homeaboutarchivescommentscontacteverything

Five days on, then two days off

Anyone who works for a living knows this well, but after two years of wonderfully working from home and then a year of unworried unemployment, I'd forgotten one of the huge hells of working:

CRANKY
OLD FART

#292

leftovers
& links

 
Saturday,
March 25, 2023
Five days on, then two days off, and the first day I'm so exhausted it's hard to even write this paragraph. All I can do is breakfast with the family, then surf the net, eat sardines, maybe masturbate and take a nap.

How anyone who works for a living can muster any creativity in their lives is a mystery, and it must be simply impossible for someone in a more difficult position than mine — someone raising children, someone with health issues, or outside obligations, or a social life, or someone whose house or car needs repairs…

As for me, 20 pages of handwritten notes want to be written, and a few of those shreds have the potential to be worth reading. It's not happening today, though. My first 'day off' is a complete wash, and probably will be, every week until I die — same as anyone else who works for a living.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

The value American capitalism places on workers' lives: BP fined $156,250 for the deaths of two refinery operators in Ohio 

The Internet Archive has lost its first fight to scan and lend e-books like a library 

'Bucket Man' honored with a memorial parade in downtown Frisco 

"Castro in Exile" flees with Grease to the Roxie 

New Jersey sues Dow, others over widespread possible cancer-causing chemical in drinking water 

Flesh-eating bacteria cases could increase and occur in more places due to climate change, study finds 

At least three found dead after vehicles swept away by Arizona floodwaters 

"My city is gone": 'supercell' tornado annihilates Mississippi town and kills 23 

Lawsuit: NYPD routinely delays requests for public records 

Police sue rapper Afroman for using footage of home raid in his music videos 

Officers in Cop City raid shot pepperball gun into activist's tent first 

Missouri sheriff, 2 deputies charged in plot to kidnap a child 

Sheriff's daughter might be arrested, so county stops posting mugshots online 

Lawsuit claims Pasco deputies engaging in predictive policing 

Utah passes laws requiring parental permission for teens to use social media 

Every horrible bill proposed by DeSantis's Florida Republicans this year 

Republican Rep suggests replacing libraries with "church-owned" alternatives 

Woman's toes grew back because of prayer, Missouri pastor says. Website wants proof. 

Trump warns of "potential death & destruction" if he's charged in hush-money case 

Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going

Click 

Click 

Click 

Click 

Click 

My browser history
without the porn

Remembering AltaVista, the first real search engine 

SETI@home is in hibernation 

Why journalism schools won't quit Fox News 

Allan Ginsberg jams with Paul McCartney 

The story behind the Byrds' psychedelic masterpiece Eight Miles High 

Museum of the Streets, by Abbie Hoffman 

This is what happens when your phone is spying on you. 

When the New York Times lost its period. 

Timber trestles: incredible vintage photos of timber railroad bridges, 1850s-1900s 

♫♬  It don't mean a thing  ♫
if it don't have that swing

All the Strange, Strange Creatures — Murray Gold 

Baba O'Riley — The Who 

Disney Girls — Art Garfunkel 

Jerry's Breakdown — Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed 

The World is a Beautiful Place — Lawrence Ferlinghetti 

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

Darcelle XV 

Joe Giella 

Traute Lafrenz 

Gordon Moore 

Peter Werner

3/25/2023   

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.  

Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, Katameme, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration. 

Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.

6 comments:

  1. The ratio was why I avoided full-time employment as often as I could. I worked it out with my local state university that I'd be a writer in the Univ Relations dept as long as I was only there 3 days a week, giving me 4 to myself and my freelance work. Even when I was tasked with taking over full-time for 10 weeks, due to my immediate boss' bereavement leave (immediate boss was one cool boss, I must add, who when seeing me dragging on certain days would suggest I visit the library for a nap), I walked over to HR to find out how many sick days I was entitled to -- and then looked over the calendar to see where the various holidays fell. Then I put together my strategy where I only had to work 3 actual five-day weeks and 7 3-4 day weeks. I survived. -- Arden

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shrewd, man. Guessing this was a long while ago, if you had to walk over to HR to check your accrued time off, instead of clicking a few buttons.

      Once I'm a known quantity, I'll ask for a four-day work week, but that'll be a while.

      When I was young, I squeezed 40 hours into 3½ days a week, but I'm probably not capable of that any more. That job let me nap, like your cool boss did...

      Delete
    2. You couldn't work a full time job for ten weeks? I understand that when the Yard Goes On Forever one has to get the hell out of the yard, but covering for a cool boss while he's on bereavement leave for a limited time seems doable. Not my business, not my call. I was just struck by the possible conflict between the cool boss and finding a way not to cover for him. There's probably a larger story that is also not my business. I'm not trying to be an asshole -- I was just struck.

      John

      Delete
    3. Cool boss was a woman. Funny seeing her as a he. Nah, I got all the work done. It was just that silly belief that we all man our stations because that's what you do. Universities have plenty of 'workers' who barely show up, usually administrators. I saw too much, I guess. Too many lousy bosses at the Uni who were spotted around town doing their food shopping on company time and enjoying multi-hour lunches on days when they arrived at 11am. Had the job not been mostly bullshit, I would've been there when needed. But so much of it was just nonsense. No worries, the in-house bi-weekly newsletter went out flawlessly.

      This was in the '90s when HR was next door and there was a somewhat cute 30-something to ask about my hours. -- Arden

      Delete
    4. Mon dieu, how much would tuition be if the university didn't manufacture overhead? I spent my life mostly working for for-profit companies. The hours were somewhat long, but everybody worked with purpose. The job I spent the most time at was a family-owned company and the family shared the profits with the workers. Good year=good bonuses. And it was fun most of the time.

      I certainly understand why you wanted to get your ass out of the building as much as possible. If you needed to fill out a sick form, "ass problems" would have been about the correct malady description. Thanks for the story.

      John

      Delete
    5. When you get away from mom & pop outfits -- which are really the only legitimate forms of capitalism -- there's a lot of people who don't "work with purpose." It's only a slight exaggeration to say that everyone above low-level management is increasingly a wasted paycheck, as the paychecks get larger. Screw 'em all.

      It's only us little people who "work with purpose," and I'm annoyed because I forgot to take lunch today. The boss never forgets to take lunch, just forgets to come back.

      Delete

🚨🚨 BY THE WAY 🚨🚨
The site's software sometimes swallows comments. If it eats yours, send an email and I'll get it posted.