You've GOT To Be Kidding Me

I just wanted to make a short blog about this nonsense I heard on the radio while commuting to work today. Namaste and thank you for joining me.

Now, granted, I admit I am NOT the most fashionable person in the world, but I just had to bring this shit up. Apparently, now at the department store Nordstrom they are selling a pair of jeans for $425 fully donned with FAKE MUD pre-wear. I have a few issues with this that I'm gonna number out as follows...

1) It's JUST DENIM! I don't care if they rubbed up against the pope's nuts and ass (they didn't) before being hung on the rack. NO PAIR OF JEANS IS WORTH THE COST OF $425. PERIOD.
2) WHO THE FUCK can afford to buy a pair of these jeans? Not any blue collar or service worker
3) Why the fuck would a person buy a pair of jeans NEW on the rack that looked like they were straight up from Goodwill or the Salvation Army? Especially covered in FAKE mud?!? Part of the fun of getting new clothes is the ACTUAL ACT of getting them worn in.

It seems so stupid and asinine to me that people pay MORE money to buy clothes that have holes in them or have that "dirty" look. WTF?!? I don't know who realistically considers this to be fashionable, but if you do, you're hanging with the WRONG group of pretentious people.
On the flip side of that coin, however... it IS cool if you ACTUALLY worked hard enough in a dirty job to make the denim look worn in and muddy. Being a POSER to PRETEND that you did a hard day's work just makes you an idiot... AND the $425 that you spent on those jeans really PROVES my point.

Be smart when you shop folks. If you grossly overspend on clothes than the industry is just playing you for a fool. Especially when the majority of our clothes are made in Asian sweat shops where the workers are paid pennies on the dollar for what they would have to pay an American worker. No benefits. No PTO. But sadly, to that worker, it might still be a fortune compared with being poor and destitute. Just saying...

Tattooed AND Employeed

Namaste and welcome my friends, family, and fellow knowledge seekers. I just wrote a blog the other day about getting a job. Since writing that posting I've had some other thoughts that I wanted to put out there for my readers. I'm going to keep this one short...

I've heard a lot of people hate on those with tattoos and I have to say, hater's gonna hate. Many people have told me personally that my tattoos wouldn't look good to an employer and that I'd have a difficult time finding a job. I'm here today to tell all the people that have hated on me or put me down...
THANK  YOU.

I could easily be a hater and curse and say "fuck you" or "eat shit" to my haters, but then that would make me no better than they. But I am happy, feeling positive not negative. I'm proud to be nearly 38 and having openly visible tattoo arm sleeves that show off my proud Scottish ancestry with my family crest or my favorite mantra COEXIST or my favorite movies Alice in Wonderland and 5th Element, or favorite video game franchise Legend of Zelda, among others.
I am proud to be gainfully employed, and not just as a jabroni, but I have dual certifications in culinary arts AND surgical technology. I've worked my ass off to get here and I feel like I deserve to work in a good job that is exciting as well as gratifying. I feel a sense of purpose when I go to work now, as opposed to some jobs I've had in the past, including a recent bad experience that gave me a lot of perspective on my goals and direction in my life, my career, and my family. I owe a lot of this good happy feeling to my beautiful wife, who I refer to as Hunny Bear (who has co-opted with me in the past on several of my blog postings as she is a published author, and has a lot of insights and experience to offer).
 
The journey isn't over, in fact this is just a new chapter in the rest of my life. I AM a nationally certified surgical technologist (CST). I've served my nation in the military. I've sacrificed for my fellow citizens and family. I've got the battle scars to prove my merit and invaluable resolve. I am blessed. My family has been a great network for support and encouragement. I'm achieving my goals one day at a time, and for the first time in a long time, I really feel like all the effort has been worth it. I truly believe that any and all efforts at self-improvement ARE ultimately worth it. Follow your dreams. Live with passion. Be who you are on the inside and out. You CAN be tattooed and employed. You CAN achieve your goals with some hard work. You have value. If others can't see the value in you, that is a reflection of them, not you. May peace be with you my friends.

Get A J.O.B.

 Namaste. Welcome to my blog. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day as I explore getting a job.

We human beings are they only species on this planet that work in the sense of going to a job. We can create, we can construct, and we can imagine greater things and progress as a species. We also, however, have ego, which often screws up our perceptions of the world around us.

Right, wrong, or otherwise, the designed society we live in requires money. We must go do a job (often for someone else to profit from), and we must work to make money to pay bills like food, water, clothing, auto, insurance, taxes, shelter, electricity, Internet, cable, etc... It is indeed our very own survival mechanism within our brains that make us function this way.

So what do we do? We go to school. We get training. We get a job. We learn to pay bills and become a part of the perpetual never-ending cycle of commercialism, consumerism, and dependence. Because without a job, there's no money, no food, no clothing, no shelter, no anything. Enter the dog eat dog world of business.

I've had a lot of time in the last year to think about this. Well, technically it's been well over a year since this journey really started in December of 2015. I had people tell me that there are not opportunities. I couldn't believe that. I grabbed the opportunity to go back to school and hit the ground running. Now it's nice to see some pay off for all the effort. I love food. I always have. But now I remember why I left the food industry so many times before. It is a sometimes thankless job with a LOT of work for NOT A LOT of pay. It's easy for blue and white collar folks to look down on the humble food service worker, but I need to tell you something REAL about this industry. Many will tell you and portray food service workers as unintelligent and unambitious, but I beg to differ. Then again, there are really dumb asses everywhere working in every field, so as with many things, it is just a matter of perspective. In reality, the job of a food service employee is very difficult. It's a huge pain in the ass to deal with pissy customers that are angry and not easily satisfied.

I personally chose to work in that industry because it was a good backup plan to have skills to fall back upon in times of unemployment. NOW, however, I have more experience, more skills, and more ambition. Plus on top of all that, I'm an adult with 3 kids. I have goals daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and long term. Keeps me sane. I spent a lot of time as a younger person being pissed off about a LOT of things, yelling at the universe for change, and being angry that the change wasn't happening soon enough for my tastes. Realization came to me a couple of years ago when I realized that I was only one person, and no one had appointed me to be the "cause head" bandwagon leader of the revolution. I thought that shouting and being angry was going to effect change. Little did I know at those younger times is that the only person I can change is ME. I had a choice. Lots of them. Among the other choices I had to make, I could either keep working in shitty, low wage, high stress jobs that left me feeling unsatisfied and depressed... OR... I could take responsibility for my future. I had goals, but didn't have a plan on how to reach those goals. Yes, life was indeed cyclical and eerily similar to deja vu at times. I certainly felt like I had done this before when I went back to school last year. I received training in the Navy many years before and transitioned to a good paying job in the civilian market, but a bad experience left me jaded for a while. Life came in a full circle to tell me that I was supposed to do this. If I had gotten the message up front, despite the years of my life that ticked by, for one, I wouldn't have appreciated or understood or probably even believed my future self. Things happened the way they were supposed to happen for a reason. The reason was to learn the lesson. The reason was to evolve and to grow as a person.

I suppose there is a lesson of faith to be remembered here. It's easy to lose faith when you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's difficult to find the silver lining at times. When we see the fruits of our labors come to fruition There may be times in life, especially in the corporate work settings, where we go long periods of time without many thanks or feelings of appreciation, but the hard work IS worth it.

If you just want a McJob, then there are places for that, but if you have ambition and goals, then I encourage you to follow your dream whether you are 18, 37, 50, or however old. With inflation and taxation, a basic minimum wage job is no longer effective to feed, clothe, shelter, and raise a family on. Seek out scholarships, grants, or maybe even loans if you need more training and need to go back to school. It isn't easy, but it is worth it.
This has been the one and only Quiet Mouse.