The word “negative” is one of the most imprecise words you can throw around to describe someone. Being “negative” in my company simply means being the only in a meeting to have the balls to say that an idea is immoral, impractical, impossible, illegal, illogical, etc. Saying “no,” probably the most important word that never gets said gets you ostracized. And don’t anybody give me this “You can’t say shoot down an idea without offering an alternative” bullshit. That’s another straw man like the word “negative.” Just because I don’t have a solution in the moment doesn’t mean I have to allow something that makes things worse to go forward. Good solutions takes time. Bad solutions can be pulled out of one’s ass. But saying no or the equivalent gets you branded as negative and gets the problem dropped in your lap. Not that I enjoy nonstop things being dropped in my lap, but if being “negative” discourages my coworkers from flippantly making mistakes that could end up killing people, bankrupting the business, or both, then I’ll go negative tenfold.

If watching some amusing Youtube videos helps scrub my mind of the shit I took in the last impromptu meeting with the whole company where only I and the boss said anything, usually arguing with each other, while everyone else got paid to sit silently while offering nothing, then, by God, I’m going to watch them until my disgust subsides.

I’m not a total idiot, so I would actually have to try hard to get a virus on my computer, despite having unfettered administrator access to go anywhere I want. The reason I have unfettered administrator is that my coworkers can’t abide by the “don’t open sketchy .zip files” email I’ve already sent a half a dozen times and once posted 42 times on the walls of the office. Who’s the real entitled one when you’re too lazy or arrogant to use the smallest bit of common sense, then come whining to me that you can’t do your job because you got a virus I told you how to easily avoid?

I don’t know what my job is. It’s basically “clean up everyone else’s problems.” There’s a reason that no matter how I describe things, inevitably people use the word “fireman” to describe me. When people ask me to do my job, that doesn’t mean they have any clue what they’re asking, and they certainly have zero idea how much time it takes to do something right. Here’s a hint, everyone: a LOT longer than you think. Just to be safe, add a zero to end of whatever number you throw out. People will look for any reason to dump something off on another person when their own incompetence shows, then use that same person as scapegoat when deadlines aren’t met.

Chronic uncertainty? Unavoidable when your boss gives impossible dates to customers. The whole business world loses its collective shit when a deadline is missed, no matter how ridiculous the deadline was to begin with. Instead of “Okay, where are you, and what’s the status, and how can work this out in the most efficient manner?”, your customer will turn into an entitled, furious prick AS SOON as the deadline is missed, basically upending the table and creating chaos in the project when things could’ve been handled in a rational manner. It’s Pavlovian, and if you don’t understand that giving a stupid date is going to bring sheer hell down the line, then you’re making my life miserable, as I will inevitably be the one people come to try to “FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT! Oh, you have zero time to fix it, by the way.”

My new employees don’t have dreams. Their dreams are either to use our small naive company as a stepping stone to a bigger one, to use us to get their H1-B visa and eventually their green card (these types will say anything that placates the boss that has the ability to fire them; they are the worst yes-men and yes-women), or they’re old farts too set in their ways to learn anything outside the skill they spent their whole career pigeonholed in. And the last group wants a ton of money for the sake of their being old. Yes, old. Not experienced. Old. I can’t believe how many “experienced” people we’ve hired that couldn’t step an inch outside their comfort zone, but were still cranky as hell about everything. If you can’t learn at ANY age, you shouldn’t be paid more than someone fresh out of college.

So, yeah, I’m miserable, because I actually once cared about my job. Especially since it’s a family business, so I don’t get the luxury of so easily walking away from it. My coworkers aren’t miserable, though, and I probably can’t make them miserable. They’d have to give a shit to be miserable.