More so than my state of health, my distance in social and moral views from the current generation of twenty-somethings blitzing about the land in a haze of Red Bull, Monster, straight caffeine and bused prescription painkillers enhances this feeling of accelerated decrepitude lolling about my psyche these days. I don't pretend to be one of those fogies who long for 'the good ol' days,' for much of current technology and convenience is tempting enough to keep my senses in the here and now. But, I am missing some sense in those 'coming to age' right now of anything that matters to them other than immediate disposable cash flow and self-indulgence.
Coming up on two months ago, I had to fire my assistant manager at work. It was discovered during an inventory/sales audit that he was falsifying returns and pocketing the cash. He had some degree of fines and legal fees to pay to the state to prevent continued incarceration. I stuck to the silent treatment after it occurred, ignoring his calls and voice mails requesting the opportunity to explain why he did it. While I reserved any feelings of outright hostility and animosity, it didn't matter to me in the least why he did it. My punishment for not discovering his crime on my watch, aside from the insult of being questioned as to whether or not I had aided him in his theft (an insult which, ironically, may well be beyond the grasp of most of the generation I lament in this post), is being put on 'action plan,' a company euphemism for final notice. Every step I take or miss, every transaction I perform, every company policy I follow, bend, or adjust to my own store's needs is closely monitored and scrutinized. If, at the end of a ninety day period, my level of shrink is not acceptable, I will lose my position, and my family will lose over half its stream of income. What on earth could my former assistant have to say to me that would make me understand, make me see something reasonable and acceptable in his actions?
Last I heard, he was arranging to skip state and head for Florida at his father's expense. It seems he has more warrants out for his arrest than just the one generated by his failure to completely pay his restitution to the company. He has no intention of paying back any of his friends the money he's borrowed thus far to pay the paltry percentage of restitution he's made, and in fact, has been very vociferous and boastful of this position. He proudly announces this trip to Florida as his 'get out of jail free card.' He shows no remorse for what he's done, not for the money he's borrowed in ill faith, not for the falsification and manipulation of a co-worker's sales records to hide his crime, not for jeopardizing my family's well-being, not for the embezzlement itself. All that clearly matters to him is the opportunity to party at anyone else's expense and avoid all consequences.
The part of all this that astounds me is how this situation does not make any impact on the vast majority of his friends. He's just the fun-loving bad boy that everyone else loves to hang out with. My personal challenge in this is not just to make certain that no one else is ever able to scam me like that again, but to try and gain some ability to fathom why this doesn't make him a pariah. He's still fairly good friends with one of my part-time associates who, on his own MySpace page, announces how he's 'all about money,' and it's that very attitude of consumerism and greed that I cannot understand.
It would be easy or me to plan the parents, except that both sets of parents are not only so different from each other, but so close to myself in age as to be either 'fellow' Gen Xers or at least members of the previous generation. In the case of the embezzler, I think his mother may have showed overwhelming concern too late in his petty criminal development while his father seemed to be prepared to forgive or ignore anything while trying to throw enough money at it to make it go away. In the case of my part-timer, I think he's rebelling against a strict religious upbringing in an independent denomination/congregation that forbids displays of ostentaciousness while trying also to adapt to the urban environment that idolizes the massing of money without clear interpretation of what money can and can't do. I think a lot of this money-centric thinking is an uneducated remain of the Me Generation born of the stock boom days of the mid and late 1980's, when virtually the only activity of social value became skill in amassing wealth. The uneducated portion arises from the current misinterpretation of that 'value,' that the only skill of note is the amassing of money.
Consider the images you see in hip-hop videos, urban sit-coms, crime dramas, and the like. Money is tossed around to satisfy any number of whims and vices, but rarely is it invested or spent on anything of even vague lasting value. The next high, the next lay, the next craving is the only expense of importance that occurs to today's generation. Now, please understand, as will become apparent in most of my postings here, I am no fan of capitalism or free market economy. I am not suggesting mass emergency education in economics as a panacea to urban ills. I am suggesting that this seeming problem is, in reality, a symptom of greater illness, namely the lack of hope, and consequently, the aversion to accountability.
The hard lessons in avoiding consequence go back several generations, their roots lying in Nixon-era politics. Most of the Watergate players, including Nixon himself, were able to avoid criminal consequences and even profit from their wrongdoing through Washington connections and the talk-show circuit, with ample assistance from the publishing industry. Fast forward to the Iran-Contra hearings of the late 1980's; did anyone truly suffer consequences from their actions? Oliver North still retains some degree of notoriety for his complicity. Consider the treatment of celebrities in the U.S. legal system. Throw enough money and glam at any issue, and it goes away, or at most, results in a little community service. If those who set the example for acceptable behavior (and most of us who know better know that they shouldn't) are not held accountable for what they do, then why should anyone else? Then we come to the national travesty of the past eight years, the criminal occupation of the White House by the Bush regime. Dubya's entire life is a testament to avoiding consequence by the careful distribution of payola, from required military service to gross sub-mediocrity in an Ivy League institution that should have found his aversion to learning repugnant. Difficult to argue that one must pay their own way or do the hard work when the Caricature-in-Chief tosses pay-off about with the ease and dexterity of a common gangsta rapper. To that, we must add the fully developed selfishness of the Baby Boomer generation, which has proven itself to be the prototype for the Me Generation. Clearly concerned with their own preservation and clearly unconcerned with the fate of their offspring, they have conspired to preserve social security for themselves while virtually guaranteeing it will not b around long enough to help those who are currently funding it. Wherein lies hope and concern for the future when your own parents and grandparents pickpocket you to fund their retirement and your demise?
The only stand I have against the poor education provided by common behavior and the poor parenting of others is the parenting I do with my own children. Perhaps I'm setting them up to be the social outcasts of their own generations, but better that than setting them up as the outlaw heroes of another crop of corrupt children. Most parents hope that their children listen to and absorb the lessons we teach; my hopes aren't any different, and I'm starkly aware of the personal editing I've done to the lessons my parents passed on to me. I struggle most with my oldest son, but there are those occasional glimpses of hope, when he does the right thing. For now, I'm content to continue molding my portion of the next generation instead of fighting the throng of uncared for misexperiments in social pioneering that will leak through the fail safes.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Lay of the Land
I've tried blogging in the past, and found it too impersonal for my tastes. I found myself being too conscious of what I wrote, trying to impress with noble notions, controversial ideas, and glitery wordsmithery to attract devotees and carve some sort of niche for myself as a writer. At times, I acted in fear of exposure, choosing not to write about something that truly moved me, for fear of politially-correct labels, sometimes even of physical retaliation by some cyberstalker or other. My personal pen-and-paper journal was my safe-haven from everything, and I am saddened to bid it a proverbial good-bye, but this now is my only real option, as the act of handwriting is now not only difficult, but painful. And, thus, we begin.
I am half-way through my thirty-eighth year. I attended university to become a professional musician, a path that began while I was still in the sixth grade and began earning money as a double bassist in the local community orchestra. I stayed at university until I had earned a bachelor of music in theory and composition and a master of music in performnce. I worked nearly every day during the orchestra season, which was september through June with a few local musicals and summer pops thrown in here and there, and made enough for myself to survive modertely. I had entertained notions of relocating somewhere in Europe, where a middle-income life in the arts is a doable reality, rather than here in the United States, where one either starves (without the Bohemian charm and romance attatched) or has too much money for any sane person to know how to handle properly. I gave those up when I met and married my wife and we began a family. Some had suggested that traipsing across Europe may have been a great way for my children to grow up, but I saw it more as a burden to my family. The die was cast once a personal manager for one of the orchestras with which I performed suggested that my new family was interfering with my musical career. Perhaps, to a measure, they were, but that was my call, not theirs. I left music entirely and embarked on to 'normal life.'
I was able, at fist, to still work close to the arts, first as an inventory clerk in a music store and then as a stringed instrument repair technician in the same store. That fell apart when I turned thrity; apparently the work they had assigned me was supposed to last forever, not just two and a half years. I left for a breif stint in furniture sales. That path was interupted by the birth of my third (and final) child. He was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia which had escaped the ob/gyn's attention for the previous thrity weeks. My family and I essentially relocated to the Ronald McDonald House near the C.S.Mott Childrens' Hospital on the campus of the University of Michigan for roughly six weeks. He spent another three weeks in the hospital once we returned home to complete his surgeries, a stay made more lengthy by the e-coli he contracted from the surgical tubing that ran from IV bags to various injection sites and a Broviac line implanted into a leg artery. I was unable to return to furniture sales after that, despite having shown some promise. I was simply unable to feel any empathy for people who had to wait an extra day or two for their custom-order sofa after I had watched my newborn son expire several times in a pediatric intensive care unit only to be revived to carry on the struggle without so much as a whimper or cry during the etire ordeal.
I left the furniture store and have been in retail management ever since. I've managed two gas-stations, a Goodwill store, and now I'm with Foot Locker. Truth be told, I hate it. It's dfficult for me, knowing what I and my family have been through, the sacrifices we have made, to try and fuel the sort of blind, greedy consumerism we are told this economy needs so badly. It is difficult to mange a staff where the next oldest member is still seventeen years younger than I, still lives at home, and has no real responsibilities other than his own indulgence. As it may or may not have become evident, I am definitely left-of-center politically. I have been investigating socialist parties of one vein or another for some time, and although I have not yet made any commitments, I have determined that, at least for me and those for whom I care, the free-market and capitalism are wrong, providing sustenance and freedom only for those who find new ways to exploit and oppress.
I have recently had some health problems, which makes the approach of the dread age Forty that much more ominous. I have had difficulty with kidney stones since I was twenty-three, and now have developed a clotting disorder that prevents me from having the meniscal arthroscopy I need on my right knee. I have developed bursitis in the left knee, and both now have full-fledged arthritis. The overall unifying diagnosis I have been given is multiple endochrine neoplasia (MEN1), which, I am told, does not automaticly lead to cancer, but does make the risk of endochrine cancer more substantial. No one has really said anything at work, beyond my district manager offering me FMLA or short-term disability (which I am still considering), but I have a feeling that seeing me walk about the store with a cane gives them some sort of derisive jolly. The cane, or some other effect of my disorder, has also left the ring finger and pinky of my right hand almost completely numb and useless, hence n more handwriting a journal.
I've tried a few things to fend off the beginnings of midle-age. I made a MySpace page, which I recently cancelled. The whole format made me feel like a very old fish in a very young pond. Plus, to be fair, I made the mistake of adding most of my employees as freinds and learned far more than I ever wanted to know about all of them. I also joined Facebook, and have stuck with that one. It seems more geared to those not as interested in impressing others with juvenile antics and statements. I've tried to update my 'look' (after all, I manage a Foot Locker), but it made me seem like some of the middle-agers wandering the mall where I work, their ball caps backwards on top of wrinkled brows and over receding hairlines, their basetball jersey tops flowing against skin as tanned and weathered as saddle leather. If I cannot retain my youth, I can retain what's left of my dignity.
So here we are. Forty has been showing its ugly head just over the horizon, I have a rare endochrine disorder that provokes more questions than answers, I can't tolerate my career, and yet I'm a little on in years to embark on a new one. I find myself questioning everything from religion to politics, from going back to school to continuing head on and fast into retirement, every value and scruple I have ever held dear. The land is bumpy, the knees are shakey, but there's still so long to go. These posts, pages, whatever you wish to call them, will serve as my compass and map. If they help someone else out as a guidepost, so be it. If they give a chuckle to a younger reader, perhaps that's just as well. Make sure, though, before you laugh, you have the balls to make the trip.
I am half-way through my thirty-eighth year. I attended university to become a professional musician, a path that began while I was still in the sixth grade and began earning money as a double bassist in the local community orchestra. I stayed at university until I had earned a bachelor of music in theory and composition and a master of music in performnce. I worked nearly every day during the orchestra season, which was september through June with a few local musicals and summer pops thrown in here and there, and made enough for myself to survive modertely. I had entertained notions of relocating somewhere in Europe, where a middle-income life in the arts is a doable reality, rather than here in the United States, where one either starves (without the Bohemian charm and romance attatched) or has too much money for any sane person to know how to handle properly. I gave those up when I met and married my wife and we began a family. Some had suggested that traipsing across Europe may have been a great way for my children to grow up, but I saw it more as a burden to my family. The die was cast once a personal manager for one of the orchestras with which I performed suggested that my new family was interfering with my musical career. Perhaps, to a measure, they were, but that was my call, not theirs. I left music entirely and embarked on to 'normal life.'
I was able, at fist, to still work close to the arts, first as an inventory clerk in a music store and then as a stringed instrument repair technician in the same store. That fell apart when I turned thrity; apparently the work they had assigned me was supposed to last forever, not just two and a half years. I left for a breif stint in furniture sales. That path was interupted by the birth of my third (and final) child. He was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia which had escaped the ob/gyn's attention for the previous thrity weeks. My family and I essentially relocated to the Ronald McDonald House near the C.S.Mott Childrens' Hospital on the campus of the University of Michigan for roughly six weeks. He spent another three weeks in the hospital once we returned home to complete his surgeries, a stay made more lengthy by the e-coli he contracted from the surgical tubing that ran from IV bags to various injection sites and a Broviac line implanted into a leg artery. I was unable to return to furniture sales after that, despite having shown some promise. I was simply unable to feel any empathy for people who had to wait an extra day or two for their custom-order sofa after I had watched my newborn son expire several times in a pediatric intensive care unit only to be revived to carry on the struggle without so much as a whimper or cry during the etire ordeal.
I left the furniture store and have been in retail management ever since. I've managed two gas-stations, a Goodwill store, and now I'm with Foot Locker. Truth be told, I hate it. It's dfficult for me, knowing what I and my family have been through, the sacrifices we have made, to try and fuel the sort of blind, greedy consumerism we are told this economy needs so badly. It is difficult to mange a staff where the next oldest member is still seventeen years younger than I, still lives at home, and has no real responsibilities other than his own indulgence. As it may or may not have become evident, I am definitely left-of-center politically. I have been investigating socialist parties of one vein or another for some time, and although I have not yet made any commitments, I have determined that, at least for me and those for whom I care, the free-market and capitalism are wrong, providing sustenance and freedom only for those who find new ways to exploit and oppress.
I have recently had some health problems, which makes the approach of the dread age Forty that much more ominous. I have had difficulty with kidney stones since I was twenty-three, and now have developed a clotting disorder that prevents me from having the meniscal arthroscopy I need on my right knee. I have developed bursitis in the left knee, and both now have full-fledged arthritis. The overall unifying diagnosis I have been given is multiple endochrine neoplasia (MEN1), which, I am told, does not automaticly lead to cancer, but does make the risk of endochrine cancer more substantial. No one has really said anything at work, beyond my district manager offering me FMLA or short-term disability (which I am still considering), but I have a feeling that seeing me walk about the store with a cane gives them some sort of derisive jolly. The cane, or some other effect of my disorder, has also left the ring finger and pinky of my right hand almost completely numb and useless, hence n more handwriting a journal.
I've tried a few things to fend off the beginnings of midle-age. I made a MySpace page, which I recently cancelled. The whole format made me feel like a very old fish in a very young pond. Plus, to be fair, I made the mistake of adding most of my employees as freinds and learned far more than I ever wanted to know about all of them. I also joined Facebook, and have stuck with that one. It seems more geared to those not as interested in impressing others with juvenile antics and statements. I've tried to update my 'look' (after all, I manage a Foot Locker), but it made me seem like some of the middle-agers wandering the mall where I work, their ball caps backwards on top of wrinkled brows and over receding hairlines, their basetball jersey tops flowing against skin as tanned and weathered as saddle leather. If I cannot retain my youth, I can retain what's left of my dignity.
So here we are. Forty has been showing its ugly head just over the horizon, I have a rare endochrine disorder that provokes more questions than answers, I can't tolerate my career, and yet I'm a little on in years to embark on a new one. I find myself questioning everything from religion to politics, from going back to school to continuing head on and fast into retirement, every value and scruple I have ever held dear. The land is bumpy, the knees are shakey, but there's still so long to go. These posts, pages, whatever you wish to call them, will serve as my compass and map. If they help someone else out as a guidepost, so be it. If they give a chuckle to a younger reader, perhaps that's just as well. Make sure, though, before you laugh, you have the balls to make the trip.
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