as into it as i am cynical about it

Happy Wednesday internet.

I’m sitting here in the living room with this laptop on my lap.  Sharaun’s watching Glee but I’m not.  See, I’ve actually got a pair of headphones on and I’m listening to music.  Yes, this my be the definition of dysfunctional – but Picthfork’s review of Kanye’s new record came out this week and they gave it a perfect 10.0.  I saw it tonight and simply had to listen to the album again to see if, perhaps, I’ve been missing something.  Liking rap is such an uncharacteristic thing for me, I’m almost conflicted when I realize something is good (this is one of my musical weaknesses, like my knowledge of the 1950s or jazz).  I’ll figure it out; dig deep and decide if this is good, bad, or just OK.  A perfect ten?

Today at work I sat through the first day of a three-day intensive training.  We’re sequestered, no contact with work proper.  No e-mail, no cellphone, incommunicado.  This class is supposed to “strengthen” me.  For the first two hours I hated it.  Bloated Utopian concepts delivered in clichéd buzzwords; idealistic tripe requiring a suspension of reality to even discuss; supposed “shifts in thinking” which everyone knows would be buried under waves of reality when they meet the true corporate culture.  I was turned off and pessimistic after the first five minutes of this pep-talk crap.  After lunch I gave things another chance, figuring I had two and a half days left.  Maybe it’s because the afternoon was more rubber meeting road, or maybe it was all about my preconceptions – but I enjoyed things a lot more.  I don’t feel any stronger, though.

We took one of those pseudo-psychology self-defining tests, ala Myers-Briggs.  I tend to love those things, even if they reek of the kind of “they nailed me!” one-size-fits-all “revelations” common to horoscopes and other “well duh” self-help materials.  In the end it spit out five “top themes” for my strengths.  They use made-up corporate words like “ideation” and “empathy.”  It’s such a narcissistic exercise.  Me and all the other managers, reveling in our own strengths, basking in the glow of our own skills, patting ourselves on the back and giving each other under-the-table handjobs in kind.  I can’t believe how good I am!  How well I do these five things!  I’m the maestro of communication; I’m the the high-poobah of woo; I’m a triple black belt in “intellection.”

I’m almost as into it as I am cynical about it.

Goodnight.

Also written on this day...

• a good saturday - 2018
• keep my waistline in your prayers - 2009
• spurned by santa - 2008
• bathrooms the size of coffins - 2005
• on a mushroom - 2004
• back from the lodge - 2003