I Want You To Want (To Pay) Me

For all the Cheap Trick fans out there.

So yeah, a few months back I left a job and was out and about having some difficulty finding a new one. I interviewed with one local store (that I would very much like to work for) but the owner didn't have a space for me. He said he'd have something for me in the near future, which I appreciated but that didn't really help me in the moment. I lucked into my current job at a different store (same business, one I was in for almost 3 years) and have become loved and well-regarded by our suppliers and clientèle, if not well-paid. Figures that 3 years of experience at a store 1/10th the size with at least twice the business doesn't earn you decent pay. Gotta love retail.

Anyway, things are going well and for all my bitching I'm making enough money to get by and I haven't been able to say that for a while. People I work with are getting to know and understand my level of experience and knowledge. I have a couple dozen customers that come into my department who know my name and I have no friggin' clue who they are. I have a little space in the world that I directly affect, and I have to say it's very enjoyable.

About a week ago I got an e-mail from the owner of Store X, where I had interviewed before. Basically it says 'Might have something for you, come by'. Immediately I start to think about pay raises and where I'd rather be. My thinking led me to the position that unless X offered me a stupid amount of money to come over, I'd rather stay where I am where there's a pretty good chance I'll be taking over another department when someone leaves (which would be sometime later this year most likely). I was resolved to take less money for the opportunity. Fair enough, right? Good plan.

You know what they say about plans....

I met with the owner of Store X Friday, and he laid out a scenario that sounded an awful lot like all the reasons I wanted to stay at my current job. This was unexpected, but got me (quietly) excited. THIS was a whole new opportunity. All that was missing was the offer, for which I would have to wait over another weekend.

Talked again today. X can't bring me over yet, but I'm first in line. Current store rumors are that I'm due for a raise (no shit) and I think I may take the chance to try and push it farther than it might naturally go. I'm in a position here where I can laugh in the face of my upcoming, substantial pay hike and tell them not to insult me. I've never been big on negotiation as far as why I should have something, get a job instead of someone else, etc. But if I work for you it's pretty simple--fuck you, pay me.

Gergle mentioned last week how nice it must be for me now when I was having so much trouble finding work just a few months ago. And yeah, it's pretty nice. The problem is that now I'm in job limbo. Also, if/when I do jump it kinda fucks with my resume a little, being at one job for such a short time before taking another. I know it would make me come off as kinda mercenary, but hell, in the business I'm in why shouldn't I be? If any of you out there work retail for a living, and I don't mean somewhere part time, I mean real retail, you know how hard it is to get paid reasonably for doing what is the most difficult and essential job in the 'food chain'. I'm at the point where I look in my wallet and my account after I get a paycheck and I know it's time to make a money grab. I'm going for it. One way or another, I'll be making some kind of money soon.

Here's to hoping for the best...

DC101 R.I.P.

Maybe I am becoming an old man already (I do have the grays for it), but Gergle's little rant got me pretty fired up.

At work we have DC101 on all day, and its a pretty sad excuse for a rock station these days. We count how many times we hear 'The Black Parade' every day, and I'm about to start counting that horrid Three Days Grace song (you know, about how he's an animal and out of control 'cause he's so baaaad), American Idol failure Daughtry and fucking goddamn Papa Roach. At least Hinder seems to be out of rotation. This is without even mentioning Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and the like, which is a whole other rant (then again, it might not be--I just started typing).

Now, I mention Papa Roach with a special fervor. I do this not only because they suck but because they suck in such a specific way. It just seems like they wait a year or two, see what's big and then cut a record that sounds like everything else out there. Remember 'Last Resort'? When they came out they were all not quite rap-rock, with that douche singer doing all that crap 'spoken word' type shit? Trying to be all deep and dark talking about cutting himself. Like he ever fucking was a cutter. I knew cutters. I dated a cutter (who had stopped by that time thankfully), and I found the whole thing just unseemly, as if you could just tell he was trying to sell them something rather than help. I mean, tell someone its going to be better someday. Give us a solution for god's sake. What does he offer as a solution? Oh yeah, suicide. Thanks, dick.

And 'Broken Home'? About, well, you guess....yeah. At least the guitar part (and most of what the band was doing) in that song was kinda interesting. If you don't remember the lyrics, here's a sample:

Broken home/All alone
Broken home/All alone

Jesus...put a hair's worth of effort into it, man. So anyway, there they were in the middle of the shift that saw kids go from Korn to POD to Linkin Park and the rise of...god help me...emocorepowerpunkpopshit. Fast foward seven years (and two or three completely ignored records) annnnnnnnddd they're back. New song, new look. Really, check it out:

Papa Roach ca. 2000

Check 'em out now:

Nice. YouTube! Cuz allth3 kidz r on th youtub3! Rawk! Whatever, can't blame them for adapting to a new environment...but its just so blatant with them. Now singerdouche's new problems aren't cutting or his 'rents, it's relationships and being unable to get deep with groupies he's banging on the road. Really, check it out, from the shit masterpiece 'Forever':

In the brightest hour of my darkest day
I realized what is wrong with me
Can’t get over you can’t get through to you
It’s been a helter-skelter romance from the start
Take these memories that are haunting me
Of a paper man cut into shreds by his own pair of scissors
He’ll never forgive her he’ll never forgive her

Because days come and go but my feelings for you are forever
Because days come and go but my feelings for you are forever

Sitting by a fire on a lonely night
Hanging over from another good time
With another girl little dirty girl
You should listen to this story of her life
You’re my heroin in this moment I’m lonely fulfilling my darkest dreams
All these drugs all these women
I’m never forgiven this broken heart of mine

One last kiss before I go
Dry your tears it is time to let you go
One last kiss before I go
Dry your tears it is time to let you go

Ferlinghetti it ain't. But that's not the point. Dude breaks up with a girl, can't get over it and rather than deal with it fucks groupies (who, by the way, he couldn't have any less respect for as women) while thinking about how fucked up they are and they should listen to him like he's some kind of fucking yogi or something, all the while he's still obsessing over the one girl. What. The. Fuck. Ever. You suck. Tuck them in the file with Nickleback and Hinder and Daughtry and all that shit. Fuck 'em.

But that's what you get on the radio today. That's what rock music is now. You're either some poseur rock star or a fucking eyeliner wearing fop like Pete Wentz or the douche-chill inspiring My Chemical Romance. It's like an eight-hour clusterfuck listening to this shit all day. I've actually removed DC101 from my truck presets. I couldn't take it anymore. I want to rock. I don't want to hear kids whining. I especially don't want to hear dickheads talk shit about girls they're fucking on the road when they should be laughing it up, enjoying the opportunity that most of us never get and thanking god for young, impressionable women. And they should be saving their money, 'cause a lot of us have iPods, and satellite radios, and mammoth cd collections...

We're not abandoning radio; radio abandoned us. I'm gonna go listen to some Tool.

Ok, Ok, I'm Here....

Yes folks, I'm here. I am alive and well (relatively speaking), I do exist, and I am going to be writing more often again. With the moving thing and the adjusting-to-the-new-job thing, I don't know...honestly, I didn't really have much of a care as to whether or not I wrote anything or if anyone read it. I'm still not sure if I do, but I feel some kind of responsibility to the blog, so there you go.

New post later. I'm trying to figure out how to write it and not sound like a bitter has-been-that-never-was or an old man.

Late.