I should be sleeping like a log

"I refuse to do anything work-related when I am off the clock." Someone in a sales and customer service training session at FedEx Kinko's once barked this out after being given a scenario where an opportunity to endorse a product arose outside of work and it knocked the wind out of the training manager. The manager told the story of this uncooperative employee with a tremendously angry scowl to the group I was in during one of my training sessions. I understood her anger and I shook my head, distastefully looking at the conference table and making a far deeper frown than was merited or that I felt. Even though the manager had my sympathies I could not help but mostly side with the rogue.

Where do my loyalties lie? Does my every waking moment belong to my employer? Not hardly.

I have had a similar quandary at my current place of business. My bosses are very strongly encouraging us to utilize our social networking sites to the advantage of the company. In truth, I am not that concerned that I would not be compensated for posting 140 characters about a sale or promotional push. I am more disquieted by the dishonesty. I, like most people I presume, only bring up my work if it is pertinent to a situation. If someone is having a problem finding a new pair of pants that fit the way they would like then I would be remiss if I did not suggest they look at the place I work. But then again I would also suggest they look at a couple of other places because my primary care is that my friend find decent pants and not that my company make money by hawking a less-perfect product. But sneak attack an advertisement with blatant intentions just feels two-faced. I have never promoted anything on my sites before, usually including my bands which I am fully committed to and deeply invested in, so why would I blithely remark about a 50% off womens sale? I don't enjoy partaking in self-promotion and I don't appreciate being used for commercial promotion.

It seems to me that this is a matter of boundaries. One of my former supervisors once told me during one of his more practical rants (he was given to vehement, nonsensical diatribes about bus drivers, fedoras, and the evils of noise music) that the advent of the mobile phone broke down all previously constructed walls between work and home. "Now you're always on the clock! Your boss has something to say to you they don't wait until you come to work, they call you up. How do you escape? You don't. And they fucking got you. And it ain't the money, man. Fuck money. It's the personal freedom. Don't tread on my goddamn freedom."

I understood him and I was afraid. I decided I never wanted to be salaried. Then they really have you. You could work a back-breaking 50-60 hour week and make a measly 40-hour week paycheck. There is no justice.

I would love to sit down at a desk at nine in the morning then pick up my blazer from my chair at five in the afternoon and pass the threshold, the line that must be crossed to make it understood that I am no longer at work - I am home.

It seems more people are desiring to go into fields where they can feasibly work from home. These people are either very clever or have no self respect and no sense boundaries. Hopefully someday I will become one of these people and when that time comes I pray to be self aware enough to report which of those things I am.

brandonpiercegeary

kin

I burnt my hand quite badly and also made a delicious potato onion thing. This was the first proper injury and meal in our new home. We now live on Nicholas Street and have all the conveniences of a quaint, one-bedroom apartment of the 1950's. I haven't used this sort of gas oven for a few years and I forgot about the pilot light underneath. I had stored some of our plastic pot covers under there and now they are the consistency of Vermont maple syrup. Before it cooled down in our sink anyway. When I had reached beneath the oven to retrieve a lid for the pot I was cooking some green beans in I touched something metal and much too hot to be touching. I have a nice scar on my right, ring finger knuckle and about an inch above my wrist on the back side of my hand. This is actually the exact place on Melissa's hand where a ganglion cyst has been disappearing and reappearing for a couple years now. I feel a new level of affinity to her. We are misshapen and pained by our cursed spot. We are Lady Macbeth. We have secrets. We are kindred and we most certainly have each other for sharing.

brandonpiercegeary