How Not to Be an Asshole at Work

The first post by Free Radical.

I've held a great number of vocations over the last ten years. I helped customers find books on Thoreau, made grilled-cheese sandwiches for whiny children, arranged art on gallery walls, cleaned out buckets of human feces and urine, and served dinner to hundreds of guests. At each job, I worked as hard as possible--not because my goal in life was to be the world’s best bookstore employee/nanny/gallery assistant/companion for the elderly (and as it turns out, also the deranged) all while catering on the weekends. No, my goal was something simple. Work hard to succeed.

My mother raised me to believe that the way to success in life is through hard work. Now I know that lady luck sometimes throws her hand in the equation, and certain people end up on top of the game while others who toil their whole lives never get anywhere. We all know this, but it’s not an excuse to be lazy. Luck does play a role in success, but hard work is the vehicle that carries us to the end.

So while there are a great many of you who share the same philosophy about the working life, there is a percentage of the population that feels so entitled and deserving that even hearing that one syllable word, work, is slightly insulting. These are the lovely coworkers who infuriate you with their insistence on the mediocre. They collect 40 hour paychecks on 20 hours of work, play games on the computer while you hash it out with the boss, take twenty cigarette breaks in 45 minutes, and cause an imbalance in work flow to the point where the rest of the team has to pick up the slack.

Now, it may be that these lazy colleagues are simply unaware of how their actions (or lackthereof) affect others. Frankly, I think they just don’t give a damn.

In an effort to honor the top three, most memorable assholes at work, I have compiled the following list:

1. When you are in charge of 50 screaming, tired, dirty campers do not, I repeat--DO NOT fall asleep and leave your fellow colleagues, who are also screaming, tired, and dirty to take care of the kids you can’t handle. You’re an asshole.

2. At the end of the night, when the wedding guests are falling over in various drunken states and actually dancing to Rod Stewart (…and think they’re sexy), now is the perfect time to clear those tables so that we can pack up and go home. But, wait, what’s that you say? You need to sit down and take a break. You feel faint, your feet hurt, your back aches. Pick up that damn basket and pile it high with dishes. Carry that basket full of dishes (yes, it is heavy) all by your lonesome to the hard working people who are washing the fucking dishes and want to go home some time tonight! You really are an asshole.

3. And most recently…to the princess in her cubicle kingdom to my left, yes organizing your child’s birthday party, ordering dresses, and talking to your husband is pretty tiring, so it’s a good thing you have so much free time. Oh, wait--I forgot, you’re at work, sitting in a cubicle. And the real kicker? You only work part time!!

So you see ladies and gentleman, even when you think no one else at work cares or even notices that “punching in” means absolutely nothing to you, the laziness you emit affects us all.
Your laziness causes others to work twice as hard, which leads to resentment, which leads to you not being invited to drinks after work. Let me break it down for you in simple mathematical terms:

Lazy + resentful coworkers = nobody likes you

Harsh as it may seem, there is a way to reverse the equation. I just don’t feel like putting in the effort to explain it.

Stop Building Prisons, Start Building Communities

Every Monday morning when I walk my unsuspecting, yet overexposed campers down to a small, simple park on the corners of Ellington and Erie streets in Dorchester, I cringe. Not just at the sudden movements toward oncoming cars of blissfully oblivious youths or the harshly pronounced words "nigga" and "faggit" that come out of their mimicking mouths, but at the harrowing scene that awaits us upon arrival.

The local park, a supposed safe haven for the tangible future of America, lies in shambles.

Bashed Budweiser cans sleep like dirty, excessively bearded men on smooth pavement decorated with cheerful blue imagery that perfectly complements the water three small sprinklers spray on screaming, smiling sons and daughters of the surrounding area. Pieces of glass, conveniently located in the one portion of the park allocated to the au natural foot, keep the used and abused can of Bud heavy company. Above, on the grass plot and foolishly positioned wood chips that envelop the slides and other attractions the park has to offer, sunbathe countless other discarded bottles, some with drowning liquids still ready to asphyxiate their next self-chosen victim. Wrappers, paper bags, soiled paper towels and napkins, mastication devices of all sorts, and sometimes even festival aids like firecrackers, depending on the time of year and how lady luck feels that morning, also inhabit the grounds.

***

As we call for and sometimes even receive legislation concerning the economy, energy, crime, and "national security," I can't help but wonder if we're somehow missing our target.

If my kids, with their prospects dimmed by ineffectual schools and neglectful parents, can't even play in a small park without constant reminders of the failings of their elders, how can we reasonably expect them to succeed? Graduating from high school with an inclination towards college shouldn't be the equivalent of winning the lottery, after all.

And yet, simultaneously, we allocate our resources for other purposes. As Lil Wayne talks about on "Misunderstood," the final track on his latest release, The Carter III, we send our law enforcement agents out to collect criminals, but focus on numbers rather than public well-being:

"I was watching t.v. the other day right
got this white guy up there talking about black guys
talking about how young black guys are targeted
targeted by who? america
you see one in every 100 americans are locked up
one in every 9 black americans are locked up
and see what the white guy was trying to stress was that
the money we spend on sending a mothaf**ka to jail
a young mothaf**ka to jail
would be less to send his or her young ass to college
see, and another thing the white guy was stressing was that
our jails are populated with drug dealers, you know crack/cocaine stuff like that
meaning due to the laws we have on crack/cocaine and regular cocaine
police are only, i don't want to say only right, but shit
only logic by riding around in the hood all day
and not in the suburbs
because crack cocaine is mostly found in the hood
and you know the other thing is mostly found in you know where i'm going
but why bring a mothaf**ka to jail if it's not gon stand up in court
cuz this drug aint that drug, you know level 3, level 4 drug, shit like that
i guess it's all a misunderstanding
i sit back and think, you know us young mothaf**kas you know that 1 in 9
we probably only selling the crack cocaine because we in the hood
and it's not like in the suburbs, we don't have what you have
why? i really don't wanna know the answer
i guess we just misunderstood hunh
you know we don't have room in the jail now for the real mothaf**kas, the real criminals
sex offenders, rapists serial killers
don't get scared, don't get scared
I know you saw one them sex offenders papers
don’t trip he live right on the end of yo block,
Mhm yea, that nigga live right down the street from you,
sex offender on the level 3 drug,
convicted ex-con
yea check em out
watch you got, you got a daughter, son, what you got?
hahaa yea, you know what
that’s the good weed,
you know what, I have a f**king daughter
you understand me and why the f**k would you bring my neighbor to jail
jus because the reason why he live next door to me, ain’t the reason I live next door to him
Meaning he didn’t rap his way to my f**king neighborhood
he sold crack cocaine to get to my neighborhood
you move him out bring him to jail for life
and then you move in with a sex offender"--Source.

Now, I'm not saying we should abort all drug laws--clearly that's not the solution. But, as Wayne asks, shouldn't we put the real criminals in jail, instead of some guy whose situation made choosing to sell drugs far more convenient than studying neuroscience?

I would prefer that child molesters and rapists remain incarcerated for the rest of their lives, alongside their more humane fellow sinners, killers. Drug dealers? I'd much rather tax their business than let it go unregulated and cost the public time, money, and effort. At least then maybe we could take the funding wasted on "patrolling" the streets for the type of snow the sun rarely sees and hire some goddamn teachers.

***

As I stoop down to collect another shattered bottle, indulgently pondering the irony of shattered lives, sweet-hearted seven-year-olds begin to pick up black plastic bags with the intention of tossing the weekend's leftover trash into the green basin designated for such remnants that rests less than an arm's length away.

"Thanks, guys," I say. "But that's not your job. Go play. It's dirty and I don't want you guys touching this stuff."

Silently they return to their fierce debates over who tagged whom and whose turn it is to play with the ball. I corral my haul and head to the trash receptacle, where the result of the ghetto's inner workings gather. Sadly, the bin operates at about 5% capacity. The weekend's unchecked party watches from all around, strewn upon the ground.

It's time to stop building prisons and start building communities.