Sunday, February 21, 2010

I am going to start being happy

I have never been able to fully understand why I am not a happier person. I have a roof over my head, a job to occupy the daytime hours, a family: wife, two kids, three and half grandchildren and two dogs. Certainly a lot more that many people have. Yet I am not a happy person.

Ruling out a mental or chemical imbalance of some sort, although maybe prematurely, it might possibly have something to do with the way that I have lived my life and what I have actually been doing for the past forty years or so. Possibly a career related imbalance, that could be compared to what I would call the carpenter syndrome. 

Maybe you have heard about or witnessed that a carpenter's house is always falling apart. Carpenters fix things all day long and can't get around to repairing anything in their own home. It would be too much like work for them. 

Well Willy, similar to his namesake is just another salesman and similar to all salespeople, he is a sociable guy. All of his manufacturers, distributors, resellers, consultants, developers and customers (internally referred to as endusers, which is such a negative term) think that Willy is a happy, friendly guy. Irate customers, or distraught resellers, walk away saying you guys are so friendly, helpful, and professional that I'm not going to return your product. In fact, I'm going to recommend your products to all my friends.

Day in and day out Willy has made a living being a friendly, thoughtful, empathetic and responsive person, because if he is all those things, manufacturers will give him exclusives, distributors will list his goods, resellers will stock them, customers will buy them and Willy gets a pay cheque.

This might be where you want to leave, saying suck it up man, no one loves their job. But I am getting to a point.

Willy has become unnaturally conditioned, just like Pavlov's dog. Willy will instantly respond at the slightest opportunity to create a sale or even worse the slightest provocation to become liked, transforming himself into a friendly, happy, person who with seemingly, sincerity cares about you, your problem and your life.

Unfortunately just like the carpenter, when Willy leaves work and arrives in the confines of his home, he just can't be bothered to even try and be friendly to anyone. For example, Willy has only known four people in the last sixty two years, that he considers as friends and three of those he hasn't spoken to in over fifteen years. Lots of acquaintances, fellow workers. associates, maybe a few of whom would show up at his funeral, but no one that Willy would consider friends. It took seventeen years before Willy said hello to his neighbors who have lived next door for over seventeen years and Willy still can't remember their names. In other words, at home Willy is an anti-social asshole.

Now the obvious conclusion might be that I am not a happy person because my career path has forced me to use caring, empathy, friendship and numerous other social and humanistic skills as just a tool or means to an end and I can no longer express those feelings in my personal life. However if that was the case I would leave this post also. It is just too disingenuously syrupy.

You see I have been alone this week, for the first time in 40 years. My wife went on a trip to a hot island with a friend and I've discovered that I really thrive when being alone. Hey I started blogging again, re-bonded with my dogs, and have had uninterrupted time to think, about life, the universe and the meaning of everything.

And the ultimate truth that I have discovered in my week of solitude is that I truly enjoy being a an anti-social asshole and even more importantly, there is nothing wrong with that. 

So in effort to be a happier person I am going to try and make some changes in my life.

No more mundane conversations or displays of faux interest in the lives of the Starbucks kids, that I see twice a day, just to get free coffees every now and then or rambling on about life in Syria with the guy trapped in the Canadian Tire gas bar, to get the extra Canadian Tire coupons that they keep hidden behind the counter.

I'm going to set my suppressed anti-social, asshole-like personality free. After all my wife who is returning tonight, has called me an anti-social asshole for over 40 years and she still lives with me.

So expect some changes in this blog over the coming weeks. The posts on this site have been like milk toast, non offensive, striving to be liked or accepted by some self fictionalized group and in all honestly it just may be unhealthy for my overall well being and just another opportunity to feed my altruistic, narcissism. 

Yep starting next week you'll see some changes here. Might not even fix up the layout that I messed up this week.

Drop by if you like and thank you for your time.

Strike that, I don't care if drop by and even if you got this far into this post, I'm not going to thank you.

JAWL

Friday, February 19, 2010

Friday Night Nirvana


Nirvana was one of the few groups that came out after the mid seventies that I listened to. I thought the Grunge thing was great. In fact that is how I always dressed, well except for a few years when I got carried away and started wearing elephant pants. The Grunge look was cool and Nirvana's music grungy and dirty even in this commercialized teenage angst video. I like the cheerleaders turning on, though, but unfortunately I'm just the old man with the broom.

Kurdt Kobain would of been 43 years old today. What a waste.

For your listening pleasure here is their video Smells Like Teen Spirit.




Thursday, February 18, 2010

I really do not like Harper

In fact I would say that I unreasonably and irrationally despise the man. I mean, he could of walked to Haiti this week, tip toeing across the surface of the water, carrying food supplies and a second D.A.R.T. on his back and I would have still found fault with this egotistical pissant. He is an arrogant, born again, right wing radical, ideologue who should not be in any position to have any power over my life, my family's life or our country, in my humble opinion.

So every time there is a new poll showing declining numbers for Harper and his evil neocon, pmo-based, cabal I immediately over react, doing a little dance in the office, forcing high fives on my associates, and reeling off a couple rants about the horrific assaults on the humanitarian and democratic institutions of our country, that I read about everyday, right here from pro-bloggers. 

My associates on the other hand, tend to have a more pragmatic view towards Harper and politics in general, focussing more on work (thank goodness), raising their families, paying their bills or just trying to get through the day. Alas, the luxury of inanimately rambling and ranting is left to the oldest person in our office who can no longer seem to get excited about the realities of the day to day rituals. I think it is something they put up with since I am old. Sorry, I digress. 


There was another poll out today and this time instead of immediately dancing, I waited to get home and read Steve Vs take and commentary. Scott Tribe sometimes puts out an interesting spin, but I like Steve's. Of course, they are both Liberals, so I often wait for the dippers take. Didn't see any today. I would really like to support the NDP, hell I would make a great dipper, it seems to fit better with my Ffib id, but in my riding, voting for the NDP would be the same as voting for the Marijuana party. A principled vote that would not help one iota in getting rid of Harper.

Steve V's take on today's numbers is that Harper and the Libs are deadlocked, with an election, if called being left to the swinging Ontarians. In Steve's words (and one of his best lines) "Canada's fate {in an election} will largely be decided by an indifferent subset, of mostly disengaged fence sitters. Isn't democracy great?"

Which got me thinking that I really need to stop looking at these polls. I'll keep reading Steve of course as he has many other interesting posts, but I'm starting to think that I am looking at these published, ever changing popularity contests completely backwards.

Assuming that the number of people polled is truly representative of the national opinion of our political parties, 70% of the population do not like Harper. Great, I'm with them. However 70% of the population also don't like the Liberals. Sort of kills the least of two evils argument that I have always followed in placing my vote. It's worse for the NDP, 84% of the population don't like them and the Greens are almost disliked as much as the BLOC.

Maybe my pragmatic coworkers are right and in the majority. It doesn't really matter right now. We have too much work to do just to stay afloat and we have to do it with less resources and for less remuneration. It sucks working through another recession and according to the polled opinion of Canadians it won't really matter who's in power, we are own here. 

Hey, maybe there is a policy platform opportunity here, possibly one focussed on surviving the current  recession, one that focussed on small Canadian businesses, instead of giving a government rebate (our money) to help Home Depot increase their numbers. Just a thought.

So I'll cut back my poll reading and my office rants and try to focus more on the day to day. I will definitely keep the dancing though, that is fun. 

And I will continue to really not like Harper.


JAWL

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Hiring a Jew for Harper

Just finished reading Gerard Caplan's Globe article, What every office needs to succeed in Harper's Canada. Apparently we all need a Jew or two. 

Caplan is ranting about Harper's "torrid love affair" with all things Jewish and explains in some detail the government's interference at Rights and Democracy (as described in numerous posts by Dawg) and then goes on to to explain a new program that Harper is supposedly planning to get more jobs for Jews in the public service,

This a great article. According to Caplan, since you really can't go around asking a person's religion, Harper will have to instigate urinal patrols to take a head count, so to speak of the existing government. employees. LOL

So I'm thinking that as a struggling business person, we could use a Jew in our office, especially if the government is going to start doling out some cash or corporate tax credits and the like. Hell we have three semi christians, one an original descendant of the United Empire Loyalists, the other a South African born, Canadian, a third Trinidadian born Syrian and two run of the mill athiests. The Jew will fit right in.

It will be good to have someone around that knows how to handle money, especially with this economy. Wait strike that out, it sounds a tad bit racist, or maybe not anymore.

Seven months ago when I quit blogging and gave this space over to Ffib, Caplan's article would of been considered blasphemy or at least a parody. 

What the hell have you people done to my country while I've been gone?


JAWL