My Bookshelf

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Hell at Argus?

Yesterday was a dead day on the contract hunt. Apparently my connections at Netherworld and Tenth Street are off for the weekend. I have only one hundred forty active leads left on my contact list, and most are not biting (nothing new). It is becoming more obvious that I need to contact publishers directly rather than waste time with agents. Yet again, that one agent puts most of my marketing chores behind me once and forever.

Marketing has been my new job since leaving Shithole. I spend the better part of the day sending queries, blogging (to spread my name and talent around), setting up blog interviews, exchanging reviews and working on new manuscripts. It seems as if God has finally given me the chance to do what I love doing in life. All I can hope is that the dole holds out.

I think of the six years of indentured servitude at Shithole and can only feel pity for those still trapped there. A large number are very happy there. Shithole is their life. They become competent at their job, they talk to people far more intelligent than their friends and family, they learn things way beyond the scope of their personal environment. The inhuman management-worker relationship, the mindless restrictions, the duplicitous business practices of the Shithole within the industry...it reminds me of the soulless work environment in Metropolis. I lived in a state of dissonance for all that time, and if it had not been for their accelerated procedures in crushing workers' spirits, I would still endure there today.

You come in daily and say "Good morning" or "How's it going" to the friendlies. There are also humanoids who do not speak, those who hold grudges, and those who snub. The humanoid is an aberration who will not offer the time of day in an elevator, yet when plugged into a headset, becomes the most knowledgeable cyborg in the unit. One just wonders what happens when the humanoid is disturbed after work, seated with a bowl of chips in front of a TV set.

Those who hold grudges are usually provoked as a result of confrontation, most likely over boorishness as a result of interoffice communication. The brute is stressed out over having to operate far above their mental capability, and lashes out against one and all as a result. To retaliate against the brute brings the grudge, which lasts forever. Snubbery is a practice condoned in the Shithole handbook. A humanoid who has far exceeded their station in life at Shithole is entitled to act better than anyone else. It goes without saying that, if you met them outside of Shithole, you would probably dodge them as dog poop on the sidewalk. Snubbery is their preemptive measure of revenge.

At Shithole, overly friendly contact with the opposite sex is seen as a violation of Federal law. The problem here is that, in Obama's New World Order, sexual misconduct may one day be classified an act similar to showing one's privates in public. This means that one day, one might have to register themselves alongside a child molester and a man caught relieving himself in a park...just for asking a co-worker for a date. I filed grievance against my supervisor, Sluggo, for such an allegation (complimenting another supervisor on her hairdo). My grievance was ignored.

Yet there was enormous sexual tension at Shithole. Over twenty percent of management are homosexuals, and they get their jobs by being so. Women get promoted by wearing revealing clothing to work. When I realized I was on management's 'hit list', I went out of my way to let certain women know I thought they were special. Of course, there was no way to nurture any fantasies. You have two fifteen-minute breaks, and an hour lunch. Your schedules are jumbled so no one ever gets coincidental timeouts. She runs downstairs for one blessed cigarette twice a day, and I go out for lunch to walk as far away from Shithole as I can, making sure I can make it back in the allotted time. 

All I can do is watch her walk by, wearing that dress that pleases her boss, imagining what it would be like to hold her in my arms...brushing her hair away from her face...gazing into her eyes and kissing her lips...but, every one in a while she looks over. She knows I like her, that I watch her pass by. I can't see her badge, after five years I don't know her name.  

"Hi," I smile amiably. "How's it going?"   


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