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Frayed Nerves and Ugly Cries

Mornings are always fraught with emotional extremes. Especially if your phone alarm startles you to such a degree that you flail at it like a howler monkey and, in the process, smack your slightly sick boyfriend across the back of the head. The last thing anyone wants on their conscience at 4:00 a.m. is accidental battered boyfriend syndrome.

Not that I’d know anything about that.

And then there’s the work commute. As if cranking up the car at 4:45 a.m. isn’t depressing enough, you have to chant a little inspirational mantra to steel your nerves for the drive and day ahead.

Now, after building yourself up, all you need is “Eye of the Tiger” as your morning’s soundtrack. So, you turn on your iPod and hit “Shuffle.” Then, and only then, Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” oozes through the speakers.

Game over. Next stop: Ugly Cry Central.

But not this morning. Around the time I decide against taking a tire iron to the back of the slow-moving Jeep ahead of me, I start getting a familiar, gut-wrenching pain. No, not gas.

Mostly fear and self-loathing, with a dollop of despair.

Now, the fear doesn’t stem from being genuinely afraid of my coworkers. Rather, it springs from a worry that I’ll forget to pack my professional filter and call one of them a horrendously rancid name. That it’ll just slip out.

“Pass me the toner.”

“You’re a withered cunt.”

Just like that. I know it’s going to happen.

And let me just say, I despise that word. It’s just plain horrible. But when someone crosses the threshold from insane to despicable, it’s warranted. And for a particularly crazed lunatic (a.k.a., McNutterpants) who moved herself into the vacant manager’s office like a delusional hermit crab—but who also goes batshitcrazy if you move anything in your personal office space—it’s the only moniker that’ll suffice.

But if I really think about it, pity dances along the periphery of the charged ripostes I mentally conjure. Because, honestly, I feel a little sorry for McNutterpants. Sure, my life isn’t perfect: I’ve got debt sprinkled here and there; I’m no magazine model; I’ll never be rich; I sometimes scare passersby with my Chia Pet-rat nest hair; and I have a weird penchant for carrying dental floss in my pocket. Still, with all that aside, I haven’t settled for one of life’s sad consolation prize packs like McNutterpants.

I don’t know if I’ll succeed in forging my own path through life’s deep, dark undergrowth. But I’ve got to try with my own tools. Even if their edges are worn by repeated blows, their hilts rusted by tears.

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Wankers, Wankers Everywhere…and Not a Drop [of Vodka] to Drink

There seems to be no shortage of underemployed or unemployed peers of mine attempting to stay afloat in this rancid soup of an economy. And it’s that unfortunate fact that keeps me from entertaining protracted rants about my shitty work environment. Because, yes, while it might be a horrible place, it’s a job, a steady paycheck—even if said check could be a bit more substantial to make the end of the month not appear so far away.

Still, this gay has to let his hair fro out every now and again—casting aside the conditioner and wide-toothed comb for a bit of old-fashioned vitriol and finger snaps to keep my hair curled. What exactly could be bad about my work environment you ask? Well, I work with a bunch of wankers. On a military base.

I know, I know—me, in a military compound? Hilarious. But it’s tragically true. Never did I imagine I’d be in cahoots with Big Brother. But when an unfortunate event—yay, job loss!—conspires with one particularly inane life choice—yay, I’m an anthropologist!—my work life becomes a real life version of The Office. But instead of a funny or attractive cast, I’m stuck with the unfashionable dregs.

At the get-go, I had three wonderfully fun, informed, and competent friends around me—balancing out the crazy in a precise four-on-four split. But then, one by one, they left me high and dry. (Okay, that’s not really true. They each left for better jobs or for their own reasons—meaning: preserving what little sanity they had left.) And the minute the last one left me—with me screaming from inside the barbed-wire after her, “Run, bitch, run!”— the orcas started circling the baby seal.

Then, it got Animal Planet in this motherfucker. And while this baby seal may be outnumbered and torn apart, I intend to give the bastards the runs. It’s the very least I can do. Especially for the leading whale herself, whom I’ve dubbed McNutterpants. I even wrote her a note.

Dear McNutterpants:

I know you despise me. Don’t act like you don’t. Perhaps this is because I stand up for myself and can back up my arguments with actual facts, rather than the nut baggery you constantly pull out of your vapid head. Or perhaps it’s also because: (1) I’m proficient and competent in my job duties; (2) I can speak like an adult, and not the disturbingly high Disney character you so often channel; (3) I can actually use a computer to perform intensely difficult actions like, say, printing off an entire PowerPoint slide without assistance (I know, it’s hard); and (4) I don’t obsess over minutiae or interject myself into every conversation in a tragic attempt to make myself appear relevant.

So, do you think you could, I don’t know, fake a bit of professionalism?

Kisses,

Matt

But since I have yet to cast the last vestige of professionalism asunder, I’ll just leave that note unsent and add it to the pile.

Until I find myself in the middle of my resignation speech at some future staff meeting—and pointing to each and every person, and relaying my true opinion of them—I’ll just enjoy staring blankly at their incompetent selves while turning up the volume of Emeli Sandé’s “Next to Me,” then shrugging at their exasperation.

Can’t. Hear. You. Wankers.