quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: And still no Waynster.
Oh I am still here, and for those that genuinely care, thank you for worrying, and I am sorry for making you do so.
I'm in a bit of a dark place right now, hence my absence - a lot of thought running throught my head. All I understand is that in 3 days I will be 40 years old, and I have until then to try and work out a solution to the shit that is my life. Keep them crossed for me that I can because right now I can't see a way out. Else the supposed second part of my life will be as pointless as the first, and that isn't worth facing.....
posted
In all seriousness Waynster I know what it's like to have no job and no money and how much it rocks your confidence when that happens, especially when combined with an approaching milestone birthday like that. Even though I don't really know you, from the stuff I've seen of yours, I think you have many talents, your photography, your web HTML skills and the connections you seem to have made in the music business and socially prove you're not some strange social retard. Not to mention your massive experience in your actual career.
As we all know, the job market is pretty fucked up at the moment, lots of people are going to have to make some pretty big changes to lifestyle and hang in there until the situation gets better. Sell everything that's not screwed down, don't get too attached to things like cameras and equipment, you can always buy back new shit when things change and if I've learnt one thing in the last 4 years it's that things can change very quickly. Like I say hang in there m8.
Posts: 1641
| IP: Logged
posted
also, how much of a milestone is 40? It seems like the be all and end all, but think about time, it's irrelevant. The things that bothered you or got you down ten years ago probably seem unimportant now. I'd try and remember that and not get too down about your current situation. Life sucks at the moment sure, 2 months from now you may be pulling in major coinage and getting the old chap wet on a regular basis with some continental filly. And on the plus side you've inspired at least three new threads.
Posts: 979
| IP: Logged
posted
It is a state of the world at the moment. I was saying to someone 'People lose their jobs and directors still get pay rises and parties. It's a trick of the mind. To help us believe that everyones suffering. Sure there's a recession. but what does the recession matter to you if you're in Africa eating a boiled rug, or lying on the beach in California drinking margheritas? I know a dozen people here at my workplace that get paid to do fuck all. Fuck ALL. It's a bullshit tsunami and you've got to grab your surfboard and ride'
A lot of people are in a similar boat but you can't let it damage your stride. You'll be crushed in the stampede.
posted
Unfortunately there are thousands out there who have made a successful profession out of crafting elaborate justifications for being paid obscene amounts of money for doing precisely shit all. Its mostly their fault economies are falling to pieces at the moment, and sadly because of the nature of their bullshit, they're the least likely ones to get the chop. While the honest, hard working people who just quietly do their job and accept their modest wage, are the ones hardest hit by it.
It makes you wonder what's really more important in today's world - having moral integrity or having the means to pay your bills.
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
posted
Surely having the means to pay your bills has always been more important, hasn't it? Food on the table. Roof over head. Young'uns fed. Starvation and destitution avoided. Etc.
Posts: 7807
| IP: Logged
posted
Indeed. But since so many people look at others and say that these people are being paid to do sod all because all they've done is lied through their teeth, the question is whether it's really worth not doing the same on principle?
What I'm really getting at is whether there's really any value these days in being a decent, honest person, when it seems like the ones who are doing best are doing so because they are opportunistic and quite prepared to step over others in order to get what they want.
posted
Can't you get it though? Isn't the idea that all these management types are really no more intelligent or skilled than anyone else? They've just arse-licked and lied their way into the position where they can call their jobs relatively safe and not have to worry about it.
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Can't you get it though? Isn't the idea that all these management types are really no more intelligent or skilled than anyone else?
Well, I just don't know, to be honest. I feel so woefully inadequate about just about everything that I always suspect everyone else of being better at most things than I am. Which isn't to say that I hold big bosses in any great esteem, or have any more respect for them than anyone else, either.
quote:They've just arse-licked and lied their way into the position where they can call their jobs relatively safe and not have to worry about it.
Again, I don't know if this is really the case. We/you are generalising about a vague group of people (I mean, who are we actually talking about?) I don't really know anything about.
quote:If they can do it, why can't you?
I'm too lazy, not driven enough, not insecure enough, couldn't be arsed enough, always felt that life would sort of somehow come together and I wouldn't have to put in the effort... things like that.
Posts: 7807
| IP: Logged
posted
Yeah, I don't know if I can put my lack of success down to the fact I didn't kiss enough arse. I certainly could have tried harder to do a decent job; see if that worked. If I had to pick an obstacle to my greater success it would be my own laziness.
posted
No I fully agree, it's my laziness which has ruined my sad excuse for a 'career' in IT.
But then, you look at a lot of middle management and you think, they're no more skilled or intelligent than I am. If they're no brighter or more talented than me, then surely the only reason they're there is because they're able to act in a way I'm not. And in many cases it would be hard to put forward a convincing argument that they're harder working than me either. In many cases quite the opposite.
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
posted
So, these middle management people, Ringo -- why do you think they got promoted and you didn't? Can you put your finger on it? Or is that the point, that you can't?
Posts: 7807
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by mart: sucking 9 to 5 cock and working for someone else
Having worked for myself and sucked 9 to 5 cock, I'd have to say that sucking the corporate cock isn't all bad. There's the security of always knowing where my next pay check is coming from, as well as the added bonus of being able to get lost in the hugeness of a corporation and essentially coast each day away until I'm able to retire. On the whole, I believe I'll be sucking cock for the rest of my life.
Posts: 7436
| IP: Logged
posted
The only place I've worked where there were things like middle management was Mott MacDonald, and the woman in question was just ridiculously, insanely hardworking. To the point where it actually came across as a kind of dysfunction. She was a sweet person, and great to work for but there was this constant sense that she was about to keel over and die from exhaustion.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Well I think when it really comes down to it, it's like you say. They give more of a shit about sucking 9-5 cock than I do. I just come in and do my job and go home again. I'd be perfectly happy with it were it not for the fact I've seen less skilled people promoted ahead of me for nothing more than the simple fact they've stood up and said "hey look how awesome I am!" when in many cases it wasn't even true.
I wish I could be all self righteous and say that I prefer job satisfaction over a large wage packet, but at the moment I don't really have either of those things so I think ultimately I'm just bitter that there are people who are doing better than me and it's probably nobody's fault but my own for being unable to be the kind of people they are.
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by ralph: Having worked for myself and sucked 9 to 5 cock, I'd have to say that sucking the corporate cock isn't all bad.
No, I'm not saying it's all bad. But given my experiences (which are, basically: running my own company, working for a fairly enlightened small company, and being a freelancer), I just feel happier working for myself -- and I earn less now than I ever did running my company or working for someone else.
It was nice knowing how much you were going to get paid at the end of each month, though, yes. Though, oddly, it always seemed to have gone in about five days. Being paid invoices sporadically throughout the month seems to make the money last longer.
quote:Originally posted by mart: Again, I don't know if this is really the case. We/you are generalising about a vague group of people (I mean, who are we actually talking about?) I don't really know anything about.
I thought it was generally agreed that the term 'middle-management' was a spittable terminology that is synonymous with being an additional cog in an already over-specced and already bloated blueprint. Corporations are massively fleshed-out with people who stand around and intellectualise the process but don't actually contribute to the future goals of the business. They come forward with ideas to save money, when a nice swift auditable cut-back would be to quit. Where simply showing up is cancerous to the growth of the business. Middle-middle men. Managers who say things like 'well I don't know much about Information Technology, but I do know how to manage people' and that's from someone who doesn't actually have any staff. People who are not fired for incompetence but are moved into a role covered broadly by numbers of other skilled staff. The idea that you have absolutely no skills in the department you work in but at some point you did a role similar in title is understandable. It's a nice philosophy. But when did a concept, not a skillset become the grounds for a 40k a year career? When we make an IT technician redundant over a philosopher? I'm generalising because there are thouands of people like this, protected by a capatalist system of greed. I know most people would like a cushy job if they can get it yeah? Why not. I've been there though. It's boring as fucking hell. Anybody with a shred of integrity craves growth in some form. Because money is not your god. *bursts into hysteric tears*
[ 04.03.2009, 09:20: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Anybody with a shred of integrity craves growth in some form. Because money is not your god. *bursts into hysteric tears*
MmmMMmm. What if you worked a lifeless job for 15 years because you were the sole breadwinner for your family and you subsumed every dream or ambition that plucked at your soul, so these other people would be provided for? Couldn't someone who did that be said to have 'a shred of integrity'?
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
I was so desperately unhappy in IT. I don't think I even realised quite how bad it was until I dropped the whole gig and started something entirely different. I thought it was down to a bad work environment and doing the whole 9 to 5 thing but really it was because I found it fucking boring. But then it was never my intention to get into that industry. I find whenever I speak to people properly passionate about IT, they bore me.
It was scary to leave my 'career' but I figured I'm young enough to cock it up and get away with it. Touch wood, so far so good. I find it far more motivating. But then its only been a few months, perhaps in a year I'll be a miserable wage-slave again. Who knows...
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: MmmMMmm. What if you worked a lifeless job for 15 years because you were the sole breadwinner for your family and you subsumed every dream or ambition that plucked at your soul, so these other people would be provided for? Couldn't someone who did that be said to have 'a shred of integrity'?
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: MmmMMmm. What if you worked a lifeless job for 15 years because you were the sole breadwinner for your family and you subsumed every dream or ambition that plucked at your soul, so these other people would be provided for? Couldn't someone who did that be said to have 'a shred of integrity'?
You could. You could turn it on it's head like that. You could say some people might be exploiting a system for a noble cause like feeding and clothing your children and that system is say the dole. Some people might do it for genuine reasons and some people might be there simply because a system allows them to. In this instance I'm referring to someone who is getting up in the morning to work in a large worldwide business with the sole purpose to earn their money off of the backs of other peoples misery, which I thnk is fair enough for a grumble.
posted
hmmm, anyone else suddenly decided to 'up their game' at work recently, what with the current Global Depression looming?
Posts: 979
| IP: Logged
posted
Actually to be honest, I've just encountered a couple of the people I'm talking about and I've got to say, I am glad I'm not like them. Couple of people came over, asking for toners for their printer. When they found they would have to wait a short while because the guy who gives them out wasn't around, they got genuinely angry about it.
Just imagine that for a second. Being in a position where, because your job was the most important thing in your life, this job which is ultimately a completely pointless thing which does nothing for the furtherment of humanity, you are driven to actual strong negative emotion because you can't have something your own way. Imagine standing there, going red in the face, lips all tight and eyes flashing with rage, telling something indignantly that it's completely unnacceptable to have to wait a short while for your toner to be delivered to you.
No amount of money is worth being the kind of person who thinks its ok to bark angrily at someone because of something so trivial as fucking toners.
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
posted
And they did that thing with your name. You know where, before reluctantly leaving, they insist on knowing your name. Said almost as some kind of threat.
Posts: 12211
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: I thought it was generally agreed that the term 'middle-management' was a spittable terminology that is synonymous with being an additional cog in an already over-specced and already bloated blueprint. Corporations are massively fleshed-out with people who stand around and intellectualise the process but don't actually contribute to the future goals of the business. They come forward with ideas to save money, when a nice swift auditable cut-back would be to quit. Where simply showing up is cancerous to the growth of the business. Middle-middle men. Managers who say things like 'well I don't know much about Information Technology, but I do know how to manage people' and that's from someone who doesn't actually have any staff. People who are not fired for incompetence but are moved into a role covered broadly by numbers of other skilled staff. The idea that you have absolutely no skills in the department you work in but at some point you did a role similar in title is understandable. It's a nice philosophy. But when did a concept, not a skillset become the grounds for a 40k a year career? When we make an IT technician redundant over a philosopher? I'm generalising because there are thouands of people like this, protected by a capatalist system of greed. I know most people would like a cushy job if they can get it yeah? Why not. I've been there though. It's boring as fucking hell. Anybody with a shred of integrity craves growth in some form. Because money is not your god. *bursts into hysteric tears*
Sums it up perfectly, and kudos for the way that brilliantly explains most of the companies I have worked for. Reading that I recalled so many people I have worked under - incompetant idiots who are nothing more than a waste on the air that the people making the effort to get things done, whilst these complete and utter waste on space, resources and finances do little more than sit around and only appear to take the credit for a job well done by everyone who actually did the work, It's a crying shame that it's these people who make decisions so often are the ones who make a mess of it all for the rest of us. What is worse is that for me personally, it is some of these idiots who are chucking my CV in the bin rather than giving me an opportunity to show how good I could be for a company as a prospective employee.
More than once in my supposed "career" I have been used as the scapegoat, and at least twice have lost my job because of the lack of integrity and ability of those above me. At Yamaha I managed to save a huge project through what I was told was my diligence and will to not let a problem go unsolved. I was congratulated from people right up to board level in Japan, and my immediate managers incompetance was rewarded to him by his demotion - and in return he fired me. He continues to work there, no doubt still fucking things up yet I am struggling to find work anywhere. And that was not the last time - perhaps I should just reword my CV from IT consultant to scapegoat....
It does seem to me that the last thing you should bring to a job is a sense of integrity. Whilst I have always tried to gain respect from my peers, I fear this has probably been my downfall. I have seen so many people rise in the ranks purely and simply through sucking the corporate cock, something that I detest with a passion and goes against every ounce of morality in my body, yet it's the want of being a better man that has landed me up an unemployable waste on the system.
Perhaps it's time to rewrite my CV - remove all of the IT skills I have worked so hard for during the last 20 years, and replace it all for the words "will swallow".
It's bad enough I can't get a job. It's even worse when I realise that my current depression caused by the situation I am in will only be exacerbated by actually finding a job and facing the same corporate bullshit that I have had to endure for so long.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic