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If you’re like me, you may wonder why your bank account is in double (or single) digits in the days leading up to every payday, why you can only afford food that makes you even fatter, or why you can barely afford to put gas in the Asian car that your college vehicle could literally pass as a large stool. The answer is tragically simple: you don’t make enough fucking money. I know it and you know it, so don’t blame it on the bar tabs, taxes, Plan B, or the don’t-kill-myself books. Now that you’ve made peace with that, here are five reasons why you don’t make the big bucks.
1. Because fuck you, that’s why.
Oh, you have a degree from a pretty legit school? Possibly a Master’s? That’s cool. Your supervisor, let’s call him Steve, with his Associate’s degree, hair-lip and complete lack of any discernible social skills, will still come by your cubicle and shit on you between two and five times per day. These shits will be worse depending on how Dancing with the Stars or whatever garbage he watches ended the night before. That go-getter attitude and work ethic you brought with you on your first day have slowly faded into a nice, soupy diarrhea of apathy and self-loathing and you’ve waved a white flag in the face of your former ambition. That decent GPA you achieved with minimal effort in college doesn’t matter here, and neither do you. Sure, you have more friends outside of work than the goddamn Martians in this office, but that won’t stop one single log of shit from plopping squarely on your forehead. Fuck you, buddy.
2. No upward mobility.
What are you gonna do, get promoted? The only people in middle management have been here 20+ years, back when a college education was a rarity instead of the norm, and they were grandfathered in and thus never forced to become competent human beings. Their shitty bloodline is evident in every email they send, riddled with spelling and grammatical errors that would make a third grader shit his pants and wonder what kind of moron could craft such a literary abortion.
Worst part is, hair-lipped Steve has pretty much the only position to which you could advance, and he drives a fucking Honda Civic. Great. Plus, no one could possibly consider promoting that mouth-breathing Mongoloid to a position that requires contact with anyone, especially clients. So you basically have to wait until he dies, and given that he doesn’t drink, smoke, dip, drive above 50, socialize or do anything else cool, he’ll probably work well into his eighties. The only way to speed this up is by bludgeoning him to death with the Swingline sitting on your desk, the daydreaming of which consumes about 45 minutes of your day. Every day.
3. You’re too much of a pussy to quit and find something better.
I know, unemployment is terrifying. But as long as you have this SARS-infested security blanket you call a job, you don’t have the motivational fear to go look for something better. The disappointment of yourself, your parents and your résumé just isn’t a big enough motivator for a little fuck like you to actually be proactive in preventing your inevitable office multiple homicide and find a better job. You need the fear of cooking a rat for dinner over a trashcan fire downtown to motivate you.
Don’t think you’re too much of a pussy to quit? There’s a litmus test: if you don’t get immediate, aggressive flop sweat when called into your boss’s office, then congrats, maybe you aren’t. But you’re still not quitting.
4. Shitty economy.
The economy is getting better, at least that’s what we’ve been told. Granted, this is more of a cop-out and an excuse for you to stay in your three-walled hell than anything else, but it’s still somewhat valid. Even if you weren’t a lazy complacent piece of shit, it’s tough out there. Your dad will regale you with memories of the tough beginning of his career: going on one interview in the greed and cocaine-driven 1980s when jobs (and blow) grew on trees, landing it, and then retiring 25 years later. Cool story, Dad. Now can I borrow a $20 to put gas in my car?
5. Are you really that good?
As you’ve been made well aware by your shitty job, there’s no line forming around the block to blow you because you have a degree or two. Unfortunately, no one cares about your upbringing and your parents’ ability to send you to school wherever you wanted (or got in). You may be smarter than most of the couch-burning hillbillies in your office, but are you really THAT much better at staring emptily at a spreadsheet all day than they are? Probably not. You’re a cog in a painstakingly monotonous wheel, and you could be easily replaced by some other cheesedick with a couple useless degrees. Despite your mostly positive reviews from hair-lipped Steve, you’re really not doing anything groundbreaking to separate yourself from the other minions; partly because your job is comprised entirely of entry-level repetition, and partly because you just don’t give a fuck.
Respond
The beauty of small business is a big piece of a small pie is better than a crumb from a huge pie.