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Get Over Yourself

Writer's picture: Mr. JamokeMr. Jamoke

45 minutes into the bickering I hung up on the conference call. Two individuals that are two levels above me were absolutely going at it. Criticizing each other, yelling, accusing each other of not “understanding the true client needs”, “never getting the big picture”, etc. All of the other 8 minions stayed on the line for another 3.5 hours to listen to this crap. The call apparently didn’t end until almost 9 PM.


On the minute chance I have somehow gained a new reader that isn’t familiar with the trivial nature of my profession, I would like to clarify something. When people ask me what I do for a living my answer is, verbatim: “I write documents and make PowerPoints that nobody reads”. No joke, this is my exact response. People often laugh, as they should. Thus, as you can deduce, my colleagues also do nothing of value. The higher ups make constant sales pitches promoting my shelf-ware, some developer in India eventually does a mediocre job of coding some system integration, money is exchanged, virtually nobody, anywhere is impacted in any meaningful way, and Earth continues to orbit.


Given all of the aforementioned truths, the question I struggle to answer is this: Why would you ever expend the time and energy to argue with a colleague for hours over something that doesn’t matter? Some of these emotional adolescents have outright told me that they have “enemies” at work. Enemies!? As in, the plural of “enemy”? Hahahaha. How!? Why!? Are we contenders for the English throne? Did someone wrongfully imprison you like the Count of Monte Cristo? Is there a Hatfield-McCoy type family rivalry that has spanned generations?


Here is a reality check for my overly passionate colleagues: I recently learned (thanks to one of my loyal readers) that all of the Apes at my local zoo have now been vaccinated against COVID. The Bonobos and Orangutans were vaccinated weeks ago. In contrast, everyone on that acrimonious phone call will have to wait until July.

Let that sink in for a second or two……….. Society values the local ape more than it values you. A freaking ape! And you know what? That’s an accurate assessment! Those apes bring joy to tens of thousands of kids each year. They move across trees with the utmost grace. They are cool to look at. Their every movement can be exciting. People pay good money for a mere fleeting glimpse of the Ape.


You on the other hand…. You excite nobody. You bring no joy to the local children. There is nothing impressive in your movements. Furthermore, not only would I never pay to see you, I’d actually pay money to never have to see you again. Last but certainly not least, your tree climbing skills are utterly pathetic.

Five years ago, the VP of my division started hawking a book that he found inspirational. The book was called: “A monkey could do your job”. Two weeks after his tone-deaf promotion of this book to his staff he laid off 75% of the division. True story. I suspect that he did not in fact replace us with monkeys because, as evidenced by the COVID Vaccine prioritization schema, they were probably too expensive a replacement.

Perhaps I’ll send an email to my squabbling colleagues (and the chumps who stayed up listening to them) with a link to the Ape vaccination story. Maybe they’ll connect the dots and learn some humility knowing just how low we are in the societal pecking order. However, given that imbeciles typically don’t have strong powers of deduction, I probably need to be more direct: I’ll send them personalized copies of the monkey book with the following inscription:


Never, ever forget……….

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