July 28, 2011
(This may suck but that's okay. It's not about eloquence but rather catharsis. I need to puke out some of the inadequacy I currently feel. And, as with all the puke I've ever been acquainted with, none of it's pretty.)
I feel wrong.
Just wrong.
It's not about my body, though improvements can and will and are being made. It's not about my Baby, though sometimes I fear fully putting myself and all my faith out there. It's not about my verisimilitude, though sometimes I know I could be more bold; more accurate.
It's about my fucking job. My "career." My place. My future. My present. My questions. My sanity.
I've been doing this whole motorcycle thing since 1999.
Twelve years.
Twelve freakin' years I've been here. I've been on and I've been off. I've been in it and I've been out of it. Dipping and diving after this questionable bait like a starving, frenzied fish. And starving for what? More money? More respect? At this place I've been spun about, left on dry land and taken out to sea. I've been laid off for scholastic ventures, laid off for the company's monetary status, falsely fired for stealing, harassed for not putting out, hired on again for heart and hired on again for competence. Or, shall I say, hired on again for the acceptance of cheap labor...
I am paid three dollars an hour less than people who have been there for a mere three years. I am paid at least ten dollars less than the seven managers I've been through in three years whose presence and effort and honesty make up a quarter of my time, veracity and persistence. I was paid for the week following the fire under vacation pay and therefore observe no further value for my efforts.
I have been, in my opinion, the most misunderstood, unappreciated, least embraced, biggest butt of the biggest joke that I have ever known in the world of power sports.
And I take it, day in and day out, because it's all I know.
Another new salesman arrives on the scene -- and I've been through six dozen if not more -- and there this guy is, never having ridden a CBR1100XX, trying to tell me that there is "No such thing as a motorcycle called a 'Blackbird.'"
???
Little does he know that I was there when the first Blackbird, or CBR1100XX, appeared. 1997. The only year it was carbureted. I rode it. I rode it that year and I rode it the next year(s) when it was fuel injected. I rode it when it was used, when it was abused and when it was the occupant of a mere two miles of ride time (because *I* put those miles there).
This guy doesn't know the difference between an RVT1000 and VTR1000. He hasn't lived through it consciously. He hasn't breathed it, wondered about it, felt it, cared about it and, when it was the Next Big Thing, he wasn't even old enough to Class M it. He just knows he's cocky as fuck and ready to sell it to the next schmuck that walks through the door.
THAT is the epitomy of the type of people I have worked with since I was 19.
A showroom full of underestimation coupled with a zesty chunk of complete disrespect and hidden under a load of ugly egoism.
And, no; by all means, do I know everything. Not even close. But right when you discount me for what I do know without an ounce of consideration for my experience, my willingness, my once ENTIRE desire, that's when you make an absolute mockery of my passion, dreams, hopes, pursuit, existence.
You are taking my twelve years of fire and you are twisting it out like butt under your shoe.
And that's exactly where I am.
Squashed into the ground. Disregarded for my female form. Looked over because of your testosterone.
Drowning in your absolute insolence.
Every fucking day I hear it.
"Laura. What are you talking about? This is all you have to do."
All because you have to maintain your righteousness. Your hierarchy. Your bold "fuck you, I know what I'd doing" attitude.
No. I know how this game is played. I know what I "have" to do and what I can do and what I should do. I know finance. I know parts. I know administration. I know sales. I know a bit about service and, more importantly, I know value. Value for an experienced opinion. Value for a customer's desire. Value for a hearty handshake and an HONEST inquiry. I know how people SHOULD be treated and that is everything to the person standing in front of you.
A customer can smell shit a mile away, even when there's no tangible shit to be found. A person who has been around the block could smell nonsense coming. So how come the owners can't smell it when it's licking them in the face? How is it that they smell roses over dog digestion? How can they, the four owners I've been through, continue to fumble through life with an entirely false sense of integrity? How could they NOT see who Greg was, what Jericho was turning into, the fuck story that Dale would be?
Because they are absent. They are soulless. They are complacent and without an ounce of empathy. They do not look at the time clock. They do not see Kevin, working late every fucking evening, or watch George beyond his pathetic Traffic Log. They do not penetrate the heart of the business; they merely scratch the surface of their check books. And when the new house cannot be paid for outright, they begin to wonder. When seven new manages are fired for various reasons in short period of time, they start to step in and then they disappear. Rather than ensuring their investment, they hope it all works out.
"Gee, I hope this guy doesn't suck."
But the truth of it is and always has been self-fucking-evident. They don't care enough to see, to know, to feel, to really LEARN. They licked Greg's balls while he literally stole thousands upon thousands of dollars right out from under them, year after year. They let him hold the power of their industry and now they hold US accountable for the missing dollars signs. They piss and they moan about how they have not been a "money making store" for three years. WELL WAKE THE FUCK UP SHERLOCK. It's hard to make money when someone's stealing it faster than it can be put into the drawer at night. When you put your trust into the convicted FELON, you might just get burned. When your customers haven't seen the same face behind the counter for more than a month, they might just question your integrity. They might just make a fuss over every little thing because what is there, at this store, that scream stability? Nothing.
But that's just my logic.
That's just me and my BEST customers who ALL know that I've got a job interview elsewhere. Frank, Paul, Scott, Ryan, Merle, Jason, everyone at REV, everyone at MSF -- they all know. They know. They ask me when I'm getting the fuck out of there because they see what a joke this really is. They see how much faith I've lost with the turnover, the lost managers, the inadequacy to detail. The reluctance to be a part of what we once considered our "careers."
"Dude. George is a fucking freak," they say.
But you keep him on because he's completely FULL of shit, willing to bus roll ANYONE to make himself look a little less like a douche and therefore a good salesman.
Rather than really train and pay a good employee, you keep the instigator, the cheap skate, the downer, the liar, the cheater, the phony.
Alyssa is lazy because your "manager" is lazIER.
Matt is lazy because he always has been.
You don't care, so why should they?
Why should I?
Now I'm looking for a new job just so I don't have to be a pathetic "lifer" under your pathetic interpretation of rule.
And it scares the crap outta me.
Because I don't know anything else other than your big bag of bullshit. I don't know how to play it straight and not sexually harass the men. The don't know how to play this game of rules and followed regulations. I don't know how to be respected and make a difference and be notorized for my efforts. I don't know how to do anything else other than to take the punches as they continuously come.
I have been overruled and out-argued, disregarded and misunderstood, over-shadowed and out-ball-licked for so many years that I don't know how to be anything better. I don't know how to be a praised or loved or recognized or rewarded or paid. I don't know how to be given a bone. I really don't. I always, always, always expect to be cheated, lied to, manipulated, screwed, unheard, underpaid. I expect it. I come home and the bills reiterate it. I go to the bank and see it happen. I watch it and taste and dream it and wake up to it every day.
I am your misconception. Your least worthy advocate. Your most overlooked representation of grandeur. Your shining light stifled by dark arrogance. I am your hard work and your every effort to be something bigger and better and yet, there you are, more ready than ever to question MY place in YOUR well being.
What a giant load of bullshit.
What a sad day for you.
The day, that is, when I find my true place in this world. When I am not tortured (T O R T U R E D) for wanting to do everything excellenty, correctly, brilliantly.
What a sad day for you when I recognize my brilliance and run with it. Run as far away as I can and never look back but for the story it will tell, the caution it will create, the warning it will serve. It may not be tomorrow, or Monday morning, or next year. But what of that? You'll always be there. With all your haste and your unwillingness to listen and truly hear. You'll always be there with your bullying ways and your false sense of ownership. You'll always be there because evil will always exist as long as we let it (and, sadly, even if we don't).
You are, in my opinion, no better than the man who killed Beau Butschke.
His evil was likely committed in a moment of pure rage; something for which perhaps even he may never be able to explain or comprehend. A moment of insanity, an hour of absolute weakness, a derision beyond the judgment of our souls. A compromised man from birth, born without the capacity for contrition. Yours, however, has been a torment delivered so knowingly, so obviously, little by little, over an opulent period of time, which progressed into a slow, tangible, paintful deliberate issuance of death. You have completely allowed it and accepted it and you watch it happen as you sit, perched upon your high-up place, as though it weren't literally stifling the very life from our (my) veins.
No wonder Stewart could only look upon you with the very virulence of true hatred.
You've given us no reason to see you as anything better.
You've broken us in the belief that it will humble us when all we've been are misfits or morons.
Shame on you for looking at us as employees instead of people. Shame on you for never believing. You'd know it of us -- whether it be evil or beauty -- if you ever bothered to look and listen. You'd know it of us -- if it were a tragedy or a heroism -- but you won't just see it as we plug through every day for you. We are your assets or your enemies. And it has always been your decision to hold us up or let us suffer.
How is it that you've never made the right decision?
How is that I haven't either?