Monday, December 15, 2008

I Can Pee Farther Than You!



In the C.O. circles, it's called a "pissing contest" and I believe the outcome is to see who is the studliest. When cats do it they puff up and yowl and screech and whoever scares the other one away is the winner. All creatures seem to do it. They try to make themselves bigger than their opponent to frighten them away.

I think only humans do it on purpose. And here at the prison, they do it so often and for so little reason you'd think the walls would all be yellow.

OK, kind of icky visuals going on here, I know. Sorry. But for some reason this place seems to be worse than others. If you say the slightest thing to someone about how they do their job, they will puff up and sputter and demand their rights and make a big scene over practically nothing at all. And most of the time, if they don't win the contest (this is my favorite part) they'll get "sick" and have to go home.

OK, yeah. You just showed me. What a studmuffin you are.

I don't know, maybe I'm just weird. When I've screwed up and someone tells me about it, I'll say "OK, I screwed up. Won't do that again. Let's move on." And I've screwed up a few times, believe me. And if someone says I screwed up and I didn't, I'll tell them that, too. That's one of the things working in a prison has taught me. The ability to tell someone to go jump in a lake. There are times when someone just needs to vent and I happen to be there. I can take that, too. And when they wind down I'll ask "Are you done? Good. Now go dork yourself and quit yelling at me." It works out well, most of the time.

But even if I'm pissed off about some injustice or stupidity or another, I'm not just going to go off and leave my work for someone else to take care of. Jeeze. If I've said it once, I've said it a bazillion times: The job is hard enough. Why are you making it harder?

Grow up, take your weight and move on. There's always going to be someone who can pee farther than you and the further up the food chain you move, the liklier that is going to be. It's a fact of life.

Get over yourself.

10 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Imagine that. My first blog spam. I guess I'll have to do something about that. Maybe put in one of those "type the word in the box" thingys. Those are so fun. I guess I should be proud. It wasn't all that long ago that I was the only one here....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Heck, I already had one! It just didn't show cos I was the author. Silly me. Guess I can live with the occasional spam that sneaks by, then.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know all about pissing contests. In my world they are cuz someone want's ownership or authorship over something that they clearly did not write or have much to do with. But they are the boss, so sometimes we used to joke about some one or other having to 'piss all over it' before it was ready to distribute or that we knew it must be ready issue because it was "dripping with yellow."

    Hey, why does your word verification always have the coolest sounding words? I mean sometimes they are beautiful, like words you would hear in some poem or something. Check it out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. See, I didn't even know I had one til I went to put one in! It doesn't show up on my page because I'm the author.
    I always enjoy seeing what word will pop up when I post on yours Auntie dear. SOme of them are awesome. I'll start putting the verification word in brackets at the end of my posts. You'll see!

    ReplyDelete
  6. going home is "I can whine more than you...) LOL
    word veri....rappar....cool eh?
    loopy again

    ReplyDelete
  7. Today's word for your site was (prucavio)

    It's a very tasty Italian mixture of a very tiny amount of anchovies, freshly grated parm, fresh basil and olive oil broiled on top of a piece of bread.

    Or at least in my imagination it is.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well said.

    I like to give myself and others a small 'kvetching allowance' to vent whatever injustice has been done but then, people, it's time to get over it and move on.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Trish- I agree wholeheartedly. I'll give anyone an allowance and every dog must have his day, but once that day is done I'm moving on. My job has taught me control, it hasn't taught me to be a punching bag.

    Rappar- A deep deep tissue massage where they remove your bones, polish them, and put them back.
    Prucavio- An exquisite intalian delicacy served only in the popes private dining room. The recipe is said to have passed down secretly for over five hundred years.

    ReplyDelete