Sunday March 13 2005, early

ONE DOOR CLOSING

Here’s an email I sent to a lot of people at my place of work before my shift was over tonight:

To Whom It May Concern:
For the past four months, I have experienced a continuous pattern of deliberate harassment from one of my co-workers on the E-care team, {bitch 1}.
I have documented this extensively. I have repeatedly asked my supervisor, {my boss}, for help, in person and in writing. I have asked her supervisor for help, and I have asked Human Resources for help. I have, in fact, asked everyone I could think of for help. I have brought this up in private with my supervisor, and at team meetings, and through email.
Today, after {bitch 1}’s most recent confrontation with me, which she initiated and conducted in the most hostile tone imaginable, while our supervisor was out of the room, I once again approached my supervisor for help. A representative of Human Resources named {HR rep} joined the discussion. Over the course of the discussion, I provided numerous examples of {bitch 1}’s ongoing, deliberate harassment of me. {my boss} admitted that {bitch 1} is at fault in this ongoing and continuous conflict, and that {bitch 1} is the sort of person who enjoys antagonizing people, especially me. She confirmed that once {bitch 1} discovers she can annoy or exasperate someone with certain behavior, she deliberately does it, simply to produce that effect, and that she has observed that {bitch 1} specifically takes pleasure in goading me in this manner.
{HR rep} then stated that she did not understand what the problem was. She said that {bitch 1}’s deliberate and continual harassment of me was simply ‘a personality quirk’ and that I was obliged to tolerate such quirks in my co-workers. She advised me quite earnestly that if I could not tolerate {bitch 1}’s continual provocations, I could always go work somewhere else.
This is, apparently, all the assistance I can expect to receive in this matter, so I am going to accept this advice. I am resigning my position at {my ex employer} effective immediately.
I would like to state this: if any female employee at {my ex employer} went to anyone in Human Resources, or any supervisor, and reported deliberate and continual harassment of this or any other nature from any male employee, decisive action would immediately be taken. An investigation would be conducted, and if the harassment were substantiated, as my APM substantiated the harassment I have experienced to an HR representative today, steps would immediately be taken to resolve the situation. If the harassment did not stop with a warning or a write up, the employee conducting it would be terminated… especially if they had a disciplinary history of similar infractions in the past.
I repeat – if a woman were being harassed by a man at {my ex employer}, and complained about it, immediate action would be taken to remedy the situation. She would be provided with an immediate and effective response, extensive resources and a wonderful support network. She would under no circumstances be told that she was required to tolerate this harassment because it was ‘a personality quirk’ of her antagonist’s.
I have asked for help from everyone I can think of in regard to this situation. This is not a minor problem. {bitch 1} is continually, deliberately, and maliciously creating a hostile workplace for me, and no one feels the situation requires any action be taken whatsoever. I am simply supposed to ‘rise above it’. {HR rep} actually mocked me today regarding some of the specific forms of harassment {bitch 1} has subjected me to, asking me if it was ‘too hard’ for me to deal with these issues.
{my ex employer} advertises itself as, and prides itself on, being a professional and nurturing workplace. It is unprofessional, and it is unacceptable, for one employee to deliberately harass, confront, or antagonize a fellow employee, especially simply because they enjoy being unpleasant and making others miserable. Were I female and my harasser male, this situation would not be tolerated one minute beyond its being reported. Apparently, as the genders are reversed, I am not entitled to the same level of professional consideration, courtesy, or workplace protection that a woman would be in this same situation.
Whether or not this lack of any effective response to my requests for intervention is exacerbated by the fact that every single person I have requested help from is female, I cannot say decisively. I simply know that not only have I received no help, I have actually been ridiculed for requesting it.
In the midst of all this admitted subjectivity, the objective fact remains: I have been advised that if I wish to be treated by my fellow employees with professionalism or civility, I must go elsewhere. I will avail myself of that opportunity immediately.
Sincerely,
{happy little me}

I admit, along with the exhilaration of being done with a job I absolutely detested even at the best of times, I was kind of fearful as I walked home tonight. I have one more paycheck coming, assuming management doesn’t want to fuck with it. That paycheck will about pay the bills through the end of April. What’s in the bank now has to go out to a friend of mine I’ve been ordering comics from, because he’s put several graphic novels on his credit card for me, and I can’t leave him in the lurch… especially since I’m leaving my job voluntarily. Honestly, I couldn’t stomach another day there after Friday’s ambush… but it is my choice. So I’ll send my friend a check, and hope for the best.

I’ve been in this position many times… suddenly the regularly refilling bank account has a cease and desist order served on it , and you’re gazing into the Abyss. It’s always a good feeling to put a job behind you… I’ve never had a job I enjoyed so much I wasn’t happy to see the back of it… but it’s a scary one to see the money dry up.

Still, while I don’t have many friends, the ones I do have are staunch, and I know they’ll help me if they can. That reassures me, and I thank you all for it. A glance around my apartment reassures me further. A quick count turns up around 70 Uniques and Limited Edition HeroClix, in addition to the boxful of spares I’ve already sent to Mike Norton for him to auction off for me on E-Bay. Assuming an average worth of $15 per fig, which seems fair (some would only go for maybe $5, but others would most likely bring in $30 or $40), that’s another 6 weeks or so at subsistence level… and since I just got Knights of the Old Republic II in the mail today, well, as long as I can keep the power on, I won’t be bored.

Since the March bills are paid and I have groceries in the house, this should give me until, oh, mid-June, if I really have to push it, to find another job.

And my two years at the City Clerk’s office gave me a friendly acquaintanceship with a few lawyers. They all do land use stuff, but I’d imagine one of them would be able to recommend someone who handles sexual discrimination lawsuits to me. I can at least make some calls and see if there’s anything there.

In the meantime, I don’t have to deal with {bitch 1} or {my boss} ever again, hopefully, other than maybe occasionally running into them at Wal-mart.

I’ll buy that for a dollar.

WE’RE OUT OF WHEATABIX

I’ve probably misspelled ‘Wheatabix’, but honestly, I don’t care.

Let’s see. Wednesday…? I think it was Wednesday… I got a big box of comics from Steve Tice while I was home for lunch. The box included 3 trade paperbacks collecting the first 22 issues or so of JSA, two more issues of Conan, the last issue of Promethea, two issues of Tom Strong, the latest two issues of JSA and JLA, an issue of Astonishing X-Men, and the first four issues of Geoff Johns’ extraordinary new Green Lantern mini series, featuring the long LONG overdue return of Hal Jordan to the ring of power.

Friday, well, work sucked, but I got another gift basket at work from my friend who must not be named, and among lots of munchies, it also contained 4 booster boxes of HeroClix. Proving that my friend has The Magic Touch in every way, those four boosters yielded two Uniques, Wonder Woman and Red Robin. As I already had both, this is just more money in the bank, and couldn’t have come at a better time.

The boosters also yielded up a Veteran Kid Flash, which I did not get out of my case. Trades with Mike Norton will supply me with most of the other REVs I was still missing from the set, other than a rookie Superwoman and a Veteran Hourman. Those I picked up in trade with a guy at my former place of work (I traded him an Experienced Hellcat and an Experienced Ultimates Cyclops for them) and in addition, he traded me a Unique Longshot for my Blockbuster LE. So, while I’ll still be down some Uniques (I’m always down some Uniques, since there’s never been a set yet where I really cared about EVERY piece, and Uniques are somewhat difficult and expensive to acquire one at a time) and of course I won’t have all the LEs, I don’t much care, either. Once Mike’s package gets here, I’ll happily call my set of Legacy complete.

Oh, at some point in the future when I have an income again, I’ll be looking for General Zod, Ultraman, and the Kingdom Come Green Lantern… but for now, I’m content with what I have.

On the comics: the first JSA trade suddenly reminded me, like an avalanche hitting me squarely in the head, of exactly why I was so reluctant to start buying this book at first. In two words, James Robinson. I’ve loathed Robinson and his massive Alan Moore inferiority complex since the opening panels of the utterly loathsome Golden Age miniseries of 10 or 12 years ago, and his work on the first 12 issues or so of JSA brought that detestation back in full flood. The tortured syntax, the painfully clumsy attempts at writing witty dialogue full of trendy topical references, the pathetic obsession with bygone eras, and, perhaps worst of all, that horrifying wank character of his Jack Knight (whom I will not sully the name ‘Starman’ on)… honestly, reading this first year of the book’s run made me feel like one of the crowd at the end of The Magic Christian, wading into a constantly churning pit full of the most revolting waste material imaginable to search for scattered valuables amidst the appalling muck.

Geoff Johns coming onto the book when Robinson left was almost literally like the moment of near euphoric relief that comes when the dentist finally stops drilling. Johns had the great good sense to immediately send that cretin Jack Knight packing, and, as seems to be his particular gift, he also instantly set about transforming, as if by some miraculous literary alchemy, some of the most obnoxious personalities imaginable into likable and interesting characters. While suffering beneath the lash of Robinson’s repellent non-writing, you’d never have figured the new Star Spangled Kid or Jakeem Thunder could possibly be fun to read about; under Johns, though, everyone is a treat and a reader’s only regret is that there is never enough room in any given issue for all the great dialogue, plot, action, and characterization you could want.

Johns has done similarly stellar work on the Green Lantern mini-series as well, weaving together without any apparent effort at all dozens of different strands of past continuity and history into an amazing mosaic that not only finds a sensible way to revive Hal Jordan as Green Lantern out of the horrible morass of contrived nonsense lesser writers have imprisoned him in over the last twenty years, but which also accomplished the seeming impossible by actually making Kyle Ranier seem like a cool guy.

My old buddy Slappy is still writing JLA quite well, but he’s pushing me. After four issues of watching the Crime Syndicate of America run around in the most egregiously and obnoxiously evil manner imaginable, I’m really starting to need to see the JLA punch the living crap out of them. They’d better take a horrible beating within the next two issues, or I’m gonna give up on this rag in disgust.

Okay. I think I’ll go set up a character in Knights of the Old Republic II. There have to be SOME benefits to being unemployed…

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, "Wow, I didn't recognize you in men's clothing". According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I'm reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I'd take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here's The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people's blogs, you MUST NOT:

(a) seem smarter than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(b) be funnier than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(d) be correct when you point out some manner in which the person writing the blog you are posting comments to was wrong, and/or

(e) Upset The Wimmenfolk On The Blog.

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin's Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron's blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don't really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren't related to me by marriage, I'd most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I've learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don't care if you:

(a) seem smarter than I am, I like people who are smarter than I am, as long as they're not jerks about it;

(b) are funnier than I am, then I get to laugh at your witty remarks, and hey, that's all good;

(c) are a better writer than I am. Although I'm in a peculiar place as regards writing skills; good enough to be better than nearly all the amateurs out there, not good or lucky enough to be a professional at it. So if you are a better writer than I am, you are probably a professional writer and therefore do not have time to post comments on other people's blogs, so this probably doesn't matter, as relates to this blog;

(d) correct my mistakes; unlike apparently 95% of the remainder of the human race, I am under no illusions as to my own infallibility and simply don't care if someone points out that I am wrong about something. Being wrong about things does not strike me as either a character flaw or a shameful embarrassment; we are all wrong about a lot of things every day of our lives, and that's just how that works;

(e) Upset My Wimmenfolk. Well, actually, I shouldn't say I don't care if you upset my wimmenfolk, I do, the very thought deeply offends me. However, it's just that the wimmenfolk at this point on this blog are my mom, my cuz in law, and my sister in law, and if you do something to upset them, I strongly doubt the authorities finding what's left of you will be able to identify you without a DNA comparison. My mom, and any woman who marries any of the males in this family and stays married to him for any length of time, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. So offend them all you want; it's a self correcting problem.

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I'd get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don't Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

A Brown Eyed Handsome Man