Good Life, Toxic Job

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Yesterday at work was rough in that
A. I don’t give a shit
B. I am tired of doing tech support for products that kill people’s pets
C. I have learned again that the brand name I am responsible for is to be denied any money at all for marketing and advertising. In fact, we may have to do without a catalog.

Yet I am expected to increase sales anyway.

It’s a good think I’m a Witch. I will obviously need all the magick I can get. It is also a good thing that I am in Alcoholics Anonymous and practicing these principles in all my affairs because I really wanted to hurt my supervisor when I learned about those three things. It is clear that my job is not worth drinking over. It is less clear that my job is not worth a homicide charge.

I am very torn about what I will do if company O, the one who approached me about a job, makes me an offer. Do I want to keep doing what I am doing right now? I don’t think so.

One of the reasons I went to work in the pet industry is because I thought I would be working with people like myself; people who like animals and are happy to have made a career out of working with and for animals. I was dead wrong. The pet industry is, like many other industries, filled with people who could give a damn about anything other than money. Which is why I now know when I enter Petsmart or Petco that the aquarium chemicals were probably only tested in the most cursory way and are potentially lethal to the fish.

We had one client who wanted us to make an eye rinse for a specific type of pet. When he was asked if it should be kind of a mild disinfectant or should it be a saline rinse, what was he looking for, he replied, “So long as it doesn’t blind the fuckers I don’t care what it does.”

So we went and bought his competitors product and copied it exactly, wrote label text to indicate it was better and more potent and now I see it in Petsmart, Petco and independent pet stores everywhere.

One of the things I am supposed to be practicing as an AA member is rigorous honesty. I ‘m practicing that as part of this blog right here. But it gets harder and harder every single day to leave those ideals outside the door of work when I go in each morning and remember to pick them up again on my way out. I think I would rather be a drug dealer, at least then I don’t have to pretend to care if the product hurts anyone.

I try to maintain a positive attitude towards life nowadays but at this particular moment I am not happy with work and I have some real fears that if I go to the new job I will have similar problems because again they will care only about the bottom line.

Before I post this I need to note that my entire life is not that way. In fact my marriage is wonderful, my wife loves me and I can return that love in turn. My sponsor is about to have her job ease up on her so we are about to work the twelve steps again and that is great news for me. My coven is going swimming today so that is cool.

Time to set down work and leave it for the time being. I am not going to let these resentments ruin a weekend.

Thank You, Goddess Brigit, for all of the blessings You have seen fit to bestow upon me. I am grateful to be here and be sober today. Please help me stay sober all day long. Thank You, Blessed Be!