For the love of employees

So it's a new day and a new week. I arrived at the office at 7:15 in the morning. Woke up at 6 still needing a couple hours more sleep. I was supposed to sleep pretty early last night, but she was online, and we chatted for roughly half an hour. And so, here I am, cursing the early hours. I swear, it should be a crime to wake up this early out of requirement.

Fixed myself a cup of capuccino first thing, and set to work.

What I've been working on these past few weeks, with regular intervals in between, is to get this pile of signed contracts and attendance sheets, and find the names on this excel sheet of employee names and write an "OK" to indicate that this person signed the contract and attended the seminar thing (separate column). I tell you, these people really piss me off. You'd think they were trying to give us a fist-sized tumor just trying to decode their handwriting. Some of it is simply impossible to read. What, do they think they've got robots and computers doing the work up here? We're human! Flesh and blood, who have a limited ability in recognizing words from a splatter of scribbles on a scrap of paper. I swear, I want to take the contract, go down to their desk, and cram it down their throats. Teach them next time to write LEGIBLY.

This is probably how my teachers felt in high school. Only, you know, a bit more forgiving, since I was just a kid then. My handwriting's better now. And it should get even better, now that I've been on the receiving end of INDECIPHERABLE HANDWRITING (the bane of teachers and office workers everywhere).

Working in my department, you eventually develop a loathing for people. It's quite ironic, considering that my department is HUMAN RESOURCES. Go figure, eh? It's here that you see human nature in its entirety, stripped of its social niceties and facades. This is it in its purest form. Greed and general inconsiderate asshatness. You get a head-start when you enter the workforce already cynical and more than just a bit critical of other people. You go to the next step faster. From merely being pissed, you graduate to becoming a passive-aggressive jerk. Since you will get canned for acting out at work, you learn to supress it, and ease up the pressure in small, narrow, inconspicuous, but very highly-pressurrized streams of hostility.

Holy crap. I thought Scott Adams was merely being facetious when he portrayed Catbert, Evil Director of Human Resources, as such. I thought he was just using irony. Apparently, it was the truth. The plain, naked truth. Working in human resources makes you hate them. HATE them. I mean seriously. Not even funny. It's that true. The next time you read a strip portraying Catbert's abhorrence for humanity, you either nod in grave seriousness, laugh uncontrollably, or tears start to pool around your eyes.

The impulse to strangle people to death with pressing a pen to the throat, or taking them down, getting top mount, and pounding their faces to hamburger, has plagued me more than once. It's a struggle to keep the murderous urges down. Particularly if Chuck Palahniuk is staple in one's reading repertoire. And more so if the employees are whining about some stupid bullshit, and this is after a long day of processing, filing, running from one floor to the other, from one building to the other, and generally putting up with all sorts of bullshit. Whining about crap so blinded with self-serving jackassery that it blinds the whiner to the reason why the HR personnel didn't do it in the first place.

For example...

[Setting: training room. Training for the employees for X course has concluded with a test. Employees submit the exam, as well as evaluations for the course. Sometimes, they had to be reminded to submit the other. With them dragging their feet, naturally. And all the employees want is to know their exam scores. Immediately.]

Fucker Employee: Hey, can I get my score already? I wanna know if I got number 23 right.

Harrassed HR guy: Sorry, ma'am, but we didn't bring the score key. We won't know until later. Or tomorrow. Or whenever.

F.E.: You guys didn't bring it? Why? We had a test, did we not?

HR: Ma'am, we don't score the test papers here. We're just here to collect them.

F.E.: Oooh, but I still wanna know my grade! You guys should've brought the test key.

HR: Tough. You'll just have to wait.

F.E.: Awwwww...! :[

Fucker Employee 2: Hey, can I see if I got #4 correct?

HR: God, I hate you fucking cunts.

This is after a long day of being the department's gopher. Playing "bring-me" and scavenger hunt and tag. It tends to take a lot out of you, both physically and mentally. And you definitely do not have time for this shit. And yet, you can't do shit to them. These fuckers, with their heads up their asses. Me, me, me. These people being bonafide full-time employees, you'd think they know how fucked it is to be on the receiving end of the power game. But then again, it could be they know it all too well. A vicious cycle. My boss does it to me, I do it to you. Admirable.

I'd say working in HR or in the service industry is training to make one a saint. Or a killer. It can either nurture your contempt for humanity that will come out in one cathartic killing spree when tiny acts of passive-aggression are insufficient to stem the growing tide, or you can rise above it, fight against the horde, against all odds, and come out a serene monk with a capacity for love and patience more than the rest of the world put together, kinda like how a prison bitch can take more cocks up the ass than a whore can.

This will either make you or break you. I wonder if people mean this when they say,

"Well, back to the old grind."

With a perky voice and face and all...

For 25 bucks an hour, I'm putting up with a lot. I'd do it happily if it were $25. But it's not. It's Php25. 50 motherfucking American cents. Paying menial laborers peanuts. We're not even on the same level as construction workers and other day laborers. At least they get paid minimum wage. 96 cents. Php48/hr. God damn it all. May my motives be pure. May I be free from retarded employees and love of money. And for the love of stolen office earphones, let me be at peace. For their sakes.

I've been reading too much Palahniuk, I swear...next, I should start quoting Nietzche and other nihilist philosophers. My mantra, so to speak. This is where you're pouring your life and irredeemable hours into. In some fucking office typing up some stupid bullshit nobody gives a shit about. In more than one way, the zombie apocalypse has already hit.

Now, more than ever, Catbert is my hero. My model. My boss. Next, I'll move up to Tyler Durden. Ugh, if only Fight Club weren't so celebrated by kids these days. I'd hate to be taken for some emo junior high kid.