innerspaceboy

INTRODUCTION: As promised, I'm officially launching this journal to showcase the fanatbulous misadventures of an academic Victorian sir trapped in a thankless entry-level job with insipid dolts who somehow manage to walk erect despite their baffling ignorance. And every word of it is true. Stay tuned at ~5:30 every Monday for more sh*t I have to put up with.

Entry 1: Partly Dave

I’d like to introduce a business peer of mine - a gent who we shall call, “Dave”, in part because it is a common and uninspiring name, much like the fellow himself, and also because that actually is his name.

Dave is thick and malformed, much like his cerebral processes. He wears a fixed expression, one of simultaneous confusion and what appears to be a difficulty in respiration due to his rubbery, brick-like stature.

Dave is a peculiar man, who drinks eggs and energy shakes for every lunchtime meal, (which apparently have done no good to improve his physical form). Dave fancies himself a high-ranking member of the Polish mafia, (or a gangsta, or whatever he decides to call himself in a particular week).

But it is his staggering cognitive ineptitude which inspires me to share his musings with you. He routinely enjoys making Pollock, Jew, retard, and A-rab jokes. Dave also delights in making fart noises whenever a female bends over in his vicinity, (likely one of the contributing factors to his rise to the position of management). Permit me to relate just one of many inspiring conversations which transpired between myself and this magnificent specimen of manhood.

Dave: “Yo, [ISB]?”

ISB: “Yes, Dave?”

Dave: “If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be?”

ISB: “Well, Dave, I suppose I would like the ability to inspire critical and rational thinking among all ladies and gentlemen and to empower them with reason, the capacity for argumentation, and hopefully inspire great progress within our species, artistically, culturally, scientifically, and philosophically.”

Dave: “Yeah? I’d wanna see chicks naked.”

ISB: “(sigh….) You’re special, Dave.”

Dave: “I know.”

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The Batlord

I feel like I could get along with Dave.

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innerspaceboy

You would love my other coworkers as well. I once approached a gaggle/murder/flock (what do you call a group of idiots?), in a hopeless effort to socialize with them.

I foolishly posed the question, "so what have you guys been reading lately?"

Faces contorted in response, and one of them replied, thoroughly confused, "you mean like... school books? I've never read anything that I wasn't forced to by a teacher."

I never attempted to associate with them ever again.

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The Batlord

Lol. I've been working fast food long enough that I'm cool with low-income people who don't read, don't listen to non-radio music, and find me to be a weirdo. For all my whiteness, you might find that I have at least 30% ebonics in my conversational terminology due to the amount of poor blacks I've been in contact with for months on end for years. So I'm just used to "normal" people of various types.

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Trollheart

I feel like you could be Dave.
A "congress"?

Delighted to see this finally see the light of publication, ISB. Will most definitely be following.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

innerspaceboy

Entry 2: Gazing into the Void

Our CEO hired a sexagenarian to fill a vacancy for a customer service rep, and I was charged with the task of teaching him how to use a computer. Hours were spent on fundamentals such as operating a mouse, how to navigate folders, and how to send emails, however advanced tasks like copying and pasting files were beyond his capacity and he was relieved of his position after two weeks. But not to be deterred, our corporate hero promptly hired another grandfather for the same position, and the dance steps continued following the same expected pattern. After a week passed and the new employee still failed to operate a mouse with any proficiency, my boss had a brilliant and novel idea - instead of having this elderly gentleman work a computer, his skills would be better directed if we promoted him to the position of lead salesperson and liaison for our mobile apps!

For a moment I thought I might challenge this promotion, based on my supposition that it might be difficult for someone who doesn’t know what an app is to be responsible for the peddling of such a product to our potential clients. But I quickly realized that I was clearly mistaken, and straight away begin training our new employee on what an app is, how a smartphone works, what the Google and Apple app stores are, and the rest of the last 25 years of tech. Because what could possibly instill greater confidence in our customers than having a gray-haired grandfather come into their places of business to sell them an app in the style of a used car salesman? Perhaps I’m entirely in the wrong in this mindset. Perhaps I am being ageist. I just think there might be persons better-qualified to sell mobile apps than a Walmart greeter.

Still, do not misunderstand me - The newcomer has already demonstrated great value in the marketing of our company’s image, as he introduced a promotional novelty item which we now hand out to all of our contacts. It’s cutting-edge, tech-savvy, ultra-modern, and speaks for our place in the app world. (And by that of course, I mean it’s embarrassingly tacky, horrifically dated, rife with pun humor, and so culturally spent that the concept was grimace-inducing just months after its debut at The World’s Fair back in 1964.) I am referring to none other than the notorious, “Round Tuit.”

(I’ll wait for you to give an exhausted sigh of compassionate discomfort at that last utterance.)

But the real peach - the greatest demonstrative moment of our new marketing guru’s sheer brilliance came on Friday, when he humbly requested my assistance in troubleshooting a difficulty he was experiencing with his computer’s audio. “I’m trying to watch this training video,” he explained. “I’ve dialed up the volume on YouTube, but there isn’t any sound.”

I looked at him, for the very briefest of moments - and in that instant an eternity washed over my life force, eroding my conviction to maintain respiration right down to my cellular level. I stared, transfixed by the awesome cavernous infinity that was the void where his understanding of technology might have resided. Blinking myself back to the disheartening reality and the gravity of the situation, I cleared my throat, nodded thoughtfully to communicate my understanding, and said, as respectfully and innocuously as possible, “I see the problem. You haven’t any speakers.”

I made my exit, permitting the dramatic silence left in my absence to reinforce the very hopelessness of it all.

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The Batlord

Old people are the future.

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EPOCH6

This is good. Thank you ISB.

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innerspaceboy

Entry 3: Running a Business by The Good Book

I’ve come to understand that those in positions of authority are seldom popular with their workforce and that capitalism generally promotes the most egotistical, uninformed, and conservative persons to the highest ranks in business. Still, the CEO of my company is an impressively special someone who I feel compelled to relate to you if only to prevent an aneurysm from keeping the tale captive inside my tormented mind.

I work for a Christian fundamentalist white nationalist Bible literalist who is convinced that Revelations will occur in the next 5-10 years. He’s the CEO of a print company which consists of myself, his wife, and two other persons… and three of the four of us are grandparents who lack even the most fundamental knowledge of how to operate a computer. So consequently, our only print work comes from his fellow church buddies. (The last book I produced for him was a pastor’s guide to banishing demons from your home or who might have taken possession of your loved ones.) This CEO enters the office fist-pumping and shouting “TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!”, and (as you might expect), is fantastically ill-suited to lead his sister enterprise - an app publishing company.

So I’ve spent the last two weeks from 8:30 to 5 training our staff on how to left and right click, how to copy and paste files, how to use folders, and how to send emails. Some advanced tasks have proven difficult for them to master, such as operating a mouse. (I am not kidding - they wield the thing like it’s fighting them to get free.)

I proactively, (but futilely) labored to create a business strategy for our stagnant app company. I called attention to glaring errors on our company website which makes us look wholly inept, (such as the large missing form object reporting an error on our 1990s Geocities-syle home page). Sadly, despite my efforts, the site has remained unchanged for nearly a year following my communication. I also expressed that we needed to hire an industry professional to write articles for our blog about the latest trends in the app industry, to which our CEO responded, “start writing.” Not to be deterred, I composed several in-depth and well-researched articles - one on the subjects of App Stagnation, Effective Monetization, Mobile Retention and Growth Strategies and another on Using The Mobile Maturity Cycle to Drive User Acquisition. These each describe processes critical to the success of a mobile developer. Unfortunately, after nearly half of a year, our CEO still has yet to even read them.

A few months ago, he suddenly decided that we now sell social media management services as well, (sure… why the f*ck not?), I prepared a Definitive Guide to Social Media Marketing to introduce him to the responsibilities this market will require of us. That was in October and I’ve yet to receive a reply. (This makes me feel like the most valued m*therf*cker in the world.) Instead, our CEO informed me that the entirety of social media management simply means logging into a Facebook account once a week to see whether there are any notifications.

“But [ISB]!” you might exclaim. “What the hell have you been doing all day without any clients for an entire YEAR?!” I spend most days being demoted to bindery work - hand folding thousands of sheets of paper, stuffing and sealing thousands of envelopes, and manually applying postage stamps to print mailing jobs as we do not have enough design business to keep me occupied. And when that work dries up, (and trust me, it does), I'm handed a dustpan and broom and told to sweep the grounds.

It really makes all those years of college seem worth it.

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Trollheart

Man, I feel for you. I assume you have now left, or are in the process of leaving this desperately sinking ship? Here's something that should tickle you and indeed prove relevant to your colleagues.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018