True Job Security, Part 1

I still feel confident that I will get a nursing job soon enough. That is, unless before that time comes a rich philanthropist reads my blog and decides I am deserving of a large fortune, much like Pip from the Dickens classic Great Expectations. On a side note, I have been meaning to make more literary allusions in my writing so that my subscribers can feel more accomplished once they have read my blog.   

Then, when my subscribers are having insightful, scholarly discussions as they often do, they can quote GoodIdeaJohnG.com along with the other highbrow publications that include sentences like “they’re self-consciously pedigreed heirs to a tradition that can seem, at the very least, quaint amid the kicky assertional blur of the Internet” (Swanson, 2006) and have pictures of themselves like this one:       

Actually, I include literary references to make myself feel more accomplished when I finish writing a blog. That way, when people ask me what I do, I can confidently say “I am a writer and literary analyst.”    

This sounds much better than “I just graduated,” which for most people translates simply to “I’m unemployed”, and for certain people it translates to “that guy standing at the corner of 5th and Vine asking for change makes more money than I do.” To my father-in-law, who is a recent subscriber, it translates to “I’m living off of your daughter so I can spend my time writing this asinine blog.”       

Hopefully I will be able to prove my value to society sooner than later (and hopefully my father-in-law has figured out by reading my blog that my writing does not take much effort or time.) Maybe if I have a picture of myself taken like the one above, people will take my writing more seriously. Here is a first draft:       

I’m not really worried about people’s opinions of my writing as long as they acknowledge that my Good Ideas are life-changing, visionary jewels.       

I am worried, however, about where to find a job because I believe a person’s work environment correlates highly with their overall success. I used to believe I would be happy doing anything because I am a positive person until I saw Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Now I know that I cannot work in any field that involves artificially impregnating any species of animal for any reason.    

For that matter, I could not be a anti-whaling activist like the people on Animal Planet’s Whale Wars because I get sea sick just by watching the show, and I would not risk my life so that I could throw some red paint on the side of a ship full of people who are trying to kill me.       

Job Security       

The phrase “job security” has several definitions. For most people, job security entails those aspects of your job that make it necessary. For example, police officers will always be needed to keep the peace, and during times of peace they fill their time by scowling at me.  

For others, job security means working in a field that is so specialized that not many people can do it, such as a nuclear astrophysicist or a circus acrobat. (Although I think most of us hope for a future where there is a much greater need for circus acrobats, and nuclear astrophysics is no longer relevant.) My wife’s definition of job security is different, which is why she asked for my help in dealing with her offices Nerf gun fights to enhance her security while on the job.       

Every so often my wife would be sitting innocently at her desk and a Nerf dart would fly across the room and hit her in the back. Having no form of self-defense other than the jiu-jitsu moves I taught her after watching too much UFC, my wife would smile and then go back to work feeling like a casualty of an unfair war.   

After one particular raid where she was shot in the face by one of the few powerful enough to yield weapons in the office (i.e. her bosses), my wife came to me for advice on how to defend herself and not get fired (she told me that putting her boss into a rear-naked choke would be too strong of a response. Agree to disagree…)                

 The challenge for me was  once again my lack of knowledge about Nerf guns, because I wasn’t allowed to play with weapons when I was a kid. After some soul-searching, I realized that I could use a talent that I developed from all the Nerf gun fights that went on between the kids in my neighborhood growing up; I became really good at hiding.   

Hiding is not always for cowards, it can be an excellent strategy. As a matter of fact if America were ever to be attacked by a nuclear missile, or an army of Chinese acrobats, the President and his staff would go into hiding and call the shots in safety. Granted when I was hiding, I was not calling any shots, but wondering what was inside the trash can with me that smelled so bad.       

That all being said,  I knew only a perfectly disguised Nerf gun would go undetected so that my wife could spring her trap in a clandestine way. I decided that since my wife loves Peony plants, and has always wanted a plant for her desk, this was where to start.       

The Peony       

I put together this fake planter and gave it to my wife to “decorate her desk.” Because my wife is way too nice to tell me this was not what she meant when she said she wanted a plant for her desk, she forced a smile and thanked me. She also gave me the look that mothers give their young children when they hand them macaroni art and the glue is still wet.       

My wife then came over to give me a quick peck on the cheek and that’s when I pulled out the hidden Nerf gun and shot her in the ribs with 6 rounds before she knew what was happening. The trial run had been a major success.       

Needless to say, she now realized that this slightly ugly plant was going to rock her coworkers’ worlds. Instead of the dumpster outside of her office, the Peony got a permanent spot on my wife’s desk (next to the real flowers she picked out.)       

When the time was right, my wife led the charge against her long-time oppressors. The rest is history, and although it did not make the news, my wife’s bosses didn’t stand a chance. When my wife pulled out the Peony, I’m sure it looked like a mix between the scene when Tom Cruise takes off his fake face disguise in “Mission:Impossible” and the “say hello to my little friend” scene from “Scarface.”          

My wife was happy (and her boss was apparently very impressed) so maybe if I can not find a nursing job quickly, I will look into CIA or MI-6.      

This blog will self-destruct in 5 seconds.       

TO BE CONTINUED…..       

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For those of you who didn’t believe your computer would blow up after 5 seconds and made it down this far, I will reward your efforts with a link to the best thing I have seen on the internet in a while. Enjoy!       

Reference (Photo and Quotation)    

Swanson, Carl. (2006). Brainy young things. Retrieved on 09/18/2010 from http://nymag.com/news/media/16585/.