March 26, 2013

My Story is Published on Gawker.com and I Don't Know if I Should Feel Flattered or Not

Gawker Unemployment Stories Volume 32
Images Courtesy of Gawker Media
It hasn't been a secret that I've been unemployed (or underemployed depending on your POV) for a while now.  I've told a few people why I quit my good-paying job with a relatively low amount of responsibility.

There were a lot of factors, but things were basically going South and I there were a lot of things that I was oblivious to, either through design or naïveté.  All I needed was one good spiritual kick to the head, a shakabuku if you will, to do a reboot to the 'ol brain-pan.

For me that kick to the head came when my boss sent me on an errand to his Palm Springs vacation house to supervise the delivery of some big-screen TVs and the installation of cable.  On the flight out my plane had to declare an emergency where we had to prep for a crash landing on the runway.  It was some pretty heavy shit and while the stewardess was screaming a mantra of bending over, heads-between-the-knees and "BRACE, BRACE, BRACE" over and over again, I kind of expected my life to flash before my eyes.  Instead I got a realization that there was something seriously fucked about my working conditions.  This realization really opened my eyes to issues I should have seen quite clearly before, but didn't.

Anyway....that was about two and a half years ago.  A little closer to current events, a couple of months ago, I sent in my tale to Gawker for possible inclusion in their "Unemployment Stories", basically tales of woe regarding being unemployed.  There are a host of reasons people become unemployed and a ton of crap regarding dealing with the problem.  I never expected my story to get used, but I was wrong.

It's weird seeing your story edited and posted up for the world to see.  Sure, I do it here on my blog regularly but it is quite different. I'm still trying to get my head around it.

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