Subject : I love my job
This  is even funnier when you realize it's real!  Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy.
Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana .  He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.  Below is an  E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103..2 FM  in Ft. Wayne , Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.

 Hi Sue,

 Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.   Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all .

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.  As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea.   I wear a suit to  the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool.  So what we do to keep warm is this : We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. 

It heats it to a delightful temperature.  It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and  I've used it several times with no complaints.  What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
 
 Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it.  This only made things worse..  Within a few seconds my butt started to burn . I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done.. In agony I realized what had happened.

 The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.   Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it.   However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate.  When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.  I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. 

His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with Five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.  Needless to say I aborted the dive.. I was instructed to make three agonizing =20in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression.  When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber.

The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.

 So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up &g t; your butt.  Now repeat to yourself, 'I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.'

 Now whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day?   May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!   Pass this on to all your friends, just incase they're having a bad day!!!

Okay, this may sound strange, but bear with me.  You should keep a can of Sardines in your car/messenger bag/Gucci hand-bag.  First, they are very good for you, with lots of stuff that people who care about food are saying is just plain good for you.  Also, this is a good fish to buy, as it is small and breeds a lot.  This seems to be important.

The best thing about a can of Sardines, is how you can apply it.

A)  Great for attracting stray or roaming animals.

B)  Great for a Power Snack.

C)  Great for slicing into bits, to place behind the hub-caps of the bastard in your life.

D)  Great bastard repellent.  Eat one fish and that SOB will back off like you are on fire.

The main problem with Sardines, is we have yet to figure out how to send them over the phone-lines to telemarketers.  Ideas, anyone?

I know, I've been a bit behind in my new series of helpful hints and solutions.  So I just wanted to give you a lovely idea that helped me handle those pesky telemarketers.  I don't have any trouble with them, as I have no "real life".  However, my best friend Cricket is inundated with 'em.

Now, I know that there are "Do not call" numbers that you can ring to fight these tedious folk, but that is not so much fun.  For example, I picked up Cricket's phone at the shore, to the lovely call from a stranger wanting to sell.  Now, I hate to leave a good opportunity to lie.  So I did.

I explained that I wasn't the home owner, didn't know them and in fact, I'd just broken in to this empty house.  I waited, but none of the local police force came.  Shame.  I love a man in a uniform.

Next unsolicited call you get, look at it as a chance to let your imagination free.  These people need to know that their calls are valued, for the great improv ground that they supply.  Let me know how it goes.

Hello Jack,

Look at me using fancy fonts and colours!  Nothing like blogging to make you learn useless stuff on the fly.

Wow, sounds like you are up to your knees in it.  So sorry.  I have a couple of ideas to throw your way, for what they are worth.

I am working on a big ole house up the street.  The kid (19) helped Doug Pxxxxx out quite a bit.  Doug has been using him where possible, also thinking to send him over to Steve at Kitchen Sink.  Anyway, he's a warm body at $10 an hour.  He's also a HS dropout with teenager issues.  You would probably like him.  But I digress.

Ya, we really haven't talked in a bit.  Warn your clients that one of your previous employees has papers and has just been released from the State Mental Hospital.  That she is grateful that you stood by her in her time of need, unlike her parents.  That she is unpredictable when upset and seems disturbed that you aren't getting paid.  Feel free to use my name and number.  Hell, I'd give you my green card number too, but it is still being replaced....eleven months after I filed.
 
I knew not of the duplex, but am happy to hear about it.  I guess you'll rent out the house until you find a better market?  As to your impoverished tenants, there are a couple of options.  In Philly we have something called Tenant/Landlord Action Bureau.  I suspect that you have something similar in Media.  Call them to chat.

Also, we have a friend Terry, who lost her job at one point.  Having left her slob of a husband and with two kids to support, she sprang into action.  She worked THREE jobs, all of them shitty.  Like WaWa, but with cooties.  I think it is admirable that you care for your tenants, but they need to return the favour.

They need to start paying some form of "good faith" rent to you, say half of the rent.  You'd need to draw up papers for this with your TLAB for everyone's protection.  I'd chat with the TLAB first, to see what they think, then approach your tenants.  I believe eviction takes at least two months, so you should move on this to avoid further potential losses.

Also, can they trade work on the duplex for rent?  Do they have family that your lunatic ex-employee could start harassing with a disposable phone?  Have you considered calling in the Evil One?  Margaret could have them signing away their first decade's bonus sign-on checks in under an hour.

This shit is serious.  The Big M may be your best option.  But don't take my word for it.  My father may be a banker, but I have yet to balance a check book.  Go get yourself one of those Magic 8 Balls, if yours has broken or been nicked.  It's going to tell you what you need to hear, scientifically.

Also, this is an unfailing way to know where your true heart and mind is.  First, get yourself a coin.  Second, flip it to make decisions about any of the above.  If you chose to make it Best Out Of Three, when it was only Heads Or Tails, you'll know where your gut tells you to go.

As to me, thanks to Cricket signing a loan, I am going to become a dog-trainer.  Hopefully in a year from now, the only painting I'll be doing will be in our house.  I have a show coming up on the first Friday of Feb, and I'll send you the info.  I did learn a couple of things last year:

How to retrieve a broken blade from a jig-saw.

How to drive stick-shift.

How to hack HTML.

How to change from a litter mate to a pack leader.

How to find the prison pod that I was holding an AA meeting in.

I did also make my bank crap available on-line, but still haven't figured out what I'm s'posed to type in as my ID.  So this year, starting this week, I am trying to keep track of my money.  You know, like every day and that.  Cocoa Puffs, right?

I think also I should revamp my American Sign Language and start seriously learning Spanish.  If I do end up working with service dogs, these will be useful.

Anyway, do give me a jingle.  I'll pick up for you, unless I'm driving, up a ladder, or socializing.  Hey, if you guys are super bored, Cricket and I were going to this School of Rock show on Saturday.  It's an awful program in that they encourage tone deaf kids to sing, but the music is good.  My friend Natalie's daughter, a Gory elfin, plays base.  She's in the first few sets, which means an early exit for once!  Cricket is coming because they are playing punk.  She has no idea.  One of the sick songs little Lydia is playing is by the Misfits.  They'll make Sid proud, that no-talent wonder!

I'll shut up now.  My number is 215-555-5555

Be sure and tell Michael about all this.  It'll drive him crazy that I didn't talk to him.

But only if you want to.  You can always flip the coin.

May your days be a paradise of love, light, butterflies and kisses and your nights filled with stars, passion, beauty and garden slugs.

Love, D

Okay, even the burning Bush administration has acknowledged that the Greenhouse Effect is maybe, even possibly a real, um, thing like, sorta, well, thingy.  Which doesn't mean that all those folks at Greenpeace are being crossed off the list of people to wire-tap.  But hey, it's time to shop, so who gives a flying endangered species!  Or endangered planets!  We've got a real problem.  Chaney is looking for a job.  Like the rest of us.  Anyway, I have a couple of nifty ideas that should solve the whole Greenhouse Effect.  Bear with me, because this is real Science.

Okay, so the the first idea has to do with the laws of Thermodynamics, which many of us may not recall from our education.  I offer you a quick cheat sheet, which isn't hard, because there are basically two laws of Thermodynamics.  In a nutshell:

1)  The first law of Thermodynamics:  Heat is work and work is heat.

2)  The second law of Thermodynamics:  You can't pass heat from the cooler to the hotter.

Failing that, I have second idea.   A concept which may at first seem a tad on the radical side,  even slightly maverick?  But please bear with me.  Walking on the moon was radical, putting rovers on Mars was radical, finding the Titanic was radical, even Google is bloody radical.  Are you with me so far?  Alright, here are some facts, first:


In 1815 the Indonesian volcano Tambora errupted, with ash spewing out of the thirteen-thousand-foot peak, plunging the area into utter darkness for days.  Around thirty-six cubic miles of ejecta spewed forth.


In 1816, the "year without summer" occurred.  In June, snow fell in the northeast of the US, sometimes as much as twenty inches, with flakes as large as two inches across.  Ruined crops resulted, thanks to blizzards and frost that were in effect for five days.  Although the farmers replanted, the freaky, frozen weather returned in July, August and September.


In 1920, they figured out that the blast of Mount Tambora had caused this cold summer.  They realized that the volcano blasted up into the stratosphere huge quantities of fine dust particles, which remained suspended there for years and reduced the amount of warming sunlight able to reach the earth's surface.  The opposite of the greenhouse effect. *





* The Pessimist's Guide to History. Doris Flexner & Stewart Berg Flexner.




Think about it.  This is a golden opportunity.  See, we think about some dirt that we are tired of having around.  Then we shoot it into space.  A couple of years later, we'll be feeling quite cold.  But we knew it was coming, so we've stocked up.  We'd have those clever light bulbs that mimic sunlight, saving us from Seasonal Depression, stockpiles of processed and canned foods and street salt out the wazoo.


A summer or two of cold and we could all be driving SUVs with no guilt.  We'd need SUVs to get over the big ole snow piles and frozen wildlife.  Details.  So, stop recycling and all that rot.  We need to stuff the landfills with crap to shoot into space, now!

In a miraculous world, some events are beyond comprehension.  Nano-technology, the popularity of grave "blankets", Taco Bell and tea-cup dog breeds.  That said, I have recently been gob-smacked by some new reader's comments.  Why?  Because even though they are from "Sarah" or "Susan", they say exactly the same thing!  How freaky is that?  Here's a comment from, um, "Sarah":

 I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

"Sarah";  (link to product I'd never buy).


OK, now here's one from her psychic twin, "Susan":

 I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

"Susan";  (link to product I'd never buy).


Now, I don't want you to get "Susan" confused with Susan, who is a really lovely woman, a talented writer and has probably never eaten Spam before in her life, unlike my new, thin fan "Alice".  "Alice" took the time to let me know that she'd lost some weight, in the comments area after I gave out the Arte Y Pico Awards:

I lost 13 lbs in only two weeks by obeying this one easy rule
http://www.You think I'm going to let you know what the silly cow linked?

....(Other comments omitted for the sake of time), so I replied:

ALICE~

I'm very happy to hear of your loss. Did that include part of your brain?

I'm just curious, because you shared about your diminished size in my comment forum, where the post had been about awards.

I think your weight loss was probably due to a diet consisting completely of SPAM.

....(Other comments omitted for the sake of time), so again, I give you "Alice":

I lost 13 lbs in only two weeks by obeying this one easy rule
http://www.I'm not going to give you the bloody link!
 
....(Other comments omitted for the sake of time), so I replied:
 
ALICE~

Alright already. You really need to stay away from those cans of Spam. You are clearly suffering from acute Spamaholia. You can't see the signs, but honey, we can

You are repetitive, self-absorbed and quite honestly, a tad rude. So, here's the deal. I'm going to delete any more comments that you post.

After all, it's not like you are saying anything new.
 
So, I guess I'm going to have to start moderating the comments.  Not because anyone writes anything hateful or malevolent.  But because evil breeds well in the banal.  So it may take time for your comments to appear, as I'm not always on top of things.  If you wish to register a complaint, stop by Alice's Spam Diner.

Well, in light of the last post, I should have followed it up with something Deep, Meaningful and Related.  Well, lucky for me and maybe you, I can at least address the latter.  So grab a mug of your favourite shot/drink, and listen closely.  This may even be a Cautionary Tale, if you work as a Waitress in a Dive Bar, or you find that you are surrounded by folks like you:  Folks who have been Abducted by Aliens.

It's a story I don't tell too often, and it happened almost twenty years ago.  I was the day bartender in a Center City taproom, with Lorrie as the Waitress.  She was large, bovine and without any wit or humour.  One day I found out why.  She had been Abducted by Aliens.

Taking a break from serving 50 cent mugs of beer, I had glommed on a magazine about Aliens lying on the bar.  It was at the end of the bar, where she and I would sit in slow times.  I perused it, chortling away, until she brought me up short.  It was Her magazine and she was reading it because she'd been Abducted by Aliens.

She was a bit pissy, saying that many people believe in Ghosts. whilst people like her had no credit.  I had to agree with her on that point, but I was still a little bothered by the details.  See, Lorrie told me that she'd been taken over by an Alien Force, that Her Body Housed It and that They were Planning To Do, mn, Stuff.

Now, I'll admit that I see and hear things.  Some might be valid visions of a reality that most will never see.  Lorrie told me that They'd Taken, Examined, Probed and Entered Her.  This may be true.  But if I were an Alien, I might set my sights for a Host higher than a Waitress in a Dive Bar.

You know, sometimes life can be strange.  From the duck-billed platypus, the inscrutable popularity of Regis, quantum theory, "Smart Water",  alien abductions, (I worked with a survivor; more on that later),  Bush's second term and robots on Mars, we live in a wild and wacky world.  Today, through the miracle of the internet, I bring you a story that boggles even my loopy mind:

The Greater Grace Temple in Detroit held a prayer service for the auto industry's bailout.  That is not the part that astounded me.  Their pastor, Reverend Charles Ellis has taken it to a whole, um, higher level.  The Reverend held this service with some props that bothered even some of the faithful, as well as some in the political blogger arena.  See, up on the stage of the mega-church, in front , three SUVs gleamed.  You read that right.  An SUV from each of the Detroit auto-makers, Chevy, Ford and Chrysler.  They were shiny, white and hybrids, donated by the companies.

Rev. Ellis plans on praying and fasting until the government gives the auto-makers a bailout.  Other pastors in Detroit are joining him in this commitment.  During the service, Reverend Ellis exhorted the congregation to do likewise.   The last big event held at Greater Grace was the funeral of Ms. Rosa Parks.

This event, though?  Look, I'm leery of organized religion, especially when they come in large crowds.  But this smacks me as a tad creepy.  The Ten Commandments say in Exodus: 

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

And in Deuteronomy: 


8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me,


Now I know that there can be many differences in translations of language, but it seems that the gist of both of these books have the same basic message.  SUVs parked behind the pulpit?  I'm not sure what part of any major religion these vehicles play.

Oh, and if you are still waiting to hear about the alien abductee I mentioned above, shame on you!  But, I'm with you, petal.  The next post will be about Lorrie, a tap-room waitress abducted by aliens.