Why You Were Right To Fire Me

The innate rightness of bosshood.

First of all, you’re “the boss.” That automatically cements your “rightness” in every choice you make having to do with my time as a contributor for your business. Right? No. Wait. You weren’t my boss so much as you were my landlord. Because I wasn’t your employee. I was a contractor working within the same walls in which you were also conducting your own business. There was no W-2. There wasn’t even any 1099. You deducted no income tax. I paid rent – a.k.a. “a room fee” – on a daily basis. You also reiterated repeatedly that my business was my own. Yet you regularly judged the way I conducted MY OWN business. My clients were happy. They continued to return. This meant you made money off of me because – aside from the aforementioned room fee – you also took 30% of everything I made plus another 5% if a client happened to pay with a credit card. So I guess this isn’t why you were right to fire me. Especially since that 5% credit card fee is illegal if charged to me. And also especially since a daily $4 room fee on top of sucking up 30% of my income is a ridiculously petty gouge, a blinking neon sign that screams I CAN TAKE AS MUCH FINANCIAL ADVANTAGE OF YOU AS I LIKE BECAUSE I’M “THE BOSS” HERE. Except it’s already been established that you’re not. Not the boss that is. Not of me anyway. So, clearly, there must be something else…

I mentioned my happy clients. The ones who continued to return bi-weekly, monthly… people who have been seeing me for years – who actually followed me to your location. I not only maintained and expanded the business that you were already conducting, but I added cash to the kitty. Exponentially. Not only did my clients pay me – and so of course, YOU – for my services, but they also often stayed once a session with me was over to spend money on your merchandise. This isn’t something they had to do. The thousands of dollars you’ve made as a result of the clients who followed me has everything to do with ME, not you. These are people who would have never thought to darken your door until I was in residence. So, not only did you enjoy bleeding me for every cent you could, you also cheerily took advantage of the generous amounts of money these clients dropped in your establishment, never once stopping to think about what an asset I was… how fortunate you were to have me… how grateful you should be to work with me. No. Not you. Because you’re entitled to everything you get. And, apparently, also everything I get if I’m standing too close to you. I’m a means to an end – the end being your bottom line. I ceased to have a face, a name, a soul or any of my own pockets worth lining with my own money. So you didn’t fire me because you’re an authoritative decision-making brain trust, and you didn’t fire me because you couldn’t make any money off of me. So, clearly, there must be something else…

I mentioned how you liked to criticize the way I conducted my business. I did it differently than you would have if you were me. You know why? Because I’M. NOT. YOU. If you want to return to school for a year and spend thousands of dollars in the process of learning a new marketable skill that will (or SHOULD) make you your own boss while maintaining a low – if not virtually non-existent – overhead, then be my guest. Upon graduating, you will have every right to your own business plan and the execution of such. If you want advice, ask for it. If you don’t, I’d suggest keeping your pie-hole shut. Which is exactly what I did. I know what my limitations are. I know exactly where I’m standing at all times in relation to my comfort zone. I know, for me, what is and is not plausible. Yet, upon your urging (and when I say “urging” I really mean “ordering” because you, sadly, never did get past the misinformation that you were in any way the boss of me) I passed out flyers as though anyone in our little shopping plaza was interested in a rather panicked-looking chick peddling her handbills. It’s not as if people post signs to waylay that sort of activity or anything. I was aware of every inevitable straight-edged wispy thud of my flyer hitting the bottom of the trash bin before I even made it out each door. At your “suggestion” I offered free mini-services even though I was rarely tipped, and these bad tippers were even worse at actually booking a full service for which they’d have to pay. I even, for a time, wore your cheaply made nametag that appeared as though it had been fashioned with construction paper and a glue stick. All that was missing was the pink glitter and princess stickers. My clients kept asking me, “Why are you wearing a nametag? Did you become a stewardess?? I. Already. Know. Who. You. Are.” Yeah, the logic – or lack of – escaped me as well. So… I wasn’t fired because you’re not the boss of me, because I couldn’t bring the cash in or because you were privy to an assload of brilliant marketing ploys which I did not attempt. Obviously... clearly... it’s got to be something else.

But... blindly operating under the assumption that you're in the right, and I'm in the wrong here seems to be getting us nowhere. Imagine that. Because let's face it, it's not as if every self-righteous "boss" who has ever coldly ousted a workerbee has had just cause in doing so. My demise was not the result of a poor work ethic, a lack of vision or an inability to do what I do better than any massage therapist who had previously held my position in your establishment. I was fired because I wouldn’t kiss your ass. I wouldn’t kiss your ass because I saw you for what you are: an ignorant, self-serving, uninspired, greedy little addlepate. Why were you right to fire me? Because I deserve so much better than YOU.

The innate idiocy of bosshood.



Road Rage

At the age of 37 I have yet to purchase a new car.  Don’t misunderstand, I’m made automotive purchases. I’ve just never sprung for next year’s fully loaded model.  But I’m getting closer.  On the second day of 2012 I traded in my old bucket of rust for a new-to-me used car.

2009 Chevrolet Aveo

By far, this is the newest car I’ve ever set my wide ass in.  Considering the width of said ass, you may be surprised to read that this car is a hatchback.  In shape only.  It’s certainly not a compact clown car kind of hatchback one thinks of when one hears the word hatchback.  No.  My hatchback has balls.  And even though Betty White has been kind enough to remind us that “having balls” is not really the most impressive euphemism for chutzpah ever coined (testicles themselves being weak and sensitive while it’s really even the least macho of vaginas that can take the real pounding), I’m still disturbingly tempted to purchase one of those uber-classy sets of “car balls.”  You know… those plasticized or metallic nutsacs most easily found in one of your more classically upscale truck stops. (This reminds me I need to stock up on pink fuzzy dice and little air fresheners in the shapes of pine trees that don’t really smell like pine so much as they do generic pine cleaner.  Maybe some girly truck flaps.  For the truck that I don’t have.  But I digress…)

The policy at the lot where I made this recent vehicular acquisition is – seemingly – fairly generous in that, should I suspect that something – anything – is wrong with the car within my first thirty days of ownership, I am invited to bring it back for repair.  For free.  One might think this a sweet deal considering the potential problems any used automobile could present upon transfer of ownership.  And I figured, Hey!  Why NOT have this little noise or that little concern checked out while I have the opportunity to do so at no charge?  So I took advantage of this not-so-little perk, and rolled back into the car lot about two and a half weeks later.

I had an appointment.  I showed up on time.  I went through my list:

1.  Engine seems to roar a bit too loudly on acceleration
2.  Car seems to accelerate rather slowly, and the RPM’s make it appear as though the automobile is  laboring awfully hard to do its job.
3.  The engine occasionally knocks or rattles when idling
4.  The driver’s side lock needs to be repaired.
5.   The windshield wipers don’t seem to be working efficiently.
6.  I may have heard the brakes squeal, and would like to have them checked
7.   The car pulls slightly to the left.

Any or all of these things – with the exception of the door lock and the wipers – may have been nothing, but I figured it was more prudent to have nothing checked for free than a big expensive something checked later.  I was given a free loaner car and a promise that I would be contacted later that day with a loose ETA of when I might expect to get my car back.  Easy squeezey.  One would think.  This drop off day being a Thursday, I wasn’t too surprised when it turned out that the garage intended to keep it over the weekend.  There’s no one working service at this particular establishment over any weekend, and – given that my list of concerns and things-to-be-checked was a bit dense – I was happy to do without for a few days if it meant that the technicians were going to be thorough.

I must now make a grand and sweeping declaration.  I am naïve.  I was a rube to think that these people were going to be at all concerned about getting my car back to me in a timely manner given that all work done on the vehicle was going to be at no cost to me.  I thought perhaps they would have better things to do than piddle with a freebie for too long, so maybe they’d expedite my service and get on to bigger and more expensive parts to install in other customer’s automobiles.  Not so much. 

TWENTY.  DAYS.  LATER…

I was off of work, home sick and – not surprisingly – pretty much expecting to never ever EVER see my car again.  I may or may not have been running a temperature, but I sure as hell couldn’t breathe through the right side of my head.  It was raining.  It was cold.  I was VERY cold-medicine medicated.  And guess what:  It was time to pick up my car.  

Understandably, I was a bit gun-shy as I’d been promised three times before that my car was “ready” only to be called again within minutes with an amendment of “Oh I’m so sorry.  Our service manager took it for a test drive, and we’re still hearing a noise here or a knock there.  We think it would be a good idea to keep it one more day to make sure everything is running as it should be.  Or maybe you just have a cat caught in your carburetor.” 

(OK, so I may have made up that last bit about the cat, but the rest is totally verbatim.)

I limped across town, wondering the whole way if I was going to be given a “Psych!  Our bad.  Your car’s really not ready after all.  You should know better by now than to believe anything we tell you.”  Had this occurred I think it’s safe to say I would have happily blamed my cold medicine high for the fit I would have thrown, the scene I would have made and the sobbing that the smug little power-tripping cashier would have done after I’d finished with her.  I drove for forty minutes, wincing each time I worried that I was driving so far for nothing.

Did I mention I was doing all this driving in the SECOND loaner I’d received since my car was initially taken hostage?  The first one died within the first week.  Needless to say, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to find out that I did NOT return that car with a full tank of gas as requested.

Funnily enough, I DID get my car that night.  It was actually a fairly quick experience once I walked through the door.  I handed over my loaner car key.  I signed something.  I was given my car key and told to have a good evening.

I got in my car, and I sped away as if fearful that someone would come running out of the office screaming “Wait!  We made a mistake!!  We have to send it back for service AGAIN!”

My ass.

And what, you may wonder, did I learn about the “repair” of my car on my way home?  The car still roars rather loudly on accelerating, and it still seems to accelerate more slowly than I think it should.

The upside to having my car held captive for almost as long as I’ve actually owned it?  I have some bitchin’ windshield wipers.

Score.