Sticky Beak
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The Skinny
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...life in small Northern towns, working for assholes, boys who refuse to become men, synthetic personalities, anorexic models and their link to emotional scarring, bad marijuana trips, crazies on BC Transit, beer, piece of shit cars, living out of a suitcase paycheck to paycheck, unrequited love, Seinfeld, minimum-wage jobs, broken New Year�s resolutions, and over-limit Visa accounts.
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Dude, You're Fucked... So, here's a little riddle for you. The last time I smoked pot was probably about 7 years ago when I had decided to become an FBI agent, just like Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs. I thought she was so kick ass that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up, so readily gave up the weed - which never did much for me anyway, except cause me to wig out, turn into the Cheshire Cat and all my friends into little yellow stickmen. Although my 'ambitions' have obviously changed route since then, I never did go down the yellow brick road again. So how is it, then, that when I had my urine tested last month as part of the whole rigmarole for cruise ship pre-employment physicals it came back positive for drugs???? When I contacted the clinic to inquire about this, they advised me that the urine was only positive in one of 10 areas tested � but the lady on the phone didn�t understand what was positive or why it may have come back that way. All I know is that my physical is marked �positive� for urine drug analysis, which ultimately means I�m screwed for cruise ship employment. Or, as Luba would say, �Dude, You�re Fucked.� This whole experience with trying to get onto a cruise ship has been a true test of perseverance and patience. I�m not exactly what you might call strong in either one of those aspects, so it�s definitely been a challenge for me. The whole process began back in November � it�s now June � when out of sheer panic under the weight of my goddamned car payments I flipped through the classifieds looking for part-time evening work or weekends delivering newspapers like some goddamned nine year old child. The part of the ad that caught my eye was �Free Room & Board.� That�s what got me, because � as my family can attest to � I�m a freeloading, couch-surfing mooch. And at the time that I found this ad, like most times in my life, I had neither a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, so living for free while making tax-free dollars sounded pretty goddamned good to me. Despite this motivation, I was delayed by several roadblocks. For starters, the business is difficult as hell to break into � all of the cruise lines are absolutely inundated with applications from all over the world and competition is fierce. In an effort to skirt the line-ups, I enlisted a recruiter based out of Squamish, BC who did the square root of sweet bugger all in the 4 months that I �worked� with her. She never sent me a single email or called me� what a useless tit. By some stroke of luck, I found another recruiter on Vancouver Island who immediately returned my call and set me up for an interview, which ultimately culminated in an on-the-spot hire. Now here it is June and I just got a package from the company that hired me indicating this is my official �you�re on deck� call � it could be anytime between 1 � 6 months from now that I get a placement. Fuck. Another 6 months. Shitty for me that I quit my job back in February, before I even got word of the interview. Not that I would have stayed there anyway� I�d taken all that I could of my goddamned asshole boss yelling �HOOOOLEEE� every five minutes from his office behind me, and of the politics between 'us' (aka: grunts) and 'them' (aka: senior managment). Regardless, now I'm in a catch twenty-two where I don't know whether I should return to my normal shitty little life until I finally get the call, or if I should close my eyes, cross my fingers and hope like hell that they call me before I wind up entirely broke and on the street. sigh Of course, all of this may be a moot point, since my urine results indicate that I�m some sort of an addict. Not only that, but the goddamned doctor that completed the paperwork for me was in a hurry and inadvertently indicated that my septum is not intact, and � although I have no cavities, gingivitis or mouth sores � apparently I have poor dental hygiene. Wonderful. Just what every employer wants; a cleft-palate drug addict with a rotting mouth. Excellent. |