Daily writing prompt
What’s your dream job?
to have a dream job, I suppose one would have to have dreams.
And dreams are something that I’ve never had, at least not for a long while.
Growing up, especially in the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao, my only dreams were to die. To die and have my father blamed for my death. That was about my only dream.
I always had dreams of Richard going off to prison for a very long time
When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, my father and my stepmother used to use Canada’s Wonderland as “Richard’s and Sue’s Discount Babysitting Service”, or at least that’s what Scott called it.
Back when Wonderland first opened up, and I think for the first season or two, it had introductory unlimited access and unlimited rides for $29.95. Richard and Sue would drop
I used to dream that I’d get kidnapped from Canada’s Wonderland, that I’d get murdered, and that my body would then be found by a hiker in the woods. And that after identifying my skeleton, the police would go talk to Richard, and Richard would lie, and lie, and lie, and that he’d eventually fess up and that the judge would sentence him to prison with extra time added on for his lies.
But, that never happened.
I’m now 54 years old, and I still dream and ponder about how life would have worked out for Richard if I had been kidnapped and killed.
So far as dream job goes, I’ve never had a dream job.
I wanted to join the Canadian Forces when I was younger, but that never went anywhere due to the recruiting centre “obtaining some information” about me that indicated that I was an unsuitable candidate for service. I think this had to do with Captain Totzke’s paperwork being in my father’s service file, which would have been available for the recruiting service.
I’m probably lucky that I was never enlisted in the Canadian Forces. I don’t really know how well my psyche would have held up in an environment where the truth isn’t based upon reality but is instead based upon the whims and desires of the chain of command.
If I had enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces I’d probably have to have hidden so deeply in the closet that I’d be somewhere in Narnia.
Working in bowling centres was never what I’d call a dream job. But seeing as how I brought skills to bowling centres that most bowling centres wouldn’t be able to afford, I was always afforded a lot of leeway. I don’t know how well me being trans and going on hormones would have been tolerated at some of the centres, but other centres would have been okay.
There was one guy I worked for in Vancouver. He owned an electronics installation company. He started the company with money that he got from his parents. He couldn’t understand why I just didn’t get some money from my parents and start something up that I liked to do.
Two problems with that. There was never going to be any money from my father, or my stepmother, or my real mother. I don’t blame Sue. I didn’t burst forth from her crotch. Richard? Yeah, fuck no. His responsibility to my brother and I ended when he ejaculated. My mother? Richard having the military chuck her out of the military housing on Summerside destroyed her and turned her into a husk of herself, especially with Richard’s bullshit about her just abandoning the family and running of with a guy named Gus from the P.P.C.L.I..
People often ask me why I’m so leery about guys like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, or the various others I’ve known in my life that often portray themselves as self made and living the lives that they lead after years and years of hard work.
I worked under a general manager once who only got his job because his father knew one of the board members of the company. His business degrees were worth less than used toilet paper. His managerial skills consisted of overt threats and convincing people that other people were out to get their jobs. Yes, this manager ended up getting replaced, but not before numerous people who had been with the company for years up and quit. Of course, as fate would have it for the well connected, he ended up failing into a job with more pay and more prestige.
I had a co-worker that wasn’t all that bright, caused far more harm than good, but as he didn’t have crippling depression and debilitating anxiety he could glad-hand his way into positions that he didn’t belong in.
It’s as they say, if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.
If it wasn’t for Errol Musk and his involvement with emerald mining, especially being compensated with roughage that he could then process and keep the proceeds from, Elon wouldn’t have been able to jet set from South Africa to Canada and then into America. According to Errol, any time that Kimbal or Elon needed money for anything, the safe was wide open. If it wasn’t for Maye Musk being Canadian, there would have been no back door for Musk to entre America through.
Musk didn’t found Paypal.
Musk didn’t found Tesla.
Musk did assemble SpaceX, but without SpaceX being awarded a multi-billion dollar contract from NASA for flights to resupply the International Space Station, SpaceX would never have become anything. What’s even more amazing about SpaceX is that it received its first contract with NASA without even having a rocket ready to go.
Jeff Bezos nearly lost everything in the early ’90s with his early attempt at a being a book reseller on the early Internet. Luckily for Jeff, a near 1/4 million dollar loan that his parents facilitated kept him from insolvency and allowed him to start what became Amazon. And now Amazon both via patents and just the sheer magnitude of his empire, Bezos can prevent any and all competition.
William Henry Gates the 3rd is NOT the plucky little guy that started from nothing. The Gates family is a well established and well monied Seattle family going back generations. Bill Gates and Paul Allen both went to the same exclusive school in Seattle. Their respective families were able to get them access time on mainframe computers where they could hone their programming skills. This was at a time when access to mainframes was about $1,000.00/hr. This was before the advent of home computers.
Bills mother was a socialite who hung out with the wives of board member of IBM. This was at a time when IBM was looking to release a personal computer. IBM had the hardware, but they didn’t have an operating system. However it happened, Bill’s mother found out from a wife of an IBM board member, and Bill’s mother told Bill.
Bill Gates then did what any kid with access to easy money did, he bought a licence from a small company in Seattle called the Seattle Computer Company for their product called “Quick and Dirty DOS”, rebranded the QD-DOS as Microsoft DOS and sold a lot of units of this new “MS-DOS” to IBM, and quickly pissed off the Seattle Computer company.
Did I mention that Bill had one of the most influential Seattle lawyers as a father and the founder of the Seattle First National Bank was his grandfather?
Donald Trump is the ultimate Nepotism Baby. Donald would be nothing if it wasn’t for the real estate empire that his father built in New York city. This empire was built from tax payer dollars that were paid to Fred Trump by the US Govt. to build housing for American troops returning from WWII. The fact that the Trumps are even in America is solely due to the fact that when Friedrich Drumpf immigrated to America, immigration requirements were almost non-existent. Friedrich Drumpf immigrated to America he only to avoid a prison sentence in his home country of Bavaria which he was given for failing to enlist for compulsory military service. Friedrich also had no proper documentation when he came to America as Bavaria had stripped him of his citizenship. If Friedrich Drumpf were to try to immigrate to America today he would be refused entry.
Fred Trump was one of the most reviled slumlords in American history. The many scams of the Trumps are far too numerous to list here, but they are publicly available for review.
Needless to say that Donald wouldn’t have reached where he is today if it wasn’t for his family’s money.
Almost everyone in a position of influence these days got there solely due to family money.
This isn’t to say that I would have had a happy life if I had family money, but having family money opens up a lot of doors for a person.
I’ve had co-workers that fell into good positions in life solely due family money or family connections.
And quite honestly I do get rather sick and tired of people telling me that if I wasn’t such a lazy asshole and such a whiny crybaby that I could have simply applied myself and I could have easily been something.
A lot of what the world is these days is people using their family capital to build their personal wealth and empire. And once they build that wealth, they use every means at their disposal to prevent challengers. Microsoft, Apple, etc. don’t own thousands upon thousands of unused patents for no reason at all.
But having family money early on would have allowed me to go to school, maybe to have travelled when I was younger. Maybe bought a house. And afforded myself the ability to have recovered from the trauma of CFB Namao, of my grandmother, of my father, and of Captain Terry Totzke.
Maybe then I could have discovered what a “dream job” was.
When I was 10 years old I was given an IQ test as part of a psychiatric evaluation by my civilian social workers in an attempt to ascertain what the fuck was going on in my brain.
136 +/- 6 was the result of my test.
At work I’m reviled by everyone there.
Every attempt that I make to bring my section into the modern era is met with heavy resistance. Almost every initiative that I’ve tried to institute to ensure compliance with the Safety Standards Act just meets with more stubborn resistance.
I know that I shouldn’t be here.
But power engineering was the only way that a “poor” like me could get into a union position that would protect me and allow me to move out of the life of poverty that the Canadian Armed Forces and my father had assigned me to.
I thought that power engineering was my ticket to the future, but then I very quickly realized that power engineering is just to ensure that there is a warm body in the plant so that mgmt. can assure Tech Safety BC that they are meeting the requirement to have a warm body in the seat as required.
And that’s it.
Nothing more than glorified plunger jockeys.
Yes, I know that I’m too smart for my position and that my knowledge and my abilities intimidate other people.
Yes, I know that I am a complete asshole for not teaching people how to do what I do because I do it so easy.
Yes, I can troubleshoot computer networking issues. But it’s not because I received special training. I just read the books and read the manuals.
I don’t like computers. I don’t play computer games. I don’t edit videos. I don’t make music.
But I can RTFM ( Read The Fucking Manual).
I am also not afraid to call or email tech support for guidance.
It seems like anything that I do at work unleashes the rage of my co-workers.
Run a fibre optic network between the Generator Control system in Phase II over to the Burrard Building power house to eliminate a long standing communication issue with the 600 volt breakers in the Burrard Building?
“Why the fuck is that asshole sticking his fucking business into this, why doesn’t he fuck off and stay in his own lane?”. “The Fuck is wrong with him, the asshole isn’t a licenced electrician so he shouldn’t be touching any of this fucking shit!”
Troubleshoot a long standing communication issue with the Phase II Delayed Vital MODbus network?
“Is he even fucking certified to work on this? What if he destroys a breaker?”
They may think that I don’t hear them, but I hear them.
Their voices, and their sideway glances, and the conversations behind closed doors are easily overheard.
These are the things that I’ve heard all of my life.
“Bobbie’s just trying to make me look bad”
“Bobbie’s just hiding this knowledge from me. If it was easy for a moron like him to learn then he should be able to teach me. Sure, I don’t like computers, I don’t even own one, but he should be able to teach me how to set-up a MODbus to IP gateway ’cause if Bobbie can do it how fucking hard can it be?
“If he wants to work with networking or electronics, why the fuck isn’t he taking a diploma course?”
People have asked why I’m not going to the new hospital even though I was involved on the design committee for the new site.
There were two individuals in particular that went to every extent possible to make sure that I understood that my presence was not wanted on the committee and that I was to stay in my own lane and that anything that I had to say was limited to my power engineer certificate and that anything that I had to say beyond this was not going to be accepted.
These two persons in particular, well there’s a third, but I don’t have to deal with him, made sure that I understood what my place was and that freaks like me aren’t welcome in their new state-of-the-art playhouse.
Get a diploma?
Get a certificate?
Fuck, I don’t even want to get out of bed, how the fuck am I supposed to have enough strength to overcome my daemons and get a fucking diploma or a certificate?
And besides, I’m not fucking 18 years old, or even 24 years old.
I’m 54 fucking years old.
No savings, no real estate, no fucking nothing.
So no, there is no dream job.
There’s just the fucking eternal hell of knowing that I’ll never have the opportunities that should have been mine. That certain assholes will always dangle these opportunities in front of my eyes to ensure that I know that they know what I’ll never have.
p.s.
There was a study that that looked at the outcomes of children with high IQs. It was started in the 1920s in California by the father of the modern IQ test, Lewis Terman. These children were traced all throughout their lives. What surprised Lewis Terman 30 years into this study was that his hypothesis that IQ levels were hereditary was wrong, the parents of the children with high IQs that went on to have better incomes had higher educations, had better jobs, lower divorce rates, and more books in the household. Almost all of the kids that came from poor families with lower education levels and lower expectations of their children ended up as “failures” of no significance that “wasted” their talents.
Beeshive 