Elf Gate 2013

From left to right: Snidely Whiplash, Dudley Do-Right, Nell Fenwick & Horse, bring Senator Whiplash to Justice

Washington DC.

Going into the 6^th laborious day of testimony, the Senate panel investigation has come to a head into what is being coined by many as “Elf Gate”.

Emotions have run high as the carefully chosen panel of Senators have questioned, grilled, and blatantly accused the “Elf On The Shelf” of spying, being a traitor, engaging in terrorist activities, being an enemy of The United States Of America, and being a cold war north pole sympathizer. 

It all started a year ago when Senator Snidely Whiplash decided to take a Christmas break on his “war on common sense”. He and his band of sour faced cronies collectively agreed that shutting down all cinnamon roll bakeries, deflating all helium balloons, removing all toys from “Toys R Us”, disfiguring all pictures of Grover the muppet, and drawing silly (that remarkably look like the handle bar mustache Snidely wears) mustaches on Injury Lawyer billboards was enough for one years worth of work. 

Snidely had never really given this whole “peace on earth, good will towards Men” malarkey a chance before, so he decided to go full out commercial Christmas. He bought a tree, decorations, a plastic Santa for his lawn, lights, garland, a wreath for his door, and of course a “Elf on the shelf” for his mantle. Confused and exasperated by the millions of pictures on the internet as to the proper placing, posing, and location for the “Elf on the shelf” Snidely decided to purchase 2 million of the sitting, pondering, and watching Elf’s so he can place and position them like he had seen. 

According to a unconfirmed source (who claims to be part of Snidley’s house staff ) the 2 million Elf’s had just been a bridge too far for Snidely. What started out as playful banter with the Elf’s, jovial ho-ho-hoing around the house, and “interpretative dancing” in a tight black leotard in front of a unsecured laptop webcam quickly turned into a viral video of that very same dancing with the “Harlem Shake” music in the background. Snidely was the buzz of every morning talk show, and the punch line of every late night show comedian.  

As the saying goes: Fury has no wrath like Snidely Whiplash caught twerking in black leotards with a “Elf on the shelf” strategically sitting on sensitive body areas. Flying into a rampage like never seen before department store Santa’s, Elf’s, dogs, grandmothers, Christmas shoppers, Lovers sharing a strand of spaghetti, Chinese checkers players, balloon animal clowns, magicians, hobo’s, and even random penguins found themselves with silly looking handle bar mustaches painted on their faces. 

Once Whiplash regained his composure he quickly put himself and his band of evil senators to work in a panel to investigate The “Elf on the shelf” which has led us to the current situation. In a surprising turn of events though it has been uncovered by investigative reporters that Senator Whiplash is being bankrolled by the likes of heat Miser, Cold Miser, and Burgermeister Meisterburger in what is now becoming an aparent self serving quest to “wag the dog” and get people to focus on anything else other than the 100 different video versions of his black leotard dancing that now have been made and viewed by millions. 

A new emergency panel has been put together by senator Do-Right including The power rangers, Santa, Buddy The Elf, The wonder twins, Harvey Birdman Attorney at large, and Bill Nye the science guy to look into the abuse of power and influence Senator Whiplash has used to grind a very personal axe. In the mean time all charges against the “Elf on the shelf” have been dropped and he has been told he is free to go.   

Thank God I’m a confused City Boy (who lives in the country)

The Cows Think my minivan is sexy

I was born, raised, and lived most of my life in a major metropolitan area. City boy is a good term and I am not sure at this point whether its something I need to be apologetic about or not. All I know is because I have lived “Up North” most of my life. Have had only a little exposure to farms, cows, hay, pick-up trucks (never owned or operated one in my life), living “Down South”, or in the “country”.

My lovely bride and I recently moved to the Southern portion of our great nation within the last month. I was fully warned (and then some) by my sister of the culture shock I may possibly experience. The pace is slower (unless your driving then you better pick up the speed or get ran over) and so is the speech pattern of most folk (I feel that’s an appropriate term). People like to talk to you randomly, are actually friendly, out going and this freaks out most of us city people who are convinced they are up to something (I personally blame movies like “Children Of The Corn” for this phenomenon).

We have highways, freeways, and outer-belts in the city. They are highly congested with cars, car exhaust, painfully slow little old men in hats (with their left blinker on), slow little old women (with their right blinker on), speed demon morons, four wheel snow driving pin heads, plenty of head aches and Road rage. They have “highways” (only because of the comparison I use the term loosely) in the country. They are certainly not as congested, have a tendency to have more cows, farms, men (and women) in overall’s, and a lot less Star Bucks, CVS’s, Fast food places, gas stations, and Mega-Big box stores every five feet.

My drive to work is more scenic now. I have less cars, people, and urban blight to gaze upon and more of God’s beauty. The stuff that confuses me is when I am driving (what my city saturated mind would consider) down a “country” road and then find a speed bump. Don’t ask me why my obviously snooty britches mind would not expect country folk to want to protect their school age (or otherwise) children (or crazy uncle Ed.. Bless his heart) from being plowed over by (well.. a plow) a John Deer tractor or Pick up truck going a bazillion miles and hour. My sister also blew my mind by telling me they have a transport service that actually can be arranged for the elderly, or disabled. So again I find myself feeling pretty crappy that I obviously am assuming that sunshine just got pumped down here. Pardon me folk’s, I am truly am a cityiot.

Next time you apply and interview for a job make sure you learn to read minds

I have a wonderful job. I have a wonderful job with a good company, I actually enjoy what I do and I feel like I get treated very well where I work. Seriously, yes I know I should just pinch myself, count my blessing and call it day. In a economy where just having a job alone is a commodity and there are thousands among thousands of people working stupid jobs for stupid people for long stupid hours for seriously stupid pay I fully do realize I have won the lottery in the career department.

Hire me puuuleeeze!

Despite all of this I know there is more out there for me. When I say more I don’t really mean more than what I already have. I mean I know there are departments within the company (fortunately for me I work for a extremely large corporation with jobs and positions all over the world) I already work for that would better suit the hours and possibly even career interests that I want.

I currently do call center work and have been doing so for 18 years. My voice, humor, attention to detail, love for connecting with people, and ability to multitask have been my bread and butter for quite a while. For my current employer I will be celebrating my 2 year anniversary in august. Through the encouragement of my team leader/supervisor I decided to start looking around internally for positions that may better fit the hours I would much rather have along with a (hopefully) better fit to my career goals.

Believe it or not despite the fact call center work has been my bread butter for a long time it doesn’t necessarily mean its what I would much rather be doing. So I took my supervisors advice and started to look. When you work for a large global corporation like I do its amazing, mind numbing, and almost hilarious the (what seems like) zillions of positions, position titles (just what exactly does a “Operation data mining specialist” do? And how did it get that title?) and descriptions that flooded my computer screen.

Since I currently have no interest in working in foreign countries (foreign to the United States Of America that is) I refined my search query to the local area where I live and have actually interviewed for 3 positions. Its been a cathartic experience trying to explain what I currently do (although they have a basic idea), what a typical day is like for me, and just how?? those skills, activities, attributes, ect do really (no really I swear) fit into what they are looking for. Its like trying to read their minds on what exactly it is they value, are looking for, and trying to figure out what exact maze they expect you to master before they give you access to the cheese. (did some one say cheese?)

During one interview with a lady in a department in the same building I work at acted like she was trying to talk me out of the position. She made it very clear the position was very demanding, I would have to keep my calls within a certain time frame, and make absolutely certain I code/disposition/memo the call/inquiry correctly. I knew for a fact I was up for the challenge but she seemed to have her mind made up. Because I come from a customer service department where we have a tendency to take a little more time on the phone with the customers to make sure all their inquiries/needs are met I would not be able to adjust to the tighter time constraints. Lets just say there was no surprise when I received the dreaded “thanks but no thanks” internal email.

At least she “Interviewed” (or at least pretended to) me to give me the no thanks. I have been submitting applications and cover letters left and right. I even got a no thanks without even a interview from my company’s social media/twitter team (NO seriously I could not believe they had one either). I am still not sure what skills/talents/whatever they deem as worthy for this team. They obviously don’t have any clue that computers/technology/ and the internet are my playground and that I am all the map in this area.