With the installment of a new UP Overlord in our building comes a new syndicate of fledgling contractor underlings. This new gang of peons requires the usual amenities: coffee, water, toilet paper, etc. Herein lies the problem. As the inflow of contractors increases, the strain put on the capacity of our limited resources does likewise. The infrastructure is beginning to swell, and it's only a matter of time until the pipes burst at their seams.
According to a report from one of “the reviewers,” the new underlings consumed three large pots of coffee before 9:00 AM, like how a plague of locusts cuts across a fertile plain. As one may have guessed, our water reservoir is being depleted with unprecedented speed to keep in stride with their consumption of coffee. With such ravenous use, one thing is a certainty: sustainability is at risk! Also, as we all know, coffee is a popular diuretic. Our toilets will fill up with prodigious amounts of shit and tissue paper relative to the rate our water levels are drained. I’ll let you do the math…
As you work your mind around the equation, here’s an important variable to keep in the back of your head: I present to you a certain underling, whom we will refer to as “Francis Buxton” due to previous evidence supplied by one of our ranks. [see posts "The New Backroom Guy...?" and "Further Evidence"] I entered the restroom earlier today to see a voluminous pair of jeans bunched up around a proportionately large set of cankles peeking out from under the stall divider. Needless to say, it’s embarrassing for both parties when you walk in on such a situation. However, when you factor in the smell and a series of grunts, groans, and complex breathing exercises usually reserved for birthing mothers, it just makes the experience that much more uncomfortable. The straw that broke the camel’s back, though, was when I heard a set of pudgy sausage-like fingers wrap around the railings on the inside of the stall divider. It became readily apparent that this was not your ordinary turd, as it took the full strength of both his upper and lower limbs to assist in powering it out…
The Airlite 9 have been caught in a constant whirpool of struggle to stay afloat in any given situation, but with the increasingly insurmountable odds weighing down at our shoulders, we just may sink. I only hope we can be as resilient as his turd must have been in its steadfast refusal to flush down that drain.
This brings up another interesting point as well, just to play devil's advocate against my whole argument. Is it advantageous to us that our numbers are swelling? Nevermind the old saying, "there's power in numbers," but if we are collectively a large turd spinning around in the toilet bowl that is Airlite (as I already alluded to), will we also become too large to flush? Just let that thought stew around in your head as well...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
The sky is falling...!
Ahh, Mondays… For those of us working stiffs, there are few days more horrifyingly dull. As I sat at my desk this morning, staring blankly between my computer screen and a poorly scrawled railroad map of St. Paul, Minnesota, I thought about all of the places I’d rather be, and of all the things I’d rather be doing. No matter how long the weekend lasts, it’s never long enough regardless of whether you sat on ass for two days straight or busted ass trying to complete the chores that had piled up over the course of the week as you sulked around the house because it wasn't quite 5:00 PM Friday. So, as I sat there lulling in and out of a working state of consciousness, my mind fell into its ADHD fueled auto-pilot hyperlinking stage: St. Paul is in Minnesota > Minnesota is cold > When it's cold it snows > When it snows I can go snowboarding. I thought I must have been hallucinating snow fall in anticipation of carving a path down the hillside through a fresh coat of virgin powder.
I was brought back from la-la land as one of the Airlite 9 (whom I will refer to as "Chicken Little") shouted from the adjacent cubicle concerning the falling primordial dust and asbestos that had been trapped in the overhead air ducts for the greater part of the century, now liberated by the gentle stroke of a feather brush. Like my snowflakes, the dust came shimmering down from above, no two particles alike. It appeared that Custodial Claus had brought me an early Christmas treat. I appreciate the gesture, but it was a gift I was just not prepared to accept, at least not until I scooted my chair from underneath the goddamn duct.
Just what I needed to make my Monday official… on the other hand, thanks for finally poking some holes on the lid of the shoebox you keep us in! Certainly I'll be able breath easier from now on, of course after I hack up all of that asbestos, rat feces, and dead skin cells from long-retired plastic makers of the past.
I was brought back from la-la land as one of the Airlite 9 (whom I will refer to as "Chicken Little") shouted from the adjacent cubicle concerning the falling primordial dust and asbestos that had been trapped in the overhead air ducts for the greater part of the century, now liberated by the gentle stroke of a feather brush. Like my snowflakes, the dust came shimmering down from above, no two particles alike. It appeared that Custodial Claus had brought me an early Christmas treat. I appreciate the gesture, but it was a gift I was just not prepared to accept, at least not until I scooted my chair from underneath the goddamn duct.
Just what I needed to make my Monday official… on the other hand, thanks for finally poking some holes on the lid of the shoebox you keep us in! Certainly I'll be able breath easier from now on, of course after I hack up all of that asbestos, rat feces, and dead skin cells from long-retired plastic makers of the past.
Terror Threat SEVERE
<---
If you have seen this man...Please notify the proper authorities.
Yousef Ali bin Leuark
a.k.a. "Deuce Honker"
Known to "blow his nose" very loudly disturbing the Airlite9. Also has a tendancy to look at dog porn and cram little white earbuds improperly in the ear canal.
If your looking for a good time call...
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Friday, September 26, 2008
The Gospel of Airlite
Working as a contractor is similar to believing in God. You don’t know any of the details behind the fabled contract, therefore it requires a certain degree of faith in order to get you through the day. The contract company will preach to you that it will always be there for you, contrary to any evidence that shows your job may be swept out from under your feet at any time. The flow of boxes slows to a trickle, yet more contractors are brought in at a steady flow creating an even greater stranglehold on our collective productivity. No matter how bleak and dismal the future may seem, we are taught to have faith that it is just a lull, and that the contract is actually being extended beyond the previously quoted time, because the UP Gods love us unconditionally. We may not always believe, but we are too frightened at the prospects of finding something different that we are satisfied with pretending to believe.
As with any God, there is a love-hate relationship. He tests us with great hardships because He loves us, and while sometimes we may doubt Him and find Him cruel, we realize that these are the kinds of hardships that polish an ugly looking rock into a gem. The Gods at the UP are always watching over our numbers. They always expect more of us, but when our numbers drop, their satisfaction is not shaken. Our mental alacrity is challenged by hours of dull work, but we always find a way to pick our spirits back up. Sure, maybe we don’t have benefits and we are barely able to scrape together a decent living with our wages, but at least we aren’t passed out on the steps of the church next door with the rest of the bums. The “reviewers” constantly challenge our faith by reporting our work-related sins to the UP Overlords, but the UP Gods are compassionate enough to forgive us, for we know not what we do in our states of desperate boredom.
We may not have much as contractors, but we can still have faith that tomorrow is a new day. And perhaps that will be the day where we are provided with a bounty of boxes full of agreements along with detailed and accurate maps, in order to get us through to the next day without completely losing it. Working as a contractor doesn’t necessarily mean we have a contract on our heads or that our days are numbered. It may seem like a life sentence at times, but at least it’s not a death sentence…
As with any God, there is a love-hate relationship. He tests us with great hardships because He loves us, and while sometimes we may doubt Him and find Him cruel, we realize that these are the kinds of hardships that polish an ugly looking rock into a gem. The Gods at the UP are always watching over our numbers. They always expect more of us, but when our numbers drop, their satisfaction is not shaken. Our mental alacrity is challenged by hours of dull work, but we always find a way to pick our spirits back up. Sure, maybe we don’t have benefits and we are barely able to scrape together a decent living with our wages, but at least we aren’t passed out on the steps of the church next door with the rest of the bums. The “reviewers” constantly challenge our faith by reporting our work-related sins to the UP Overlords, but the UP Gods are compassionate enough to forgive us, for we know not what we do in our states of desperate boredom.
We may not have much as contractors, but we can still have faith that tomorrow is a new day. And perhaps that will be the day where we are provided with a bounty of boxes full of agreements along with detailed and accurate maps, in order to get us through to the next day without completely losing it. Working as a contractor doesn’t necessarily mean we have a contract on our heads or that our days are numbered. It may seem like a life sentence at times, but at least it’s not a death sentence…
Palin talks to Couric -- and if she's lucky, few are listening
If the reality of coming into Airlite everyday wasn't enough to make you vomit a little in your mouth... The possibility of this woman being in charge should...
http://http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-onthemedia26-2008sep26,0,3542588.story
I say we nominate a different Palin... Michael Palin... I know he's British and all, but since McCain isn't actually a citizen either (born in Panama and here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html) I think he might have a chance...
http://http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-onthemedia26-2008sep26,0,3542588.story
I say we nominate a different Palin... Michael Palin... I know he's British and all, but since McCain isn't actually a citizen either (born in Panama and here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html) I think he might have a chance...
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Project Sisyphus
No matter how many boxes full of legal agreements we are able to geo-locate, there are always more boxes to be put up in their place. It’s a cruel form of punishment that seems to lack a beginning or an end. The humanity of it all is quite startling. The few tools we possess to keep from going completely mad are strictly regulated by our UP overlords. We can hold conversations with one another, as long as it’s not in a “girlish" tone of voice. We can browse the internet, as long as it is not pornography related (and being the cruel masters they are, the term pornography by their definition is an extremely loose parameter that includes any subject matter of remote interest. My friends… in my struggles to keep sane, I have traveled to the far ends of the information highway and witnessed firsthand the last page of the internet. It is a boring and desolate place. You don’t want to know how to get there, and I don’t want to tell you). Rubber bands, on the other hand, are STRICTLY prohibited out of fear we could use them as firearms, with which it would be possible to overthrow our lords.
Furthermore, our ranks have been infiltrated by a secret society known only as “the reviewers.” Publicly, their job is to sort through the boxes and tag which legal agreements are necessary for us to locate, but we have recently learned more about their clandestine organization. As our mole agent has discovered, “the reviewers” are the eyes and ears of the UP overlords, and their real job entails reviewing our behavior so they can provide their masters with a play by play of our activity. Even though, like Sisyphus, we are charged with a task that by its very nature can never be completed, “the reviewers” have made it their goal to see to it that we never stray from the task or even eke out a crude form of enjoyment from it. Fortunately for our sanity, “the reviewers” are easy to recognize by their old, crusted, and wrinkled appearance and their shrill, squawking voices that are capable of penetrating your skin. Thus we are able to keep our diversions relatively private from their prying eyes.
What our diversions amount to, though, is like a single drop of rain in a desert that stretches wide across the globe. We are slowly going mad in this place, and it’s starting to show.
Furthermore, our ranks have been infiltrated by a secret society known only as “the reviewers.” Publicly, their job is to sort through the boxes and tag which legal agreements are necessary for us to locate, but we have recently learned more about their clandestine organization. As our mole agent has discovered, “the reviewers” are the eyes and ears of the UP overlords, and their real job entails reviewing our behavior so they can provide their masters with a play by play of our activity. Even though, like Sisyphus, we are charged with a task that by its very nature can never be completed, “the reviewers” have made it their goal to see to it that we never stray from the task or even eke out a crude form of enjoyment from it. Fortunately for our sanity, “the reviewers” are easy to recognize by their old, crusted, and wrinkled appearance and their shrill, squawking voices that are capable of penetrating your skin. Thus we are able to keep our diversions relatively private from their prying eyes.
What our diversions amount to, though, is like a single drop of rain in a desert that stretches wide across the globe. We are slowly going mad in this place, and it’s starting to show.
And so it begins...
Somewhere in the United States of America, an economical genius has figured out how to pay for worldwide healthcare, fix the budget, fund the war and balance the budget at the same time. His ideas are novel and sound and without any critics. It will revolutionize the world forevermore. Unfortunately...this story is not about him. This story is about the Airlite 9; nine figures thrown together by a dark destiny shaped by the evil machinations of Colonel Habib to shape the world of mapping forevermore. This is their world; four white walls and shelves of dust and grime in a house of pain that truly undermines any ambition to do anything else. My god..when does it all end...WHEN...DOES...IT...END?!"
Dawn of a New Day
I stepped out of my vehicle today with a sigh, knowing that a full eight hours of grueling work were ahead of me. The work itself was not particularly difficult or physically strenuous, but the nature of the project was an exercise in futility that could bring anybody's sanity to the brink of collapse. As my car door opened, the clean, fresh, dew-laced aroma of another morning in Glenwood was quickly overtaken by the dank, grimy odor of the city with all of its hustle and bustle. On top of that, the taste of freshly molded plastic ironically hung heavy in the air outside of the Airlite building. Robert Duval once said he loves the smell of napalm in the morning, but even his character in Apocalypse Now would have gagged upon stumbling by this purgatory.
Pieces of trash blew down the empty street like the tumbleweed rolling through the old west, evoking an ominous feeling of loneliness and despair. These emotions were only further amplified by the sight of the bums passed out on the steps of the church across the street, sleeping off the previous night’s hangover. Their day would amount to panhandling for enough change to buy a few more tallboys of Colt .45 Malt Liquor. The sigh that I breathed as I exited my car? That was the sound of me realizing my day wouldn’t amount to much more. I was simply better dressed for the occasion. Such is Airlite…
Pieces of trash blew down the empty street like the tumbleweed rolling through the old west, evoking an ominous feeling of loneliness and despair. These emotions were only further amplified by the sight of the bums passed out on the steps of the church across the street, sleeping off the previous night’s hangover. Their day would amount to panhandling for enough change to buy a few more tallboys of Colt .45 Malt Liquor. The sigh that I breathed as I exited my car? That was the sound of me realizing my day wouldn’t amount to much more. I was simply better dressed for the occasion. Such is Airlite…
The Formation of the Airlite9
We came to be because of what we were... Cartographers in need of work. This place... The Airlite... has brought the 9 of us together, and it will slowly tear us apart...
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