Friday, January 07, 2005

astounded but not speechless: introduction

Okay... I'm now about to take the first step down the dark path; from this point, there is no turning back. I've been holding off on doing so until now, knowing that once I open my mouth about my co-workers, they're going to become a constant source of amusement and analysis for me. It's really hard to feign interest with someone who you're only talking to for the purpose of talking shit about him later.

Some of the people in my building fucking amaze me. I can't believe they have jobs, let alone jobs at a prestigious company. These ramblings are probably going to be mostly short... I won't let short ones count as my daily homework... those will just be for extra credit. When I see someone, who makes triple what your poor ass does, fucking drooling on himself, I need to get that shit off my chest... it's going to distract me all fucking day, and potentially turn me into a drooler myself. I'm astonished with some of the people I see here.... it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

To be fair, some of the people here are actually quite impressive... and these people seem to be in the positions of power. There are only a few people who I've interacted with enough to really have clear opinions of, and most of them are normal human beings with good minds and no need for bibs. The coder that I'm working with is amazing, and I'll probably never exceed him on any level. My boss is great, his boss is great, and his boss is great. I've had some interaction with some others, and they're impressive too. Most other people that I've met are normal... stupid (well... probably average to your standards), but it's reasonable for them to work here. That being said, there are some people that somehow slip by security every morning... we have at least four guards down there with electronic turnstiles that respond to barcoded ID badges... is there a backdoor that these people are coming through?

This particular post won't deal with any of the specifics. I just needed to get this out of the way so that I can later just jump right in with my ranting. I will relay this story though, which for some reason seems relevant:

When I was at my first college (my nomadic nature translates into many transfers), I worked in the college cafeteria for a while. I wasn't working there for any particular reason... I was just bored. A few months in, the college started bringing in mentally retarded people to help out in the cafeteria; I'm assuming that they were doing this as some sort of program with a local institution. All I know, is I would work during the dinner periods, and suddenly, I see retards doing my job during the lunch periods. I was doing the same job as mentally retarded people... I may have been a more productive worker, but my peers were retarded. Nothing makes college seem like it's getting you somewhere in life more than an experience like that.

Years later, I now have my degree, I work in a skyscraper, I'm on the right track to retire in a year and survive off of my music and random handouts, and somehow, on the elevator up to the eleventh floor, I'm seeing retards on their way up to the twelfth. The race to success somehow got intermingled with the Special Olympics' sprint. I can't make any sense of this... I feel like a fucking retard myself when I try to discern the logic involved. Now that that's covered, I can discuss specifics.