Doubt

Doubt is a powerful thing. I doubt myself all the time, usually in matters that aren't important, but they still take up a lot of my time. For instance, when I'm in a meeting, I quite often start to daydream. My mind drifts and I think of everything except the reason we've been assembled. When I'm shaken from my daze, usually by someone asking what I think about the subject matter, I give some vague answer. The thing is, because I'm disengaged I think that I'll have a wrong or misinformed answer. I doubt myself, but most of the time I enter the meeting with a pre-determined set of actions and alternatives because the meeting is not necessary. Rarely do I respond with the pre-determined actions, I always give the vague, bullshit answer. Why? Because I think that the people who have spent a lot of time discussing and hashing out things have a better handle on them than I do. 99.9% of the time, I'm wrong about that. I could have come into the meeting with the solution. I let doubt take over because really that's my comfort zone.

I'm asked to speak at a dizzying number of places in Satan's Anus and I reluctantly accept. I used to hem and haw my way through the speech, hoping to reach the end and mercifully sit down or leave. The one thing I never counted on until recently is the doubt in the majority of the audience. Give me a mike and some notes, and all of a sudden I become the expert. You might have a different opinion or a different set of facts, but I got the mike bitch! Subverting my self-doubt and replacing it with arrogance and an embrace of the inherent power of standing before a crowd and imposing your own knowledge has been a revelation.

I leave my doubt for my personal life. I've abandoned it as a profession. It took me long enough, but I'm there.

Peace,
KZ

Itchy Finger

OK, we get notification from the internet gods that Facebook is basically off limits. It is the second most accessed website on our workplace servers, only behind gotdamn Google. Man, fuck this place. It's not cool to work here. I hope the next most accessed site is the gotdamn want ads.

I had to have a really serious conversation with one of my staff today. I think he's got a problem, substance related. I've been a supervisor or a manager for 14 years of my 15 year professional life. I thought been through it all. But telling somebody their job is on the line because they're coming to work high is the nadir. I don't ever wanna have to do that shit again.

I had two gigs that I'd been waiting to hear back from for months. I had second interviews with both of them and was hoping to hear something one way or another. I heard back one way, from both of them. That way was me calling them multiple times and leaving messages asking about my status until finally, sick of my messages, both of them told me they'd hired other people. I figured that, but when the fuck were you gonna send out a letter telling me that? Or returning my fucking call?

I had the worst interview of my life on Friday. It was not cool at all. I didn't prepare and I was morose and lackluster. I told them I didn't know shit about their city at all. I told them I was interested in the job because I just wanted to leave Michigan. When the interview was done, I asked them when they'd do me the courtesy of sending me a rejection letter. I gotta get a better attitude, I'm working in a completely defeatist mindset right now.

Be Cool,
KZ

Liquor and Cookies

Muthafuckas don't know that they're insane. You know they're insane, but them themselves? Not so much. I try to remember that when I'm at work, because it makes my interaction with insane people go a lot smoother. I mean, how can you get mad at someone who doesn't know better?

So, when I'm sitting at my desk trying to make sure people get their homes assessed for flood damage so that they can potentially qualify for FEMA (ha!) aid, I can ignore my secretary busting in the door like the building is on fire to ask me if I want some doughnuts somebody brought. Hell, I can even ignore the loud black receptionist who's obviously on a personal call during this mini-emergency. Well, either she's on a personal call or she's telling a resident about what the doctor found whilst fiddling around her vajayjay. It could be either one of those, right? It's not like we don't have a multi-million dollar budget and we're called to recoup half that operating budget through fees, permits, inspections and citations all of which must be handled by the receptionists. Oh, wait a minute, it IS like that!

I'm able to forgive bouts of insanity by all my staff, like my staff person who thinks it's OK for her husband to come visit her EVERY MORNING with their two small kids. Yeah, I get that you miss that smelly bitch, but EVERY MORNING? She just left home, dude!

What I'm not able to ignore is Wispy. Wispy is like the office "Glenn Close". She will not be ignored. She comes in my office squealing on everybody. She's got on a "No Snitching" t-shirt with a Ghostbusters line drawn through it. Not literally, but damn, she was tellin' on everybody. She ended her tirade by crying REAL TEARS because the other receptionists hate her. They hate her because she's better at her job than they are. I foolishly ask "It's not because they know you tell on them?" Heaven's to Betsy! No! That's not it! It's jealousy, according to the wispy one. "I was talking to them about Cloris Leachman on Dancing with The Stars and they just ignored me!" Big, huge, super teardrops started poring out then. It was amazing.

"Wispy, I can't make them like you, but anything that affects the function of this office, I'll address."

She walked out of the office crying. And I couldn't think of what I wanted more at that point to comfort me. Either (or both) would do me a world of good.

Peace,
KZ

Help Me

What the fuck do you do when your job is dragging you down? Do you quit, change jobs and start over from scratch in the same TYPE of job? Do you change careers totally and start at the bottom of a new career path? Do you shrivel up like a raisin in the sun?

I'm looking forward to finding a new job, with more juice and more money, but fuck, it'll still be the same type of job with the same type of problems and less familiarity. The truth is I don't want another job, ever. I don't want to have to work for somebody. I don't want to have to work for myself. I'd like work to be for me like leisure is for me currently, hard to fucking come by.

I've come to the conclusion that If I were to make a Venn diagram of my life, happiness and work would never overlap, though happiness and pussy overlap and in the past work and pussy have overlapped. But happiness and work? Not even close.

I'd look into vagrancy if you didn't have to go without bathing and you didn't actually talk to people, asking them for money and whatnot. I gives a fuck about this place or the next place I work.

I need loot, free and independent of effort.

Peace,
KZ

Devil In A Floral Dress

Hey kids! How's it (or they) hangin'? I hope alls well in Bloggerville Heights. Me? I'm in Satan's Anus, feeling the full wrath of workplace angst.

I was driving into work today and my cell phone rang. It was my secretary. Someone was looking for the cord that hooks the projector to the laptop. It was on my file cabinet. Easy enough to solve.

When I finally got into the office, I had literally 5 people waiting to talk to me about one issue or another. Don't fucking talk to me before my coat is off and coffee in my hand! I'm telling them to wait, hold on, I'm not ready yet. OK, let the onslaught begin.

Five people, five relatively easy answers. Go sit the fuck down!

The phone rings. And rings. And rings. Three phone calls, three questions answered.

The phone rings again. It's Wispy. I haven't have to talk to this fat bitch in a good six months. Now I'm on the phone with this land manatee, and I know it won't end well. "I need to talk you about something very important." It's never important. Not ever. "Go talk to your supervisor." "He'll just blow me off." Bitch, because it's not important!!! "Well, let me talk to him and see if it should come to my level." "Fine, I'll just go over to city hall then and talk to HR."

This is the part that makes me wish I was the director and not just deputy. I would have told that cave whore to go and tell whomever the fuck would listen to her, as long as it wasn't me. But my boss has spent his entire career here making sure shit stays "in-house", even little petty shit. So I had to respond a different way.

"OK, I have a minute right now." It was 8:40. I got in at 8:30.

So she ambles her ass past the twin obstacles of load bearing walls and donuts to make it to my office.

Artist's rendering

She starts into the diatribe about how the other managers ignore her pleas for more technical training, how she's asked for it for years and been rebuked one way or another. Then she talks about how valuable she is the the city, how she's been doing so much work above and beyond what the other "girls" do. Then Wispy begins tearing up and asking why she wasn't allowed to go to today's technical training session. It's unfair that LaVeronica gets to go, but she can't. Now I see. That African bitch gets a few hours off the phones to go learn something, I deserve AT LEAST that. I tell her "Well LaVeronica has long expressed interest in that technical training. This is the very first I've heard of you interest in any training. In fact, when I sent you to Excel training last year, you complained that I sent you to a training that you wouldn't use in your daily work. This training that LaVeronica is in would be more of the same."

She denied she said that about the Excel training and reasserted that the managers are conspiring to keep good training opportunities away from her. I told her I would see what I could do. And asked her to return to the reception desk.

There were 3 more people waiting outside in the halll to see me when she left.

Be Easy,
KZ

Why Shouldn't You Be Shot In The Head And Left In A Ditch?

So, last night I was at a city commission meeting. Representatives from various neighborhood groups came before the commission and spoke about their concerns.

The first representatives came up and talked about the trash trucks. They come really early in the morning. Then they talked about the construction of the upscale condos in their neighborhood. The noise of economic development makes them get up too early.

The next neighborhood rep came up and talked about an intersection near her home. When she's returning home from work, the sun is in her eyes when she tries to make a left turn there.

The last rep wanted to know how the city would help those people who bought too much house for their income bail out of a bad foreclosure situation. The city's obligated to help muthafuckas with poor decision making skills.

A young dude stepped up and told them that he had done some research and found out that the city's zoning decisions downtown were poorly thought out. This same dude interviewed with me 6 months ago and I told him he was unqualified. He stood up and took a shot at me in this meeting and said his research proved I sucked.

The commission decided to allow only one period of public comment instead of two at subsequent commission meetings. This caused an uproar. One lady came up to the podium to say the single comment period was an attempt to silence the homeless population, who currently dominate the meetings. If the only period to comment is at the end of the meeting, most of the homeless have to leave by then. The shelter won't keep their beds if they are late checking in.

After a day filled with meetings, I get to look forward to a night full of meetings. I know I don't like Satan's Anus, but it's not just Satan's Anus. I want no parts of this municipal bullshit anymore. I'm tired. Sick and tired. No politician can solve all your stupid assed problems. Everything you spew out of your empty assed head ain't manna from above. Sometimes you ARE too stupid to live. You just are.

KZ

Irreplaceable You?

Once upon a time I had a job. It was a fulfilling gig, even though it didn't pay much. I loved the work. I loved being a part of something bigger than myself. I was responsible for how the city I worked in looked prior to the Super Bowl, responsible for riverfront development on an international border, responsible for neighborhood growth and aesthetics.

My co-workers became my good friends. I was active most of the time. And when I wasn't active, I at least thought about what I could be doing better. I had 2 people who directly reported to me and 18 indirect reports. As much as I did or thought I did, when I left they replaced me within the month and moved on.

Why does my assistant, who does one-eighth of the shit I did at that gig, making $10,000 more than I did, with one-twentieth of the responsibility in a city one-tenth the size of the one I worked in believe so adamantly he deserves a raise?

Every time I tell him "no", he comes at me from another angle. I hope at some point he says "fuck it" and quits. When he does, he'll be smug about it. He'll laugh to himself at what a barrel he has us over, how we'll never be able to find someone as good as he is at his job. He'll speculate that we wish we'd done him right, that we'd paid him what he was worth. He'll be pretty confident that he "got us".

And then we'll replace him and keep going.

I hope one day everybody gets that thunderbolt from the blue, that "moment of clarity", that lets them realize it's REALLY not personal. You're not as important as you think you are. It's the way business and government is set up.

So the next time you're in the office sulking about some slight or some time you were passed over and how much you contribute to your department's success, think about the entire picture. Then go sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

Peace,
KZ

Gossipy Whores

Speculative queries, abject conjecture, and outright dissembling all play a major part in my daily life. In my job, either you know something or you make up some shit that's an approximation of the truth as you might see it just to appease muthafuckas at large, i.e. the public.

But there is a private face to this whole venture. One which makes people here spend too much time guessing what makes people click. I'm not so conceited that I think it's just me they do this with, but I'm the one they know the least about. It's by design. They tell each other all of their business and I decline to share. Then they outright ask me a question and depending on my mood, I give 'em whatever answer I want to. It doesn't have to be true.

The reason, which is not just because I hate them all, which I do, is that once you tell one of 'em anything you've told all of 'em. In a 47 person operation, every single one of 'em will know whatever scrap of information that you've let slip out. It's amazing in it's efficiency. I wonder why it doesn't translate into shit I need communicated on a professional level.

Him: So, what did you do this weekend?
KZ: Went to Detroit.
Him: Visit family?
KZ: Nope. My girlfriend.

Three minutes later in another part of the office:

Her: Did you and your girlfriend do anything special?
KZ: Hunh?
Her: You went to see your girlfriend in Detroit this weekend, right? Did you do anything special?

It's like the time when I mentioned doing Sudoku one day in passing to one person with no one else around and I literally got stuck in no less than 6 conversations about the types of puzzles they like to do. I guess if you're desperate for small talk material, any port in a storm will do.

Cheers,
KZ

Engaged

I wrote this memo to my boss assailing his weak-kneed stance on policy issues. I asked that he establish a policy that we can use every time in this very specific circumstance. I'm sure he won't use it or even acknowledge. But it makes me not feel like a complete house African by not sitting by and letting him fuck up.

I had this meeting today with my boss and other staff to discuss another very specific circumstance. I spent a lot of time shooting down his arguments and supplying plenty of my own shit. I'm generally pretty quiet in these meetings. I try to stay under the radar as much as my big ass can. Because I spend a lot of time dodging shit, today felt much different.

I think it's because I had a good assed weekend. It's always good to come back after a suitable break. I can finally focus. It's a different workplace when you pay attention.

Peace,
KZ

It Just Gets Better

Snow again this morning. What they call a "light dusting". I call it "fucking hell".

It was Election night in the ol' town last night and boy was it a doozy. To make a long story as short as feasibly possible, the dick-touching hugging Vice-Mayor is now the dick-touching hugging Mayor. Joy. Give more juice to this dude so he can wield it from the dais and make me do more hoop-jumping. That's just the thing I need as I become more demoralized by this gig and this town.

To top it off, you know the loud mouth chick in your office that you hate to see coming? The one who makes every molehill into a mountain? The drama queen? If you don't know her, it's probably you. Anyway, these savants just elected THAT chick to the city commission. That'll lengthen my meeting times by about 2 hours.

I got resumes everywhere. I know the process will slow down as the holidays approach. Most cities work slowly anyway, but during the holidays, that shit pretty much stops. People are like "Fuck this, we can't get him hired before January anyway, let's not interview until then". And there lies my fate.

In the meantime I have two positions I have to fill BEFORE January and it doesn't look good. HR is running on autopilot right now and I'm not motivated.

Two days until the weekend.

Stay Focused,
KZ

Bitch Go Away!!!

I walked outside this morning and was greeted with snow. Hello West Mi.chigan. Another beautiful day in paradise.

It's gloomy as shit. Miserable outside. I think I gotta fire my dry cleaner. And I have yet another "reporting out" meeting this morning.

My boss loves meetings where we give verbal status reports. This will be my 3rd one this week. Yes, it is only Tuesday.

Staff keeps coming in, my boss keeps coming in. And all I can think is "Bitch, go away". To everybody. To everything.

The snow, the work, the work week, the blueprints, the proposals, the grants, the reports, the bills, the bullshit. Bitch, go away.

Three days away from a three day weekend. And it can't come soon enough.

Be Easy,
KZ

My Dick Is Amazing

I couldn't wait for the warm weather, and finally it looks like it's here. I'm really feeling this, the beginning of the summer season. Beaches, grills, sunshine and water! If it wasn't for work, everything would be great.

Oh, yeah. Work. That thing that keeps me paid. Now I remember.

Walking into that gray building everyday and trying to apply and vita my way into another gray building that I can grow tired of quickly. I keep wondering if it's worth it. I've only had one interview since I've started applying in March and it went poorly. I just submitted for another gig. It's a great gig, pays a lot and I'd be the Director and not the second in command. They were genuinely excited that I was interested in the gig. But ultimately I know I'll be in the same place I'm in today, miserable about my job.

The best things and worst things about my lifestyle are identical: I only have to worry about my student loan and Gretchen as recurring bills. Living virtually debt free means I can revert to my half assed underachieving self at any time and not go under. Plus I'm landless. Not a good look rolling up on 4-0. But I can also go anywhere at anytime, location is only dictated by my preferences, without worrying about the saleability of my property. All my property moves with me.

Hopefully I'll find my way out of the desert and into the oasis by the end of the summer. Wish me luck.

Be Good,
KZ

Productivity Lag

This month, this February, has been nothing but a productivity Black Hole for me. I've delegated almost everything I do to all of my staff. I haven't written anything but blogs, I haven't read anything but e-mails and magazines. I have books I want to read, but I can't finish the book I've been reading since November (!!!), because I had only been reading about a page a week. Now I'm not even doing that.

I was at home last night watching some show on The Discovery Channel, I forget, I think it was "The World's Yeastiest Pussies" or something like that. Anyway, I'm sitting there on my laptop and I'm half-assed researching job opportunities. I say I wanna go, I act like I wanna go, but I'm not even putting forth the effort needed to get the fuck outta here. I'm more interested in the yeasty pussies. Imagine that! Anything is better than doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I spent some time last night thinking about my old gig and my old boss, "New Money". We called her New Money because she had a huge fuckin' face. Anyway, New Money would call a meeting and harvest ideas. She'd steal your shit from you, present it as her own and get kudos for it. It was blatant. When you were alone with her, she'd call the idea "ours". With the bigwigs, she would call the idea "mine". The reason I thought of her was because New Money didn't have my (or any of my co-workers') skill set, so she had to steal. I've got 3 people on my staff who I've been delegating to, and I did all of their jobs plus mine at my old gig. I still don't have to steal, but I will give 'em my shit to do.

The bottom line is, I was feeling bad about shoveling my shit to them when in reality, I'm still a better boss than the ones I've had. My area of responsibility in Detroit was 4 times larger than theirs and that was just a portion of the city. Plus they got each other, they get to specialize, so I say "fuck it", and the guilt dissipates. I gotta work on my productivity in the other facets of my life, but on the work front, I'll be cool.

Stay Focused,
KZ

Pretty Petty

I'm sitting in my second evening meeting. The first went from 6 - 7 pm. This one, the city commission meeting, started at 7 pm. People are in rare form tonight. The 6 pm meeting was a finger pointing extravaganza, with students from Satan's Anus University accusing the po-lice of following "safe ride home" vans and then ticketing the exiting occupants for public intoxication. It's fucked up, but probably true. Joe Nab is pretty bored here, so they spend a lot of time fucking with people on minor shit. In rebuttal the Chief of Po-lice, African hater extraordinare, Chief Bitchmade, goes on a rant about the quality of his po-lice force. That was exciting shit. This second meeting was just like the first, only more so.

I'm sitting in this second meeting upset because I'm in my second meeting. These residents get up and start bitching during this public hearing about one of my proposals. Three different residents that I'd talked to privately, who privately agreed with the proposal, got up and savaged my shit. Now you'd think I'd be used to this, but I don't think I ever will. As I said in yesterday's post, I had a meeting with the commissioners on Friday to prepared for this meeting. But at the actual meeting, they acted shocked and dismayed at the allegations the citizens were making. I almost forgot this was an election year and the cameras were running.

My infamous "friend", the Vice-Mayor, called me up to the podium to explain how I could commit such an egregious injustice on the public. Fifteen minutes later, after being accused of everything under the sun, they passed my proposal. Politics.

The rest of the evening was filled with fanciful presentations on bullshit only a mother could love. I thought the night would never end. I'm sitting there next to my boss, texting out cries for help and wishing for a quick merciful death. I used to be in Detroit complaining about the shit residents would hold grudges about, but in retrospect, it was real shit. Small, but real. This shit, everything, from the petty staff stuff to the residents, to the politicians, is finally hitting that tipping point, to where I've had enough. I talked about staying until I learn what I need to learn, but I think I've learned it. I have the patience to wait for things that are worth waiting for, but I have no tolerance for unimportant shit. I believed all along that I was just an impatient, irritable person. I know better now. I don't have to stay here another minute to learn the difference between a small issue and an unimportant issue.

Be Safe,
KZ