The Power of the Tease

I have been on vacation for almost two weeks. Tomorrow I go back to work. Dear lord, I hope I still have a job!?

Shouldn't we, as Americans, live in fear of losing our job? Isn't that the Capitalist threat?

I have an online resume. It serves the same purpose that this blog generally serves, which is to augment my flawed memory. Where was I in 1991? I dunno, check my resume. If you want to know where I have been in the past four years, or let us say, if *I* want to know, I just check my blog.

About six months ago I suddenly had this panic attack. Half of my memory is owned by Google Incorporated! And, consider the fact, that I own not a single share of stock in Google!!!

My personal Akashic record is stored on servers outside my control! For quite some time I had my weblog set so that it would show every blog post I had ever made; and thus I could easily do a full 'backup'. However, over time, this became so large (mostly due to many photographs) that it would cause computers to crash and browsers to offer the option of sending informative messages to Microsoft Corporation (TM) as to why Internet Explorer had either crashed or hung!

Originally I just signed up with an innocent sounding service called Blogger but, you see, Blogger was bought by Google and now my personal memory augmentation device is now a wholly owned subsidiary of a major international mega-corporation!

How do I get my memory back?

I sent a kind and friendly email to Google corporation, care of Blogger.com, asking if I could get a back-up DVD of my memory. I even pointed out that I would gladly pay a reasonable fee for this service, but they failed to respond. I'm afraid my back-up holographic memory device is being held hostage. Dear lord, if Google stock ever crashes I will be like that guy in Memento!

Google owns my memory and Lord help me if their servers ever crash. Of course, were I to die (shuflfle the mortal coil as it were), it wouldn't matter much to me. I still fancy the idea that a portion of myself lives on in these stream of consciousness ramblings, interspersed with digital imagery, as a record of my existence in the explicate order of this, particular, Universe.

So, back to the point of this message, the power of the tease. I have just come back from the longest vacation I have exercised in the past couple of decades. Shouldn't I be anxious about my job, my future employment, my ability to coax fundage from various and sundry existential entities for my cyber-social services to not only pay for said vacation but also lock-in, guarantee, and assure future employment?

I keep my resume (curriculum vitae) online at the universal resource locator that can be found by clicking on this WORD.

If you read the document at that location you will not only find a particular important disclaimer but also learn some critical facts. For example, the fact that I do not actually have a college degree. Apparently, this is a document of critical importance to many employers before they will even consider an individual of service to their organization.

The strange fact of the matter is that I happen to live, geographically speaking, in the State of Missouri, located somewhere in the middle western states of a sovereign nation known as the 'United States' or, more commonly known as the 'USA'. My kids live here. My wife lives here. My family lives here. The ironical part of all of this is that my given particular skill set (that of being a guy who programs computers to make games) has a market almost exclusively in either Austin Texas, Seattle Washington, or San Francisco California.

Currently, in the specific place that I live, there are only about two employers who have use for my particular skill set. I have worked for them both; one twice. Meanwhile, considering the many other employers in this area (Boeing Corporation and MasterCard International not being the least) none of them would dare hire a poor blind candidate such as myself, no matter how many years of experience I might claim to have accumulated, without also possessing that all important and critical document, a college diploma.

Considering this desperate situation I find myself in I feel fortunate that I have any means of employment at all. In fact, while on vacation, I was so constantly cautioned, nay warned, against the dangers of Gypsies and pickpockets, that I feared this might be my own destiny upon return. Beware the gypsy pickpocket I would tell my friends as I looked longingly towards the closely clasped bags round their round bellies.

How shall I survive without a college education, without a future, without a home?

On my own online resume, as I proclaim my meager accomplishments without the aid of a proper piece of lambskin to my name, I feel compelled to leave an important caveat.

You see, praise be the lord, I am employed; at a job that offers enough vacation time that I can contemplate my past, present, and future. I have a sense of justice, fairness, and honor. I try to act upon the square.

How could I leave my 'resume' online without also including an important note that states, unequivocally that I am, in fact, currently *happily* employed in the grand State of Missouri and am only providing this information for educational purposes.

My online resume contains the following important notice:

(Note to any headhunters. I am happy with my current position and am not currently seeking new employment. If you want to contact me just so you have me in your Rolodex, I do not generally mind. I leave my CV online mostly for my own edification as much as anyone else’s)

So, I close with this thought. After having been away from my job for almost two weeks. After coming to terms with the fact that I am un-educated heathen who was raised, often in poverty and lacking any kind of formal training, and held such menial jobs as janitor, farm hand, and factory worker, I am surprised, nay shocked, to find upon my return several emails imploring me to consider job opportunities as a Vice President of Technology (whatever that is) and as a Chief Technical Officer of several corporations.

Shit, if I keep turning down job offers, and take a couple of more vacations, will they ask me to be Emperor of Venus???