10.17.2022

Time to be honest

I think I'm going through some sort of depression lately.  Last night's blog post was me venting.  But it's more than the career setbacks.  It's being a single parent, who is for all intent and purpose part-time in that regard.  Most every conversation I have with my ex regards money.  Namely, her wanting me to go all in on everything, while she gets to spend her money on whatever she wants.  For instance, Halloween is coming up, and there is no way I can afford to spend over $100 on costumes our kids will wear once.  I get yelled at if I want to spend $5 at a bar.  Yet it's OK for her to spend a small fortune on a new stereo system in her truck.  I'm trying to keep a roof over my head as well.  I'm basically required to have something big enough for myself and our three children.  Which means, I have to pay every utility.  I'd love to move into something small, and divest myself of a lot of things.  But I have to have a large location.  I live with nobody.  I made that vow after 2018, when I had someone move in promising to help, and instead had a freeloader.  The only way I'm moving anyone in is if I am dating them, we get engaged, and it's heading towards marriage.

Ah, but therein lies the catch-22.  I'm going to be 43 next week, and my youngest child is 7.  Most women my age have children older than my oldest (12), more than likely graduated high school, and quite possibly are grandmothers.  Who wants to go back?  Add in that I make just enough to keep a roof over my head while helping my children as much as I can.  There's no help for divorced fathers out there, who had it done to them, instead of doing it to their ex-wife.

Yes, I had problems in my marriage, but a supposed friend drove a wedge between my wife and I, and I got dumped, kicked out, etc.  I've had to scrape for everything the last six years.  And therein lies why I want to move my career forward.  I'm tired of scraping along.  Oh yeah, most women, from what I've observed in my area, don't believe in marriage being equal.  I do.  And going back, I had a friend - well, ex-girlfriend - who was having problems in her relationship.  I flat out told her, "I had it done to me as far as a friend saying to drop him.  Honestly that is your decision.  I'm not going to say anything one way or another.  It is ultimately your decision what to do."  It took her a couple of years before she finally made that decision to leave on her own.

My big fear with wanting to make changes to push myself forward is it affecting seeing my children.  I could very easily move to a larger area and find tons of jobs that offer the kind of career advancement I am looking for.  The cost would be too great, though.  Then I will have abandoned them.  And I'm not going to do that.  So I will do what I can, even if it means taking on two jobs starting in January.  I have a friend who told me she learned a lot of new skills, by taking on various jobs.  That's great she could do that.  I don't get any kind of support to have that luxury.  All anybody looks at is I'm a household of one.

I swear I'm going to blog regularly one day. Maybe now.

Maybe this is all old fashioned, since the world has moved on to visual media, like TikTok videos, Twitter videos, Instagram and Facebook reels, etc.  I'm not quite wanting to do that.  Plus, let's face it, I'm not anywhere near attractive looking.  But I feel old fashioned, honestly.  I remember a time, and I was raised believing, that if someone worked hard enough, learned as much as they could at a job, they could write their own ticket to success.  I've worked for almost twenty-five years now.  Shocking, I know.  I've only had four jobs, meaning employers.  I've spent around eighteen years at half of those, again splitting at around nine years at each job making up that half.  Looking back at those two jobs, I'd have gotten a lot farther ahead if I'd kissed enough ass.  I'm not an ass kisser.  I believed - foolishly - that working hard, showing I could do the work, showing I could learn any job thrown at me, would get me far.  Oh how foolish I was.  How foolish my parents were raising me the way they did.  No wonder my own children seem to be aiming low.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.  My kids want to be singers and dancers, or cheerleaders.  I've tried to say to have a backup plan, but so far I've not heard anything encouraging.

But I digress.  At the two nine-year jobs, I knew I was good enough to move forward with both those companies.  I recently read a comment on LinkedIn about toxic employees, and the first point the person made was to watch out for employees who've plateaued.  And this got me thinking about my own career trajectory at both companies stalling.  With the first one, it was a lack of opportunities unless I wanted to move.  I wanted to move to Tallahassee at one point, since I knew that was where I could thrive.  The best opportunity came along in 2006, when one location I was at was closing.  I tried.  I got sent back to BFE, GA, instead.  They did a management reorganization, and I was looking forward to moving up into a newly created salaried position.  I was kept hourly, and honestly, with the reorganization, I had less of a position.  Nevermind that I knew my job, the newly created job, and the job location inside out, backwards, forwards, sideways, it was decided to keep me where I was at.  I responded by leaving, and moving over 900 miles away.  I very quickly duplicated my previous success, but wasn't going anywhere since it was a family owned operation.  So, I moved on.  Now, here is the story of my second nine-year job.

This was in a different field entirely.  But, it paid better, and I was a first-time dad, so of course I jumped into it.  I took it slow.  I wanted to learn how to do the job first.  Only then would I try to move up.  It took a few years, but I went for a quality control position, when I knew I was ready.  I thrived in that position.  I knew one of the supervisors there was a QC inspector, so I thought, "Well, this is my path towards supervision."  But then, something I was familiar with in my previous job - inventory control - opened up.  I thought, "Eh, may as well try and go for it."  And I got it!  I thrived in that job, despite what one person higher up wanted me to do.  I knew what worked, I knew how to investigate issues, I took everything thrown at me and crushed it.  And then I saw a supervisor position was going to open up.  I knew the procedure:  they'd post it, there was a bidding process, then an interview process.  I once again knew everything inside out, backwards, forwards, sideways.  And... I learned on Facebook somebody got promoted to it.  The usual process had not been followed.  And it was announced not by the company, but on Facebook!  Ass kissing at its finest.

A few months after that debacle, another supervisor position opened up.  This time, it was announced the proper way.  I put in for it.  And I was told, "Well, so and so is already in the pipeline, so they're going to get it, but please, go for the soon-to-open third shift supervisor position."  Fuck that!  Besides, somebody was already de facto third shift supervisor designate, so I wasn't going to get it anyhow.  In the interim, they'd also decided to add additional supervisors for both ends of the facility.  I waited for those to be posted.  Nope.  They hired outside of the company.  Finally, I think it was August 2019 that another position opened up.  I bid on it.  Nobody else did, both internally and externally.  I was a lock!  And then, upper management did everything in its power to bring back somebody.  I didn't even get an interview.  A few months later, I was downsized.  My job was a pretty key position, but apparently they figured they needed to save $28,500 a year somehow, and let at least five people do the job.  All those extra supervisors got let go as well.

Fast forward a year and a half.  My current job was giving me an unwanted, unpaid two-month vacation.  So I was looking for a job.  Hey look, my previous job is looking for a supervisor!  And I came to this job and proved I could be a team lead, and supervise if needed.  Updated the resumé, and sent it in.  I talked to those I worked with.  I made it known I wanted it, I was qualified, and I still knew how to do the job I'd spent nine years working towards.  I even took the bold step of messaging my old boss and letting him know I was ready to interview.  He said, "Oh, we'll discuss on Monday."  Monday came and went.  But I knew they were busy.  Finally, that Friday came, and I got a call from the last person they'd brought in instead of interviewing me, and he offered me... an operator position.  It was, honestly, an insult, and I let him know what I'd put in for.  More time goes by.  I find out my old position was reinstated... and my old boss's daughter went into it!  I saw the writing on the wall.  I got the email saying, "We went in another direction."  But, I found out they simply moved one of their supervisors around.  So, I replied back, "I know your other shift needs a supervisor."  I got an email back stating, in effect, "You must not have understood us.  No."  They hired back one of the supervisors they'd let go.

Let me tell you about how crushing that was to my self-esteem.  The downsizing didn't necessarily hurt.  Finding out the boss's underqualified daughter took my spot when it was reinstated was an insult.  Being told no for a sixth time also hurt.  This was no longer professional.  This was personal.  I reached out to my old QC boss, who was trying to get me in as a sinter tech, despite zero forklift training.  (Long story short, the safety manager quickly qualified two others in my class once we'd passed the written exam, but never got to me.)  They were offering forklift training.  Again, no.  An Outside Secondary Coordinator position opened up.  In my previous Inventory Control job, I had picked up on a lot of those aspects.  I went for it.  I had the support of everyone in the office.  Again, no.  I didn't even get an email this time telling me no.  However, a few weeks after everything died down and I'd resumed my job, I got an automated email from my old boss, wanting me to take some management psychology survey.  I never found out the results, and I never found out why he'd sent that to me.

Getting back to the person saying watch out for those who have hit a career plateau, I never even got a chance to prove that I could do it.  I knew how to do it.  I still know how to do it.  My career got plateaued for me.  Even in my current job, there's no upward mobility at all.  But it's just a temp job, and all indications are it's done in January.  So, I am starting to look again.  I am hoping that a supervisory role opens up.  I'm entering my mid-40s.  I'm due.  I'm not saying this out of arrogance, but out of knowing.  Somebody let me prove I can do this.

2.04.2021

Back to work

So, back in 1996, I decided to start writing a story.  There was this girl at Wal-Mart around my age that was just stunningly beautiful to me.  Me, being the awkward and sheltered 16-year-old that I was, was crushed to find out she had a boyfriend.  So, back when I still had something of a vivid imagination, I began to write out a what if kind of story.  Like, what would my life be like if only I'd gotten with this girl?

Fast forward to now, and believe it or not, I am just now finishing up that story.  I mean yeah, I've worked on it, in spurts of a week or two every three months to three years.  But, I really want to finish it.  And I really want to write the five other stories that I have planned to follow it.  I mean, it's taken me this long to finally find the confidence to do it.  I mean Hell, it took me this long to finally start blogging on a regular basis again.

1.31.2021

The (Lack of) Dating Game

So, I saw a meme posted by a friend of mine earlier that had me thinking about why I'm single.  The simplest reason, that I can think of, is because who in their right mind wants to date a 40-something father to three small children?  Notice I asked, "who in their right mind," because trust me, I've met several that weren't in their right mind that wanted to date me!  My last relationship ended three years ago now, and that woman, though flawed, at least had better sense than what has come along after!  Well, I take that back:  one was just amazing!  I hit it off with her, but she was with somebody.  Then, suddenly, she wasn't.  Actually, no less than my most recent girlfriend tried to hook us up, since they were friends.  My ex-wife even met her - well, actually knew her - and had no objections.  Perfect, right?  Well, I knew she was babysitting for a friend.  It also seemed like she only needed me around as a ride to places, which I didn't mind, since I felt needed.  But back up to the friend she was babysitting for.  How I knew it was more than just somebody she was babysitting for was when we'd made plans to go skating one night with my kids, and she came along with her friend, minus his kid.  And he basically warped her brain from that point on.  We don't even talk as friends anymore, because she's gone down the rabbit hole too far to find herself.

Just before her was an old neighbor of mine, which, conversely, was an old neighbor of the woman I just described.  Out of the blue one night, she messaged me asking if I wanted to have dinner with her.  Well sure, I had nothing else going on, and it was nice to have a free meal, and catch up with a friend that I hadn't seen in awhile.  Plus, she was living by the kids, so I could pop in and see them.  Well, that was my intention, anyhow.  Hers were A LOT MORE AND OMG I didn't have time to think!  But something in me just wasn't feeling it.  Yes, it was good to have somebody want me, and yes, THAT was good, but something just didn't feel right.  Once my ex-wife got wind of it (I flat out told her), she gave me several warnings, which turned out to happen.  So, I broke it off.  This woman tried to get me back, but I was already given the heads up, looked at her and basically said, "Nice try."  It flared back up one night before it was over for good.

Then there was late 2018.  I was picking up the pieces of my life again, when somebody I hadn't seen in eons added me to Facebook.  Oh cool, wonder what she's up to?  She messaged me, saying, "Oh, sorry to hear about your divorce," and I asked what she was up to.  She said she was about to get divorced herself.  And then she wanted to hook up with me, since she always thought I was cute.  Um, OK!  Oh, she lives far away.  She says she's getting thousands of dollars from her soon-to-be ex-husband.  Like, what, you think money can buy me?  You just want some reason to move back this way.  I never said that to her, honestly, but some of her messages seemed like it wasn't her behind the keyboard.  Plus, the words that a woman I dated just before I met my now ex-wife came to mind:  she's psycho.  This particular girlfriend, at the time, was pretty psycho herself.  So I had to make up my mind to believe the words of eleven years prior, since crazy would know crazy, or not, and suspect that crazy would say somebody that wasn't crazy was.  I set up meeting her somewhere roughly halfway.  I even planned on having a friend of mine come along.  But, I had one too many doubts, and I blocked her.  Oh, I just recently unblocked her, and my suspicions were correct.  I chose... wisely.

I think the point I'm making is that I've yet to find anybody in their right mind to date.  And maybe I've just been burned too badly.  Like, I've fallen in love with people, but it wasn't returned.  I was used as a means to an end.  And I think I touched on this in my last post, with the woman that seems absolutely perfect, but yet we haven't talked in about a year now, since I saw who she chose to date over me, and it hurt.  I wanted to spend the rest of my life getting to know her, but in that instance, I saw what she wanted, and it wasn't me.

I mean, who knows, if there's a woman out there that comes across this, hit me up.  I promise that I am loyal and would never cheat, since I never have, and I've been burned too much.  However, please be old enough to where my children don't look at you as a stepsister.  And yes, I have joked that I'm not dating until I'm pushing 50, since my next girlfriend probably graduated high school last year.  I say that since twice I've been dumped by late 20-somethings in favor of somebody around 50.  Plus, it was made abundantly clear to me a couple of years back that I'm getting too old to date 20-somethings anyhow.  I mean, if I absolutely wanted to, I know of somebody, but no.

1.25.2021

Aria fuori

So it's been a little over three years since I last blogged.  I know nobody pays any attention to it, since I average a blog post every 103 days apparently.  But I've gotta get stuff off my chest.

First, let's get this out of the way:  I'm glad we have a functioning President again.  Is he perfect?  Who the Hell is?  Is he the President we need right now?  Well, we had four years of the President we deserved, so yes.

OK, now onto some personal feelings.  So, it's been four years since my marriage ended, and around three years since my last relationship.  It's like the world moved on and left me behind.  It's like something is missing, and that's it.  Before anybody says, "Well, you have your kids, and you know God loves you," that's true.  I'm grateful for my kids, and I know God loves me, and I'm definitely fulfilled in His Grace.  But, I just don't have anybody to share my life with.  I think the last year, year and a half, I haven't felt worthy of being in a relationship.  I mean, I've dated in the last three years, but in order:

  1. Somebody used me for a place to be.
  2. Somebody wanted to use me for an excuse to leave her husband.
  3. Somebody used me for my body, which, well Hell, wouldn't you if it'd been over two years?
  4. Somebody used me for a ride.
A few months ago, a good friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend.  Yes, I had a crush on her, and my kids had gotten to know her and liked her.  I figured I'd go for it... slowly.  But, I knew right away that it wasn't going to work out.  And I was right, as she started dating some guy who lists 'YouTube streamer' as his occupation.  Um, I make pretty good money actually doing something!  Well, for right now, since the job I have is only temporary, and I'm not sure when it will end.

I will say that I find it laughable that there are men out there who consider me a threat.  Guys, I'm no threat!  I can't even get a single woman to date me!  What the Hell chance do I have to woo away your girl?  This was made perfectly clear when a very close friend of mine, who I wanted to date but didn't since she told me that she didn't date co-workers, started dating a co-worker.  I think mainly it was because he made much more money that I did.  Yet, he considered me a threat!  I don't make moves on somebody else's girlfriend or wife, even though I was friends with them long before you came into the picture.  Period.  That's un-Christian.

Let's talk about friends, shall we?  I mean, I have oodles of them.  How many actually want to hang out?  Two.  A few more talk to me occasionally.  In the last year, if one counts by social media, I've lost well over 40 friends, first because of COVID-19 and them resisting what needed to be done to squash this damn bug, and more recently because I quoted George W. Bush when I said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."  But, I'm increasingly feeling like a burden to most of my friends, except for two.  A few do let me vent to them, after they've vented to me, of course, but I know I can't vent like this to anybody.  Recently, one supposed friend went out of their way to block me on TWO social media sites.  I work with this person, and let's just say that something is definitely up, and I think it's been building since early November, when I didn't join forces with one other apparent friend to do something that just did not inherently feel right to me, from a business standpoint.  But honestly, it hurt, since a simple unfriending would've sufficed.

The one person I should be able to vent like this to is my mom.  But, if I do, I get my head chewed off.  It makes me miss my dad even more, since he may not have been the best dad, and I've been told that I am a better dad than he was, but he at least listened to me, and pointed me in the right direction.  I believe it was 2008 when I got a measly ten cent per hour raise at a job, after all I had done in the year before, when he told me, "Son, look elsewhere.  Maybe this job might just match what somebody else is offering."  And he was right.  And the older that I've gotten, I kinda know how he felt.  He had insecurities, but he drowned them in whiskey instead of letting them out.  I can't bring myself to doing that, but I now see why.  I'm not apologizing for his actions, but I understand.  I also understand why he didn't care much for politics.  The only political thing I ever saw him willingly watch was when Barack Obama was inaugurated.  It was the last thing me and him watched together, actually.  And honestly, I didn't know if he'd say to "turn that shit off" or whatever, but he sat there and watched it.  He wanted to witness history with his son.  Maybe he knew before I did that it would be the last thing that we would do together.  I like to think that he willed himself to stay alive to leave this world as a grandfather, even if he never got to hold any of his grandchildren.  I've set a goal to actually try to hold all of my grandchildren, and maybe live to be a great-grandfather, which I don't think has happened in my family in generations.

I think in summation, as I've written this out, maybe I should reach out to friends, to see if somebody - anybody - will actually let me vent, let me come over to just chill, or they come over to chill.  I will say that last night, I openly wished somebody would set me up on a blind date with somebody.  I don't know, maybe I want to feel needed, and not just at work.

12.05.2017

My Beloved Confused

My child, I know this has been hard for you
You've had to come so far too soon
But don't do anything so severe
That you tear apart what you hold so dear

Think of what your actions say
You're too young to find your own way
We'll always have your back whatever you do
Just be sure of the actions you do

What kind of message do you want to say?
What kind of statement does this make?
Are you turning your back on those you love?
Are you creating an opportunity to show your love?

I pray, my dear child, you make the right call
But don't cause this house of cards to fall
Don't send the wrong kind of message
We want you to be happy, but not selfish

Think about it before you go through
And be sure this is what you want to do
Always know that we all love you
Our precious child with eyes of blue

I know you miss how things were before
But those days of togetherness are no more
You need to make the best of every day
And learn to enjoy this new way

1.20.2017

Beat of the City

Listen to the cars move through
It's like the city is breathing
Night falls and the lights stream by
The city is its own being

People are going to and fro
Heading for their destinations
Just to chill or fall in love
The mystery only deepens

The bar is getting electric
People are getting together
Maybe they're single, or not
The night could last forever

The sun rises, a new day dawns
People awaken to the grind
As they go the city prepares
Another night to blow their mind


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Alone Again (a poem)

The quietness is different
The background noise does nothing
The emptiness is magnified
Being alone in a space so big

Usually familiar faces return
They were just out for awhile
But this isn't their home
I really miss seeing them smile

Alone with my thoughts
Time slows its hectic paces
Hearing their voices isn't the same
I miss seeing their faces

One day they will return
Even if just for awhile
They'll grow and sprout their wings
I hope they'll remember my smile

Alone again I am
I used to enjoy this
That was so long ago
Now there's people I miss

All things must pass
This is just a test
And I have no doubts
That we will do our best


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