The Path Too Well Travelled Has Gotten Me Here

     Here's a follow up to the unmitigated hell-scape that my day job has become since I wrote Winnie The Pooh And The Pants Shitter, Too.

     Due to Winnie The Pooh's complaints about feeling lonely and isolated because she had her own private office on the first floor of a building with no elevator, the entire work group has been relocated to an office space across town that has an elevator.

     Almost everyone in the office lives on the western or southern part of town so the company decided to relocate us to the eastern part of town.  This added forty-five minutes to everyone's commute.  This can only be seen as a dick move by the company since they have office space all over the area.

     The office is set up with cubicles that have walls so high they block out any and all natural sunlight.  They are also arranged in such a way that it feels like I'm walking through a maze designed by M. C. Escher to get to the piece of cheese that is my paycheck.  The office also seems to have a constant smell of sauerkraut.  I don't know what that's all about but sauerkraut?  What the fuck have I done with my life?

     To go along with the delightful smell of sauerkraut, in what I can only see as an act of protest, someone has taken to microwaving fish on a daily basis.  So not only does it reek of sauerkraut, around noon every day, the office takes on the smell of fish with a side of sauerkraut.  I reiterate, what the fuck have I done with my life?

     The office space hasn't been occupied since 2003.  That means it hasn't been cleaned since well before 2003.  There is a thick layer of dust over every surface and the company decided that it didn't want to pay to have the place cleaned.  There are still post-9/11, flag store patriot, themed signs hanging all over the place.  “Let Freedom Ring,” “Stand United,” “These Colors Don't Run.”  Go fuck yourself.  I didn't fall for the mindless follower bullshit then and I sure as hell won't buy into it during the reign of Cadet Bone Spurs.  I'd take the signs down but I'd probably be turned into Homeland Security by one of the dunder heads in the office.  For God and country and puppies or whatever.

     Since there is no place for me to hide in the building so I can read or just have some silence on my breaks and lunches, I am forced to utilize the break room.  The television in the break room is always on at an ear splitting volume and The Price Is Right is being watched like it was a blood sport.  The half wits that I work with scream and yell at the television like they were the half wits in the studio audience.  I was never very fond of Drew Carey but I fucking hate him now.  And if it's not The Price Is Right, it's some sort of soap opera that is viewed with an intensity and focus that I have never witnessed being given to a television.  Evil eyes and shooshes will be readily handed out if any noise is made in the break room while they're watching their stories.

     Two weeks after Christmas, an unwrapped fruitcake, with a slice taken out of it, materialized out of thin air in the break room.  After three days, I was going to throw it out but my X-Files like curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see how long the fruitcake would stay in its current condition.  It sat on the table untouched for an additional two weeks before it vanished just as mysteriously as it arrived.  I don't know how brain damaged someone has to be to want to share a Christmas related snack food, that no one likes to begin with, two weeks after Christmas and then leave it on a table for another two weeks.  There's a metaphor about something in there somewhere but I'm too irritated to figure out what it is.

     As if it didn't have one before, the office has taken on even more of an air of an adult daycare center.  Everyone aimlessly shuffles around in a catatonic state until it's medication time or time to watch their stories.  This is how grown ups act in a place of business.

     Management no longer talks to me because it knows I would only emit a wraith like wail in response to any social query.  I need to quit my job and move to a shack in Montana to get away from these idiots.  I consider my greatest failure in life to have been the day I decided to take this job.  I should have taken the less secure path instead of the route that is falsely secure.  I might not know what I'd be having for dinner tonight but at least I'd have some shred of sanity and dignity left.