An Essay

If you’re a happy person, if you’re satisfied with where you are at right now in your adult life, and where things are going for you and your job, your marriage, home, etc, then you can STOP reading this right now. I mean it. STOP! Go watch some football, some TV, American Idol, anything. The rest of you, don’t say I didn’t warn ya...

A long time ago, there was plenty of “opportunity” in this world. Throughout elementary school, in the early 1990s I was constantly told I was among “the best in my class” and there was “so much opportunity” for my future in middle school. Then when I was in middle school, in the late 90s’ they said the same thing to me about high school and beyond. Then when I was in high school in the early 2000s, they told me the same thing about college. Then in college, during the universally hated “Bush Years”, they all said same thing about my “career.” Professors, parents, and other nagging adults wouldn’t shut up about how there was “so much opportunity” in this world. My peers wouldn’t shut up about how excited they were to stay in touch with me once they all settled in to live their lame yuppie lives, and planned “adventure weekends in the Berkshires” for all our friends once a year, or promised to “get together at happy hours when we we’re all living in NYC and rich”. So much opportunity back then it seemed, so much promise.

That is an old world order mentality, an order of investments, 401Ks, 9-to-5ers, yuppies, office culture, happy hours, “work hard, play hard”, company retreats, fraternity weddings, baseball games, Sunday NFL beerfests, company box for Jimmy Buffet, etc, before becoming a slave to the same old grind come Monday morning. And where did I fit into that world order? I never did. Never have, and never will. And mark my words: that douche world order is dying fast.

Think about it: Why do people try so hard at their jobs, working so many hours doing shit they absolutely hate? So they get access to a company-exclusive happy hour? NO. So they can get tickets to one free concert or baseball game a year because their IT guy has a hookup? NO! So they have a chance to out-belt their rival in Accounting on Thursday karaoke nights at the bar by singing along to “Don’t Stop Believin”, or any other lame douchebag sing-along? NO! NO! NO!

It’s because they believe it will lead to a FUTURE, and lead to the OPPORTUNITY to go horseback-riding, spend a year in Israel or open a restaurant in The Bahamas or whatever common fantasies working Americans have. Why did I bust my ass doing a million different activities in high school, trying to impress a million different people doing useless tasks that ultimately didn’t lead to shit? It’s because I was told they would lead to opportunity. Why did I spend every Friday night of my freshman year making musical beats and rapping instead of partying? It’s because I was told in high school that I had “talent” and “might be able to “land a job” with my music. That sure as shit didn’t happen to me.

Today, I barely even try. I wake up when I want to, go to sleep whenever the hell I want to, play by my own rules. I stopped playing the old world order games when I realized they weren’t getting me anywhere. I have worked several jobs where upon hire, they told me there was “so much opportunity here” or “I couldn’t be in a better place”. The whole time I was working for these jobs, no matter how hard I actually tried, no one would say anything to me except about all these things that I SHOULD be doing and how much more I SHOULD be like someone else in the company. That’s like if you’re sitting next to a girl at a party, and instead of saying how cool you are, she keeps talking about her douchebag boyfriend: “Frank’s doing so well at his job” or “Frank’s taking me to Thailand. What are YOU doing?” How would that make YOU feel? Exactly

Then each time, I ended up a few months later exactly where I started: sitting at home, employment terminated. No “goodbyes” or “thanks for coming out of your way to join us each day when you could’ve been kissing another company’s ass.” Instead it was just plain and simple. To paraphrase: “You’ve taken way too much of our money, now get the hell out of here before you take any more”. That’s cold and it hurts. I don’t do fucking cold. Not anymore.

Even colder and nastier would be the feeling of a guy who’s spent 20 years working at the same company, living “the life” toiling away at accountability or insider usability testing or whatever the hell people do. Married to his “high school sweetheart” with 2 kids,, highlight of his year is dominating at company softball games, etc. Then one day, he hears “I’m sorry, we’ve laid off your entire department. And we have to terminate your life savings also. Company policy. Goodbye”

This, EXACTLY THIS, is happening, on average, to 8-10 THOUSAND people EACH DAY in 2009. Think I’m bluffing? Look here (LayoffDaily.Com) and Here (layofftracker.blogspot.com) THIS may very well be the end product of all your labor and business etiquette and struggles. I don’t play those games. Not anymore. A new world order needs to take shape.

First of all, people need to think for themselves. So many people I’ve met are unable to formulate a single original thought, one thing that isn’t based on “what they do” or what co-workers and friends and roommates are doing. When I walk outside during the day, when I might stop in a bar for a beer or two, I see thousands of blank faces, in suits and ties, people more transfixed on a project or a seminar or the Mets game than on the fact that tomorrow, the world as they know it may collapse. I see no color, no emotion, no personality on these people’s faces. They are slaves to a lost cause. I see a Zombie Nation. And people wonder why the terrorists still hate us after 9/11. WAKE THE HELL UP!

Second of all, once the mass layoffs stop, if they EVER do in our lifetimes, the structure of corporate environment needs to change. If it takes the deepest “recession” in history to wake people the hell up, then sobeit. People need to stop toiling endlessly towards unattainable goals and things that may or may not happen (they may or may not look at your resume, you may or may not pass some stupid test towards some endless tasks for some program that doesn’t mean SHIT). People need to take control of their situations, realize when something isn’t leading anywhere, realize most of the stuff they do is dead-end, and make new futures based on ideas. Change the game by not playing the game. Make your own goddamn destiny instead of putting your life, your future, in the hands of some douchebags who may or may not give a shit you even exist.

So the next time someone tells me jack about opportunity, tells me everything’s OK and the opportunity is there to have everything I will ever need, or that a young folk like me shouldn’t have ANY trouble in today’s job market, then I may or may not be inclined to scream, at the top of my lungs, ENOUGH!