Things are always darkest.......

Just before the dawn, if you believe the old parable. Lately though things have been looking more and more like Despair Inc's classic 'inspirational' poster. I honestly don't know what's been going on my life but it seems to have been on a steady decline since mid July. I feel like I'm in one of those old Warner Brother's cartoons where you watch as the character slips and falls down the stairs, but instead of reaching the bottom when he finally falls off camera he just keeps going and going. Crash, bam, boom, over and over again punctuated by brief moments of silence where the cartoonist makes you think maybe finally he came to a rest.

I start out each day thinking, "You know what, today's going to be different. Today will be a good day, it can't be as bad as yesterday." By the end of the day however, I'm just left sitting exhausted wondering what happened. I honestly thought things couldn't have gone any worse then yesterday, but then today happened.

Today really takes the cake for bad days so far. I got into work and was immediately told to head to the front of the store for a 'meeting'. Meetings at my place of work are worthless, more so then usual. Most of the meeting is taken up by some inane 'game' thought up by a corporate monkey designed to 'team build'. Today was no different, but after the night I'd had, I just wasn't going to get up in front of everyone, jump around like a monkey, cluck like a chicken, and half a dozen other things I had to do to 'participate'. So instead of perhaps just moving on, I was taken aside, my job was threatened, and told that it'd better never happen again.

There's something, perhaps, that needs a bit of clarification first. When I tell folks that 'my job was threatened', that doesn't mean I was told 'Do this or we'll fire you.' because under corporate policy they can't really do that. What they can do is throw you into this lovely circular logic of theirs. For example:

"Ben do you want to be a member of this team?"
"Yes."
"Well as a member of this team you are expected to dance like a monkey."
"I don't really see what dancing around like a monkey has to do with being a member of this team."
"Well if you don't want to be a member of this team I'm going to have to ask you to do the adult thing here and decide that this job really isn't for you."
"I never said I didn't want to be a member of this team."
"Well as a member of this team you are expected to dance like a monkey."
"Yeah, but I don't really see what that has to do with being a member of this team."
-=repeat=-

This conversation has, with minor alterations, repeated no less then 10 times before. The managers can't actually fire you but they'll try to back you into a faulty logical corner and bombard you with demands that you quit. Attempts to point out the faulty logic only make them more belligerent in their attempts to make you quit. I endured this conversation or forms of it for no less then 2 hours today. First from one manager then from another. The second manager brought me in back to dress me down for not 'respecting' him because I laughed at the name of my department. Lets face it 'Firedog' is a retarded name for a PC Services department, and if the man can't except the fact that most people will take it as a joke he doesn't honestly deserve my respect.

This conversation with this manager lasted at least an hour and a half with him nitpicking every aspect of my performance. I argued but after awhile I realized I was just making things worse and decided to stone wall him until he finally let me go. This worked until I stood up to leave when he said, 'Oh, and I'm writing you up, those pants aren't dress code, they aren't Khaki.'. I almost completely lost it. Not only did the wrack I bought them off of at Old Navy say they were 'Khaki' so do the pants themselves. Not Khaki? Out of all the things he could write me up for? That's like a cop pulling you over because he doesn't like your face and punching out your rear tail light so he can write you a ticket. I blew up and accused him of harassing me because I'd reported him for lowering the price of a computer improperly for a customer. Finally and only after that was the store director brought in. I believe, and fairly strongly, that only because I claimed I was being targeted for revenge did anyone lift a finger to stop any of t his nonsense.

I came home today, and after the various events yesterday, I am completely 100% emotionally drained. I stared at a blank wall for over an hour. I can't keep taking days like this my psyche won't handle it. I want to reach the bottom of the stairs so at least I can pick myself up and know that finally things can start to look up.

Anyways for those of you who bother to read this far, here's a fun little link I know you'll enjoy. Especially you Todd.