First Door on the Left

Saturday Scruples

1. You dream that friends die in a plane crash. The next day they announce a trip to Greece. Do you mention your dream?
No.

2. Your spouse offers to let you have an affair if s/he can. Do you accept the offer?
No.

3.You’re a college professor. One of your students plagiarized an essay and should fail the course. She’s from a disadvantaged minority. Do you make an exception?
No.

I met a guy in college. I fell in love with him, though he never knew it. We were just friends. I thought we were friends. He was a user. He used people.

After college, he talked me into moving to San Francisco with him. We would get jobs and get an apartment together. We drove to San Francisco in my car, and sold it to pay the first month’s rent on an apartment. We both got jobs, him at a bank and me at a shipping company.

We lived there together for about nine months, but I wasn’t his type. He went for older guys with money who could buy him things. He found one who owned his own home in the hills and moved in with him. I got a cheaper apartment on my own, and stayed in the city for about another year. Then I saw an ad in the paper. A well-known airline was looking for people. I called, I got the job, they moved me to Denver, then to Houston, and finally to Dallas.

I don’t know what happened to him. About a year after I met the s/o, he and I took a vacation to San Francisco. We stayed with him. He had a nice basement apartment, and was screwing around with the man who lived upstairs and owned the place. That was the last time I saw or heard from him. I think about him sometimes. I know he has forgotten all about me.

We were just friends. I wonder if he still sings.

After this morning’s entry I did go back to bed and actually managed to sleep a while. I jumped out of bed at 0900 and had the car at the place at 0930. I hung around there while they twiddled with it. They changed the oil, checked all the fluids, rotated and balanced the tires, and took 72 of my hard earned dollars. I was out of there at 1130.

Came home and changed the colors of this page. The old colors were too dark and depressing. I needed something lighter, so here it is.

Spent the rest of the day doing nothing whatsoever. The s/o and I just lounged about. I figured if he wasn’t going to do anything then neither was I, so we both did nothing. Togetherness…. that’s what it’s all about, right? I wish somebody would do something with me. Anything. I’ll do anything. Really.

Here it is the middle of the freaking night, and here I am awake again. I so wish I could learn to sleep through the night. I need to have the car in by 9:30. I may just stay up, but then again I may try to sleep another few hours.

My manager gave the reviews back to me yesterday. He wants them rewritten. Seems I rated people too highly. He wants the ratings lowered, and me to make up reasons for making them lower. That’s the way this company is. They don’t want anybody thinking they may actually be good at what they do. I need out of this so badly, but I can’t get out until I find another way to pay the bills. This job makes me feel dirty, and I hate that.

Been thinking about my two cousins who died, one on each side of the family. One was my age, and died of AIDS. The story is that he got it from shooting drugs in Vietnam, but I know different. The other was about a year younger, and we used to play doctor together. A brain tumor killed him. They’re both gone now. Been gone a while.

I have also, for some strange reason, been thinking about how much I masturbated when I was a teenager. It was a lot. When you’re the only gay kid growing up in small town, the hormones have to be appeased somehow. Of course, I know now that I was not the only gay kid (or the only one masturbating), but I did not know that then.

Too much information? Probably. You may as well admit it, though. I’m not alone on this one.

It is supposed to storm today. I really hope it does. I need a real good thunderstorm.

I called the dealership where I purchased my car this afternoon to schedule service for tomorrow. The girl I spoke with in the service department was extremely rude and not helpful at all. I thanked her (for nothing), hung up, and called the main office back so they could refer me to another dealership for service. They wanted to know why. I told them. Things quickly escalated from there until soon I was talking to the secretary of the owner of the dealership.

Let me tell you, if you want anything done in this country, talk to the secretaries. There is no doubt that they are the real bosses. After I talked to the secretary of the owner, things started moving quickly. Within a few minutes, the regional director was calling me to apologize, and a few minutes after he called, the service manager at the dealership called me, apologized profusely, and assured me there would be no problem with me bringing my car in for service tomorrow.

If you really want something done, do not bother with the executives or the bosses. Go straight for the secretary!

Yes, I am taking a day off work tomorrow. You see, I am taking my car in for service. There is nothing wrong with it. It’s just a bit overdue for routine maintenance. I am also in dire need of an extra day off, though I did bring a whole case full of work home with me to keep me occupied.

Secretaries rule!

I just read this in another journal:

I don’t really feel much like posting today, I’ve done nothing but whine and gripe about my life here recently, and its not fair to subjugate everyone to that kind of writing, so I’m going to keep this short, and to the point.

Basically the way I feel. However, I don’t think I would have used the word subjugate. To subjugate means to bring under control or to conquer. Ex: I would really like to subjugate that hot guy over there. I probably would have used the word subject.

And that, boys and girls, completes today’s lesson.

The s/o has retired for the evening. I guess I’ll do the same. Goodnight.

Last week I terminated a member of my team. She was involved in an activity that completely defied company policy, and was entirely illegal. The police are investigating.

Inevitably the question arose, “How could she be doing this and her supervisor not be involved, or at least aware?”

Even though I know that I would never be involved in such shenanigans, the people I work for do not. They have only known me for three months. I have not had time to build a reputation in their eyes, even though they did a thorough background check before hiring me.

I see that as one of the drawbacks of the “new economy.” In the old days, you went to work for a company right out of college and you stayed with that company until you retired. The company took care of you and knew you. Now, most people change jobs (if not careers) every three or four years. Companies do not want you to stick around more than a few years, because you become too expensive to them if you do. You have little chance to build a reputation within a company. They don’t know you.

They have assured me that I am in the clear on this one, that I acted quickly and appropriately. I can’t help but wonder, however, if there is still a question mark lingering about somewhere up the corporate ladder. Time will tell, if I stick around long enough to let it.

The reviews are done! In celebration, here’s this week’s

Saturday Scruples

1. Legal attempts to stop clear-cutting of a forest of giant red woods have failed. Local activists plan to sabotage the logging company’s machinery. Do you support this action?
I don’t think so. If the activists have pursued all the legal avenues available to them, and have failed, I see no use in resorting to vandalism.

2. The construction company where you work is doing a shoddy, dangerous job. If you tell the client, the company may go bankrupt. Do you tell?
Yes. If this construction company is doing shoddy, dangerous work, they deserve to go bankrupt. Besides, this would not be the first, nor probably the last, company I have worked for that has gone bankrupt.

3. Men: you’re single. You sleep with someone you hardly know and two months later, she’s having your baby. Do you accept this lifelong responsibility?
If you know me at all, then you know that I would never, ever find myself in this situation. If, however, through some miracle of nature, I did, I would accept responsibility for the child. I would not, though, accept responsibility for the lifelong support of its mother. It takes two to tango!

Pop-Up Toilet Created for Revelers

When ya gotta go, ya gotta go!

There is room for three men to use the sleek device at the same time, and it is lighted, though there are no doors.

Nothing quite finishes off a night out with the guys like a gang whiz.

“I guess it’s accepted that after a late night if you want to pee you can just go ahead and have one anywhere,” said Neeraj, a 27-year-old Londoner.

His friend Roger added: “I don’t see the point. It’s more fun going … in the middle of the street. It’s almost traditional, like having a kebab after you’ve drank too much and are stumbling home.”

Whip it out!

I had every intention of completing all my reviews today. Really, I did. There were just too many distractions. Like the book store, which I have not visited in a long time and to which a visit was long overdue. And the grocery store, because, well, we and the cats have to eat something sometime. And most anything else I could think of to keep myself from working on the task at hand.

I really should not have to work on employee reviews on my days off, right? This is supposed to be my time to relax and recuperate, right? There is no choice in the matter, though, because there simply is not enough time while I am at the office to work on them.

I did manage to complete three, which leaves me with only four more to do tomorrow. I want to get them done so I can start the new work week without this extra weight on my shoulders.

The s/o just walked in and handed me the day’s mail. Included was a catalog from some company called Ultimate Electronics. It contains things like $10,000 high definition televisions. Oops… there’s one for $15,000. Things we will never have, but which are nice to dream about once in a while.

I may be giving away my age here, but I remember that, when I was a freshman in high school, my parents built a four-bedroom split-level home for $15,000. You sure couldn’t do that now. But then, $15,000 was a lot more money back then that it is now. When they sold it, it went for $120,000.

I really need to find a new job. This one is slowly killing me. The stress level is just too high. Anybody hiring?

Don’t forget to sign the guestmap, please. Thanks. G’nite.