Any opportunity to slag ungrateful former employers should be exploited. What follows is one such instance. Continue reading Vacant Copy Desk
Tag Archives: gross negligence
Off the Mat
Consider this a Green Venom addendum.
After nine months of unemployment I deserted the idled ranks in July. My formless time was not a vacation. Unemployment insurance neither made me lazy nor enriched me beyond my wildest dreams.
Like the millions with whom I shared the same boat, I owe the American Labor movement a giant deal of gratitude. Without organized labor’s steadfast agitation throughout prior decades, enduring unemployment would’ve been Capital A arduous.
By the way unemployment benefits, subsistence provisions really, are a safety net segment the GOP eagerly intends to shred. Insurance. It never matters. Until it suddenly does. Continue reading Off the Mat
A Short History of Willful Failure
Second half of 2011 I wrote numerous posts about my former employers, the Mugwumps. They were the biggest fools I ever met. It’s no stretch stating they embody the American Nightmare.
Not an American Nightmare, the horror. So unique, theirs make the rest recoil. These people aren’t Snopeses living down in Dog Patch, but an upper middle-class clan anchored in one of the tonier Gold Coast Connecticut enclaves.
Who didn’t expect better from them?
On the plus side, without the Mugwumps there never would’ve been a “Rex Merritt.” He’s their creation. Continue reading A Short History of Willful Failure
Dig A Grave. Lay Down. Bury Yourself.
What was foretold came to pass. Ideally the doors to Mugwump, my former employer, would’ve closed in January 2012. Yet during the summer of 2011 I saw it barely surviving into October. The place staggered and face-planted one week before November.
Awash in cocaine and/or drowning in vodka or THC fogging the remnants of their minds, Loca and Fea lost Mugwump, their patrimony.
Wait. “Lost” isn’t the right word. “Frittered.” Nope. Still doesn’t convey the squander.
“Squatted down and pissed away.” Much better.
Coked out when not blind drunk, the Mugwump sisters squatted down and pissed away their company. In doing so they destroyed in five years what their father Blowhard established after 27. Before carelessly tossing the reins to his flibbertigibbet daughters, Blowhard built Mugwump into a company renown for dependability, reliability and accuracy. Continue reading Dig A Grave. Lay Down. Bury Yourself.
Perdu Is Lost
(*Names changed in order to speak freely.)
My colleague *Perdu is the sort of woman who disturbs dreams. Clever, charming, at times nervy. Unlike women who instigate nightmares, one can lust after Perdu without worrying about a future involving boiled bunnies, knives or elaborately devised revenge schemes against friends and family members.
Nonetheless her adherence to rationality borders on psychosis.
After five years of serving at Mugwump*, our dying place of employ, Perdu’s just come around to acknowledging the daily waste, absurdity, and futility contained within its walls. Her acceptance of survival cynicism has been exciting to behold.
For the longest two hurdles kept Perdu from seeing how our enterprise had become an asylum. Continue reading Perdu Is Lost
Green Venom
(Names changed to protect the innocent. And me. Others in this post enjoy the courtesy because they’re too stupid to be embarrassed.)
*Ruta died the next to last day of August 2011. Her illness was short but the final phase was acute. Whether deserved or not she suffered at the very end. Instead of palliative hospice care, she died at home surrounded by her things.
On the cusp of 80, Ruta is survived by a husband and my boss *Blowhard, their son *Skip, and two daughters, *Loca and *Fea. Another son and daughter, *Speedball and *Borracha, predecease her.
One imagines Ruta’s family will miss her.
Here respect for the dead and the bereaved ends. It’s more they would’ve extended and will extend themselves. In reality Ruta leaves behind the shell she married, their issue who either chose alienation or became pieces of human wreckage, while she herself wasted life experiences to promote positive contributions.
Like Palestinians, the Mugwump family never missed a chance to miss a chance. Continue reading Green Venom
Bad Biographies
(*Names changed to spare me yet trouble the wicked. This continues “Crazy Quilt.”)
The family line descends through the father.
*Blowhard, my boss and chief of *Mugwump, the family-held company for which I’ve toiled two dozen years, has rapidly deteriorated into decrepitude. A little under two years ago he was a sharp 80-year-old man. Today, enfeebled mentally and physically, he’s a ghostly figure peeking out from tired flesh.
He’s lost muscle mass. His acuity wanes more than waxes. Despite the obvious infirmities, no family member has yet summoned the compassion to tell him “enough.” Instead of compelling their father to see reason and retire, Blowhard’s surviving daughters *Loca and *Fea, whose management has sapped their patrimony, still let him commute to the office, and defer to him although his mind is shakier than theirs.
The Mugwumps are not a compassionate bunch. There’s plenty they aren’t and have never bothered being. The Turk needs to come around and collect all their playbooks. Continue reading Bad Biographies
Cocktail Afternoons With Wendy
(*Some names and places changed to protect me and placate others.)
Now is the perfect season to have a significant other.
We wear less clothing, a condition which excites and lowers our inhibitions. Summer heat unshackles us from interior living. If you’re buff enough, stronger sunlight further rewards physical culture by lending a glow to faces. Limbs are also burnished.
Aren’t those the sort of allures that entice receptive humans?
Given longer days we live more outside. Don’t the conditions conjure lengthier strolls, spontaneous hand holding, aimless caresses, shared smiles that lean into kisses for no purposes other than simple exaltation in the moment, and the utterance of phrases which would sound strained and strange during cooler, darker seasons?
We actually notice sunsets and regard fireflies as favorable apparitions.
Well, one does if there’s someone else with whom to create and enjoy these instances. Unfortunately for me such sweet hours have vanished. (SOB!) I believe I squandered them decades ago. What remains is keen vision of others’ fleeting happiness. Then even clearer sight when atmospheric attraction sours into all-weather acrimony. Continue reading Cocktail Afternoons With Wendy
Crazy Quilt
(*My signature is on a confidentiality agreement somewhere. Names and particular circumstances changed to protect me.)
Some days more than others feel like what should be work’s final hours. The betting here is closure occurs end of January 2012. Any urgency entering our building has long vacated. It’s not so much a death watch as impending stasis.
Countdown began six years ago. It accelerated in January 2010. Nonetheless there have been occasions since when the fall could’ve been braked, the slide leveled, and altitude regained. All of those saving instances have been missed. Intentionally. Leaving inexorability. Continue reading Crazy Quilt