Me vs. HR

Corporate America never lets you forget that Big Brother has access to everything you do that’s related to your company. Your first day of work in any office, it is made clear to you that every email you draft is kept, every website you visit is documented, every phone call “may” be recorded, and blah blah blah. Who doesn't love threats and intimidation as a vehicle to try to influence good behavior?!


Like a good little new hire, I tried to blend into the flock and, at first I heeded the warnings and took them seriously. I was instilled with a healthy amount of fear of reprimand from my company introduction packet which detailed all the rules and guidelines…..and consequences for non-compliance. I didn’t swear around the office or in my company emails. Like an internet-fearing hillbilly, I abstained from certain favorite websites for fear that the HR police force was going to break down the office door and haul me off to talk about policy and slap my corporate infidel wrist with a politically correct warning...before manipulatively employing some big, warm hug tactic to try to lure me back to the light (Do I win a prize for gratuitous run-on sentence? My rebellion seems to have extended to the English language.)

Well, now that I’ve been here three years, I’ve tested ALL the waters and, BELIEVE ME, there is no man behind the curtain. I’ve looked...extensively; searched even. Why, you ask? No idea, but I consider myself a corporate HR Lewis & Clark of sorts (not the college- -the explorers, Dipshit- -keep up!).



As the months wore on at my company, I sort of cautiously came out of the ol’ compliance cave of obedience and explored what was out there….and there isn’t much. My company has effectively blocked ALL of the fun websites; Youtube, Facebook, Pandora, porn, various blogs…but oddly enough, they aren’t blocked every day…and I know this, because I check……every day. It’s mostly just out of convenience. Like, “Well, if I’m going to do a Google image search to find an appropriate/inappropriate photo to pepper my reply to one of my co-workers- -I might as well see if Youtube is permitted today...I mean, while I’m here and my shoes are on.” Upon discovering that Youtube is working, I immediately email several of my co-workers to alert them that we have a temporary, unfettered green light to fuck off and laugh a little in our, otherwise, joyless jobs. Hooray! The last several times that I’ve sent the triumphant email, the response has been that no one else has access to Youtube- -so, it’s just me. Then I would send out an email alerting people that Facebook wasn’t being blocked…and again, I was the only one that had access to it. THEN, I get an email from HR saying that I’ve been selected to be part of a surveyed test group of employees whose internet activity will be monitored- -NOT AS A PUNISHMENT- -because “I’m part of a random sample group, selected at random.” Random. Yeah, that seems convincing enough. Random. (Sorry...I laugh every time I think of that little cute Corporate white lie.)


Realizing that I violate a whole gaggle of “appropriate internet use” clauses (as identified by my employer’s HR guidelines/mandates) every day, I start treading a little lightly. I mean, I had all ready learned all the hard lessons about, say, Google Image Searching “Hot Gay Asian” in an effort to entice my Gay co-worker to go get sushi with me for lunch. I probably won’t do that again. (Probably.) If not for the HR flag that it undoubtedly triggered, for the fact that there are some things you can’t unsee. There was also the time that a few of my co-workers and I were trying to gently browbeat my “every-stereotype-about-Jewish-people” Jewish (actually Jewish) co-worker into spending pennies and nickels on cocktails with us for happy hour, but I was having difficulty finding an appropriate image to effectively illustrate. Out of necessity, I Google Image Searched “Greedy Jew” and after scanning through a few pages of disappointing selection, I cackled with delight when I found the perfect image…only, as I clicked on it, I realized that it was an illustration on a white supremacist website. Whoops-a-daisy. It’s one of those websites that you sort of nervously laugh and back away slowly when you realize you’re not in Kansas anymore (or...maybe you ARE in Kansas). It was an internet reconnaissance mission of sorts. Emily-1, Hill People Hate Mongers-0.



I feel like HR and I have tacitly reached a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” agreement, and that is...I know that they have a lot of shit on me. THEY know they have a lot of shit on me. I’m sure they have a whole file somewhere, but I also realize that as long as I continue to do my job in a way that keeps me stealthily under the ol’ proverbial radar- -I’ll probably be fine. I can sustain/not be seen or heard as a mid-level cog that generates very little waves in a Fortune 500 machine (I’ve all ready been doing it for three years). But seriously, walk around any fucking office- -even the mute, reject, non-communicative underbellies of society are bad asses when it comes to inappropriate internet use at work. Every time I brazenly defy and leave my desk for a few minutes, I get an eyeful of people on TMZ, US Weekly, some parent blog, reading some stupid 10 page email forward. It’s a fucking who’s who of work-dodging slackery- -I can’t possibly stand out.

I mean, who cares if I have stocked my company hard drive to the hilt with 18 subfolders in my Pictures folder (and dozens of subfolders within those)? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be image-prepared for any situation. I’m like a Google Image Boy Scout…which is why I have folders with such useful titles and applications as: “F,” which is devoted only to middle finger images, “Puking” (I don’t think I need to explain that one…but they come in handy), “Funny”- -I even have a folder for celebrity mug shots, and one that is just titled after one of my co-workers, because every time he foolishly forwards on an embarrassing photo of himself, I like to keep it for later use when he’s being petulant over email.









(Sorry, Kris....there I go laughing at your expense again, Buddy.)

With all of that being said...I see you, HR. I fucking see you.

Soylent Homeless

Oh, this may be the crown jewel of bitchery in this series, Folks. It’s one thing to dislike co-workers, nice people, semi-retarded dogs that shit in cars, but I’m going to go ahead and drag my soul through the mud on this one because…..well, because my PMS insanity knows no bounds and I’m shameless in flexing those muscles this month.

Where I’m originally from in Maine there are almost no homeless people and the ones that you do see, you want to shake the hands of, because you have to be one tough son-of-a-bitch to survive a Maine winter outside…..which is why most of them are also insane. The two are correlational conjoined twins. Furthermore, in Maine I was in the habit of leaving my restaurant leftovers in conspicuous places in downtown Portland, Maine to help feed said tough homeless people. I would also occasionally give them some spare change or a dollar, and most of them are too proud to even ask for it, which I quite like. I mean, shit(!), living in a house with a parent-monitored thermostat is hard enough during a typical Maine winter- -I can’t imagine enduring it outside. It’s like an episode of Survivor. In fact, at some point the networks will probably have that show when we’ve exhausted all other soul-depleting options for bad reality TV- -“Homeless Survivor: Maine Edition- -Tune in next week to see who didn’t make it through this big Nor’easter.”
I’d like to say I wouldn’t watch, but I’ve voluntarily subjected myself to The Hills and Rock of Love, so who’s to say? I would, however, be more apt to watch “Homeless Gladiator Death Match: Portland, OR edition.”


This brings me to my next point. Upon arriving in Portland, OR for the first time I concluded that I had never seen SO MANY homeless people in my entire life. It’s like a stinky piñata spewed forth an army of these smelly, non-working, drug-addicted, semi-insane parasites of society. I didn’t realize how different the Maine homeless people are from the Oregon homeless people and my naivety went unrewarded when I offered a homeless “starving” person (or so the classy cardboard sign indicated) my leftovers from dinner when I first moved here, to which they declined. Tell you what- -how about the next time you’re “starving” we just grind up your Stinky friend who’s sitting there next to you and we can kill a couple of birds with one stone…..And so began my romance with abhorring this particular segment of society.

The Portland, OR homeless come in two varieties. The insane kind who can’t take care of themselves because of X, Y, Z that was out of their control (who I can muster sympathy for- -also women/children who are victims of domestic violence and are thusly displaced)….and the rebelling youths from the neighboring suburbs who are of sound mind and body and could easily be working, but they choose to hang out in or around Pioneer Square during a normal work day and ride our city’s free transit and ask the working man for money and ruin the dining experiences of anyone in eyeshot or olfactory distance. GET...A...FUCKING...JOB. I can’t muster any sympathy for people who are between the ages of 16-35 and aren’t working and who are living off the giant Liberal hearts of a city.

I live just a street or two outside of the immediate downtown and I have to say that two of my “favorite” Oregon homeless phenomena are: 1.) Picking through my entire neighborhood’s trash, and then dining on their findings, and then leaving the remaining trash in a heap somewhere in the neighborhood. Fun! I’m pretty sure that flies do this same kind of service, only are less offensive and bothersome. 2.) Urinating and shitting anywhere they please. Honestly, if these people had homes, I would give serious entertainment to a home invasion solely devoted to urination and defecation. I’m sure I could rise above any kidney or intestinal shyness for this task. I’d like to come up with a list of said perpetrators so that when I don’t ever become a politician later in life, I can create a task force. Congratulations, you now have a home...and we’re going to pee in it. Have a nice day.




The people who are homeless as a result of meth addiction are a special breed of scary. I am nearly certain that directors/screenwriters who have manifested Zombie and Undead films were doing so in homage to Portland’s tweakers. They’re skeletal, unwashed, discolored and bare no semblance of brain activity until they see you at an ATM on a dimly lit city block around midnight and then their catatonic saunter quickly escalates to a terrifying sprint. I’m thinking that if I accidentally “double tap” on of them in the skull (with the cricket bat I don’t yet carry), I probably have ONE “I thought it was a zombie” get out of jail free card with the Portland police.



Also, there is just the social unfairness of demanding a dollar from passersby and having them fucking relent to an extent that you can actually sustain life in this manner. Are you fucking kidding me? Your stench doesn’t hypnotize me into opening my wallet, it makes me want to run away so that I don’t puke from involuntarily assessing what attributes of your anatomy have brewed that stink. It’s the grizzled and hardened New England man (with the likeness of R. Lee Ermey) in my psyche that’s like, “You want money? Great! Go get a job” like my parents said to me when I was growing up.



I had a teenage homeless girl ask me for money as I was walking through the downtown and I afforded her the courtesy of an answer by telling her that I didn’t carry cash, I only had a card…to which, she retorted, “Yeah, well McDonald’s takes cards.” To which I replied, “you’re right, they also take applications.” I thought punctuating my “Oohhhh, Snap!” moment by purchasing some item from McDonald’s and feeding it to her dog might be investing a little too much energy into scorn- -plus, nothing deserves to have to eat that shit, especially not a precious dog.

I once had a homeless guy with vomit around his mouth and on his shirt demand a dollar from me, and when I inquired what he would do with my dollar, he hesitated….which is when my anal fissure flared up and took over and I reactively taunted, “Exactly! You want my dollar to drink and I want my dollar to drink, and guess what- -I win!!!” Then I may or may not have discussed the tenets of free will and how the choices I make to not be a piece of shit differ from his own employment of free will. I’m sure he swiftly heeded my advice, and has since turned his life around. (So WHAT if my current uppity bitchiness is accessorized with a soap box?!?!?)


Maybe all of this is just a childish jealousy that while the rest of us have to work in jobs we hate so that we have homes, and worldly possessions that we are enslaved to- -these people are handed free money by strangers just from sitting on street corners and looking pathetic and stinking. They have no schedules, no strongholds to social conventions, they are about as free as it gets. The local government feeds them and provides them shelter- -all they have to worry about is finding cigarettes and booze so that they can get drunk out in public. They are given so many free passes in society that the middle class isn’t afforded. I actually had an unmedicated schizophrenic homeless man attempt a home invasion in January of 2009, which is pretty scary when you are a female living alone in a basement apartment. I called the police after the guy threatened me and tried to break down my door for 30 minutes. He eventually left, but the cops had the courtesy to call me back to let me know that they hadn’t done anything but “send him on his way” because “he’s just a local crazy.” What?!?! Wow...is that all you have to do to get away with shit these days. I have every capacity to be an unmedicated schizophrenic for at least 4 days out of every month.

Solution, you ask? Well...I hadn't really thought of one.




Talk to me next week about compassion. This week is about multiple personalities all failing at coexistence.