Posted on by Dissy · 1 Comment

Jobs Schmobs

I mean, we all have to do something for money, right? Something to get us from day to day, week to week without having to live in our cars or under a park bench, (no disrespect intended toward those who do) right?

I suppose it’s always ideal if you love your work. Currently… I enjoy my job enough to not want to slit my wrists. The more I feel like I know, the better it gets. Plus? When I do go off the deep end one day, I have fantastic insurance. Taking care of me always helps in the satisfaction department. Now if I could just get someone to rub my neck and shoulders.

Thinking about job satisfaction this morning took me back to 2005 when I worked this temporary assignment for the XYZ Corp (names changed to protect the douchebaggery). This job was, by far, the most. When I say “the most,” I mean the most ridiculous, the most horrifying, the most ick-inducing, and (I’m almost ashamed to say this) the most entertaining.

My job was to listen to voicemails on the phone line for a popular televangelist’s “prayer line.” You’ll see why I put “prayer line” in quotation marks soon enough. Basically, I was to listen to people’s prayers, transcribe their demographic information, and (here’s the horrifying part) then delete the messages.

So… where’s the part where these people get prayed for?

Ooooo…. oooooh… I know! I know! Pick me, teacher!!

THEY NEVER GET PRAYED FOR.

As it was explained to me, I was the only person to ever hear these messages. Well, me and the other few people who were on this project. None of us were told that we had to pray. I’m not sure any of us would have, but I do know we were never asked to.

We were told to transcribe these people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers so that they could be solicited for monetary contributions at a later time.

That’s the part that made me feel completely filthy. That, along with knowing these miserable jackasses were not fulfilling their part of the bargain and, you know, actually praying for their callers. Somehow, I found this worse than any act committed by Ted Bundy. Then again, good ol’ Ted was also a pro at pretending to be something he wasn’t.

Most of the callers wanted prayers on their behalf so the could find a husband/wife/significant other, and these requests were the amusing part of the job. Amusing = cute, not a “laughing at them” kind of thing. Some people needed jobs, cars, homes, money for bills, or to find their car keys. Yes. Before you ask. Yes. And these calls came from all over the world.

I often found myself playing a mental “Dating Game,” wishing I could introduce Gina in California to Henry in Zimbabwe. (names/location changed)

It was heartbreaking to hear some of these folks’ prayer requests… sick spouse/child/parent/friend, homelessness, you name it. It was even worse to know what the final outcome of the call was going to be.

In case you didn’t understand when I said it before, allow me to repeat myself:

final outcome: NO PRAYERS.

That was the longest two weeks of my life and was exactly why I shied away from temporary assignments after that. Very soon after that travesty, I was fortunate enough to end up at my last job, where I stayed for 13 years. That came with its own issues. I was going to say at least it never left my soul feeling filthy, but that isn’t true. Sometimes, it did, and that’s why I’m not there anymore. There are things I will miss about that place forever, but feeling like a shitty human being is not one of them.

But back to Henry in Zimbabwe and Gina in California… I hope you’ve both found your true loves and made lots of babies. I remember you both wanted that. I always shot out a kind thought for people like them. It just seemed like the decent thing to do. If I knew you both in person, I’d have introduced you.

Jim in Oregon was the best, though. All he wanted was a cat. And isn’t that fantastic? Jim stands out to me because that day is the day I adopted my asshole cat, Tuco. There were times I wanted to ship his angry little ass off to Jim, but I never did. Somehow, I saw Jim as more the Persian cat type, or maybe a Siamese.

Oh, and Bob in Tennessee? I hope you found those keys.

Why Are You Like This? Barb here, Dissy and I were discussing what we should write about for our very first Witchy Wednesday and settled on answering the main question everyone gets when talking about non-mainstream religious beliefs. Some people are nicer and more polite about how they ask, some are mind-blowingly nasty, but the […]

Witchy Wednesday: Take 1 — So… Your Friend is an Asshole

A new blog that just started yesterday by some of my favorite people. PLEASE check it out, like it, comment, share it. Help us make more of a mark on the world than some piss on a fire hydrant!!

Posted on by Dissy · 3 Comments

You’re Doing it WRONG.

I have a genuine contempt for, I was going to just list the self-help industry, but I think it goes above and beyond all of that. Self-help, religion, or anything that claims to make anyone a better person.

My first gripe with self-help is that most of the books/methods/paradigms make the broad assumption that all parties involved are sane, rational people. Particularly relationship gurus. Sure… That communication method might help if my partner wasn’t a raging alcoholic/narcissist/depressed/anxious/etc… person. Finally, it seems, some folks are creeping out of the woodwork and are actually acknowledging that most people are damaged in some capacity, so you functioning on a “normal” plane is not going to resonate with someone who is bat-shit. Never mind why a “normal” person wants to relate to or work things out with “bat-shit.” I mean, shouldn’t the goal just be to get the hell out of there? That’s fodder for another blog, though. So let’s not go there yet.

But.. the gist of all these things is to make people feel bad about themselves. If you don’t have the magically wonderful life of your dreams after following paradigm a, religion c, method x, or routine k then you aren’t doing it right. What a fantastic way to keep people coming back for more, pouring in more money, and not realizing that your method is a steaming pile of horse shit designed to ensnare you in a vicious cycle of always being sucked into the vortex of paying people money to help you become someone you like.

Imagine my dismay at being constantly drawn to the self-help books. I haven’t been snagged or bogged down by it in a very long time, though. I’ve cultivated the ability to take what I need from each one and chuck the rest into the fuck-it bucket. Plus? I tend to gravitate toward those who acknowledge that we are all fucked up. Some, though, you really can’t take seriously or work with on any level. Like this book I’m perusing now on Kindle Unlimited (someone remind me to cancel that free one month trial). “Self Discovery Journal: 200 Questions to Find Who You Are and What You Want In Life.”

There’s a whole section on beliefs we’ve formulated of ourselves over time. “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m ugly, no one will ever love me…” you get the gist. So the exercise says we should analyze our beliefs about ourselves, think about how we have come to have those beliefs, then “prove your belief wrong.”

Their example?

belief: “I’m too short for anyone to love me.”

solution: Look up info about short celebrities dating hotties.

Seriously, people? I mean… I’m not the only one who sees through this, right? There are scads of reasons why this solution holds not even one molecule of water. Just because something works in the favor of a short celebrity who is probably ragingly hot, incredibly charming, and (let’s not forget) very wealthy in addition to being short, well, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for an average short person who believes his or her self undeserving of love because of this perceived defect.

Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to think these kinds of mind games people try to get us to play with ourselves are incredibly shallow, and no person that has any kind of intelligence whatsoever is helped by them. If you have the ability to think outside the box in any capacity, this kind of trite advice is only going to make you feel worse. Especially if you’re committed to feeling like shit for the rest of your life. Go ahead… try it.

My other favorite? “Find a way to make short sexy.”

Ummm… If I have shortness on a list of reasons that I’m unlovable, I’m not going to really be able to pull that one off, now am I? Now, I could be incredibly wrong in making this assumption, but I don’t think I am. I think it would be easier for a short female to do something to make herself feel sexy, but what is a short male going to do? And it seems to me that shortness making someone feel unlovable is, by and large, more of a factor with the fellas than the ladies.

Maybe this is why therapy never works for me. I think of the 80,000 ways around some method and come up with every reason in the world why that shit is ridiculous.

So, Self Discovery Journal, what have you got for the gal who hates her brain? Let’s see about picking that apart.

stay tuned…