Replies

I’ve been laid off from the military-industrial complex where I’ve spent most of my 33 year career. Since about 1985 I had to submit to random drug testing just to have a job. I’m fine with that as drug users introduce many errors into their work and they have more accidents than non-drug users.

Since I’ve been laid off I thought I’d take advantage of the unemployment agencies’ free Microsoft certification program. (Not really free, thank you very much, taxpayers.) As a result I’ve been at the unemployment office every day. The unemployment office is also the welfare office and a bunch of other help-the-poor services, all rolled up into one office.

I’ve never seen so many worthless lumps of flesh in one place before. During the orientation session everybody has to go through, one young man was so high he suddenly freaked out and ran from the room.

The classroom I’m in is located on the sidewalk side of the building and has a long mirrored window. People aren’t allowed to use their cell phones inside, so they go outside and lean against the mirrored window to talk about drugs (buying, selling, using), cheating on unemployment and buying/selling/obtaining stolen goods. (My favorite; one guy tells somebody he was shooting a porn video. The entire class swiveled to look up and the lady behind me whispered, “Maybe he’s the cameraman.” ‘Cause he was FAT.)
That’s another thing; I’d say 85% of the unemployed I’ve seen are obese, as in 50-100 pounds overweight. One grossly obese woman tells somebody on her phone she was up until 4:00 am “killing the buzz.” As an employer I’d look at most of these tattooed, fat people…reeking with body language attitude and say, “Pass.”

Obama t-shirts and bumper stickers (and, I swear to God) tattoos are everywhere. Twice, there’s been a register-to-vote table set up in the lobby with some artsy, rich looking white woman I take to be a volunteer lambasting these folks that they need to get out there and vote for what they deserve.

I have dealings with the state welfare handout office and see all kinds of real “winners” every day.

The bling, piercings, and tattoos are at times overwhelming for me to be around and I don’t interact with the clientele. The wonky networks and flaky power is enough.

There are a small group of us who go around to every county office to swap out PCs and laptops. Supposedly there is a minimum standard of units to have in and properly configured.

Most of the configuration is a script and just putting the unit together. I typically make the standard number by lunch time or so if things don’t weird out. There is another guy who is close to me. There are two others who are good guys and all but get the bare minimum done. I see a lot of talking to the women, forgetting where units in process are, endless gabbing on phones, and most of the configuration problems.