I can't use good grammar and so on when writing the following. I can't attempt to truly describe/explain all of the following. I could never really relate it. I could never give it justice no matter what I do. But this is a sort of experiment for me:
So long ago I went to college to become an engineer. I hated it. Knew this within two years of starting. Hated so many different things about it. My fellow students were the most unfriendly, boring, yet arrogant people I've known. The professors were basically the same. The work was cold, dead. My internship at Toyota showed me that at the end of all that hard work was a disgusting job doing the world no good.
I wanted to change majors. But I'm not good at quitting things. Plus I was screamed at that I was insane, etc by the few people I had any "support" from in this life.
So I got a BS in mechanical engineering and couldn't find a job. I could have looked somewhat harder. But I wanted to stay in the area as my wife had a great job. There were really no jobs in the area. So I went and delivered pizzas for a while.
And I got treated like total shit even doing that. Boss belonged in a mental institution. Went around screaming and yelling, slamming doors, etc. Had employees walk out all the time. Anyway even if it had been a pleasant job, of course I had to go do something else what with a BS in engineering. So I went back to get an MS.
Getting an MS was like from a horror film. The most disgusting lying idiot I've ever known was my advisor. I suppose... what? I should have tried to switch advisors...... But he was doing the one thing at the university I could stand within engineering. And that was the one thing that was basically not hardly typical engineering. Aerosol science. At least that was a way to get away from assembly lines and/or staring at a computer screen doing math, etc.
But he really had no clue and I was very worried I would get this MS and there'd be no job out there for my experience at all. It was a very, very, very stressful and unhappy time (much like the time before and the time after and so on.)
But I did get a job as a graduate student working at a national laboratory. (Does it matter which one? I don't think so. I think they're pretty much the same.) And my boss (no, it's not just me!) seemed to have serious "issues". But I felt so lucky to get a job offer at all that I took it. Turned out be very stressful dealing with this person who seemed to have issues with irrational paranoia. She would periodically get it into her head that this or that person was out to get her and then she'd do whatever she could to destroy them. I was worried that sooner or later I'd be the target. Also the work was at best useless.
Eventually she convinced me that I was doing such a wonderful job, that I was so certain to be hired on permanent, that I should buy a house, that we did go ahead and buy a house.
And I went on the first vacation I had been on in over ten years. Went to Manchester, UK. Oh how I love the UK. So strongly feel I should have lived my life there. Anyway I met a bunch of fellow vegans there. I came back and signed the final papers for buying the house.
Literally the next day the knife was inserted deep into my back by my boss. I was accused of everything under the sun in a meeting with the higher ups. I wasn't fired. I was a graduate student anyway working on my third one year appointment. If I hadn't just bought a house I would have immediately begun looking for work elsewhere (should have done so anyway). Instead I hoped like all hell to somehow get back in this person's good graces. (but was it all a pretext? Was it really that the job required a security clearance eventually and I had traveled overseas and met up with a bunch of vegans, some of whom it turns out were anarchists?)
I got a surprise escort out at the end of my appointment. Officially "due to lack of funding." My one invention stolen.
Graduate students in very small scientific fields who get escorted out of their workplaces can generally kiss their careers goodbye. Which I slowly did over the next year while unemployed.
On top of it all (and this for me is the same as for so many others) what ended up being the worst part by far was seeing the great indifference that was shown to me during this time. An indifference that I would not and have not ever shown anyone else, yet was shown towards me almost universally. All my work colleagues. Past friends. Even the vegan group I knew online.
I suppose no one gives a shit about anyone online. I guess I should adapt to that social norm. But I haven't quite done so even yet.
How I was treated even by the vegans left me to feel that if such was the case, there was truly no hope for mankind. When even the supposedly most compassionate 1% act like this, what hope have we?
During this time the people who weren't indifferent to me were basically my wife and parents.
I suppose I take my wife for granted because sadly the sick way this world is, quite a few spouses leave after the loss of a job. Which is just horrific to me. Apparently some people justify it in their heads that they're doing the person a favor. To help them get out of their rut. Which seems quite horrible to me. I imagine such a person who thinks like this looking like a new character from hellraiser.
About like this:
http://citron-lim.wz.cz/pictures/hellraiser03.jpg
So long ago I went to college to become an engineer. I hated it. Knew this within two years of starting. Hated so many different things about it. My fellow students were the most unfriendly, boring, yet arrogant people I've known. The professors were basically the same. The work was cold, dead. My internship at Toyota showed me that at the end of all that hard work was a disgusting job doing the world no good.
I wanted to change majors. But I'm not good at quitting things. Plus I was screamed at that I was insane, etc by the few people I had any "support" from in this life.
So I got a BS in mechanical engineering and couldn't find a job. I could have looked somewhat harder. But I wanted to stay in the area as my wife had a great job. There were really no jobs in the area. So I went and delivered pizzas for a while.
And I got treated like total shit even doing that. Boss belonged in a mental institution. Went around screaming and yelling, slamming doors, etc. Had employees walk out all the time. Anyway even if it had been a pleasant job, of course I had to go do something else what with a BS in engineering. So I went back to get an MS.
Getting an MS was like from a horror film. The most disgusting lying idiot I've ever known was my advisor. I suppose... what? I should have tried to switch advisors...... But he was doing the one thing at the university I could stand within engineering. And that was the one thing that was basically not hardly typical engineering. Aerosol science. At least that was a way to get away from assembly lines and/or staring at a computer screen doing math, etc.
But he really had no clue and I was very worried I would get this MS and there'd be no job out there for my experience at all. It was a very, very, very stressful and unhappy time (much like the time before and the time after and so on.)
But I did get a job as a graduate student working at a national laboratory. (Does it matter which one? I don't think so. I think they're pretty much the same.) And my boss (no, it's not just me!) seemed to have serious "issues". But I felt so lucky to get a job offer at all that I took it. Turned out be very stressful dealing with this person who seemed to have issues with irrational paranoia. She would periodically get it into her head that this or that person was out to get her and then she'd do whatever she could to destroy them. I was worried that sooner or later I'd be the target. Also the work was at best useless.
Eventually she convinced me that I was doing such a wonderful job, that I was so certain to be hired on permanent, that I should buy a house, that we did go ahead and buy a house.
And I went on the first vacation I had been on in over ten years. Went to Manchester, UK. Oh how I love the UK. So strongly feel I should have lived my life there. Anyway I met a bunch of fellow vegans there. I came back and signed the final papers for buying the house.
Literally the next day the knife was inserted deep into my back by my boss. I was accused of everything under the sun in a meeting with the higher ups. I wasn't fired. I was a graduate student anyway working on my third one year appointment. If I hadn't just bought a house I would have immediately begun looking for work elsewhere (should have done so anyway). Instead I hoped like all hell to somehow get back in this person's good graces. (but was it all a pretext? Was it really that the job required a security clearance eventually and I had traveled overseas and met up with a bunch of vegans, some of whom it turns out were anarchists?)
I got a surprise escort out at the end of my appointment. Officially "due to lack of funding." My one invention stolen.
Graduate students in very small scientific fields who get escorted out of their workplaces can generally kiss their careers goodbye. Which I slowly did over the next year while unemployed.
On top of it all (and this for me is the same as for so many others) what ended up being the worst part by far was seeing the great indifference that was shown to me during this time. An indifference that I would not and have not ever shown anyone else, yet was shown towards me almost universally. All my work colleagues. Past friends. Even the vegan group I knew online.
I suppose no one gives a shit about anyone online. I guess I should adapt to that social norm. But I haven't quite done so even yet.
How I was treated even by the vegans left me to feel that if such was the case, there was truly no hope for mankind. When even the supposedly most compassionate 1% act like this, what hope have we?
During this time the people who weren't indifferent to me were basically my wife and parents.
I suppose I take my wife for granted because sadly the sick way this world is, quite a few spouses leave after the loss of a job. Which is just horrific to me. Apparently some people justify it in their heads that they're doing the person a favor. To help them get out of their rut. Which seems quite horrible to me. I imagine such a person who thinks like this looking like a new character from hellraiser.
About like this:
http://citron-lim.wz.cz/pictures/hellraiser03.jpg
I've heard the following said by many ugly people but at least they're being truthful when they say it, "I don't care at all about anyone in this world except my family. To hell with everyone else, etc."
It's true I guess. And it's disgusting that it's true.
I do take for granted that at least my family cared. I am lucky that at least I have some family.
But it would have meant a lot to me to feel like someone else in the world really gave a flying whoop.
And there was this one lady I kept in touch by email mostly during this time. For three years we kept in touch. I suppose to some extent I made her into something in my mind that she wasn't. Because I so needed a truly good and intelligent person to actually exist in this world. Someone I could confide in who wasn't just putting up with me because they happened to be married to me or related to me.
So this person recently said to hell with me. With no explanation she blew me off.
It's the end of that period. The last tiny little positive thing destroyed.
All that was done to me before, I never cried. Because I could never let those evil people bring me to tears. But when finally the one person I had thought was good, did basically the same, I went ahead and cried. Was about two weeks ago. First time I cried (concerning real life) in over ten years.
It really burned up my mind.
On the weekends I work two 12 hour shifts as a nurse's aide. I went to work that next day and felt like I hadn't been there in months. I couldn't even remember one of my lesser used passwords. Also was tired as hell.
Made a very small mistake concerning giving a bath/not giving a bath. I did give the bath, but I just considered not doing so since they were going to be transferred soon.
Next weekend I'm getting an email from my boss. About some other patient that another unit had complained about being dirty upon receival. Long story short, with having a single bad day someone had immediately told on me to the boss about almost not doing something right. And now my boss (who I never see ever) thinks apparently I'm a bad employee. (At least that's my worry. To what extent who can say exactly? To what extent I'm getting backstabbed by someone, who knows?
So, I could follow a chain of ugly events culminating in being a bad nurse's aide. lol. I could reflect on how there's no particular reason why a person will necessarily ever be happy. How instead years and years of unhappiness can continue unabated. How it can go like this till the end.
But actually today was a good day. As my scientific career was destroyed I'm in nursing school now and I volunteered to do blood pressures, BMI's and blood sugars for a health day. I had a decent number of positive interactions doing that. And such things matter. Without such things I'd be sucked under eventually.
Those interactions just don't exist online.
And those interactions largely concern the amygdala. (Which is why they basically can't exist online.) The prefrontal cortex can face anything if only the amygdala can be kept decently happy.
Certainly these people who I had positive interactions with today, might have also treated me about as bad as I've been treated these last ten years. I would say it's highly probable they would have. Just don't tell my amygdala this. As long as it doesn't know, I suppose I can go along my merry illogical way.
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