18/24 hours worked.

Between Digg, Pandora, Ebaums World, Youtube and Gamespot I am beginning to have a thicker understanding of the internet. I have spent hours upon hours attempting to entertain myself in a work setting - one where "downloads" are prohibited. I have become more knowledgeable about Scientology, a few obscure legislations in congress and the community on Ebaums world. Sadly, I wish I hadn't learned about the latter.

My boss has not come in all day.

I have begun to feel like my sanity is slipping - if ever so slightly. I no longer feel safe in my mind castle to the extent I used to. Honestly, there has been little to bolster my sense of security in the world recently. And no, I'm not talking about terrorism, republicans or scientologists.

1.) My best friends in the world are disappearing one by one. That is not to say I don't have new ones - but they are more difficult to get along with, enjoy and confide in. People with my outlook on life are difficult to come by. It is difficult to find people who mutually look up to each other. My loneliness is deceptive, I am more or less numb to it in and of itself. I am an only child, after all. But the effects of it are obvious now. Decent conversation is so fucking hard to come by in college. This must be evidence of society's slow and eventual death.

2.) Heart palpitations have begun to plague me. It shares a symbiotic relationship with my developing panic disorder.

3.) Federal Financial Student Aid has denied me any marginally helpful loans. My family is going broke, surely, but steadily.

4.) I live at work and genuinely dislike my boss as a person and an administrator. She wonders why people think she's a joke. I suppose being a "joke" is really just a product of taking the wrong things "seriously."

I can reason that my loss of a "safe-place" is beginning to take its toll on me. Drugs are becoming both more seductive and frightening. I definitely need to get my head on right before I tread any new ground.

I must have felt like this long ago, back in middle-school. However, my sense of fascination and mystery was powerful. That warm blanket has since left me. Any security I have now is temporal and insignificant.

I'm so tired.

College - Ideal or Real?

I grew up looking at colleges through the television. My mother would sometimes go and study in libraries belonging to various universities. All I knew were images like these. I imagined a tranquil place with a comforting buzz of a newly adult community. A place where sex, cars, drugs and mischief was readily available in comfortable quantities. I imagined a place where young adults, still kids in a way, could live, eat snacks, read books and play video-games together. I imagined a place where everyone was different, unique and interesting. I imagined all of these things to be universal traits of "college."

What bothers me is that the dorms on my campus are actually quite superb. They are nestled into a beautiful area and our campus itself is gorgeous. But alas, more times than not, I feel as if it is a prison. The RAs have a constant, ever-vigilant and policing eye. Rules are strictly enforced - and usually for the sake of saving management money. Everything is all about the dollar. The education here, despite the best efforts of the teacher, is not "student centered" as it claims to be.

Everything grinds on the dollar. This is especially true for student housing. I happen to know a few inside secrets. There are many systems in place to assure the student will pay more than they bargained for. The following is one such system:

1.) Upon checking-in, residents are to make a detailed report about pre-existing damages in their newly assigned rooms. This is supposedly put in place to assure that nobody pays for damages they did not create.

2.) A confusing set of options is presented to the resident upon check-out (at the end of the academic year). They must sign up for a specific day to move out completely and have it verified by the RA. The RA verifies that check-out is complete and the entire living space is cleaned immaculately. If the apartment is not cleaned immaculately heavy charges are levied. If "check-out" is skipped, or badly documented the resident is charged $150.

The worst part about this system is that it MUST be completed on the day of your last final. For those who have finals on the last day of the week, Friday, they must be moved out by 7pm that evening. Parking is strictly enforced to assure there is NO easy access for loading vehicles. Valuables must be schlepped up to a quarter mile with the option of using housings very limited supply of dollies. Imagine having to orchestrate an entire "move" and "deep clean" on the week/day of your finals? Bullshit, isn't it? Student centered campus... fucking liars.

3.) Assessments for "room damages" are done by various different staff members that abide by radically different and/or completely improvised guidelines. One staff member might charge one group of students for excessive pinholes, where another staff member might not. This system is unregulated, inconsistent and potentially biased.

4.) Charges for "damages" are sent out WITHOUT cross-referencing the aforementioned report. For clarification; if your room was damaged by the previous resident, and you correctly recorded this as instructed, you will STILL be charged for the damage. Your report was ignored. If you want your report to be even LOOKED AT, you must file an appeal within a few short days after receiving your letter regarding the charges levied against you.

This system is effective because it assures that anybody lazy, stupid, under-informed, or has had the misfortune of housing misplacing their email/address will be charged unfairly for damages they did not create.

What is so curious about this system is the idea that somebody LAST YEAR, who lived in THAT room was ALSO charged for that same damage. Clearly, the fact that the damage is still there is indicative of the fact that the money charged from the student previous never went towards repair - and practically assures that the flaws and inadequacies of the facilities keep harvesting money from each crop of new residents.

Charge for the repair.
Don't repair it.
Charge for the repair.
Don't repair it.
ad infinitum.

Conclusion: whether this system has arisen out of laziness, bad organization or pure malicious intent is unknown. However, it is one of the many things my college has done to dissuade me from believing in the idealized and televisionesque outlook on young Academic life.

That's Your Job

The schedule is in constant flux. You never quite know when it is that you are working. It is not possible to know a week ahead of time. Nobody knows anything.

Nobody knows anything.

This is a philosophy I have come to accept both as a curse and a blessing. It is a product of bureaucracy - a system equally as twisted and confusing as the spelling of the word itself. Try pronouncing that word phonetically. It fucking says it all. It encapsulates, perfectly, the suffering and pain of confusion in the face of accountability. However, the guise of "nobody knows anything" allows one, at least temporarily, to escape the wrath of accountability.

The best way to do this is assure the boss everything is going ok. And it is; unless you draw unnecessary attention to the situation. Somebody is going to suffer. Work is painful. The goal, however, is to pass it off onto the person above you - in the same sick and callous way that they pass "it" off onto you.

Explain this to me: when I run into a road-block, and my ask my boss for help.... how is it that I am always the one responsible for the road-block? "You should talk to your co-workers and figure it out. You NEED to communicate!" To be frank, that is asking too much. We don't work the same shifts. There is nobody above us or bellow us that knows what the fuck is going on in its entirety. Each shift is it's own microcosm of "shit to deal with." Ultimately, if one looks closely at the situation - it becomes clear that there is a much needed position that has yet to be filled. Somebody in fucking charge.

For instance; if somebody needs to have their vehicle validated for an event we are putting on, and I wasn't scheduled, or emailed, or briefed regarding the process of an inter-department-in- nature vehicle validation operation: HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT?! Should I just go out of my way trying to investigate every little nuance of our entire multi-faceted operation? Fuck no. Not with my pay. That's the job of "The Boss."

I have no idea what my boss does besides serve as a medium between "what needs to get done" and "who's getting it done." The problem is: she keeps asking us "what needs to be done?"

BULLSHIT - that's YOUR job.

I'm at work.

Here I am at work. Listening to George Carlin's "It's Bad For Ya!"



I'm gonna miss that old fuck. I suppose though, now adays, we're going to have to start calling him a dead-fuck.

It's good I'm getting paid to watch videos of him on youtube.
I'm certainly not getting paid to sit on my ass and do absolutely NOTHING. This at least counts for something. I suppose I should be organizing the hierarchy of files on the network. Ummm, but fuck that. Not in my job description.