Regarding my last article, I just want to be serious for a moment. In no way do I endorse deliberately pissing off coworkers. Far from it. However, this is exactly what happens. You get a new job, you say that it will be different this time. This time you will work your butt off even harder so the employer doesn’t have a reason to let you go. You honestly want to impress them, because you absolutely have to break the pattern of job loss and desperation that keeps forcing you to get a job with lesser pay. But then, there is always that dick-in-the-arse coworker that seems to think that you are deliberately embarrassing them, that for some reason it is your fault that they can no longer coast along at minimal effort. But, doesn’t that fly in the face of everything you were told growing up? You’re told to work hard, impress your boss and the world is your oyster. This is not how it works, though… is it? More often the harder you work the more people you piss off and turn against you.

Does this mean that you are supposed to slack off, and produce less than you’re capable of, just so the lazy workers can like you, not want you dead, and not work against you? I don’t know, maybe. The economy is tanking and I cannot afford to go without work. So, maybe it is best to betray my own abilities and do less. It certainly seems that hard work earns resentment not reward.

If you’re like me you can’t just not work hard. I was brought up with a work ethic that I cannot fight against. Every time I try to dial it down I feel so horrible that it doesn’t last. In the end I am a bad person for being one of the few who absolutely has to work harder than everyone else. Why? It’s not ego… and it definitely is not to make others look bad. I have to be the best because the last thing I ever want to be accused of is not pulling my weight. It is embarrassing being told that, and it hurts, so I avoid it.

I wish I lived in a world that matched how I was raised. I wish I was raised in a world that sees talent, facilitates it and helps it grow and prosper. I don’t. Instead I live in a society that shuns hard work, that cares nothing about people, and effectively treats those like myself as garbage. How it happened I cannot say, and I won’t try.

I will get another nowhere job, work my butt off, piss off coworkers, just by being good… and then get let go because I don’t fit in. I don’t fit in because I have ethics. I cannot change that. I will not change that. I will work, go home, write a blog or render a 3D image… or something. I will return to work and feel miserable, because I cannot fathom why someone or other finds me so offensive. I will go through that same cycle again and again, day after day, until I get laid off again… and again. I usually like ending these little rants with something positive at the end, but I see no positive here right now.

Peace