Wake Up!

Boy, I tell ya. These people here.

I was recently forced to quit this little garbage job, which really doesn’t matter to me. Unfortunately, however, being fired means I can’t get another job for 90 days, which does matter to me as I now have no income for three months. But because there are three sides to every story – mine, yours and the truth – I’m not gonna waste your time with what happened. Nor am I going to get into all the high school-like behavior from staff and a couple of “officers’ pet” inmates that went down after I confronted my former boss about, then appealed her bogus decision. Besides, what’s important is what the experience represents.

I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy for the way I lost my job and the events that followed, especially since people get railroaded at work all the time. But on the outs I’d at least have good people, places, and hobbies to take my mind off it.

No matter how vindictive, petty or harmful; I have to go wherever they send me. I have to live with whomever they put me in the room with. At every turn and whim I must obey and endure their games. And having to constantly play the punching bag role constantly claws at my will power and provokes my bad judgement to make my situation worse.

Whenever I see guys come back or hear them talk about returning to their old ways if the legit route doesn’t pan out quickly enough, the backs of my hands just start itching feverishly to connect with their faces.

I mean what don’t they get???

The sole focus here is to make us submit, conform and give up. Or else. It’s our backbone or our freedom. The land of anti-reason where good sense is contraband and fairness is a form of punishment (“we would let you do that but others will complain because they can’t do it”). What’s worth going through this experience once, let alone twice or more?

I understand it, but at the same time I don’t understand it, you know. Some of us have substance-abuse issues, which can be incredibly difficult to overcome. Some of us, for whatever reason(s) are just unable to face the fact that we need to change, and often in numerous ways. And many of us have a built-in lack of confidence and discipline that goes back to our upbringing. But there are ways of addressing these and virtually any other problem.

We’re the most advanced species in the world in a country full of invaluably helpful people and info – often at no charge. Yet we keep going back to the same hustles, the same hangouts, the same “friends”. (“Within me is infinite power, before me is endless possibility. Around me is boundless opportunity…What do I have to fear”). If child soldiers can come over here from Africa and succeed what excuse do we have for our half-assing it?

TIP: Two opportunities for paid job training have recently opened up for individuals in Wisconsin. The W-3 (Wisconsin Workers Win) program is for those in southeast Wisconsin who are collecting unemployment. For more info go to this website: http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/wiworkerswin/default.htm. To take advantage of paid training for green jobs (working with solar panels, renewable fuel sources, making buildings more energy-efficient, etc.), go to this website: http://sage.wi.gov/.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment