Saturday, July 03, 2004
Happy Birthday, Usa: An Appeal
Today is my friend Usa's birthday and I thought I'd take some time to wish her well. Usa's had a REALLY fucked up year, folks, and she's trying to get back on her feet.
The people Usa worked for were actually pretty cool (by and large); they invented jazz and rock n’ roll and some incredible food (they actually came up with a boatload of cool shit) and although they were always bickering in the company, people seemed to work around it pretty well. Hell, it was a company that was founded on conflict and even though it seemed that it sometimes strived on strife, when everyone put aside their differences, they could pull together and get some incredible shit accomplished.
Christ, I used to work there (until I was let go earlier this year) and I can tell you, it was great. I hated losing my job but I can tell you Usa took it really hard; she was heartbroken. Outsourced, both of us, South American slave labor getting it done. What a load.
Problem is, new management kind of snuck in the backdoor a few years back and started screwing shit up bad. Really bad. And I say “snuck in” because usually people who worked there pretty much decided who would manage. But these bozos just kind of marched in, took over, lied and cajoled and cheated their way into management so they could run things the way THEY wanted.
What was totally fucked up is that nobody really said anything. It was kind of like, “Well these seem like nice guys, we cant get reamed too bad, etc., etc.” Heh.
Next thing you know, 3 million people lose their jobs while the top tier gets a hefty raise (and obscenely good scratch it was). I mean, most of these folks weren’t making the greatest wages but hell, at least they had jobs, they could get by. The slimebags who took over told everyone that by boosting wages for the uppity-ups, the uppity-ups would invest more into the company.
Uh huh. Most of em’ are drunks and perverts and have habits to feed. All they care about is being uppity-ups, fuck the little guy. But that’s not all. The company was in the black just a few years back and the boobs have run it so far into the red, you’d think they were commies. No shit, just like the old U.S.S.R., saying all kinds of phony crap, wacky statements that totally contradict reality, trying to make everything rosy. Yeah, it’s rosy alright - awash in red ink, ya’ turds. Just making shit up as they go along, playing “Lookee’ there” while they lift your wallet.
So you’re thinking, “Yeah, Usa’s hurtin’, we should do something,” and I’m thinkin’ yeah, you haven’t heard the whole story, yet. Stay with me because what I got to tell you about these clowns is simplyfuckingamazing, it’s that insane. Let me finish and then you decide how bad Usa really needs our help.
Usa’s pretty religious, for the most part, but she’s fallen in for some pretty wacky ass crap. I guess a lot of people turn to spirituality when shit’s weird but Usa… well, let me tell you what else went down at the company and you’ll see…
This new management, I mean they’re not even supposed to be there but there they are, and they totally bullshit everybody working there about this other company. You probably heard about those jackoffs hijacking planes and flying them into company buildings (killing over 3,000 people!)? Well, management blamed some company that had nothing to do with it - and then decided they’d go and do a hostile takeover. But not just buy it out, oh no, no, these crazy fucks decided that people had to die – in both companies!
DIE!!! And for a goddamn LIE!!! What the fuck is THAT?!?
Usa was kind of torn up over that, even though she had been pretty gung-ho about it at first (what with believing the lie and all). Other people in the company were against it from the git-go… and you heard a lot of, “Well, they’re not ‘company men’, they don’t support the company,” horseshit, mostly from management but also the people who were with them.
Hey, fuck that. The people I knew who spoke out against it LOVE the company, looked at the direction the company was going (and how badly things were going), saw through the lie, and asked… “Are you out of your fucking minds?!? Because no one’s taking care of business and important SHIT NEED TO BE DONE. Management wants to piss away MORE money on something that has no justification and… HELLO?!?” Maybe I’m goofy but that sounds like people who have the best interests of the company in mind.
Anyway, as you know, Usa’s always been kinda’ religious, not in-your-face annoying but pretty devout. Well, when new management came in it was with this attitude of, like, “Don’t worry that rules almost as old as the company were broken to get us in here: GOD says we’re supposed to be here!” I guess because they know most of the people there are religious, after a fashion. Blowing smoke up keesters, real televangelist kind of shit, all about the damn money and nothing else.
Pathetic thing is, a lot of people still believe all of it, every lie. Well, maybe not EVERY lie but still willing to… I dunno… I can’t conceive of how anyone with a couple of functioning neurons would still want those worthless twits still running things.
Anyway, things got so bad at the company that the cops were sniffing around about some serious shit, I mean some REAL SERIOUS shit. Embezzlement and giving away company secrets and influence peddling and other stuff, felony don’t-drop-the-soap shit, not just lying about blow jobs in the office kind of kindergarten crap but bus you up the river hard-core stuff. Like Enron - or like Enron should have been.
So you gotta’ figure that, after all this, Usa would lose it a little to God. Except, now, all these charlatans and false prophets are vying for Usa’s allegiance, trying to prevent her from having an abortion (I won’t go into THAT), telling her she can’t marry a gay partner if she wants to, telling her that she’s the “steward” of the earth and she can do whatever she wants with it… real loony, flat-earth shit. Fortunately, with the way things are going, I don’t know if Usa’s totally buying it.
In the meantime, a lot of Usa’s friends have turned their back on her. She bought into the new management’s bullshit and they’re saying, “We thought you were better than that.” Kinda’ crappy, considering all the good things that Usa has done (she’s bailed out a few friends) but they’ll come around eventually.
Will she get her job back? I don’t know. I do know that if management stays the way it is in the company, there ain’t much hope for her. Management’s already shown that they don’t care what the company does and how it does it, so why would you put your faith in them? Because God is on their side? Uh, well, every religion I’ve ever studied says God likes winners and NOTHING on this management team’s balance sheet shows that they’ve a single goddamn thing.
I think that most of you know Usa and love her like I do. I also think that most of you agree that Usa has had a horrendous year, one of her worst. I believe all of you wish her a much more prosperous, healthy, and sane year ahead.
Swell. You can think all that but you gotta’ DO SOMETHING. Help Usa get her job AND sanity back. If you’re still working at the company, make sure those meatheads in management get shitcanned. Do everything you can to get em’ out of there and I mean EVERYTHING. If the company is going to go back to the way it was and the principles it was founded on – progressive, innovative, egalitarian – and in order for it to continue to prosper, evolve, and provide promise… well, EVERYTHING you can do benefits us all, Usa included.
And if you’re not still with the company… well, I hope you’re OK with that Top Ramen diet.
The people Usa worked for were actually pretty cool (by and large); they invented jazz and rock n’ roll and some incredible food (they actually came up with a boatload of cool shit) and although they were always bickering in the company, people seemed to work around it pretty well. Hell, it was a company that was founded on conflict and even though it seemed that it sometimes strived on strife, when everyone put aside their differences, they could pull together and get some incredible shit accomplished.
Christ, I used to work there (until I was let go earlier this year) and I can tell you, it was great. I hated losing my job but I can tell you Usa took it really hard; she was heartbroken. Outsourced, both of us, South American slave labor getting it done. What a load.
Problem is, new management kind of snuck in the backdoor a few years back and started screwing shit up bad. Really bad. And I say “snuck in” because usually people who worked there pretty much decided who would manage. But these bozos just kind of marched in, took over, lied and cajoled and cheated their way into management so they could run things the way THEY wanted.
What was totally fucked up is that nobody really said anything. It was kind of like, “Well these seem like nice guys, we cant get reamed too bad, etc., etc.” Heh.
Next thing you know, 3 million people lose their jobs while the top tier gets a hefty raise (and obscenely good scratch it was). I mean, most of these folks weren’t making the greatest wages but hell, at least they had jobs, they could get by. The slimebags who took over told everyone that by boosting wages for the uppity-ups, the uppity-ups would invest more into the company.
Uh huh. Most of em’ are drunks and perverts and have habits to feed. All they care about is being uppity-ups, fuck the little guy. But that’s not all. The company was in the black just a few years back and the boobs have run it so far into the red, you’d think they were commies. No shit, just like the old U.S.S.R., saying all kinds of phony crap, wacky statements that totally contradict reality, trying to make everything rosy. Yeah, it’s rosy alright - awash in red ink, ya’ turds. Just making shit up as they go along, playing “Lookee’ there” while they lift your wallet.
So you’re thinking, “Yeah, Usa’s hurtin’, we should do something,” and I’m thinkin’ yeah, you haven’t heard the whole story, yet. Stay with me because what I got to tell you about these clowns is simplyfuckingamazing, it’s that insane. Let me finish and then you decide how bad Usa really needs our help.
Usa’s pretty religious, for the most part, but she’s fallen in for some pretty wacky ass crap. I guess a lot of people turn to spirituality when shit’s weird but Usa… well, let me tell you what else went down at the company and you’ll see…
This new management, I mean they’re not even supposed to be there but there they are, and they totally bullshit everybody working there about this other company. You probably heard about those jackoffs hijacking planes and flying them into company buildings (killing over 3,000 people!)? Well, management blamed some company that had nothing to do with it - and then decided they’d go and do a hostile takeover. But not just buy it out, oh no, no, these crazy fucks decided that people had to die – in both companies!
DIE!!! And for a goddamn LIE!!! What the fuck is THAT?!?
Usa was kind of torn up over that, even though she had been pretty gung-ho about it at first (what with believing the lie and all). Other people in the company were against it from the git-go… and you heard a lot of, “Well, they’re not ‘company men’, they don’t support the company,” horseshit, mostly from management but also the people who were with them.
Hey, fuck that. The people I knew who spoke out against it LOVE the company, looked at the direction the company was going (and how badly things were going), saw through the lie, and asked… “Are you out of your fucking minds?!? Because no one’s taking care of business and important SHIT NEED TO BE DONE. Management wants to piss away MORE money on something that has no justification and… HELLO?!?” Maybe I’m goofy but that sounds like people who have the best interests of the company in mind.
Anyway, as you know, Usa’s always been kinda’ religious, not in-your-face annoying but pretty devout. Well, when new management came in it was with this attitude of, like, “Don’t worry that rules almost as old as the company were broken to get us in here: GOD says we’re supposed to be here!” I guess because they know most of the people there are religious, after a fashion. Blowing smoke up keesters, real televangelist kind of shit, all about the damn money and nothing else.
Pathetic thing is, a lot of people still believe all of it, every lie. Well, maybe not EVERY lie but still willing to… I dunno… I can’t conceive of how anyone with a couple of functioning neurons would still want those worthless twits still running things.
Anyway, things got so bad at the company that the cops were sniffing around about some serious shit, I mean some REAL SERIOUS shit. Embezzlement and giving away company secrets and influence peddling and other stuff, felony don’t-drop-the-soap shit, not just lying about blow jobs in the office kind of kindergarten crap but bus you up the river hard-core stuff. Like Enron - or like Enron should have been.
So you gotta’ figure that, after all this, Usa would lose it a little to God. Except, now, all these charlatans and false prophets are vying for Usa’s allegiance, trying to prevent her from having an abortion (I won’t go into THAT), telling her she can’t marry a gay partner if she wants to, telling her that she’s the “steward” of the earth and she can do whatever she wants with it… real loony, flat-earth shit. Fortunately, with the way things are going, I don’t know if Usa’s totally buying it.
In the meantime, a lot of Usa’s friends have turned their back on her. She bought into the new management’s bullshit and they’re saying, “We thought you were better than that.” Kinda’ crappy, considering all the good things that Usa has done (she’s bailed out a few friends) but they’ll come around eventually.
Will she get her job back? I don’t know. I do know that if management stays the way it is in the company, there ain’t much hope for her. Management’s already shown that they don’t care what the company does and how it does it, so why would you put your faith in them? Because God is on their side? Uh, well, every religion I’ve ever studied says God likes winners and NOTHING on this management team’s balance sheet shows that they’ve a single goddamn thing.
I think that most of you know Usa and love her like I do. I also think that most of you agree that Usa has had a horrendous year, one of her worst. I believe all of you wish her a much more prosperous, healthy, and sane year ahead.
Swell. You can think all that but you gotta’ DO SOMETHING. Help Usa get her job AND sanity back. If you’re still working at the company, make sure those meatheads in management get shitcanned. Do everything you can to get em’ out of there and I mean EVERYTHING. If the company is going to go back to the way it was and the principles it was founded on – progressive, innovative, egalitarian – and in order for it to continue to prosper, evolve, and provide promise… well, EVERYTHING you can do benefits us all, Usa included.
And if you’re not still with the company… well, I hope you’re OK with that Top Ramen diet.
