What’s All This Then!

This is a follow-up to my last post about when I innocently let slip to my boss that I’ve been sending out my resume.

“There must be cameras and microphones in this office,” my boss told me today as I sat down across from him. Great! There’s nothing like that sort of comforting tidbit when you’re about to have a confidential conversation with your employer. He then told me about his previous day’s conversation with the company’s president. “I was just about to talk to him about you when he asked how you were doing.” My boss then informed me that the president was flying in next week and wanted to have a meeting with me. “Be prepared to handle A LOT of questions,” my supervisor knowingly advised me. He then talked about people who find it easy to complain about other people’s jobs while being clueless about the job itself. Apparently, a few of those busybodies have mentioned to the president that they don’t understand why I am so busy, and why I don’t delegate more. So, according to these people, it’s not that I’m not doing my job, it’s that I’m keeping too much of my fun-filled, adventurous roles to myself.

Later on, I checked my voice mail’s for the first time that day. Thank goodness I did. The company’s president had left a message at 6:30 the previous evening. He was letting me know that he would be in town on Wednesday and wanted to talk to me as soon as he got into the plant. Then he asked for me to call him as soon as I got a chance. Hmmmmm … I’ve gone from begin a unknown cog in the corporate wheel to full center-stage attention. That can’t be a good thing, can it? I began to shake a little.

Ever had those nightmares where you’re terrifyingly stuck in one position and can’t move? The fear of saying something stupid over the phone to my ultimate superior paralyzed me like that for the next several minutes. This was followed by several more paralyzing minutes as I consider what would happen if I didn’t return his call. So I picked up the phone. And put it down. And picked it up again. Had the receiver been heavier, I could have gotten a great workout. Otherwise, these phone curls did nothing as I fought this type of dread usually reserved for trips to the principal’s office and irs audits. Finally, I took a deep breath, dialed his number and exhaled with sweet relief when I got his voicemail. After leaving a quick message of thanks and “looking forward to your visit”, I hightailed it for home. To quote one of the great lines from a Monty Python movie, “Runaway! Runaway! Runaway!”

So the saga continues. I will spend this weekend writing down every single task that I do at work. I’ll rehearse every good reason why I’ve earned a pay raise. And then as a backup, I will practice my best pouty face for that polite rejection that is sure to come.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” my boss had said earlier with a sarcastic smile, “but you got an audience with the Pope. Whether you kiss his ring or not is up to you.” This should prove to be an interesting meeting. I wonder if interviewing for a new job would be easier…

It is amazing how our lives are ruled by pieces of paper — newspapers, lottery tickets, toilet paper (especially when it’s not available). Ok, forget the toilet paper. It’s really about the writings on those other forms of compressed tree pulp that often make or break our dreams. For me, the time has come to update that boastful piece of paper known as a resume.

When written just so, a resume doesn’t really do anything except to show that you can almost walk on water. To the potential employer, your resume is read as their chance of finding that perfect employee who does everything for a salary of nothing. If you’re lucky, that new boss might help you fulfill your dreams as well. But you have a better chance touching your fantasy with that lottery ticket than with your resume in most cases.

As I researched how to “walk on water” in the job market without resorting to ice, I came across an important tip. Remember in the story “Logan’s Run”, where society would reward anyone who reached the age of 30 with a spectacular death? In the today’s market, it seems you are rewarded with a type of employment death upon reaching the 45 year mark. (Although that death is more prolonged than spectacular.) So I’ve begun to rewrite my past by removing dates. It’s like lying through the sin of omission. Kind of like filling out a dating profile by failing to mention the hump on your back or by implying that you look a little like Brad Pitt. A “little like” meaning that you have eyes, nose and a mouth but they’re not necessarily of correct shape or in their proper place. Of course, your date, or prospective employer in this case, won’t know until that fateful face-to-face meeting.

Right now, all I need to do is get front of my new, wonderful, soon-to-be boss and sell how great I am at making him or her rich. Did I mention that sales isn’t in my skill set? No matter. This is an election season. There is plenty of material on television to show me how to B.S. my way into high paying, do-nothing jobs. “If you don’t hire me, the terrorists have won.”

Maybe it would be easier to get the government to bail me out. After all, the economy is depending upon me and my money!

This is the age of arbitrarily granting rights to anything with DNA. So with the upcoming “animal rights awareness” week, the time has come for someone to defend the rights of plants.

The rights of plants? Yes, I realize that this may be difficult. Plants aren’t as cute and fuzzy as animals. Without those big, sad Bambi-eyes, our leafy friends can’t evoke the same feeling of pity or guilt the way animals can. (Although, by leaving a potato in the refrigerator for a couple months, you can get the effect of big eyes and fuzz.) Nevertheless, the time has come for someone to speak up in defense of our silent friends of the plant kingdom.

Why? Well, plants have no way to defend themselves from the senseless and unjust treatment that they receive. For example, who petitions the government to stop the turfy carnage caused from mowing the grass? (In fact, there are laws requiring homeowners to chop as many living stems as possible.) How many people complain about the drowning of our faithful friends from over-watering? Who acts as a voice for the thirsty foliage who have died from neglect? How much more precious vegetation must be add to the collection of dead plants in our homes before we act? (yes, potpourri is included.) Can you believe that these atrocities happened at the hands of seemingly higher intelligent human caretakers?

Are you worried about the slaughter of defenseless animals? Many people speak of becoming vegetarians to escape this guilt. They say it is wrong to kill these living, thinking beings. At least, thinking beings can move out of the way if they choose. (The bodies at the side of the road prove that these animals must have chosen otherwise.) Plants do not have the luxury of movement. They’re content to live their lives anchored in one place. Because of this, they are threatened with inhuman (or better yet, in-plant) exploitation from members of the animal kingdom.

Consider the splendid, irreplaceable flowers whose colorful, fragrant bodies are slashed for the sake of beauty. Their beauty and their life wither away in a lifeless vase for the pleasure of the beholder. Consider the fate of fruits and vegetables who are ripped from a safe and nurturing abode on the vine or in the ground. Some are carried straight from the garden into our homes, perhaps silently screaming all the way in terror. Maybe they know of the terrible instruments of unspeakable torture and certain death that await them inside. How can we stand idly by while helpless carrots face the mutilating action of a juicer? Can any vegetarian truly drink this juicy mass of pulp and bodily fluid without the same regard that they have for meatier sources of nutrition? How can anyone feel glad that they murdered a plant and not an animal?

The animal rights people say the animals are intelligent beings. No doubt, this is the result of interspecies communication between animal activists and activist who are actually animals. Surely there must be environmental owls who prevent their own from feeding on mice (perhaps by tying their fellow owls’ feet to the tree limbs while they sleep.) Possibly there are actual wolf activists trying to stop their own from eating rabbits and the like. (Perhaps the more militant of the group complain about how their kind wear fur. Yes, this would be silly but when was the last time you heard someone describe a fanatic as ’sensible’?) Like their human counterparts, these activist animals seek to stop the inhumanity (or in-animality) of animal against animal as they work nobly to prevent upsetting their perception of the ecological balance. This is all fine and good, but what do these reformed carnivores eat? Do these animals resort to the same depravity as their human vegetarians brethren?

As living beings, we must take lessons from our soul mates in the plant kingdom. They simply take their nutrients from water and minerals in the soil. And where do these minerals come from? From materials that have no feelings, no thoughts, no cares — from inorganic matter — like rocks! We must start eating rocks, sand, pebbles, even dirt. (Remember the kinder, gentler times when we were three and we dined on mud pies?!) We must stop taking life for granted and start taking granite for life. By dining on gravel, we will be boulder in our quest to preserve every living thing even if it is at the expense of our own life. With enough people stoned in this fashion, especially in government, we will have some hope of succeeding.

How? We must persuade the public to ignore the difference between a person who uses living organisms to sustain their life and a person who abuses any life to satisfy irrational, masochistic feelings. We must lump these actions together and call them all immoral.

Next, we must evade the fact that “rights” are moral concept that apply only to cognitive beings — human beings. We can then avoid or distort the proper definition of rights (which refer to an individual’s freedom to sustain their life, free from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference from others while allowing others to live in the same manner). Only then can we irrationally grant rights to whomever we desire.

If we must grant rights to animals then we must do the same to our chloroform filled friends. Naturally this means that we must do so at our own expense. So pass the word that the human race is not worthy of existence. Start today to prevent cruelty to plants. Remember the latest motto: Save the Planet, Till the People.

Comment if you like but don’t get me started on atrocities against insects and insect rights!