Life Coach

17^th July 2014

Dear Cassi,

This week I talked with a career counselor. I can call it a low point among low points as it was little more that a waste of my time. It came to me to look to such a person after a bad spot at work where I believe I have been treated unfairly. Well, no, unfairly isn’t the right word. I feel like I’m being dumped on.

The technical term for this is ‘toxic work environment’ but getting dumped on echoes my feeling so much more. So, I’m getting dumped on and after getting dumped on I ran an internet search for career counselor and found an online website that let me ‘chat’ with a fellow named Drew.

         

Drew works as a ‘Life Coach’ which is a technical word for dim bulb who gets paid way too much to tell you what you already know. This fellow asked me to describe myself so I gave him the description I felt he needed. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, I have worked in security for more than ten years, I want to change fields. What more should a career counselor need to know?

         

He pressed deeper and said I should pursue a career as a novelist. “Why, yes, I am pursuing a career as a novelist. I can’t keep my head around my stories, because I’m going through so much crap at work!” This dingleberry thought I was going to change my mode of thinking and go back to chasing my dreams. I have to face the reality that I may never become a novelist. If I do become a novelist I may never be able to support myself in that occupation.

I informed him that I felt I would soon lose my job and he said “is there any way to stop it?” As if people lose their job as if it were a set of car keys. He just couldn’t come to understand that his advice was outdated. This isn’t the 80’s when any job was enough to have. In the modern day you need a good job to go after your dreams. As for the rest of us we live in nightmares.

Stay safe, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Storm

Here we have an example of why I should post these in order. They relate to each other in the most interesting way.

One day I should have these all together into one volume that presently would run about three hundred pages all told. Slowly the files in my old letters folder dwindle down, but the road gets harder going as I walk along.

30^th July, 2007

Dear (Soldier on deployment in Iraq),

The shit storm of my life never stops thundering I had another nice little incident on Friday:

“Upon arriving on duty on the 27^th of July of 2007 at twenty-three hundred hours (11:00 p.m.) I was approached by Officer (Pipes) who stated “I’m getting tired of you running your mouth.” He remarked that I told (the Area Manager) about guards throwing seals around and about a toy monkey. I stated that I reported what I thought was stolen freight, and that I didn’t want to get fired for stealing.  (Officer Pipes) then said “so out of all the guards out here they’re going to single out you. No one was going to see it.” Security Officer (Mango) then said, “no one likes a snitch”. (Pipes) also stated that the seals could be picked up, and I said that had he picked them up I would not have made an issue of it.”

People just don’t get it, you pick up a snake and it bights you, that’s life. They want to blame me because they started this, and they don’t think I should have the right to get them back for demanding to do less work then me.

This excerpt is from a report to the client who will be investigating destruction of property and theft. It’s not a good idea to go pissing people off and then steal something in front of them, but these people thing that they should make me suffer with immunity. 

Now here’s a new one, (the Supervisor) told (one of the guards) that he thinks I’m going to go to the front gate. I already told (the Area Manager) that the answer was no and they still insist that it’s going to happen. I think the thing to do is simply look for another job. It is clear that things aren’t going to get better for me here. It’s just one more pile of shit I have to deal with. If it didn’t suck I wouldn’t have to drudge.

At least my first children’s book is done with its writing. I still need to look it over one last time and find someone to send it to, but then again I may have that done by Friday. Not having the books on this subject in my hands there is no telling if someone has used this idea before so I’m going to start on the more complicated book next as its more likely a new idea. Can’t say that I can keep it to the right page length, but that’s something I’ll have to hammer out. Children’s books are a big field and I have lots of competition, but then as the pay is low for righting then the publications must be many. I don’t know, it’s possible that I’m overly optimistic, (Can I be optimistic!) but when you got bullets and night you may as well take a shot in the dark.    

I finally came up with a new scene for “A Mind Bending” and it’s one of those that may have very little to do with the rest of the play, but given that is going to end up as another five pages and one more bit to be connected it’s a good thing to have. If I were still working on plays four hours a day like back at my last job then I’d be finished with it by now, but I just got to keep working until it’s done.

The scene is a dream that David, the main character, is having. When he dreams he is in Aurum’s world. He is the cloned tactician Twenty-Seven and he is defending his space station from a boarding party when he orders an air lock closed to prepare for a separation. He is ordered to hold his position regardless of its being a death sentence by an over confident admiral who, like a fool, is standing in the fight. Twenty-Seven gets hit in the arm and curls up shooting the admiral. He then realizes he has played right into enemy hands, but he is of no interest to them.   

The scene is of plot twists foreshadowing the twists to come as the play unfolds. Only problem is that I’m not adding anything to the coherent sections of the play and that makes it harder for me to show it to the class. Well, two weeks to go and I’m still on page twenty five. Work, work, work.

Stay safe out there,

Richard Leland Neal

You Dare Expect Decency

This isn’t a letter it’s a report sent to loss prevention of one of my previous clients. In this situation I had a number of guards who felt they had a right to steal, destroy property, and make the client’s employees suffer.

Because of the nature of this report I have to come up with names for the guards involved to protect the guilty so let me do that for you now.

Officers Mango, Pipes, and Dingbat will be the players in today’s event.

I have no idea where the mentality comes from that people thing they should be able to do as they please at work and never get punished for it, but I can tell you that any of the events listed should have been grounds for termination or transfer.  What it came down to was mismanagement on the part of both my company and client loss prevention.

Problems like this tend to get bigger until they explode and I know that eventually all the guards and management staff mentioned were eventually terminated for related incidents.

Report submitted July 28, 2007

For: (Loss Prevention)

Report submitted at your request regarding misconduct of security officers working at the feeder gate.

Upon arriving on duty on the 27^th of July of 2007 at twenty-three hundred hours (11:00 p.m.) I was approached by Officer (Pipes) who stated “I’m getting tired of you running your mouth.” He remarked that I told (the area manager) about guards throwing seals around and about a toy monkey. I stated that I reported what I thought was stolen freight, and that I didn’t want to get fired for stealing.  (Officer Pipes) then said “so out of all the guards out here they’re going to single out you. No one was going to see it.” Security Officer (Mango) then said, “no one likes a snitch”. (Pipes) also stated that the seals could be picked up, and I said that had he picked them up I would not have made an issue of it.

The incident with the monkey had occurred on a Thursday or Friday morning on or after the 12^th of July. I’m almost sure that it happened on the 12^th or 13^th, because I don’t remember having a bandage on my head that morning and I had been injured at the gate the following week. It had been ordered by a supervisor that at two hundred hours (2:00 a.m.) I takeover traffic in the three lanes furthest from the street and the other officers work the one remaining lane, so I had almost no contact with them.

I noted that morning around one-forty-five (1:45 a.m.) a stuffed monkey sitting on the ground in the building next to the door leading to the smoking area. At around five that morning I noted what looked like the same monkey hanging from the ladder on a sixty-inch seal. As soon as the other officers left I called the front gate and spoke to the commanding Officer stating “I don’t know if it is the same monkey just that it looks like the same monkey that was in the building.” I was instructed to cut the monkey down and place it in the guard office. I complied.

The issue with seals has been on going for some time. I have been finding twelve-inch seals sealed to sixty-inch seals so that the two were stuck to the ladders, sixty and twelve inch seals sealed into themselves so that they could not be used, and twelve inch seals sealed together. The two pre-mentioned guards and Officer (Dingbat) have made a game of throwing seals over the ladder and into a box.  As a result we have been finding seals in the bushes by the handful.   

On the night of the 27^th after it being stated to me that my “snitching” would be met with ill tidings I noted (Dingbat) holding a twelve-inch seal with cones from cone seals covering it so that it could not be used. I did not see him actually put the cones on the seal, but this is destruction of (client) property.