What I've Heard

I have heard nothing from the Leadership. To me, a good Leader is one that knows how to say things like "thank you" and "good job" and "well done" when you've gone the extra mile and done something special. A "thank you" can at least be said when you've done a task that is normally their own and you did it specifically so they could have a break. Maybe it's that you've done the task too well, eh? Maybe it's that the Leadership is riddled with insecurity and instead of thank you they are overcome with jealousy and wish you weren't standing up there doing their job so well. Maybe, instead of being thankful they have someone like you on their team they're wishing you would fall and break your leg because your success, even though it contributes to the same cause and effort they've been in charge of and asked you to contribute to, makes them burn with envy on the inside as opposed to joy in your accomplishment. That's really too bad too. A good mentor is one that takes pride in the success of the student and makes sure that student knows they have done well. It surprises me, sometimes, how some people are considered Leaders when they really have no clue what that means.

I have heard that Mr. Toe Nail (I gave him that name because he loves to clip his toenails over the garabge can in his cubicle) thinks he hurt his back while trying to lift 800 pounds at the gym. Seriously? 800 pounds? Doing what? Squats? He’s such a Rock Eater. Thinks he’s Mr. Universe. He went and got veneers or whatever those things are on his teeth and now they stick out from his mouth like a overly white overbite. I’m sure he thinks he’s hot though. He has this wall paper background on his computer of himself with two dudes snow skiing. They all have their shirts off. The other two guys look pretty average, but Rock Eater looks like he eats a dozen eggs for breakfast and a barrel of creatine and he’s flexing his pectoralis majors and puffing himself out like some sort of quail in mating season. bleck… He nauseates me. For the past week or so he’s been on the phone with some lender in New York. Apparently he’s trying to buy a boat (in a feeble attempt to appease his succubus wife) and for whatever reason he couldn’t qualify for a loan out here. To get a loan from the lender in New York, he had to show some sort of part-time residency or some crap. So he found some online university based out of New York and registered for classes just to get a stupid loan for a $70,000 boat. Really? Are you kidding me? The admin assistant asked him what class he signed up for and he said, “Blogging.” She asked if he was actually going to take the course and he said, “Pfft… no.” This guy is truly a dunderhead. I should be glad he isn’t going to follow through with that class because he may run across my blog and find himself as the subject matter for one of my rants. Every day he looks like he’s wearing a new pair of shoes – nice shoes, money shoes, TRENDY shoes… idiot. Apparently his wife is having some sort of mid-life crisis (mid-life crisis is psychobabble for self-centered idiocy). I guess she used to be fat and within the past year she lost all kinds of weight. Still unhappy with her appearance, she asked her husband to buy her a new set of bosoms, which he did, along with a complete reconstruction in the area below the belt (so she could feel virginal again), a nose job, a face lift, and a new tattoo. A few months back he bought her a new Mercedes, as well as a new truck of some sort for himself, and now he’s buying her a boat because the one they already have isn’t as flashy as she would like it to be. After all of this, he is constantly crying to the secretary about his wife's infidelity. Really? Seriously? What a shock! You know, it’s stories like this that help me understand why “good” people (that is people that don’t commit crimes like rape and murder etc.) are still lost because obviously they just don’t get it. Vanity is one of the seven deadly sins, after all, and no one ever thinks about that. Vanity, Greed, Laziness, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Lust, and Wrath… no one thinks about these things too much because most of them are internal, easily hidden from the external human eye, but… they’re all one way tickets to your own personal doom if one isn’t careful. No one is perfect, we all have our things, but I am convinced that if anyone is driving the highway to Hell, no matter how “good” of a citizen they think themselves to be, it is the people that refuse to look inward and find a deeper meaning within the self and a purpose to their lives beyond the material and the external. Idiots.

Speaking of external, I have heard that my hair looks nice today.

I have heard, for certain, that my current health insurance plan is no longer going to be offered after this month.

I have heard, that the Land Department will experience no further lay-offs for the remainder of this fiscal year.

I have heard that the axe is going to fall on the rest of the employees later this month.

I have heard that Sunshine’s mother (who is only two years older than me) is dying of cancer and she has no health insurance to help her even with the pain. This makes me sad. These are moments when I wish I had an arsenal of money to help the people I care about. When I first started working for the mortgage company and I started seeing the money come in, I created this plan in my head and I called it “The Arsenal Of Funds.” I was good at selling loans and I always believed God “paid” me well for my honesty in a business that was just a tad on the corrupt side. I was making more than enough to pull myself out of the hole and set myself up for a “successful” financial future. During that time I had to evaluate what was going to be most important to me. I had come from nothing for so long and been around family and friends with nothing for so long, I didn’t want to become one of the idiots that went overboard with the material things. This was when I decided I would make a comfortable space for myself and my daughter and the rest would pile up in the “arsenal” so I could help out my people whenever they got stuck – like Sunshine and her mother. She told me today that her mother has stage three cancer and her only shot at sending the cancer into remission is to have chemo treatments once a week until remission becomes apparent. One treatment, without health insurance, is $20, 000 dollars. (Maybe Obama has a point? Or maybe the government can't afford another debt like $20,000 a week for numerous people without insurance? Or maybe people like Mr. Toe Nail should send $70,000 Sunshine's way?) Sunshine, of course, is in tears and I, for once, have no clue what to say. The best I could come up with is, “I’m sorry, honey. Feel like going to lunch with me today or tomorrow? My treat.” Inside my head though, I could still see The Arsenal Of Funds that never came to pass.

I have heard people coming and going from their desks, depending on the time and the reason I sometimes do the same.