Punch Lines

Reflecting on this era of strange employment I've been experiencing after a long, sane, enjoyable career amidst editors, teachers, production people, I have now had 4 jobs "put on hold" by a company recruiting through a good agency that, however good, was also beholden to that company, racking up 2 of these holds in the last 2 months, right in a row, and then

there is the opposite problem of this era: what goes on at the job when you finally get the job. 

I am glad to have a few remaining sane, professional editing clients, though I am also sorry they, once the norm, now appear to be exceptions to the norm, at least here living this era of strange employment (or was it estranged employment, and which is worse?)

During this era, I once interviewed with a total of 15 people across 4 panels or something, only for the hiring manager to crinkle her fussy little face at the end, during what in this parlance would be termed our 1 on 1, and tell me, "Well, we're not necessarily looking to hire right away."

Strange era

Headlines: Cities: San Simeon

I come here for quiet

I come here because I'm restless and being 

out on the 1 alleviates the energy

Something about being here also makes me forget I've been anywhere else, or at least forget my day to day life, a subtle powerful mysticism governing these parts...

Craft-Focused

So much of what's happening now is why I've never put much stock in society, and I don't say that as a curmudgeon, but as someone who values my friends and family as primary voices and forces. I also let go of a lot of what I wanted to believe or had believed about America, the citizen experience, after living through the flood of August 29, 2005 in New Orleans (well, I was in Mississippi for the actual storm, but that's a whole other story). 

I've been fortunate to work with intelligent, balanced, craft-focused fellow Americans for most of my career, though I'll be honest here in public and share that the last few years have been grueling for me job-wise. I've witnessed bullying, I've experienced bullying, I've been sabotaged out of a job, and I've intervened when possible to improve these situations. Nevertheless, my years upon years of collaborating and working with healthy, down-to-earth, production-oriented colleagues remained my guide, a reality check that when people are determined to play out non-work issues via their work environments, there is very little you can do to solve that as an individual, especially as one with no interest in hierarchy or competition. 

I'm glad other like-minded people reached out to me at these jobs, and vice versa. I'm proud that we were able to carve out spaces, even within unhealthy environments, to improve actual production processes or help people feel more comfortable, not only with writing or editing, but with the knowledge that they had support. 

As I've talked more and more with friends and colleagues of all professions, I've come to see how commonplace bullying can be, driven by dysfunctional people or dysfunctional ideas about work that emanate from authoritarianism, versus productivity or best practice, such as micromanagement or the unstated but pervasive belief that your employer ought to have control over what you say or do outside of work, which is not something I've ever believed, or signed up for. 

I'm An American

Poem one, poetry manuscript one:

I'm an American

One of those lost souls you've read so much about
Stranded on the side of some broken highway

A fucking stillbirth

that never quite made it
here in my promised land.