You're Screwed

By David Baker

Don't worry. You're really NOT screwed. But when you can take a few minutes from trying to hack your way out of this insane jungle to read about what one man experienced as a "Professional Job Seeker", then you'll see that you're NOT alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Baker
• Release date: Apr 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476416786

Book preview

You're Screwed

A Maddening Journey Through the Crap-Infested, Get-A-Job Jungles of 21st Century America

by

David W. Baker

Copyright ©2012 David Baker All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photocopying or by any electronic or merchant means, including information storage or retrieval systems without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Smashword Edition License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fact. Any resemblance to any location (like the planet earth) or the character,(like the author), is totally intended BECAUSE THE AUTHOR IS THE CHARACTER!

CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS LIFESTYLE AT HOME! The author is a professional job hunter, and any attempt at reproducing his approach to handling all the bullshit that comes with looking for a job in this jungle will make you look stupid and could create a significant negative cash flow.

Table of Contents

______________________

Chapter 1. Welcome to the Jungle

Chapter 2. The Corporate Merry-Go-Round

Chapter 3. Tickets To Paradise

Chapter 4. The Interrogation

Chapter 5. Clowns At The Fair

Chapter 6. Board Games

Chapter 7. Yes, We ARE Insane!

Chapter 8. Do You Smell Smoke?

1. Welcome to the Jungle

Ok. You were riding on your gravy train for only a few weeks or maybe for many long, happy years. Or maybe it wasn’t even a gravy train. Maybe it was some stinking’, hellish job you hated more than anything else and you’ve been in here for a few weeks now or a few months or maybe you just arrived last Friday. It really doesn’t matter. However long it’s been, I’m truly sorry. Getting fired, laid off, downsized, booted out, cut loose, redundancied (huh??) or whatever the bullshit artists are terming it nowadays, is never the kind of happy experience that will create fond, warm memories you’ll enjoy recalling around the fireplace with family and friends any time soon (except of course for deranged crazies, like me...).

I understand what you’re going through. Completely. Believe me.

Maybe you had a seat in first class, one you worked pretty damn hard for. Maybe it was coach. It used to matter. But not anymore. You might have had a pretty comfortable window seat and you liked the ride. But who cares. That’s all gone now. Your manager has just walked into your cube, tapped you on the shoulder or called you into his office (I love that phrase: ah, can I see you in my office for a minute?) and with maybe little or no warning (and of course making sure he communicated to you how difficult this was for him to have do), the ticket taker on your gravy train simply dragged your sorry, overpaid ass to the back of the caboose and booted you off. Everything that you worked for is now gone. Maybe forever. And none of that phony, status symbol bullshit that made you think you were God’s gift to corporate America matters anymore. It’s a new, dark day, baby. And here you are.

Although you may never forget, as your corporate gravy train rushed along, how comfortable it was sitting on your ever widening rear-end in that high-backed leather executive chair in your first class seat in your corner office as you hurriedly shopped for yet another Rolex online before your 2 o’clock staff meeting, you’ll certainly always remember how bad it hurt when you landed on your head.

You used to know exactly where you were in the big picture. And you had a definite, fool-proof strategy on where you were going and how you were going to get there. But not now. When the dust had settled and you finally got up and took a look around, you realized you were in a jungle you really didn’t know very much about. And one you were certain you didn’t want to be in.

Welcome to hell.

Let me tell you, even though you think this place doesn’t look too hostile now, just wait. In just a little while, after you start hacking your way through it, it’ll mutate into a merciless, ugly, Linda-Blair, green pea soup puking bitch. It always does. And if you work really hard, keep a positive attitude and never give up, and you still haven’t been lucky enough to be invited to squeeze your giant butt into one last, open, little space on some almost-bankrupt company’s payroll, you’ll find yourself forced into planting long, deep-tongue kisses on those cracked, vomit-stained lips of hers because you need a job, any job, to pay the damn rent.

While you’re in this jungle, you’re gonna’ change. You’re gonna’ get to see yourself. You’re going to get to know just WHO you really are, how tough you really are, and what kind of shape your coping skills are in, if you have any at all. A very few of you might not mind this job-hunting nightmare too much, but for the many who do, you better have a healthy supply of emotional and spiritual stamina, because your misery might not end for a long time. You might get to the point where you’ll wonder how long you can continue to take the never ending abuse from all the countless, imbecilic blockheads who call the shots in this shit hole. They’ll be days when you’ve had enough, when you’ll quit reading confusing job postings and head out to far away corners of the Internet to see if there are any poisons you could purchase anonymously with your almost max’d out MasterCard. (Ricin is a great killer, by the way. It’s refined from the common castor bean and inhaling an amount equal to half a grain of sand will either immediately kill the bastard who sneered that your resume was a little overdone or at least leave him with serious organ failure. Google that and bookmark it. You might want it later.)

You’re all going to now have to lift the rotting log of an American culture gone mad. And when you do, you’ll stare in shock at all the human slime that lives under it. Just remember, you’ve landed in one wretched, putrid, appalling world where it’s easier to get some snobby HR bitch to return your 10th phone call, than it is to get a not too disgusting job at a living wage.

Maybe you’re the eternal optimist. Maybe you think everything’s gonna’ be ok. You’ve worked hard, saved your money or invested wisely and you’ll be able to pay the mortgage. For a little while. You’re educated and skilled, you’ve got connections and you know people. And of course, since you’re an experienced, highly credentialed, confident, 37 year old Aryan who belongs on the pages of GQ magazine or you have boobs that go until next Wednesday and a face that makes Miss June look like some Irish banshee, you’re confident you’ll be able to walk out of this jungle in just a few weeks. Or a couple of months at the longest. Regardless of how fast you might think you can find another seat on another Great American Gravy Train, for many of you poor pawns, more times than not, it’ll get to the point where you’ll start thinkin’ that maybe you’re stuck in here forever. Don’t laugh. Maybe YOU can hack your way out of this labyrinthine nightmare, but this shit hole is littered with the carcasses of countless uneducated, gray-haired, obese, wrinkled, less-than-beautiful, average people who were never able to.

This place is like hell. It’s a jungle of pain, filled with ugly surprises, where one minute you may think you’re on a nice wide, sunshine dappled path that’ll lead you straight to the job of your dreams and then, when you least expect it, OUCH!, some fiend, some personnel pit-bull, jumps out of the bushes and sinks it’s teeth directly into your self confidence. And it always seems to come out of nowhere. And it always hurts. And it will anger you and frustrate you and make you want to kill somebody, like the next bastard who’s 15 minutes late to your interview. No, this won’t be a leisurely stroll, people. Many of you will hack and hack and hack and hack with the dull machetes of crappy job histories or GED educations or yes, even more insane, low FICO scores!, and for the next several months (or maybe years), you’ll watch your self esteem plunge, your blood pressure rise, and your savings evaporate, along with your dreams.

And that’s not the worst of it. While spending years in and out of this god forsaken shit hole, I’ve seen the kinds of creatures which no semi-intelligent human with half a brain would ever want to be around for even a little while, let alone be managed by for any one of their rapidly disappearing productive years. The thought that one of these things might someday have total leverage over you and your future cash flow, over the kind of clothes you’ll wear, the food you’ll eat, the home you’ll live in and the car