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dirtymikekidd · 4 years ago

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One of my biggest issues..

Work... I used to be one of the best employees a company could ask for. I wasn’t the kind of person to come in late and half-ass their work. I was the one who was always smiling and ready to jump in with everything I had. I looked forward to every shift. Not because I was getting paid, but because I enjoyed everyone I worked with. My first job was technically a kitchen position at Dairy Queen back in 2009. I know everyone’s first job is fast food. But I don’t consider that my first job. Mostly because I was in a co-op class (so I went to school for half the day then I went to work.) which interfered with marching band--that was an important grade for me. I had to quit Dairy Queen when they threatened to fire me for going to a required band competition. So fast forward to December of 2011. I scored a delivery position at an pizza place called Mazzio’s. There I met who would become my fiancée later down the road. I thought I was doing decently well there until they started scheduling me less and less. Which while it sucked at the time, it helped push me to start looking at other places to possibly work. There was a few months of unemployment until I landed a food prep position at a BBQ restaurant called Charlie Dave’s. Funnily enough, one of the owners, Matt, was actually my dad’s high school bestfriend. Over the 2 years I was there, I moved up the ranks until I was the co-cook during the weekend dinner rushes. During the week I was the one who came in, got the smoker fired, meat prepped and on the grill, and then started cooking orders through the day I was there 6 of the 7 days a week. 9am-10pm. The pay was enough that I could keep gas and insurance on my truck...(most of the time at least.) Close to the end of my time there, I started listening to that voice in the back of my head. You know the one who tells you how bad you’re doing, and how much things would be better if you weren’t there. Even if someone complemented me on how well something cooked. I wouldn’t believe them. I actually did Matt and Chuck dirty by walking out on them right as a twenty top came in for dinner. I never apologized to them for it... On some days I cut my schedule in half because I had gotten another pizza delivery job at Domino’s and I had to work both places. By the summer of 2014 I was living about an hour and a half one way from both jobs. and I couldn’t afford making the drive there and back. Especially when I had to deliver pizza on top of the drive. I quit Charlie Dave’s about two weeks before Domino’s. Neither were totally planned out. I didn’t have any money stashed away to keep myself afloat while looking for other work. I tried working as a cook at a homestyle restaurant that my girlfriend at the time’s mom managed. I didn’t last long because of that ugly voice in my head coming up again. I didn’t even make it a week before I quit. My girlfriend and I broke up and I moved back to my hometown. By this point I felt like I was at a new low. I barely wanted to get out of bed some days. By late summer of 2014, I responded to a help wanted ad for lawn mowing. Perfect I thought. I already enjoyed cutting grass at home. and I wasn’t getting paid for it. So I got hired. I thought I was doing pretty good. Well except on my first day. I managed to run a weed-eater up a customer’s bush, killing it in the process. But I was getting the hang of things. As the season was ending, my boss told me about how he owned a BBQ restaurant. Just so happened to be the only competition to Charlie Dave’s in town. He offered me a cooking position, but I couldn’t start for about a month because I had to be 21 to work there. My 21st birthday passes and I call him to let him know. Perfect. I was back to making money and being productive. February 2015 rolls around. I request off for Valentine’s weekend. I had a romantic weekend planned for my girlfriend and I. You know nice weekend away from everyone and a hotel room. But work that Friday night had other plans. The person who was supposed to be there with me decided she didn’t want to be there anymore because there wasn’t anyone really coming in. so she leaves and it was like a bunch of buses let out in front because I was instantly hit with a line of people that stretched out the door. I was one person doing the job of four. I was taking orders, making the food, running it to the tables, and clearing tables. Something that I obviously couldn’t get done on my own. But I did what I could. I even Clocked out and hour and a half passed what I normally would’ve. The next day I drove her to park at the lake. I had her close eyes before I parked so that I could pull up next to the water where I thought the scenery was beautiful. I had forgotten that she had a traumatic event with her car and water. so when she opened her eyes, all she saw was water. Panic instantly overcame her. Which was the total opposite of what I was trying to do. I had taken her there so I could propose to her. She did say yes at least. We continued our date day, making our engagement posts on all of our socials, before finally going to our hotel. The next day I was supposed to work. I walked in the door and the boss pulled me into the back office. He told me that what he had walked into the day before was completely unacceptable and that he needed my key. I was fired. I tried to explain what had happened and that I had tried calling him multiple times trying to get help. He wouldn’t listen. I gave him my key and walked out. I went from being on top of the world to wanting to drive off a bridge. All in just 24 hours... I had never been told how bad of a job I did. In a way though it was a blessing. The food was shit. And it all came cold and was “cooked” in a microwave. The blessing came a couple months later when they went out of business. It probably wasn’t karma, but I like to think it was because Fuck him. About a month later I landed a job as a closing clerk at a gas station. After I got hired I found out my manager was actually a cousin of my fiancée’s. When I started the gas station job I was told that they couldn’t keep a guy working there very long. I made that my new mission to break the streak. After about a year, all of the clerks that had been there before me had quit. I had broken the record. I also managed to get promoted from clerk to assistant manager. By the fall of 2017 though, I got involved in a he said/ she said situation. Which completely broke all of the confidence about my work quality. After two weeks of suspension, I was told i could go back to work. But I also was warned that if i said or did anything that could be taken the wrong way, I was going to be fired on the spot. I couldn’t deal with that kind of worry and constant looking over my shoulder...I quit and left. Fast forward to 2019. After almost two years of not working and hating myself, I got a job cooking at Buffalo Wild Wings. I instantly hated it. I was too worried about the quality of the food i was sending out that i actually got into it a couple times with the other guys in the kitchen. The last shift i was there, there was someone mirco-managing me and I snapped and went off on them telling them to leave the fuck alone and to worry about their own shit. Bad move. Turns out it was a district supervisor. I walked out before they could fire me. Summer passes and I’m still looking for work. I answered an ad looking for stage hands. My dream job. If I couldn’t make a living playing music, then setting stages was the next best thing. Every gig we worked, I didn’t feel like it was work. It just felt like a dream. I guess it kind of was. 2020 happened and I went from working almost every weekend to only working 4 times in the entire year. With all of the down time I started listening more and more to that voice in my head. It was sounding more and more true about how much of a shit employee I was. 2021 starts and I start to work with my fiancée at an art manufacturing company down the road from our house. It started okay.. Until the voice came back. Now I’m back to putting too much pressure on myself because I’m worried I’m going to fuck something up and get fired. Honestly at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I loth waking up each morning. I feel trapped in an endless cycle. After not showing up for three days without calling, I found out I would be fired if I did it again. So I cut my availability in half in hopes of not being fired for leaving at noon. I don’t know what I’m doing. People there tell me I’m doing a good job. But honestly I think everything I send out is fucked up in one way of another..

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dirtymikekidd · 4 years ago

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I’m a miserable f*ck

This is going to be the place where I write down how the day’s events have effected my interpersonal feelings. This first post will be a lot of random stories from my life that I feel like have shaped how I look at life.

I’m setting a course to change my outlook on my life. There has been many things that I’ve not been able to let go of. Most of them are little things that really shouldn’t bother me let alone still be thinking about years later. Hell I still think back to when I was in 8th grade. I was on my way to my history class. There was a girl that I had the hots for at her locker, which was right next to the class I was running late for. I decided to make a joke about a haircut that I had seen to her. you know, trying to break the ice. It kind of worked. She hadn’t ever given me the time of day. But I managed to make her laugh. The tardy bell rings, and I got into class. I only had a few seconds of feeling on top before the teacher, Mr. H., made a comment to me, which killed my feelings of elation. It was something along the lines of “Don’t even try, she’s way out of your league.”

It was one of the only times I’ve ever put myself out there like that. It felt like a huge slap in the face. I was 13 when that happened. I’m 27 now. Anyway, I’m getting a little off topic. I don’t expect anyone to read what I type here. I just know that it’s making things worse by keeping everything bottled up.

Let me start off by saying, I’ve gone through things that I can only hope that my children don’t ever have to go through. Growing up I became my family’s mortician. Not because we were intentionally killing any animals, but because I lived on a farm and you know, diseases and wild predators. Either way I’ve buried 1 dog, 3 cats, 3 sheep, a stillborn foal (baby horse), and roughly 10 chickens. I do think dealing with all of it as often as I did, has made me numb to death.

I was around 9 when I dug my first grave. It was for our dog, Auggie. he was a fat golden retriever. Like fat enough to get the nickname of “the coffee table”. You could put a cut of water on his back and it wouldn’t spill. He ended up being put down by gun... He either had a seizure or was electrocuted (because he used to lay up under our Christmas tree). Anyway so something snapped and he suddenly didn’t know who we were. He was growling and barking at my sister and me. My mom let him outside. Normally we wouldn’t put him on a chain or in a fenced in area because we lived in the middle of no where, and he wasn’t one to run off. This time he did. We found him at our closest neighbor’s house, roughly a quarter to a half mile from our house. Mom brought him home and put him in one of the spare horse stalls that we had. I overheard my mom and dad talking about how they weren’t sure what to do with him, as they were worried what he might do to me and my sister, or what he’d do to the other animals. It was decided it was his time. My dad asked me to go outside and dig a hole. But not by any barn openings or where water ran off. So I dug a hole. 4ft long, 3 ft wide, and about 3 ft deep. I went back in after it was dug, and my mom told me to stay in the house and don’t look outside until she came back in. She went outside carrying a .22g pistol. I knew what was about to happen. and even though she told me not to look outside, I still did. 2 shots rang out, Auggie dropped into the hole I had just dug not even 20 minutes before. A moment later another 2 shots rang. I didn’t know why it took 4 shots until I overheard my parents talking about it. Apparently Auggie was fat enough that the first couple bullets didn’t actually kill him. And when he dropped into the hole, he was crying in agony. The second 2 shots ended his suffering. He was my best friend growing up. And I hate that his life ended that way. I don’t hold any of it against my parents. I know they were trying to protect their family unit. I still think about him to this day.

The cats were inside/outside cats. Or as my dad called them, barn cats. In the 14 years we lived on the farm, we had at least 20 cats. Most of them were either hit by cars or another animal killed them. We had one cat, Thomas, who had just showed up one day. He looked just like Garfield. He had a huge gash on his front leg and a bowel blockage. Mom talked my dad into taking him to the vet. We got him all fixed up and basically adopted him. He became a mostly indoor cat, but he would still get let outside. He never took off anywhere. He would just kinda hang out in the barns hunting mice or laying in the sun. One Sunday morning I got up and looked outside. And there he was laying at the end of our driveway...internal organs hanging out. There was a blood trail that looked like he was hit in the middle of the road, then drug off to the side. I buried him right next to Auggie. the other two cats were killed by a dog we had been watching for a family as they went on a missionary trip.

The sheep were for a 4-H project that me and another kid had been working on. Let me rephrase, we were supposed to be working on it together, but he took off and I couldn’t get ahold of him. Anyway, so I don’t actually know what it was that killed them, but some animal had gotten in and ripped up their necks

The stillborn would’ve been the fifth horse born at our house. It was my dad’s dream horse with the color of its’ fur. It holds the record for the biggest sized hole I’ve dug to this day.

The chickens..... that’s a grave I wish I could’ve done differently. They’re the only mass grave I’ve ever dug. Two holes about 3 ft deep and about a foot wide. They didn’t make it through the sickness that most chickens go through in the first year or so of their lives.

Continuing on the subject of death..so back in 2008 my mom was kicked in the chest and arm by one of our horses as we were getting ready to start cleaning stalls. My dad took her to the hospital because they were sure she had a broken rib. She had x-rays done and what they found was worse.. masses in her lungs. The doctors did a full body MRI. Masses in the lungs and a couple more in the brain... cancer... stage IV lung cancer that had spread. We found out on New Year’s day. Within a couple weeks she was starting chemo. By September she had a treatment called “Gamma knife surgery” on the mass on her frontal lobe of her brain. They continued the chemo on her lungs, and things seemed to be going into remission. Her battle finally ended at 10;45pm on June 5th, 2010.... I wasn’t home when it happened. I was 2 towns over celebrating my best friend’s 16th birthday...I still haven’t been able to forgive myself for not being there...

I’m not sharing these details because I want sympathy. But because I’m stuck living in the past and I’ve never been able to get out of my own head. As the title says, I’m a miserable fuck because of it.

The next post will job stuff..

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