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The world doesn’t care about me. I realized that on my ride home. My employer is looking to “cut back on staff.” I’m about to be unemployed.
I noticed the signs today. My immediate supervisor, Barbara, was avoiding me. When we finally talked, she avoided my eyes. She doesn’t know how to fire me.
Barbara likes me. We have known each other for years. She respects my work. She has even read my writing, I think.
I know her bosses did. They called me in for a meeting.
You really shouldn’t write such things, especially on the internet. Anybody can find it. Your name is on it. That links you to the company. Think about your career, Tommy! Do you understand our concern?
I thought about it: should I give up my writing for my “career”? I wrote an email last week.
Dear Barbara:
In the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson was arguably the biggest poetic rock star in America, maybe in the world. If you seriously put pen to paper, and endeavored to make it an art, Emerson was your God. He was surely the God of Walter Whitman, the young journalist who decided to answer Emerson’s call for a true American poet. “I was simmering, simmering, simmering;” Whitman wrote, “Emerson brought me to a boil.”
Then the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass was released, and the world encountered the fully sexualized Whitman: both hetero- and homoerotic. Emerson insisted that Whitman take the sex out of the book. It was hurting his notoriety. Whitman, ever the gentle man, turned to his poetic God and politely answered: no. The sex stayed in.
Leaves of Grass was Walt Whitman’s book. If Emerson didn’t like it, he didn’t have to read it.
That was last week. I haven’t heard anything. I just noticed Barbara’s behavior. And the list of new projects is coming out at the end of this week.
See, I’m a freelancer. A jack-of-all-trades, of sorts. The company that employs me takes on projects. They contract me to do the work. The projects take about four months each. I get a month break in-between. The pay is shit. Even with Lara’s paycheck, we just scrape by. But that’s not the worst part of the gig.
The part that sucks is this: the projects always require much more time than we’re allotted. So our work is forced to be shit. Some of the more difficult projects barely get started, and then we “end our shift.” We get a month to catch our breaths before we are handed new projects.
Maybe. It depends. There are no guarantees.
And now I’m waiting to see if my name is on the list. The list of new projects will be posted at the end of the week.
I am doubtful. I am frightened. I am even a little angry. But the irony is delicious.
I agreed to work this fucked up job so I could have time to write. And I did. Now the writing I did is getting me fired from the fucked up job that gave me time to do it.
Did you follow that? I don’t care. I did. And it is fucking awesome that this is the world I live in. It almost makes me hope I do get fired.
I mean, as an American writer in 2009, I don’t have to make anything up. My average American life just provides me with fucked up stories.
Now, where is that unemployment office? I’ll be sure to pledge allegiance to the flag when I get there.
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Ok, fuck that. Read this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed
by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are
Life,
Liberty
and the pursuit of
Happiness.
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
[Pay attention to this next part.]
That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends,
[Life Liberty pursuit of Happiness]
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
[the U.S. Corporate Government]
and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness.
–
Beautiful poetry. Where is that spirit in the people I live with? Where are the revolutionaries? Watching TV. We suck. I give up.
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I feel for you. Life is a real bitch, huh. Everyone gives a little of themselves everyday to maintain some type of normalcy. In the end we are all sellouts, or so we think. If you are a young person, I can only tell you to keep your chin up. Sounds hollow I know. But being depressed can only lead to shitty writing.
You’re right about that C.D. I can write about depression, but I can’t write a word when I am actually depressed.
Thank you for the response, and the encouragement. Whether or not I am a young person is relative to your age. I am thirty-seven.
I hope all is well on your part of Earth.
Yours Sincerely,
Tom
P.S. My chin is now up.
Hi!. Hey for the blog. I
Do you have a blog feed I can subscribe to? I looked around but couldn’t find it, thanks in advance.