Closing a Chapter of Life....

For those of you that know me, you know that I manage a Call-Center for a very large telemarketing firm. It has been at the same location for 17 years, I have worked here for the past ten.

It was not my intention to have a career in sales. My degree is in programming, and while going to college I needed beer money. I wrote a list of my skills which looked like this:

1. I'm good with computers
2. I'm an excellent communicator
3. I'm really bad at manual labor
4. I like air conditioning.

I figured an excellent place to apply all of these skill sets was in telemarketing. I looked in the yellow-pages, found a firm near my house, applied and got the job. I quickly became one of the best salesperson's in the office, and moved up into a data-entry position. I worked this until I graduated from college, at that point I quit and got a job programming. That company downsized shortly after I got a job, and I went back to telemarketing "temporarily."

Shortly after starting, I found out I was soon to be a father. I could not find another job in the computer industry, and a supervisor position opened up in the office, which I applied for and was hired. Sine then I've been a trainer, Corporate Training Manager, Office Manager, and Operations manager. I've traveled the world and opened sites in several countries.

Yesterday, in a corporate restructuring move, we found out we will close our office in 60 days.

It's weird to know that such a large part of your life will come to an end in two months. Till then, we have to maintain the business and make sure we deliver the same results to our client, which is a major fortune 500 company. I met my son's mother in this office. Most of my friends are workmates. A lot of memories, and a lot of good times.

I'll be fine, I know I am very marketable and this will be the push I needed to find a career with better growth potential. But I am worried. I am worried about the 21 year-olds that I employ, the kids that led a hard life and had nowhere else to go until we hired them. They are trying to make good, and just had the carpet ripped out from under them. I worry about the ones that may go back to drugs. I worry about the single moms and dads. I worry about the 60 and 70 year-olds that have no retirement and our economy forces them to work. I worry about the people that have been here 17 years and know nothing else. I can write letters of referrals and help them with their resumes. I can do what I can, I wish there was more I could do.

For me, I look forward to more opportunities. I'll be able to take a couple months off with my severance package, do a lot of hiking and letterboxing, and spend more time with my son than I have been able to since he was born. I look forward to applying myself in a different career.

In the next couple months, if a telemarketer calls you, before you hang up on us, a kind word might count more than you know.

Skeletons in the Closet, Part 2

(continued from http://mryukslifeboxed.blogspot.com/2008/01/skeletonas-in-closet-part-1.html)

As the world went from black to grey, and things started coming back into focus, I felt a pleasant nuzzling of my ear, a warm, moist open-mouthed caressing of my lobes.

Groggily, I said: “No baby, it’s too early..”

At this, I was jolted awake by a sharp kick to my solar plexus, and coming out of my delirium, I noticed that the aforementioned deer was the culprit of said nuzzling.

“Comet!”, I yelled, what are you doing?”

“Trying to wake you up, weirdo!”

“Oh, I must have fallen unconscious. So, what brings you to the Keystone State in March, and more particularly, to MY rooftop?”

It was then, ladies and gentlemen, that I was told a great tale of woe, and shortly after my feud with Santa began:

“It all started,” Comet intoned, “when I was a young buck, specifically on the day I found the cleaning supplies”

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Yuk, elves are not the happy-go-lucky creatures people always see in the movies. They see themselves as masters of Santa’s realm, and are nasty, spiteful little creatures. Elves are also messy, and a secret that Santa does not let out is that THEY ARE NOT HOUSETRAINED! Fortunately, they do not urinate, as they cannot intake fluids. They do however; leave rabbit-style pellets all over the place. Now, you can imagine that this can create quite a mess, with thousands of the little buggers running around the compound, so one day I decided to clean up the reindeer section, ridding it of Elf nuggets.”

“This was around the time that Santa was holding his yearly tryouts for the sleigh-team. My parents had high hopes for me, but I was not so sure. I was still young at the time and not quite as developed as many of the others, I remember Cupid in particular was quite dashing, he was always caught sneaking into the doe stalls. Blitzen had a bit of a drinking problem, when into his eggnog he had been known to cause quite a stir. I was the small, soft spoken one, without much of a chance to make the team. Fate, my friend, was about to intervene. “

“I was looking for some solvent, some supply that would ease the de-pooing process, when I stumbled upon a can of some unknown substance that seemed to sparkle with it’s own inner light. The smell of it was alluring, and if I needed any more assurance, my name was already on the can!”

“This, I figured, was the key, the magic ingredient that would allow me to defeat my opponents in the sleigh tryouts! Eager to make a test run, I looked around for some water with which to dissolve the crystalline powder, but alas, the elves had used the all of our supply for their hedonistic spa parties. So, with no other choice, I snorted the first of many lines up my willing snout.”

“Mr. Yuk, I swear to you I never thought what I was doing was wrong. If only there was some label to affix to cleansers telling young fawns that these are not things to be monkied around with! But alas, I knew not of their pain, and only of their pleasures. The energy provided to me by that powder quickly led me to the top of the sleigh race and I was on the team!”

“The years passed and I continued to be the fastest, but my addiction got worse. It wasn’t long before I was dipping into stockings, looking for pixie sticks to snort up my increasingly scabby nostrils. On the Christmas run of 2003, I hit the wall. Literally, I led the sleigh into the remains of the Berlin Wall. Oh Rudolph, if only you were there to guide the sleigh on that fateful evening!”
“Santa and I had words, and I broke down, begging for his mercy and help. With a sigh, Santa cut my reigns and pointed into the gloam. I was never to see him, my friends, or family again.”

Well, gentle reader, you can imagine my shagrin and dismay upon hearing this story. In the following months, I worked with Comet to get him off the powder, and started a campaign to get Santa to properly label his detergents and to take young Mr. Comet back. My requests went unheeded, and every Christmas since, Santa has done something despicable to my house, culminating in the scene depicted on my Christmas LTC.

I do not regret my experience however, as Comet has become a loyal friend and hiking partner, and saves me a bundle on airfare!

Skeletons in the Closet, Part 1

It is with heavy heart that I have to post this, but I suppose you cannot lead a political life without a few skeletons bone-dancing out of your closet. The first, in this candidate’s campaign, came on the heels of me announcing my interest in running for the position of first LB President.

Yesterday, prolific carver and all-around wonderful boxer Dale End Farm posted the following message on the AQ boards regarding my personage:

http://www.atlasquest.com/boards/message.html?gMsgId=180291

Now, Santa usually puts coal in the stockings of individuals who have been bad the previous year. Let’s just say that Santa is doing something MUCH worse on my Christmas LTC.

What most people do not understand is that the qualifications for whether you have been “BAD” or “GOOD” is an arbitrary system decided on by Santa himself! And Santa, gentle reader, holds grudges!

It March of this year, it will be four years since the start of my ongoing feud with Santa (which is an anagram for Satan, mind you) started. Though I wish we could make amends and bring an end to this sad state of affairs, Mr. Kringle chooses to continue to harass and intimidate my family.

On that chilly morning in March of 2004, I awoke to a crunching sound, reverberating the house to-and-fro. Concerned as to what could be making such a noise (squirrels in the rafters?), I got out of bed and searched the house. The crunching continued, but a source could not be found. So I put on my boots, hiked up my flannel pajamas, and walked into the yard. Glancing up to the eaves of my roof, I was startled to see a deer (very unlike the whitetails we have in PA) perched on my shingles!

Upon regaining my balance, I shouted up to the deer “Ahoy there, come down from my gambrels this moment!” To my surprise, in one agile bound, the deer floated through the air and landed lightly on the lawn in front of me. While backing up in shock, the deer looked me in the eyes and said:

“Do not be alarmed, sir! It is merely I, Comet, looking for a place to rest from my wanderings!”

At this, I tripped over a brick at the border of my herb garden, fell over backwards, and hit my head upon the northwest corner of my home.

*fades to black*

To be continued!

Major Endorsement!

As a pacifist, vegetarian, and Nobel Prize winning physicist, I would like to briefly step from the ether to lend my wholehearted endorsement of one Mr. Yuk for the upcoming Presidential elections.

Sincerely,

Albert Einstein

Mr. Yuk for Prez

A half-score of years ago, our forefathers brought to this great nation a beginning. A beginning of something great: Letterboxing. Though nigh ten years have passed since the first box twas placed in the fair woodland beauty of the United States, we have seen letterboxing expand and take on realms new and varied, while still remaining true to it’s roots.

I ask you, gentle citizen, would you have this pastime destroyed, torn asunder at it’s very core by vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells. I say no, you wouldn’t. But that very thing is what will happen if you hand the presidency to one of the current “candidates.”

Wassamatta_u? There’s a lottamatta. For one, he has shown a degree of joviality not fitting of a president. Would you want our foreign relations further strained by a Chaplainesqe prankster in his underwear? You would not. Additionally, wassamatta_u is a MOOSE! A moose with a squirrel fetish no less. Who knows what kind of secret signals he receives with those antlers (antennas?) of his.

Team New Hampshire? NAY! I say. Team New Hampshire’s lead man is a modern day Fagin, arming roving bands of delinquents with cooties to trouble the carry-alls, pouches, and bags of many-a-letterboxer. Would you give more power to a man with an army of urchins already at his command, his every beckon call?

MaineKokopellian. I will cite Wikipedia here:

Kokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player (often with a huge phallus and feathers or antenna-like protrusions on his head), who has been venerated by some Native American cultures in the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also a trickster god and represents the spirit of music.

Among the Hopi, Kokopelli carries unborn children on his back and distributes them to women (for this reason, young girls often fear him). He often takes part in rituals relating to marriage, and Kokopelli himself is sometimes depicted with a consort, a woman called Kokopelmana by the Hohokam and Hopi.

‘nuff said.

There is also a fourth candidate, and while I will not choose to cast disparaging remarks at a 10 year old, I would also not choose one to lead me into the future.

What do I offer?

1. I pledge I will contact Heritage Mint directly and not only get them to NOT discontinue the very popular sandwich size of lock-n-lock, I will use my leverage to get them to produce, a smaller, flatter, rectangular size, which this candidate think would be very nice.
2. I will drink beer at least three times per week.
3. I will send ready-made letterboxes to the first ten requesters, so they may plant them as they wish.
4. I will start a national letterbox reclamation committee, designed to bring back historical letterboxes in all areas of the country.
5. I will shower each and every day, except for Sundays, and if I am camping or hiking overnight.

I’m Mr. Yuk, and I’m running for President.