Past Opinion Articles
Article for the week of 5/20/09
Confessions of a Dislocated Texan
Being a chicken is like getting
a job in the real world
By Ezra Mann (Editor in Spoof)
During my second stint as professionally unemployed I have again been given the
time to do a few things that normally would be a bit more difficult if I were
toiling for a paycheck. Two of those latest ventures have been raising chickens
and growing produce.
My living tributes to Peeps started out with six cute little puff balls, which
were all too eager to praise me for every kind effort. I was the lord and master
of their feathery domain and they ate up each bit of affectionate attention like
the processed grain that came in a 50 pound bag. Then the honeymoon period ended
and I became just another slave to ravenous desire and putting up with the droppings
of frustration.
Now I actually enjoy caring for the little fowls, but I couldn’t help but
draw a comparison between their lives and my experience in the job market. Things
can seem to be so beautiful in the beginning, but turn sour quicker than the mood
at a Yankees and Red Sox game.
Sure, there must exist somewhere that possibility of a decent employer/employee
relationship, but getting to that point seems to garner more than a few peck wounds
on the way there. Each career field has its share of people willing to step on
each other to get to the top or survive. Maybe I should just start applying for
my egg laying pals since they seem to live in that world 24/7.
Woe be it unto the entry level worker who stumbles into the job hen house, for
they may as well have just hatched from an egg. Except in the employment market
you don’t always have the doting protector and are sometimes forced to pickup
lessons without any proper training at all.
Hey, don’t whimper too much for the cocks of the walk will just take your
wounds and make them their personal torture device. It’s not anyone’s
fault but your own that you don’t know absolutely everything when you decide
to begin a career. That’s why they’d rather take on beaks with far
more knowhow so they don’t have to get their claws dirty.
It’s almost like the chickens in my coop are acting out a twisted morality
play of the real world and instead of bugs flying into the lamp lights, its people
who actually work hard flying into the nets of the lazy and cruel. Que the Toccata
and Fugue in D Minor, complete with maniacal laughter and you get the picture.
I doubt there is really anyone with real merit asking for free ride into the process,
but it would be nice if someone who didn’t intend to actually contribute
didn’t get something that could go to someone far more deserving. This good
old boy system has got to be one of the biggest loads of mother clucking fertilizer
ever to screw up what is supposed to be an honest procedure. Pluck the lot of
them I say and put some fricking accountability into hiring a person.
Yet, here we are scratching for that bit of nourishment in a corrupt system that
is only made worse by a government who can only throw invisible money at a problem.
“Oh things will turn around this year” they say as real proof somehow
continues to get lost in a sea of federally conceived lies.
Funny thing is I seem to remember a popular saying about polishing a turd that
somehow only retains its fecal characteristics. Let me tell you from someone who
has taken care of his fair share of animal friends, the crap only stops stinking
if you keep it from piling up around you. I might just be a farmer for a living
if that choice weren’t also hampered down by the same pullet squawking nonsense.
Really Pathetic
Productions 1997-2009© Menu
Bar By Albatross