Life With A Werewolf

How To Lose A Job In Ten Days

One thing I’ve come to realize in my short time out of the military: job hunting sucks. Everyone. And I mean, EVERYONE thinks that you’re going to do something crazy. They hear all the time (or so they claim) of former soldiers and marines going crazy, PTSD, shooting up places. How? Where are they hearing this information? Every time I turn on the news (always by accident these days) I’m either hearing about Ukraine or Trump. A school shooting happens and no one seems to even care anymore. So where are they hearing about all of these people just going nuts?

Things like this puzzle me. I feel a bit like the narrator at times in fight club, telling their boss that “you should be careful, cause this buttoned down psycho could go from office to office shooting down co-workers” in as deadpan of a voice as possible. “Or maybe you shouldn’t believe every piece of trash you pick up.” I know the movie was different, but that’s exactly what I’d say.

The most that I’d likely do is to gun down people on GTA. Virtual lives pre-programmed into a video game to be ran over and shot over and over again. Only this time, there’s no Ryan Renolds character there to save everyone.

So, I did happen to get a job. I worked there for about ten days officially. Well, take out the four days of training. The two days of the weekend cause, I wasn’t being paid for weekend work. So, I managed to get fired in four days. This is how it happened.

I worked for a company we will call, in the interest of avoiding legalities and being sued by men with ties that are more expensive than my entire life, Brand X. Brand X is a mega-multinational, corporation with interests and organizations all over. They do almost a bit of everything, but some how manage to do nothing at all at the same time. It’s one of those corporations whose only function it ever seems to be is to spend money as fast as they possibly could with no regard for reason or cause.

Companies like this can only exist in a land like America. A nation that prides itself on its own ability to stroke its own ego for ego stroking’s sake, and have built vast empires of vapidness towards it: the Facebooks, the TikToks. The relentlessly chasing your own tail for the sake of selfies and likes and hearts. Except one of those companies is actually Chinese. And the corporation I worked for was based out of Europe, not America. Brand X that I worked for was just a local branch for them. Go figure.

My job title was something like “Regional Traffic Manager”. My unofficial title that I came up with was “go-fer”. “Hey army, go get us a round of coffee will you?” “Hey army, the board wants to see the results of the Johnson study. Go bring that in, please?” “Hey army, go down to Kinko’s and pick up the reports I dropped off.”

To which, my official responses was “Hey Doug, your legs broken you can’t get your own coffee?” “Hey Amy, that study’s on the Intranet. Tell them to pull their heads out of their fourth point of contact and look for their damn selves.” “Hey Larry. I don’t know what reports you dropped off. I don’t know which Kinko’s you used, since the closest one is ninety minutes away. I don’t have the receipt you used to drop it off. So unless, you suddenly have gotten really good at Telepathy and told them I was coming with a complete mental photograph of me through the power of mental projection, You’d be literally wasting my entire afternoon.”

To which Larry asked me if I’d ever consider trying some manners when working around the office. To which, I asked him if he’d ever try apologizing. Not to me, but to the plants in the office that’s working so very hard to replace the oxygen he’s stealing.

I did get my ass chewed for that one. But it’s kind of hard to take an ass chewing seriously when the guy doing it a few minutes earlier was laughing his ass off to another manager as he described the story. This didn’t happen in front of me. But those office doors didn’t block as much sound out as they thought.

The big event however that got me fired went a little something like this:

It was the end of a long and TIRING day. It was only my third day there, but I was trying to help Linda (and all of these names are fake by the way), with preparations for their conference that was going to happen the next week.

This conference was kind of a big deal for them. They were going to be trained in the latest techniques and gadgets and do-dads to do…well whatever it was that they actually did. I don’t know. It seemed like an excuse for them to gather together and drink and do bad karaoke, and I told them so. To which, they told me that I was already on thin ice so shut up and just do the damn job.

When in the military, before you go ANYWHERE to do ANYTHING, you check, check, and check again. Why? Because there’s so much crap you have to take, that by the time the third check rolls around you’ll actually find everything you’re supposed to bring with you. So, that’s exactly what I did. Linda wanted to just shove everything in a van and leave it so I could drive it up the next week without her.

She didn’t count on me pulling everything she had in the van back out and laying it out behind the van right in the parking lot. The look on her face as I placed tables, book bags, laptops (which seemed a bit dangerous to keep in a flimsy van, but what do I know?) and other paraphernalia out in the open in neat little rows and columns, by size and type.

I could see by how her thrice dyed bleached curled hair was standing on end, she was angry with me. “What do you think you’re doing?!” She growled, clenching her fists. “Just put it in the van, don’t count it!”

“I’m doing my job,” I calmly replied to her. “And you’re missing a laptop, a table, and about a dozen goody bags and manuals.”

“I’m not….no I’m not,” she snarled.

I waved my hand over the items. “Count it, then.”

So, we did. And counted it again. Then a third time. Then we’re loading the van back up. And searching the building. And, well, you get the idea. After about six hours of this nonsense, we find the missing items. She never picked them up, apparently. She double counted a few things. This is why, in the army, we would check, check and recheck! Cause you never can tell how much you have when everything is in a pile.

Yes, I came away from that situation looking like a hero. However, it was what happened next that made me the villain again.

Brand X was in a large building in the middle of a city. The building itself was about six stories tall, complete with attached parking garage where all of this craziness happened. It was a gleaming massive glass structure, that was built with as little thought to design as possible. Another massive silver glassed tooth in the gaping maw that was the city life.

I had done this entire insanity with Linda in the morning, was present for a two-hour meeting that could have been put on a post-it note honestly, and had to stay after. Cause of course, I’m the new guy. So, it ended up to me to assist with the final preparations for their conference presentations. Even though I wasn’t going to be presenting a single thing, and had no clue as to what we even did that warranted a company, let a lone a conference for it. I did the best I could, working the power point presentations up the way I used to assist my platoon leaders on occasion with their work.

I was riding the elevator back down. It was night time. The sun had long since sunk below the horizon and drifted in its endless onward journey to warm the planet. I was riding the elevator down with someone who looked to be about fifteen years older than me, though the face didn’t register. I hurting. I was tired. I was contemplating quitting. I was going home in my crappy car.

“You must be new here,” the gentlemen smiled. His hair on his head had fled his face, and the hair on the sides turned white from the fright of it. It was an old face that looked as if it was more used to frowning than smiling.

“What gave it away,” I said with a tired sigh.

“What do you think of this place, so far?” He asked. I didn’t think he was genuinely curious. Just expected the standard corporate answer. The ’30 second elevator pitch’ so to speak. So: I gave it to him.

“I work for a bunch of people who at least have no clue as to what the company actually does or what their actual job is. At most who actually do know and actively avoid it and any real work. In an office that is outfitted with the cheapest pressboard furniture possible. IKEA looks like classic fine furniture compared to this place. The ninety-minute trek out here is a pain in the ass, that’s one way by the way, and hardly worth the trip, especially in a Mercury Topaz. And I still have no idea exactly what it is we really do here. I swear the CEO and entire corporate board must be sniffing paint thinner and glue up there all day to think that this company actually has a product or any actual value.”

That was when Mr. ugly gave me his full name and job title: Brand X of America’s CEO. Ouch.

Some choice words were said. He had apparently heard of me already. I was a trouble maker he said. I was worthless he said. “Rowing the wrong way” on the boat or something. I don’t know. It was a stupid analogy.

All I knew is that my legs hurt. My hip was screaming at me. My back hurt. And I was tired of trying to focus on nine things at once in an office full of people who honestly shouldn’t be trusted running the subway in a Wal-Mart.

In between his colorful description of my performance and my personality, I told him “Don’t worry about it. I quit anyway.” And walked out.

“I’ll never work in that town again” is what he said to me as I left.

“Yeah, well this town sucks anyway,” was my reply.

Later that night I sat in the living room with Crash. I had a beer in my hand, and a tired hang-dog look on my face. He patted me on the shoulder. I drank. It’s what I did. I didn’t talk about my problems. It’s one of the complaints that my ex had from my marriage.

Only, this time, I did.

Other things began to spill out. The job. The way I felt worthless around the house. The way I felt worthless in life. As if I had been trained to deal with billion dollar situations, but not ten dollar ones. “The army gives you all of this expensive equipment. It’s signed to you, it’s in your name. It’s yours. You’re entrusted to make these decisions with this equipment and your squad’s lives. But here, in the regular world, I can’t even be trusted with ten dollar ones. No one wants my opinion on lunch, let alone to trust me with the upkeep on a simple company truck, or work around dangerous things, like house painting equipment. It seems all I’m good for is sweeping parking lots or being the damn Wal-Mart door greeter.”

“Oh, come on,” Crash said with his trade mark smirk. “You’d make a great door greeter.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure. I would. Welcome to Wal-Mart. Go fuck yourself.” I sighed.

“See there,” he said, “You have it down already.”

I tried to growl at him, but couldn’t help it. I was already smiling.

“When you’re ready, you’ll find something. Something will work out. Until then, why not work on yourself?” He said.

I mean, why not work on me? He has a point. I will never be perfect, but it doesn’t mean I can’t fix a few things in my life. Of course, I have a few issues that I’ve been ignoring. Every alcoholic does. That’s the real difference between an alcoholic and a drunk after all. An alcoholic knows they have problems they’re running from. A drunk does too, they just never admit it.

It’s time I began to work some of these things out. It’s time I began to repair a few things in my life. It’s time I stitched myself back together emotionally, if I can’t do it physically. It’s time for me to learn how to be me again.