I know, I know, it’s been a long time since I rapped at cha. And I haven’t done this with the fervor or frequency that I’d hoped, but that’s slowly getting changed.
Here is the week’s posts:
Great Post: Crappy First Job. No job I’ve ever had has been substantially better, so it begs the question: why work at a job at all? Yes, we can make a difference in the ordinary…
A hilariously sick Yahoo Answers about if your son is teh gay.
A video about the post office that you must see to believe. It was once cutting edge. I still love the way that the post office smells.
Finally:
A more serious snippet of an interview on Threadless.
Anyone I linked out to can get a free copy of the book if they review it, good or bad. Anyone else can buy it. I’ll be updating this a little more frequently and a little bit better quite soon. But in the mean time, here we go.
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You might have been laid off recently. And you might be saying, “boo hoo hoo, nothing’s fair.” Let me tell you something. If you were laid off, it was your fault.
Period.
No ifs, ands or buts about it. It was your fault. See, you didn’t add enough value, you didn’t shine enough. You probably had long coffee breaks, and you probably did things (like edit this book on company time) that caused you to be expendable. Then, when you become a freelancer you whine that scummy places like Odesk are hard to keep.
Superstars are retained. And if you were let go–it’s much easier to look at your own self and decide that something bad happened, and it wasn’t your fault.
But look in them mirror, compadre.
It was your fault. It was something that you caused, it was something that happened because you didn’t shine to the point where the company decided that they couldn’t afford to let you go.
Now–that’s good news.
If it was your fault, then you’re not a victim of circumstance. You’re not someone to be messed with, you’re your own actor, you can take your own actions, you are in control. Look, true superstars are rare, and few and far between. True superstars are compelling, are earmarked early. People with the intuition to win.
Have you? Not hit a deadline?
Have you…complained abotu the job?
Showed up late, drunk or both?
Have you misunderstood or whined about something at work? Not been grateful for the at bat, for the way to do it better than it’s been done? Have you missed your sales quota?
Are you in a nonesential department? Is the company you work for selling stuff that people don’t need?
Then it’s likely that your fall is your fault.
What does whining do anyway? What does complaining, bitching or something else do? Nothing good. Be someone that’s better, that works harder and does it differently.
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There are real victims in the world. Few of them are bossy women that are worried about “entitlement,” or a “glass ceiling.” We came a cross an absolutely hideous post on how Women hit a Glass Ceiling. After I bought a new keyboard (I had been compelled vomited all over the old one), I got to thinking: what would motivate someone to write this kind of post. And it can only be two things: Outright greed, and failure to view reality.
See, egotism demands that we are honored. Part of our brain revises history to make us look a little better, to make things work a little better for us. And to make things “not our fault.” Some diabolical external force, some cultural bias on a standardized test is to blame. Not us. Not the fact that we didn’t work hard enough, care enough, or put in the time. We were robbed. We were cheated. We don’t have to take stock in our own failure, we can look externally and that’s where the blame lies. And we–as women–are victims.
That erodes our work ethic. Why work if it’s futile?
Then that erodes where we spend energy. Let’s fix the system and presume it’s broken and make producers defend their production. Let’s use our energy DESTROYING things, because I can’t own up to the fact that I’m not smart or valuable. I’ll embitter myself because I’m a victim. I didn’t fail, I was robbed. See? You don’t have to answer the hard question: how good am I really.
The Victimizers Become Needed
The other, more insidious part (one role that Al Sharpton played) is the elevation of the whistle blower to leader status. See, it goes like this. I remind you you’re a victim. I speak out, and tell you that you need me. Oh, pay me some mind, union dues. Since I’m speaking out, I’ll be the one to decide things for you. Oh, can you give me a speaking fee so I can protect your rights? After all, I’m only doing it for you. You need me. You need biiiiig daddy to speak up for you. Because you’re a victim, why would we expect you to show anything close to competance.
If you have a vested interest in convincing someone else they are victims, then you are a bad person. If you benefit from someone else’s oppression, even if you’re not oppressing them, then you are a bad person. And anyone that’s going to force a glass ceiling–a nebulous and unactionable BS conspiracy that has the inept putting a claim on the competent? Then you’re a bad person. F#@% you.
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An actual PHD therapist…has given us the thumbs up.
Dr. Pam Hunt called this a “F#@%ing Great Book You need to Buy”
The Link is here.
Amazing!
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by chris on May 18, 2009
F#@% The Secret. No, seriously. F#@% it. See–a load of self help books came out. They were greeted with anything from wan interest to enthusiasm. But the Secret stands alone. Only the Secret spawned disciples. In a way that not even the Purpose Driven Life could, the Secret created legions of zombies that are innured to reason and hard work.
Ask.
Believe.
Recieve.
Easy for Oprah who put sweat equity into a 30+ year career of knowing what people want, and giving it to them (A CAR! A CAR!). But for normal people? Ask, believe, receive? And having the results of your STUFF (Oh, we wrote the chapter on F#@% materialism) be tied to your belief? Purty crazy if you ask us.
Anyone that hands you a copy of the secret is demented. Possessed of a mind that is not their own, and is not fully responsible for their actions. Hard work is the only thing that matters. Doing it yourself and being determined…not simply believing. Anyone that tells you different is selling books and going on a worldwide publicity tour.
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by chris on April 22, 2009
F#@% Twitter. F#@% The bird, and the fail whale. Twitter is a disaster, random and constant bragging about the minute details of your life. It’s popular right now because Ashton, Shaq and OPRAH joined the party, and every middle aged wannabe wants to be them. Screw that.
Twitter Makes Everyone The Same: Voluntary High School
What’s worse than having to think out loud in front of people? Having THEIR THOUGHTS punched into your head 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It’s like our society couldn’t handle independence, thinking on your own, winning, so we created Twitter to make sure we could compare our ideas to everyone else’s. And you know, conform to what everyone else is doing. Any dissent is treated with the idea that you’re not friendly, and people are putting themselves ahead of their ideas.
Who wants that? Who wants to contend with High school all over again? Nobody does.
Twitter Is A Constant Interruption
It’s becoming seriously hard to get anything done. Most twitter users have a ‘client’ and that monitors their screen and puts a Pop up ad (remember the 90s) up whenever someone talks to or about them. So instead of doing the exhilarating, minds on work that you need to do to get life done, you have an excuse to not do anything. You have an excuse to not work hard enough because you’re interrupted ALL THE TIME.
Twitter Is Bullshit: Big Brother’s Pilot Program
In a world where we’re constantly facing increased surveillance, Twitter is getting the first batch of volunteers to assess our tolerance for being required to report our activities and whereabouts. Iphones are–at this point–expensive devices that people pay in hopes of pleasing their new overlords. Conditioning people to think it’s fun to report their whereabouts has been Big Brother’s genius move. Once we’re used to it, it’ll be rolled out to everyone else, and we’ll be pressuring them to join in.
Twitter Makes It OK To Not Achieve Anything
This is the worst part: Twitter sings the praises of mediocre shit worse than parents at a third grade graduation. Look–you can whine about anything. You can talk about anything, and it’s 100% OK on twitter to not do anything. It’s MORE than OK to fail at life on Twitter. You’ll get sympathy. From other mediocrities that have nothing better to do than be on Twitter. Had a hard job, hard life, problems with something? Tell Twitter about it and instead of ‘get your head out of your ass’ you’ll get ‘awww, it’s not your fault.’
Twitter is here to stay, just like Network TV and loads of other things that nobody likes.
Talk about this post on Twitter, here.
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by chris on April 6, 2009
The people that have lost their jobs so far deserved it. Look around. Most people suck. Most people you work with can barely be counted on to fog a mirror, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for mushy entitled baby boomers because they’ve been dismissed from their bailed out, mushy entitled companies? I don’t think so. We’re at 10% unemployment right now, if that. That means, that the 10% of the most worthless and whining and stupid people currently don’t have jobs. Doesn’t that sound like a situation that would make things better for everyone?
If you were valuable to your company you would have been retained. The face saving B.S. about ‘reducing headcount,’ or ‘ensuring that we can be rightsized’ is just to keep you from taking it personally. But look: superstars are spared. Companies are DESPERATE for a bright light. And if you’re waiting in an unemployment line, you’re not a bright light.
But take heart: you DO NOT HAVE TO STAY A slug. You don’t have to be a clutterpeson. It’s a choice. Here are some questions you gotta ask yourself–and be honest with yourself because it’s probably true.
- Are you relying on your degree for your justification, or your results?
- Are you working smart and hard?
- Are you easy to get along with?
- Do you get your work done early?
- Do you look for more ways to improve?
- Do you connect and help everyone you can?
- Do you uphold a fierce standard of excellence?
If you’re not doing this stuff, and you have no job, it’s your fault. Hard workers have jobs. People looking for jobs have jobs. If you’re just sitting around and bitching about the state of the economy, waiting for a new Obama Bailout Check, then its your fault that you don’t have a job. You probably carried around the do nothing, baby boomer attitude that got you fired in the first case.
Look: we’re only at 10% unemployment. If you’ve been fired, ten you’re in the lowest 10% of results. That should be a wake-up call. You are the problem. Your efforts were miserable. You were missing some boat, and this is not a time to let your EGO talk. You were released because you weren’t particularly valuable. You were released because you were a mess. So –the question is: what are you going to do about it? Are you going to out think, out work, out hustle and out try everyone?
Or are you gonna whine like a four year old on a sugar crash?
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by chris on March 24, 2009
Sure, we have an entire CHAPTER That says F#@% your team in F#@% Therapy. We talk about the evils of sports–and sacrificing your own brain to some stupid abstract hierarchy. Truly a good thing. But if you’re gonna do sports, set a better example.
See, DJ is regarded as some sort of consummate winner because he kicked ass in the late 90s. That’s a decade ago. At best, hes apathetic, at worst, cancer. Why? Two words: his contract. See, in 2001, just a bit after having actually won a world series, he became ENTITLED (see: F#@% entitlement) to a 10 year, 189 million contract. (F#@% Lawyers & F#@% Materialism). That changed his team from a scrappy blue collar team that would out work, out hustle everyone.
F#@% Alex Rodriguez, Too
To a a safe haven for the Giambis, Browns, Jeters and more of the world. HE took a payday, and “cashed in his passion for glory”. All that was hustle, spirit, spit and everything was exchanged for 200mm. Now, what’s the difference between 90mm and 200mm in lifestyle? Not much. But the payday he got made mediocrities like Johnny Damon and Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson take advantage of the opportunity to suck at theteats of Steinbrenner. And druggies like Rodriguez and Giambi were welcome in pinstripes because we learned that Steinbrenner was a payer.
Jeter is not a winner, no matter what Gatorade wants you to think.
He’s not a champion a hall of famer or anything else.
He has cancered his team by taking a payday and watching his stats and hustle go on the shelf. What’s more important? Taking someone to the wall in a negotiation, getting yours? Or believing something, hustling for it, and representing a standard of excellence.
At the end of the day DJ is slimy greedy and selfish, and he’s somehow hoodwinked everyone into believing that he’s a good, team player.
F#@% Derek Jeter, and his hypocrisy.
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by chris on March 17, 2009
We’re picking up some steam here, but nobody has SAID what we’ve all been thinking. That’s the genius behind this book.
http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2009/03/8-excerpts-from-book-that-will-change.html has a good primer for any of you who might be on the fence with this thing.
Good stuff, good times, and we can’t wait to give you more. Watch this space for details.
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by chris on March 17, 2009
We are about to witness March Madness, an orgy of competition that commences once a year and transforms our brightest and most well-to-do young people into slobbering automatons. Men will don sweatshirts over their size 44 waists, and women will drink beer. Gatherings will commence, and people will high five each other.
Over what? Nothing here is real. No experience, no matter how vivid the plasma TV that brings it, is truly yours. And yet, in every decent college town there will be screaming, high fiving, people being passionate about what happens with their school. You’ll maybe take ownership of it–but take just a moment to look at the absurdity of it all. The players stick around for a year or two, after having transferred from Jucos, they try to play in the NBA or Europe. They don the school colors as mercenaries, and peon soldiers of the corrupt insanity that is the NCAA tournament.
Life is too rich and too precious to put your passion in the ground. Supporting this insanity puts us all in a position of pseudo life–vicarious living though the achievements of others. WHEN was the last time you got excited–that excited–about something in your own, amazing life? When did you high five? Let’s high five some more in REAL life. Let’s fist pump when WE complete something good. Let’s throw our arms up and say “YES” at meaningful acts of kindness compassion and excellence.
How Much Work Is Lost Due to the Tournament?
The time it takes away from work is criminal. When the madness ends in April or May, or whenever it does, nobody will cherish the memory of watching TV. Yet brackets will get assembled, jiggered and rejiggered. We’re not going to get out of the depression of 2009 by watching more TV. We have to focus all of our creativity and all that we have into out thinking the new rules, to deal with this economy. We’ll never win if we always dither away time on childish things.
In our book, F#@% Therapy, we put together some pages on how life-sucking your team is. How much money, time, and energy do you spend on them? And how much money, time, and energy do you spend on your business, your kids, or anything else? Do what you love and have passion for–not what everyone else does. Don’t echo the sheep.
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