Money « johnozed

Posts Tagged ‘Money’

Blues Keep Calling

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Well today is quite a beautiful day. Wandered around for a bit, enjoying the gorgeousness of it all. Did some laundry out of boredom. Paid some bills which is what brought me down to below the earth.

Ran into a delivery guy who used to make deliveries to the last company I worked for. He asked how things were going and I tried to remain upbeat while explaining that I sent out a bunch of resumes to agencies and contacts and received nothing in return.

No ‘contact us in a few months’, no ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’. No nothing.

It’s brutal and with the paying of the bills I am what can only be described as skint. At least that’s the outlook for the next 2 weeks with those other bills coming up. It’s bad out there people.

Earlier today I was reading another blog, Joe.My.God. and he posed a question that he asked six months previous. How is the recession working out for you? Six months ago I wrote about how I was told I would have a job until February 2010, knowing full well that anything could happen between then and February.

Well the anything did happen and I was ousted. I tried to look at a bright side of it, somehow equating that some friends have been unemployed for a year already and I’ve only been out for four months.

Not a very good bright side at all really.

Tonight I am bringing my computer over to Rand’s house. Hopefully he can fix it. There is nothing that I can do with it. I’ve gotten good at playing solitaire on it in the past week or so.

Rand seemed surprised that it wasn’t working properly the other day and his being surprised, surprised me.

It’s been one of those days. I’ve been having one of those days at least once a week now. Just got a call from the Democratic Party asking me to volunteer for Jon Corzine. If I liked Corzine I would but I’m fairly indifferent towards him. I’m not going to vote for Chris Christie anyway.

Right now, on the news, some guy is stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. And by swamps, I mean the Oradell reservoir. Other important news that I saw on TV, a deer walked into a restaurant in Northern China.

Really.

This is the news that is important enough to make worldwide media. Oh disillusionment.

Also been reading about a guy in Northern Virginia who was arrested for making coffee while naked at 5:30 AM. A woman and her kid were trespassing, using a short cut and looked in the window.

No charges for the woman who was trespassing or for being a peeping tom.

I’m in the 5th floor of my building and occasionally I too walk around naked. Or in boxer briefs, in the morning and being a man, sometimes I sport that morning wood.

I suppose it will be a matter of time before someone sees me and phones the Hoboken Police Department. In that case they’ll probably be using a megaphone from the street since most of the cops are too out of shape to climb four flights of stairs.

Just utter ridiculousness. Almost Pythonesque if it were funny.

And last night’s installment of the Monty Python saga was all about Monty Python & the Holy Grail. I always think about two friends of my parents, Mary Jane and Larry who had seen the movie when it came out and they loved it. It definitely was not my parent’s cup of tea.

But I think about Mary Jane and Larry laughing at the bawdiness of the movie and the kids in my neighborhood cupping their hands like they were holding coconut shells…

The computer is all packed up and ready to bring over to Rand’s around 8:00. I think the Bongos will be a washout since Meghan Taylor is ill with the flu.

Tags:Money
Posted in WTF | No Comments »

Quicksand

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

It’s Thursday and it is to laugh. My sister took a Laughter Yoga course last weekend. Apparently, laughter IS the best medicine. If you laugh you feel good, and even if you fake laughing you can still get the benefits. With the day that I had today, I got some laughter in this afternoon and it really helped my mood. You know, last Thursday when I was sick, was a better Thursday than today. One of the things Tom Chin said, as a warning perhaps, that this week would be employee reviews, to determine the mythical bonuses.

A few people were called into closed door sessions, but not me. Neither was one of the Stooges, Moe. He’s been on the outs with Vivek who smiles in Moe’s face, while sharpening a knife. Last month Vivek asked me to find out how soon someone could be expelled from the network. The answer was, it could be within minutes, depending on where the IT was, if he was available or not, or he would send his assistant into the office to do it. So that could all be tomorrow. Getting rid of myself and Moe would save the company some money. I’d prefer it doesn’t happen, but in the event that it does happen, I set about cleaning out my desk.

I admit I was disappointed it didn’t happen today, I was on pins and needles all day. I did get a lot of work done, which means if I don’t get fired, I will have very little to do next week. Already some tasks hat I used to do have been reassigned to Lydia. I talked to a temp, Peaches, who works for another company that sublets office space from us while having a smoke.

She told me about how she was once let go from a company that gave her six months salary as a severance package. That would be nice to have. She called it shut up money, whereas other people or companies would call it hush money. A tidy amount to keep one’s mouth shut. I do have things to shut my mouth about. Monkeys in trees eating bananas while singing dirges in the original Latin. Things like that. I think Tom Chin who was more than likely bullied when he was growing up 50 years ago might see this as an opportunity to lord it over me. I see that mentioning those two things might give me some leverage. Dirge singing monkeys banana smeared mouths spewing Latin. I’m fucking Matt Damon.

It was an odd day. The only people that spoke to me was Moe, Curly and Lydia. Greg Stevens said hi in passing. Vivek totally ignored me after saying hello to just about everyone else in the office. Tom Chin didn’t say anything either. Whatever it is, I did my best. I tried to create a system in the office so things would run smoothly. True there was that file that was on my desk last week, though to my credit, I did phone in and tell them where it was.

Not good enough I guess. If I didn’t get sick last week this all could have been avoided, but I got sick and that’s that. Nobody got hurt, no rules were broken, no information or identities stolen. So this is where I stand. Not feeling secure in my job, but able to laugh, and that’s what’s important. I guess that’s why I’m feeling pretty positive, not the negative person I could be and have been when in situations like this. And so I laugh! Like so…and I’m not being sarcastic

Tags:Knives, Laughing, Money, Myths, Penis Van Lesbian, Tenterhooks
Posted in WTF | 2 Comments »

Money Changes Everything

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Yeah it’s fucking Tuesday. I hooked up the company I work with, with their Holiday Luncheon. Funny how obnoxious people can get with a few shots of tequila in their system. And though I had a few shots of tequila, unwillingly, yet showed I was a team player, I’m not the obnoxious one. I’m pissed in both the US and UK versions. Pissed UK style from beers and shots and a pint or two, and pissed from the fact that the end of the year bonus that I was counting on, hoping for and needed won’t be given until January, which to me is bullshit. I’m the lowest paid employee of this firm, I’m in every day and even on days off I check my email and forward whatever needs to be sent out, but I’m very upset that I won’t be rewarded until January.

Go on, say it’s better than nothing, but what good is getting something for the holidays when it won’t be there until the new year when the bills come in? The luncheon was ok. I had a better time at last years party with McMann and Tate, aka Wolff Olins. Last year I arrived fucked up, totally whacked out of my head and just drank drank drank to maintain some sort of equilibrium. This year I was sober and my main companion was Shemp from the Three Stooges who is probably going to get fired in a day or two. Shemp didn’t eat, didn’t drink except for coffee and just sat there next to me while everyone else talked shop, which was about deals they had been working on for the past couple of months, things I know nothing about really. I’m pretty cynical but sitting next to Shemp the cynic from Chicago for a few hours, trying to smile and laugh at the right places while Shemp sat there stone faced wasn’t easy.

Larry Fine from the Stooges got some Cuban cigars which were nice and as we stood outside the after party on Second Avenue, that’s when I found out when the bonuses are actually given out. I know it’s down the line, but like I said I was really hoping to get it this year like every other monkey that works in the US. It’s not official. It will be official when I have to act ignorant and mention it to Tom Chin at my surprise that there were no bonuses given out this year. Then he is scheduled to give his line about them being given out sometime in January.

I also found out that Tom Chin is disappointed in my performance. I do plan on tightening things up next year, but that’s then, not now. Greg Stevens, Mr. Nice Guy slurred the info about Tom Chin’s opinion of me at the after party, when Tom Chin wasn’t there. Just disappointed basically. So whatever nice things I had planned on getting for Bill, for myself and for my bill collectors, well it’s going to have to wait since there is no bonus until the new year. Bill was going to split the cost of presents I got for my family, and I was hoping on saying “thanks but no thanks, I got it covered thanks to the bonus”, well that line will be delayed at least for a month.

I stomped my way back to the bus terminal, angry face on, which definitely cleared a path for me. People actually got out of the way of the 6’2” guy stomping down the street with a cigar in his jaw. I should try that more often.

Banksy

Tags:Cigars, Lack of Money, Money, Root of most but not all evil
Posted in Interesting Things as of Late | 2 Comments »

Listen to Her Heart

Saturday, December 15th, 2007

John is a zombie, John is a zombie. I just got home from Farfetched about an hour ago, and I’m pretty beat. I’ve been helping out Susan and Lois at Farfetched for about ten years. I enjoy being able to help them out, they’re friends. I knew them first as friends thanks to Harpy. Actually I met Susan at a birthday party for Harpy’s then girlfriend Carol at the Paramount Hotel. The store had just been held up a few weeks ago and they wanted a big guy to be around.

So I was the big guy, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. My wit can be disarming so I had that to my advantage. I easily pictured myself saying to a potential crook, ‘You’re going to hold us up, wearing those shoes? What are you crazy?’ and proceed to belittle the crook so that he would leave deeply wounded and possibly suicidal. This isn’t sanctioned by New York’s Boldest, Pedro, but it did have a seal of approval from the Oscar Wilde Appreciation Society so that was nice. Never needed to use my disarming wit though, much to my chagrin. The hold up guy, named Kilroy Damp was apprehended and sent away for a long time. I heard he didn’t do too well in jail. Tough shit, you messed with my friends.

Anyway, I like working for Susan and Lois and getting paid to help them out is pure gravy. There’s a friendly antagonism between Harpy and myself which usually manifests itself in a friendly rivalry over who’s playing the music, or at least who’s in control of the music, though Susan or usually Lois holds veto power on whatever we might be playing. Harpy gets a pass since he’s there more than I am and knows what goes over well and what doesn’t. It was a busy enough day though. Lot’s of people shopping for cards and wrapping paper and last minute knick knacks, most all of them nice people.

It was no problem wishing most of them a Happy Holiday and they generally wished the same back. Some faces that I have seen over the past decade of working at Farfetched that I’d remembered. When I walked in this afternoon there was one woman, who used to live in Hoboken that used to be a customer at a video store I used to work at on Washington Street. She always came in when I worked at Farfetched and she was at the counter when I got in. I stepped behind the register and said hi. She was happy to see me and she was short 50 cents on a purchase. I vouched for her and covered the 50 cents, being the generous sort that I am. She promised to come back later and pay it and she kept her promise a few hours later.

At the end of Harpy and Susan’s shift sparkling wine was brought out which we all indulged in giving me a buzz which I came down from about an hour later. Good drinking companions these people are. Spoke to both Pedro and Julio at different times. Pedro nearly got me when he called the store, changing his voice, but as he continued speaking I started to figure it out and knew for sure when he asked if we sold bottles of bleayotch, which is his play on the slang, beeyotch.

He was thinking of having a party next Saturday and wanted to know if I would be available to come, but I have another work day scheduled with my friends at Farfetched that day so I wouldn’t be able to make it. I am planning on going up to Otisville the week between Xmas and New Years, go after work and hop on the train and spend the night. It should be nice to get out of town. Good times abound.

Here are some pics.

Harpy in motion