Weekly Log - 28 through 04

Monday Sept 28

Preparations for our own Oktoberfest begin. All points that it's gonna be one motherfuckin' great party. It occurred to me that next year, something happens... something some of you describe as "cute" and some of you describe as "spooky", and which I frankly like to refer to as "cooky" for a lack of a better term that encompasses both things without mentioning Tim Burton. I will be 25 (which as you'll recall is 1/4 of a century), on the 10th day of October (the 10th month) of 2010... I don't know about you, but when so many numbers start dropping together and matching, I get the the massive giggling heebie-jeebies.

Tuesday Sept 29

Sales-wise, this was my worst day yet. Not overly worried here. It's not a matter of positive thinking, it's a matter of not wanting to care on my free time, when I can do absolutely jack about it.

I find they value a lot of things in this job that I do not have, and thus must find a way to fake if I am to keep working. Positive thinking and speaking are two. I've been a realist, with a good sympathy for pessimists, all my life, and the way my life wobbles along the long tightrope of Time, I have no inclinations otherwise. Hope for the best? Maybe. Expect the worst? Of course. That's how I've been walking the tightrope with my head up high for so long: if I get what I'm thinking I'll get, I was expecting it already, so the blow is softened. If I get something better, I'm pleasantly surprised.

Let's see, what else... smiling. They want us all to smile a lot, smile while we're on the phone, smile while we're talking to the boss, smile when talking to co-workers and be polite and agreeable. I can be all that yeah - at the end of the day, my cheeks hurt from all the uncalled smiling. I don't smile easily, and you can tell when I'm faking one just because. On the other hand, when I laugh... I really fuckin' laugh. 'Til I nearly piss myself. Social smiling is probably the most painful kind... you know it as "yellow smile". Yeah. It's rather creepy too huh.

Enjoying new challenges? Depends if the challenge depends on me alone or on sheer fuckin' chance. I don't get overly thrilled by new goals, no: I'm working at an area I generally dislike, the more complicated it gets, the more irritating and less enjoyful it becomes. I like challenge, yeah, but in shit I like doing in the first place.

Contacting with the public? Are you kidding me? I'd kill for a back office job. For having to put up with one boss and a few supervisors instead of one boss, a few supervisors and half the population on this country.

Keep smiling in the face of refuse? Oh that I can do. Especially when I picture the rudest clients getting ran over by a bus filled with foreigners taking pictures as soon as they hang up the phone.

Fairly good lying and acting skills - my best assets ever on finding jobs. "Be yourself and people will like you" - greatest lie ever told.

Wednesday Sept 30

It's nothing short of amazing what my luck does to can me, or what lengths does Murphy carry himself to when it comes to screwing up an otherwise peaceful day. I got the strangest calls today: guys with stutters, guys with impenetrable accents, guys who told me shit that happen 30 years ago when the West was young.

And when I got home, I got a taste of my own medicine - door to door salesman trying to get me to buy something. Please, dude, they taught me the same techniques. Try that on someone who doesn't know you're full of it.

Thursday Oct 01

October is my favorite month. Or used to be. It has nothing to do with my birthday happening in October. I liked it because it used to be the peak of Fall. Rain falling, lightning crashing, thunder roaring, leaves everywhere. Freezing days. Fog. Colds. All my best and favorite clothes were Fall clothes. Riding a train in Fall used to be awesome. Teenagers who got dumber over Summer were all regaining some of their gray mass.

But now, October (and Fall) are just some other ugly, indistinguishable time of a given year. When I was a kid, we learned to tell seasons by coloring items and symbols that represented each: flowers in Spring, fruits in Summer, leaves in Fall, rain in Winter. I wonder how nowadays' kids learn to tell the bloody seasons... then it dawned on me: upcoming comedies tell them. "This Fall, Jack Black and Will Ferrel star in some retarded shit you'll pay € 5 to see whether you like it or not."

Friday Oct 02

It's Friday, I have some cash, and you know what it means. Show me the way to the next whiskey bar and make no questions about it. I attended Allied Friday, dragged some of the guys off to the bar, we drank, we laughed, we drove in circles on the roundabouts and ended up eating fast food in some joint somewhere near the industrial park of my area.

Weekend Oct 03 - 04

Like every good weekend, this was spent doing nothing. Watching episodes of old series and movies with Meryl Streep (Sophie's Choice and Kramer vs. Kramer). And thinking of new and inventive ways to summon Cthulhu into my bathtub, since I have nothing better to do. I still think a dark symbol on a dripping faucet and a series of incantations pronounced from atop the can might do it. Worse comes to worst, at least the neighbors and I will get rid of cockroaches.