10.11.05 Trampled Underfoot

Hope is a pain in the ass. Hope is a liar. Hope looks like Sandra Bullock. Hope is occasionally nice. She does seem compassionate. But there are the trails behind her. I used to lie a lot. I know how much energy it takes to maintain a lie and it is simply not worth it. But a bleedin brain? Oh c’mon! That’s one of her latest schemes. Hope approached me one day, “My leg is numb, and my arm is starting to feel numb.” So I told her to see a doctor. I walked her to a doctor’s office a few blocks away. She then supposedly had an MRI where they discovered her bleedin brain was bleedin’. She came back the office a day later after an emergency visit to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital with X Rays/. But how many office personnel would know how to read an X Ray? And why would she bring it to work?

Then there was the meeting. I get to work. There’s an email from Hope.
‘If anyone is looking for me I’ll be in a meeting until 9:30 am on the 31st floor’. Ok fine.
There was a power outage on the 31st floor prior to 9:30. At 10AM I was outside having a smoke with the fellas. I see Hope strolling down the street, shopping bag in hand. “Hey Hope, how was the meeting?” “Oh it went well.” “How did you all handle the blackout?”
“Blackout?…I better get upstairs.” One of the fellas who was working on 31 at that time said the people she was meeting with, Serge Lacroix and Helen Devilakos, were out that day. Silly little lying beeyatch.

She also felt the need to reprimand me a few weeks ago, telling me almost verbatim, that the big National Bank of Wishful Thinking, which is slowly devouring Wanker Banker, is looking to clean house. ‘And they have 3 people they want to get rid of and you’re one of them. Your head is on the block.’ So charming. I said, “Fine, they want to get rid of me, let them.” I think she was trying to scare me.

Then came the shit hitting the fan featuring the glorious wobbly nature of Helen “Natalie from Facts of Life” Devilakos. I was given a verbal warning from these feral beasts because of Zelzah Schaffer. That’s Persian for That Bitch. After working there for 3 weeks, she got all up in my face about me being unprofessional. Then Fat Helen and Bleedin Hope sat me down and told me to be more professional. I took it to heart.

I sent an innocuous email reminding the admin assistants to tip the delivery guys because That Bitch forgot to. Sent it to all 6 of them. It really was innocuous. Fat Helen and Bleedin Hope came down on me again. I sat across from Helen at the table and tried to make her head explode. Of course it never happened. Could you imagine the dry cleaning bill if it did?

So I started signing my emails with my full name. Bad move in Bleedin Hope’s brown eyes. The next day, “Why are you being so formal? I want to be your friend. Etc etc” I say, “Hope, you told me to be more professional. So I am. I sign my full name” “Stop it. I just want to be your friend” “Hope, you told me the other day my head was on the block. My job was in danger…” “I never said that! If anything my job is in more danger! I just got a major settlement so I’ll never have to work again…” Huh? “Hope, you said it in Jim Minnick’s office.” “ I never said that!”

I had to hug her and claim to be her friend in order to get out of there. She really thinks she’s getting over. Sandra Bullock can probably pull that off in a cute manner, but Bleedin Hope is sub par at best.

Anyway, I get a phone call from Christina Miro, a woman with whom I work. She calls on Sunday, “I fell down yesterday and I dislocated my knee. I’m on crutches and my leg is in a splint, but I’ll be in, probably a little late.” Ok fine. Feel better. True to her word, she’s comes in hobbled and splinted, only 10 minutes late. She basically sits next to me and doesn’t do much. It’s Columbus Day and it’s quiet. I say to her, “when Hope sees you, she will say something about something that happened to her, and it will be worse than what happened to you.”

I give a story in Hope’s voice, ‘I was swimming thru the Sahara desert when I was attacked by a great white shark. Bit off half my leg. They had to sew it back on with dental floss and a rusty can opener….’ Christina laughed.
Sure enough, a half hour later Hope appears, saying “Oh my god, what happened?” Christina proceeds to tell her, when Bleedin Hope, true colors flying says, “You know that happened to me…..blah blah blah, had to have orthroscopic surgery.”

Bleedin Hope.

If I’m right, and her brain isn’t bleeding that would be a good thing, no? If I’m wrong….I’m wrong.

10.10.05 or maybe 10.11.05…somewhere around there. Didn’t start dating these till after about 5 or six of them. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know.

10.10.05 The Selecter

An odd change of events. I’ve been sending out my resume for a few weeks now, ever since Bleedin’ Hope told me my head was on the block, which she denied a few days later. I told her to go ahead and fire me. She didn’t, so I’ve been surfing the web, sending out resume after resume and not getting much feedback at all. That was disconcerting. And a good number of jobs I was looking at all had pay a lot lower than what I was making.

It really sucks. I had been working at Wanker Banker, almost 3 years to the day. Tuesday. I started out working with Risotto and Jigglepuss. They both left for greener and browner pastures respectively. I saw a few people come and go, to the point where after 3 years, I was old school. I saw the changes in how things were being done, and basically became my own boss.

Old friends would probably chuckle at the thought of me being my own boss, after all, they’ve known the lazy and shiftless John O’Toole, who always looked for the get over. But that was me. It really isn’t me anymore. If you want to pay me to work, I will actually work. Gone are the days of Murdock, doing drugs in the slide room with the Queens Posse. They were actually from Queens NY, not part of Elizabeth R’s battalion, nor an offshoot of the Pink Panthers. They were fun, and we successfully killed many brain cells.

There were other jobs that I had were I measured my happiness at the job by looking at various workers and thinking, ‘Wow, that guy scrapping gum off the sidewalk has a better gig than I do’.

But it had changed the past couple of years and I really started to bloom at work. I did many things that were generally noticed and appreciated. Gradually the appreciation waned, to the point of where I’m at now.
So the big ol’ National Bank Of Wishful Thinking is flexing its muscle and nibbling away at Wanker Banker. And with me in their sights, it’s time that I started to look.

Lately they’ve been starting to look back. I had an interview last Wednesday that I thought went well, and then didn’t think it went well. Today I hear that they want me to meet the realty company, maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I have another interview at 3, then the realty company at 5

Then possibly a 2nd interview with the Staffing Agency that I interviewed with today. That was a fiasco that worked to my advantage. I wound up sitting there for nearly 30 minutes until the counselor came out and saw me. I spoke with her for 5 minutes and her boss for 5 minutes. They want to see me, possibly Thursday. It would be working for them, manning their front desk. The sticking point can be salary. I want what I want, what I make now (being me I never sell myself at a high price) and they were thinking 4 to 7 thousand less.

I’m in such a holding pattern and the planes are stacking up. What the hell does that mean?
Perhaps, I should be an Air Traffic Controller. Nah, hate uniforms and love to wear suits.
Julio just called, and I told him what was going on. He believes in me, says I can do better. I believe him, though I don’t believe in myself.

‘Sometimes I think I’m god, but then again I’m an atheist, so therefore I don’t believe in myself.’

10.10.05