Today's Sign Of Our Civilization's Imminent Demise

An all-male court in Iowa - its Supreme Court, no less - ruled that an employer (read: ''man'') can fire an employee (read: ''woman'') for being ''irresistible''. Not just that - it was a unanimous, 7-0 decision.

Key highlights from the article:

Such firings may be unfair, but they are not unlawful discrimination under the Iowa Civil Rights Act because they are motivated by feelings and emotions, not gender, Justice Edward Mansfield wrote.

and

"These judges sent a message to Iowa women that they don't think men can be held responsible for their sexual desires and that Iowa women are the ones who have to monitor and control their bosses' sexual desires," said (victim Melissa Nelson's) attorney Paige Fiedler. "If they get out of hand, then the women can be legally fired for it."

Nelson, 32, worked for Knight for 10 years, and he considered her a stellar worker. But in the final months of her employment, he complained that her tight clothing was distracting, once telling her that if his pants were bulging that was a sign her clothes were too revealing, according to the opinion.

He also once allegedly remarked about her infrequent sex life by saying, "that's like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it."

That's right - he can say things that are close to sexual harassment, which she has to endure, but she can't keep her job because she's too sexy.

How did we go from the 1990s where things were looking up for common sense and liberties to a bizarro-1950s of extra-puritanism, new racism, the rise of religious zealots, tons of guns and daily shootings?

I mean, I know the answer. Watch and listen to Dennis Miller before, say, the year 2000, and then look for something post 9/11 - two completely different guys. Many Americans changed on that day, their fear and anger turning them into cro-mags and uneducated retrogrades. Not all, but the percentage of rednecks went from 10% to something close to 47% of the country. Which can only mean one thing: the terrorists have, indeed, won.

Video Of The Week: Atari Teenage Riot

Six months ago already since I last made Atari Teenage Riot my Video Of The Week...

This time, I'm featuring a video that was banned from most TV stations for being... too violent. The same TV stations that give away free tickets to The Avengers or Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer...




If you've ever worked in a cubicle, and have ever thought there could be something wrong with the world, and don't think you quite qualify to become Neo (from The Matrix), this could be the video for you.

An Omen, Motherfucker

It's a bad sign when the always-healthy cat vomits five times in a single morning while its ''I-eat-everything-and-always-get-sick'' lion-sized brethren looks on, puzzled.

It's not the sign of a bad day coming, however, since my day actually began yesterday morning and has been eventful - to say the least - since. And here I am Friday, twelve hours behind the deadline I had to hand in a piece of work, with my boss awaiting my email. The same boss who yesterday made threats (''either she leaves, or I do!''), quit his job over a co-worker, and un-quit it hours later, resulting in office drama that somehow ended up revolving around me, the guy with the longest tenure on the office, who has seen the most bosses come - and every single one of them go.

Except while I'm busy playing psychologist and counselor, a role my boss ironically insisted I play when he forced me to work from the office instead of from home, my job doesn't get done.

Now it's early too Friday morning, I haven't slept in over 24 hours, with one deadline dead and gone, the office Christmas party tonight - and me playing a show later in the evening somewhere else. And I'm also playing tomorrow.

So what's the omen? That my day job's going down - or that it'll affect my night-time job?

Funny thing is, I was told two weeks ago today was just about my last day at my day job...

Instant Karma (And We All Starve On)

Way to finish off the fucking month...

I'm at work, doing overtime, my tenth hour on the job, no breaks. So much so that my fucking lunch is still on the kitchenette table, and it's eleven PM. Cleaning guy from the building comes in, says ''hi'', empties the trash, leaves. I decide I've had enough of the crap I'm working on, will finish my sentence then eat a bit.

Except the food's gone. Fucking vanished.

Those cleaning guys aren't even allowed to move shit, they have to clean/wipe/swipe/mow/vacuum around it, this guy took the liberty to - out of his own good fucking will - lift a styrofoam container that has a sandwich, salad and garlic potatoes in it, 20 pounds of fucking food, the size of my fucking head - and throw it away.

To make matters worse, it's past eleven PM on a shitty rainy Tuesday - most grocery stores and restaurants are fucking closed, except the real fucking junk places. There's no way I'm replacing a healthy, fresh Lebanese-style chicken shawarma with McDonald's; it would be five crimes against humanity in one fucking sitting.

Worse still, because it always happens in fucking droves, I have to find time to sleep, go back and forth on public transit and make my way back here for 7 fucking AM tomorrow morning. That's if I don't waste time trying to find something I feel like eating, getting it delivered, and eating it.

Last day of November. Motherfucker. That's where ''Movember'' comes from.

Happy fuckin' Hanukkah.

Welcome To The Working Week

Last Friday's staff party was such a blast, such a fine, fun time, that it kind of hurts coming back to work on this Monday and boss people around. And fine some sort of groove, productivity-wise. And it seems I'm not the only one: we're all sort of slow on our feet today.

The ambiance is still relaxed, but we need there is shit to be done. Unfortunately, our clients and respondents are making it hard for us; I guess the Holidays aren't a good time to chill out for everyone - stress is definitely in the air.

Everyone's coming up with Top-10 and Top-100 lists of everything sortable, some for the year, mostly for the decade. Someone should come up with a Top-10 'Worst Top-10 Lists' to help counter-balance it...

Time to get back to work!

The Treacherous Journey From Employment To Unemployment, Volume 2 - Painting Yourself Into A Corner

I've been a fucking ghost.

The people in my office love me (or so it seems, at least), I've been the mediator-who-brings-sunshine in quite a few conflicts of late, and always got the job done on time, oftentimes working overnight, sometimes non-stop for a whole weekend.

I'm respected by my immediate bosses, those who co-sign the work I do on my own and get paid ten times my salary, because they know what they ask of me and they know no one else could do it as well for so cheap. And it suits me, too, because I almost never sleep, so working at night on some absolutely-due report after having had the time to write, play a show, spend time with the Lady Of The House and maybe even see friends and/or watch a hockey game is worth less money.

But that means that I'm rarely there when the Real Bosses from the Toronto Office call in, so after a while, as the job kept getting done on time, they sort of forgot about me.

Some tasks I shared with others, one of which was supervising a complete crew as they collected data, something I've been doing on my own for 6 months now. But for the first seven and a half years, it was teamwork, a stask I shared with at least one other person, many times taking less shifts than the other person because I had the other, usually pressing, things I needed to do - on time, usually for the next morning before my immediate superiors got in.

Every single other supervisor was fired. That's at least five of them, maybe even up to eight. Yet I remain. Because every other supervisor's 'extra' tasks included contact with the Toronto Office - not me. 9AM to 5PM on weekdays is my time off from work, time where I could be sleeping. I may be working during those hours, but never there, always from home or a remote location where I could concentrate, as I wasn't allowed any mistakes; the fruit of my labour went directly to our clients, and bore my bosses' names, but they never even reviewed it - they rarely had enough time to anyway.

Recently, The Boss came to town and called a complete staff meeting. It was serious shit, Monster News. Everyone who was there was given an ultimatum, and most were told they only had two weeks of work left, the others were given a choice of moving to Toronto if they wanted to continue with the company. The Montréal office was closing down.

What news awaited me, personally? I wasn't even invited to the meeting. Eight years working for The Boss, and on the Day Of The Big Overhaul, I was at home, sleeping. My whole division and I only had a shift the next day, anyway.

And when I did get there, I had no idea, so it felt strange that everyone looked like they'd just been told they had terminal cancer. And it took hours before anyone filled me in on the details.

Lucky me, though, I wasn't there. I had been forgotten, so The Boss made it seem like it was on purpose, and that my staff and I were going to remain. The rest of the company, a whole floor above a shopping mall, 16 desks, 4 closed offices, 2 reception counters, 3 meeting rooms, a kitchen, an IT room, a printer room - all rendered useless, still paying rent for, while me and my crew took up a space that was barely bigger than my living room, working for our last remaining client. Makes sense.

Only our last remaining client told me, three days ago, that they were thinking of going in ''another direction''; online. More straightforward, more random, better odds of getting the exact sample they were looking for.

Sure, I became a ghost, and sure I'm probably going to outlast my peers by a month, but I did so by painting myself into a corner.

Then again, I thought ghosts could fly. We'll see what happens next.

Wash The Dirty: The Treacherous Journey From Employment To Unemployment, Volume 1 - Etiquettes To Firing Someone

How would you fire somebody? And when? There has to be some sort of etiquette if the person has given you all they had to give, no?

If it's a lazy-ass troublemaker, no question, you boot them out. Take them aside - or not; then tell them straight-up: you suck, it won't do, you've had enough chances, get the fuck out, thanks for your time.

But a good worker? Someone's who's done everything you've asked of them at all times, regardless of the variety of tasks, of the degrading nature of said tasks? Someone's who's been burning themselves out to the point of obvious health issues doing the work of three people at once in five grueling 9-hour shifts per week (and who would be underpaid in the market for the work of just one of those three people)?

Today I witnessed a firing that not only made no sense in and of itself, but that seemed a little harsh (to say the least), considering. I saw the most respected member of an office middle-management team, who had been under employment at said company for just about three years - that the company had in fact stolen from a competitor - get the boot 5 minutes before the end of their shift, in the middle of the week, with a shitload of work due the next day at various times between 9AM and 8PM.

''We're no longer going in the same direction'' is the only reason given to the rest of the management team, also grossly underpaid and overworked, some of whom cried. Apparently, they had subtly offered the worker a(nother) new position in previous weeks, a proposition that was declined. But when you've had 8 job titles in the past year or so and had responsibility over 3 different departments in that span, I can understand wanting to stick to one thing, especially if the offer isn't all that clear to begin with and sounds more like a vague possibility than an actual threat.

It seems like company policy to tell people 5 minutes before the end of their shift with a few working days left in the week. To not give them time to clean out their emails and voicemails, to make sure they don't forget their lucky pen, to say goodbye. It's happened quite a few times in, say, the last couple of years, but this one is a lot harder to take. And I say this while I've had actual friends that I had brought to the company myself get the same treatment.

I've played hockey long enough to see people get traded, cut from teams, replaced. Heck, I've been traded (and fired too!) myself. Sometimes it's because you no longer ''fit in the plans''. Other times your value may be so high that you're now worth the same as someone who fills other needs better than you fill your hole. Sometimes you just don't get along, or maybe they just want to ''change the culture of the dressing room''.

These things happen, they're rarely joyful, but there are ways to do them right. But this... This ranks just about as low on my Chart Of Shitty Ways To Leave A Job as when I was falsely accused of stealing bootleg CDs from a record store I used to work at just because the boss' daughter didn't like working with me - but I'll save that one for a later text.

In the meantime, I've lost the person I had seen the most of in recent years, even if only because we both spent a third of our time in the middle of the same four beige-and-burgundy walls, walking on the same dusty brown carpet, breathing the same moldy air conditionning, drinking the same half-filtered water, bossing around the same nine people, fixing the same computers over and over again, sharing a desk and germs, working for the same greedy bastards, each working our different specialized skills to solve different ends of the same problem.

It's always middle-management that gets the cut. The executives lose clients, lose money, ask for impossible things and get raises. Employees can find their niche between working just hard enough and wasting time on the internet. But middle-management types get fired and the remaining staff members get to see their workload increase. Or, in hockey terms, I guess: it's easier to fire the coach than 23 players, and the GM will go through a few coaches before the President loses patience, and the owner will let the President go through a few GMs before losing patience.

But this coach was an anchor to most, a buoy to the rest of us. The Scottie Pippen to my Michael Jordan. No, wait, the talent has to be reversed: the Peter Forsberg to my Joe Sakic. I have durability (7 years and counting in this place), I'm looking at a Hall of Fame career of sorts, but the work could only be done right with a perhaps more talented but injury-prone superstar who would do all the things I wouldn't, while I'd do what they weren't able to.

And I work better, in most spheres of life, when I have someone who completes me rather than someone I completely share interests with. I'm only a good team player with a reduced team, and I like to exchange ideas to get somewhere. I have no idea if that's what I'll be handed tomorrow. Anyone hiring?