There I was. Drunk in another motel room. In my defense I had a solidly mediocre job and I was just trying to get some sleep. The "neighbors" tonight decided they were going to throw a party at 10pm and blast loud trap music and the front desk wasn't doing anything. I assumed they cared about their job about as much as I did mine, which is to say not much.
They were probably involved now that I think about it. The front desk lady did seem like she was 18 and cute. "cute" in the way that makes me kinda awkward because I am approaching 30, unattractive, and it's just not ok to be flirting with someone that young. I have to be nice though since I am wearing my shitty royal blue lite-tech company polo and wearing a hat with their company name and logo on it. If I was too much of a dick I'd get another "counseling" plan which would just be awkward for my boss and I because we both knew I was over qualified and the only one in the office that would do the shit work that ends you up in a sketchy ass motel in the middle of bum-fuck-Arkansas. I am bitching about something that doesn't even matter any more. I am not on that world any more. There is no bum-fuck-Arkansas here.
On the off chance you want to know what I did here we go:
I got paid 60k/yr to mostly drive around and look at buildings and telephone polls. "OSP Design Engineer" was my official title. For this company the "Design" part of the job is mostly a sad joke. Even though I have more design experience and Telecommunication experience than anyone in the main office, I was the only one without a kid or family so I got the joy of doing all the site surveys. That doesn't sound bad at all on the surface and that's how THEY get you. During the interview I asked all the right questions and got fucking lied too. I was told I would have a small service area. This was what I was told. What actually ended up happening is the 2 other guys that started with me got fired within 2 weeks. Both had DUIs on their record, which even desperate companies can't look past when you're driving a shitty company truck around. Basically I went to customer buildings and walked them through what was going to happen for their new fiber instillation. Occasionally I actually did the instillation when the union guys didn't want to drive 16 hours and stay overnight in a Motel to do 3 hours worth of work. Most of the time construction crews had to come out and burry new fiber and I had to tell the customer that the sales guy lied to him because "the construction crew has a 4 month back log". Except I learned during my first "Counseling" session that you can't JUST give that dick head sales guy's phone number to the customer and tell them to yell at him and that "It's not my job to do the schedule but he does know how backed up construction is. I am on a call with him every morning and he just flat lied to you that we can get a mile of cable placed next week".
"That's not being a TEAM player and TEAM doesn't have an I" is what I was told. What's funny is the same HR representative that was in that "counseling session" with me and my boss made a slogan that said "TEUM... We're all in this together and it's the U that matters". I am not joking. That is the caliber of workers that the telecommunications field hires. And no, it's not because we were a small company. This was while working for one of the "Big 3" telecommunication monopolies that constantly bend the consumers over the barrel and the only time they didn't do that is when they were fucking the employees over more.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Astute readers will notice that I had got myself into this position and honestly it seems like I would have been "let go" at a more reasonable job. They are right, which is why I punish my liver and try to make it through the next day. My liver knows what it did.
All of this is to say I am hopefully going to be happier as an OSP Design Engineer in the Sneles starting area in "The Echo Universe!!!" I am getting a bit ahead of myself here but there's only so long I can bitch about my old job.
There's one big problem. Which I would have known if I read the Legalese on the contact letter that was wrote to me by some high fantasy elf lawyer and sent to me via my new guide who is a high level wizard. Actually.... If I had just read the actual letter and not even the Legalese on the back I would have known, but I was drunk. Not tipsy, drunk drunk. Drunk and might have to go run to the motel bathroom while holding vomit back drunk. I was in no shape to read anything so when a honest to god system UI poped up in my view and looked like the old Halo 2 HUD with a shield bar flashing red and buzzing annoyingly I was at first startled and then trying to hold back vomit. Where was I? Oh yeah... we'll get there in a minute.
I rightfully thought I was hallucinating. HUDs don't just pop up. I tried willing the stupid thing away and the HUD vanished and the shield sound stopped. I rubbed my eyes and sat up in the bed not realizing I had fallen asleep. Which was a good thing to be fair. That was the goal of the drinking tonight. started to lay back down while trying to ignore the loud trap music and I noticed that when I closed my eyes I saw a little mail icon in the bottom right of my vision. Kinda small and had a little 1 next to it. In my inebriated and half awake state I Screamed out in frustration "NOT MORE FUCKING EMAILS"!
Interdimensional emails. A fate worse than death. Being bored to death from having to answer questions from space Elves and I CAN'T JUST TURN OFF MY COMPUTER AND PRETEND TO BE AWAY FROM MY DESK DOING WORK. My bosses could literally reach me at any time and would never stop sending emails. I was panicking. I broke out into a cold sweat and mentally clicked the box. It was a response engrained into me by the middle-do-nothing managers who all made the work day worse and yelled at me numerous times for ignoring email when at my work station. I had to click, besides my logic part of my brain had stopped working because I knew I had to be dead and in Hell. If I was thinking logically I would have realized that it had to be a dream because HUDs do not pop up and interdimensional emails don't exist. The bad Space Elf that was torturing me had to be fake, and a dick for sending me an email at 10pm at night.
Then the letter opened. I didn't read it. In a dunked move I just skimmed the subject line, scrolled to the bottom, and hit yes.
The subject line was pretty damn cool though and while I might bitch about how stupid the decision was I still would have said yes. The subject line said: "Hello Being. We are extending an invitation to you to come join us in the Echo universe!!!!" with numerous exclamation marks and all. While scrolling down I saw things like "class/race change", "Gender", and "5e".
As I was clicking Yes my brain went "Well I know this isn't from my boss because that prick is racist and thinks Gender is a joke" which was high up on the list of reasons to hate him. I didn't really get through the end of the next thought about how bad my boss was before I blacked out. And threw up. Presumably on the Motel bed. Get in line ladies.