I been present during that time.

But anyway, it’s very obvious he doesn’t care much for me.  On the hierarchy of the office, he and I are essentially on the same plateau, and that has to bother him a great deal.  He has his own office solely based on tenure, but the truth of the matter is that doesn’t really do much different work than I do; if anything at all, he gets more shit work than I do.  But if that’s not enough justification, the fact that he won’t ever look me in the eye, and on several instances, in the office and at the one out-of-town work conference I attended, he flat out refused to get on the same elevator as I was on.  As in, he is waiting for an elevator, but when he sees me show up, he will not board the elevator if it means having to share it with me alone, and will blatantly stand put and wait for the next one.

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How do people get employment?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not like I try to go around my life thinking I’m smarter than everyone else, but when you work with people like this, who can’t get the grasp of correct spelling for pluralizing words, something taught in the second grade, it’s not really trying.

What really gets me is that the instruction is to take the correct spelling of “responsibilities,” and re-spelling it, replacing I-E-S with Y-S.  It’s like, there are occasionally words that I see that I’m not 100% sure on how it’s spelled; typically I’ll use the billion dollar spell-checker, Google, and nail it down.  But even if I didn’t have internet access, I would at least be able to understand the rules of I-E-S versus Y-S.

This is really kind of incredible, but at the same time, I’m not entirely shocked by it, when I think about just how many unqualified, borderline-illiterate people there are that have jobs due to shit like affirmative action, or some other screwy loophole in the system.

NEVER FORGET

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Except that it’s okay to forget.  Unless you believe that adage of those who forget are condemned to repeat.

Ain’t nothing like extending a birthday weekend than getting a day off due to Confederate Memorial Day. It’s funny, because it’s such an acknowledgment of once such racist beliefs.  Everyone at the office talks about how embarrassing it is that the state still acknowledges it, but I don’t hear anyone complaining about a day off in that dearth period between Moloch Day and Memorial Day that all the other pleebs in the state, and other liberal-minded states don’t get off.

But whatever.  I have today off, and you probably don’t.  Ironically, I’ll still find myself sitting at a computer for a lot of today, before I force myself to get out of the house and go to the store or something, before settling into ME3 time.

Initially amused, wondering if I should be offended

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not exactly sure to what this is, but it was sitting on the black and white printer at my work.  At first, I lol’d because being an equal opportunist when it comes to finding amusement in racial stereotypes, I found amusement in this crude adaptation of a chink.

But then it dawned on me that this was sitting on the printer, and that a user in the office had sent it to the printer, meaning someone in the office found some humor in this kind of tasteless art.  The thing is that there aren’t a whole lot of people in my office, and only one other actual Asian person, whom I’m pretty certain they don’t have access to this printer, since they’re on the other side of the office.  But the thing is, although I find it amusing, I realize that the wrong person at the wrong time seeing this would trigger all sorts of shitstorm involving racism and other negative connotations.

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