Bah! Your planet doesn’t deserve freedom until it learns what it is not to have freedom. It’s a lesson, I say!” – Futurama
What did they call George Washington’s teeth? Presidentures.
“So, John, after I explained it, do you agree with me?” asked Captain Assholay.
“No, no I don’t,” I responded.
He looked frustrated.
The other details of the conversation were and are relatively unimportant, but the boil down to those two sentences. The fact that the person asking the question was my boss is pertinent, since, well, Captain Assholay was (years and years ago) my boss.
As bosses go, I’d rank the Captain near the bottom of the ones that I’ve had. I think he was borderline retarded, and I can say that word because it’s my blog, and I’m bringing it back.
One of my previous bosses was a man that reportedly lost the family fortune by punching a punter for the Green Bay Packers® who sued him and won because he couldn’t play anymore. I guess punters are fragile. On another occasion (while drinking) he mentioned that he threatened a witness in a felony trial so he’d leave the state and not be able to testify.
Captain Assholay? Worse than that guy.
Alternate caption: “Well, Forrest, there’s cheddar cheese, fried cheese, cheese sticks, cheese curds, cheese slices, cheese doodles, melted cheese, cheese dip (continues for three days) . . . that’s all the cheeses I know.”
But these two sentences encapsulated the relationship I had with Captain Assholay – his question was whether or not I would change my opinion. I would not.
Neither would I lie about it.
I’ve followed a fairly simple pattern in my life: when I’m working for someone, if they ask me to do something that is within my capabilities, and it’s not illegal, immoral, unethical, and doesn’t conflict with my values, I do it. Even if I don’t like it. Even if it sucks. That’s why it’s called work, and not a hobby.
This, though, was different. In this case, I was asked to conform my thoughts and agree with my boss. If he told me to do something (again, nothing illegal, immoral, unethical, and not conflicting with my values) I would do it. But the space he doesn’t own is in my head.
To me, agreeing with the Captain merely because he was my boss is something I couldn’t and wouldn’t do. I’ll hold my tongue. I’ll support silly things. But my mind?
I own it.
My other friend makes wigs. It doesn’t pay much, just enough toupee the bills.
I’m not sure Captain Assholay understood that. Heck, I’m not sure he had the capacity to understand it. But it’s not my job to raise him. One (much better) boss of mine had a saying, “Right or wrong, the boss is the boss.” That is true, and soon enough, we ceased working together.
I don’t send him Christmas cards. Okay, I don’t send anyone Christmas cards, but if I did, I would not send him two cards. My joy in thinking about him is that I do know that karma is real, and that the German word for empathy is schadenfreude.
Even though I’ll enjoy (at some point) hearing about his sudden but inevitable downfall, that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is about the latter part: there are things other people can buy from me. My time.
But they can never, ever, buy my soul. They can never buy my integrity. They can never buy my values.
He also joined a poetry club. So far he’s made some ashtrays and a nice vase.
Life is about a series of compromises. Anyone in a long-term relationship realizes that. In fact, I’m pleased that The Mrs. has learned that if I promise to fix something around the house, I will, and she doesn’t need to nag me every six months until I actually get it done.
I couldn’t lie to the Captain. Why?
I’ve given that some thought. One idea might have been pride, but that’s not it. I’m not much about things like that – the last time I washed one of my cars was sometime when Clinton was president. So, that’s not it.
It was deeper. And I look to my growing up, and the stories. Would the heroes I read about have yielded? Would Alexander? Would Patton? Would Richard Dawson?
No.
While I will render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, there are things that are simply not for sale, and never will be. I will face the world that is being born knowing that.
“All I want for Christmas is Gaul.”
I don’t recall exactly where I read it, but the difference between the Mafia and Leftists is that the Mafia doesn’t care if you agree with them, as long as you pay. Leftists? You must pay, and you must agree, and you must humiliate yourself if you ever disagreed. They will settle for nothing less.
The only answer is to never give in.
Ever. Understand where the line is, and never, ever let it be crossed. Even if you aren’t religious, understand that the battle is for your soul.
And you will be tested.
And you are not alone.
I saw my ex-wife get hit by a bus, and thought, “Man, that could have been me,” but then I remembered I don’t know how to drive a bus.
And that is the first step and the final step of winning. If you don’t compromise, there will never be a one-way trip on a train. Be free: never give the space in your head, never give up your values or virtue.
Especially not to Captain Assholay.
“and she doesn’t need to nag me every six months until I actually get it done.” Big ha – you looking over my fence? I’m saving that one for future reference. Soulless integrity is what is leading this world.
That would be Satan, yea he’s real and he has a sizable army of powers and principalities
The saying about the Mafia and Left came from observations about South American dictatorships. First time I read the phrase was during the 70s, the original Sandinista era. The saying then was that the difference between a Left and Right wing dictatorship was that the Right would just take its cut, mordida is the term, while the Left did so as well but insisted on being agreed with. Usually at gun point, but still the insult factor tended to piss people off to the point of Pinochet
Well, I do resemble that remark. And it only took me two years to get the hardwood flooring installed.
Yup on the integrity side. I’ve met some of them.
Real heroes don’t wear XXXXL tacticool gear, molest donuts or sport Punisher butt plugs.
This whole obedience uber alles I only follow orders horseshit is why we can’t have nice things.
Be like Flash Gordon and never let the mind sucker machines drain your spirit.
Never let ’em bring you down. Or bring you down to their level.
It is important to draw lines and have boundaries. I stopped working in banking even though the job paid well, had amazing benefits and I got over four weeks of vacation thanks to bank holidays, because I didn’t think what I was told to do to be successful was ethical. It wasn’t illegal but it also wasn’t right. Once you start to make compromises with your integrity, it is hard to stop.
Exactly. And no matter how many showers you take, it’s never enough.
John, I think this one is your best posting.
Proverbs 4: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Honor and Integrity.
Thank you! It was 100% from the heart.
Virginity and Integrity have more in common than ity
Exactly.
After an injury left me unable to work in the woods, I worked at a hospital that was, like almost all rural hospitals, consumed by a regional “non-profit” in the beginning of my slow mend.
I quickly found another shitty job when there was word that we would have to run credit checks on everyone that had an appointment, $10.42/hr wouldn’t pay for my soul.
And yes, that was a real wage, and it was just under 9 years ago, so goes life in the UP of Michigan and why I moved to California-light.
Ugh. When the rot and Mr. Potter moves in, this is what we end up with.
Giving up your integrity is like giving up a leg. You can adapt, rationalize, swear to never do it again, but it’s still gone.
And you’ll be much closer to giving up the second one.
And the English word for schadenfreude is epicaricy.
Opie Odd
Opie, THANK YOU! Love it!!
John, for 12+ years worked for my a-hole father in law. Esso converted a salaried bulk plant to private ownership. He was a locally successful service station owner, so they literally gave it to him. From that point forward, the Peter Principle came to roost. Within six years, the biz was nearly bankrupt. I took over and just followed Esso’s rules for the next 12 years. Quadrupled sales. I finally couldn’t take his crap any longer, quit and started a consulting biz that still purrs 34 years later.
Within two years, he had lost over 60% of his revenue. Poetic justice. And the a-hole BLAMED ME for that.
Ha! That’s the thing about people who want compromise – they are victims. But that’s another post.
Washington’s dentures were fastened by retracting metal, so his mouth would snap open if he didn’t literally keep his mouth shut. And the teeth were made of wood. Eew.
Ha! All the time having to force his mouth shut, or look like baby shark.
To thine own self be true, by all means. There is only one person on this earth who you are guaranteed to have to face in the morning, and that is you.
But I’ve never felt the slightest compunction about lying, brazenly and boldly, to a-holes who deserve no better. Especially those only too willing to drag me down with them. Why should I? If you are an a-hole, chances are it’s because your whole life is a lie, so what’s one more little white one? I’ve served up more tender little piles of pâté for more overweening weenies up the corporate food chain than I can possibly recall during a long and distinguished career in cubicle droning. And I still wake up each day with a clear conscience.
And you don’t owe it to them. They’re not your responsibility.
I have memories of my own version of Captain Assholay.
A long time ago one of my jobs was to write up range safety reports for rocket launches in and out of Kwajalein, an island halfway between Hawaii and Australia. A guy named Elon Musk had a new company called SpaceX and wanted to launch his very first rocket, Falcon 1, into orbit from Kwaj. The US Army who ran the island base there really wanted to help him and so establish Kwaj as an orbital launch site that would secure truckloads of future money for upgrading the base. Ole Elon planned to fire the Falcon 1 into orbit along a path that included a ground track that passed over the continental US from San Francisco CA to Savannah GA.
Such a thing had never been done before from Kwaj, and came with a new type of risk. If Falcon 1 failed in the last 10 seconds of the orbital burn, upper stage debris would fall along a narrow path from coast to coast – maybe on the roof of somebody’s house. From a PR standpoint, This Would Be Very Bad. So I ran the numbers and published my report for Falcon 1. I estimated something like a legitimate 5-million-to-one chance of injury from a Falcon 1 launch from Kwaj and emailed my report with calculations and maps and such to my immediate industry and government circle. I concluded that the risk was well within the 1-in-a-million criteria that the Kwaj base commander had the authority to authorize with just his signature. No trip up the chain of command into the Pentagon would be necessary to authorize higher levels of launch risk with a national security override.
So Rena, an Army civilian that was a couple of levels over me, shows up at my office for a private chat. Unacceptable conclusion, she tells me. For something that could harm CONUS civilians, the level of risk must be EVEN BETTER that the 100-million-to-one risk conclusion that our reports usually had for the Kwaj commander to sign. Impossible, I said. Those numbers are for only-over-Pacific-water missions, and by definition a new path that included populated CONUS is gonna be MORE risky, not LESS. Take the win of being closer to but still within the legal limit, Rena – I said. Rewrite the report with the number I need or we’ll get somebody else to write it. – she said. There’s nothing wrong with the numbers I ‘ve given you, and they’re just gonna contradict those in some other report that gives you what you want – I said. I’m not even sure I’ve got your email anymore with your numbers – she said. That’s OK, the server in the closet next door shows I sent it to you – and that server gets backed up to our Florida HQ every night – I said. If something happens, your numbers better not come up – she said. Silence from me. That’s an order – she said. I replied, “I understand you have just ordered me to withhold evidence from any future accident investigation”. Silence from both of us. Eventually she said she was just kidding around, and that I had misunderstood her, and I took everything way too seriously, and she left to go give my boss her version of that conversation before I could give him mine.
And I got taken off that assignment. And Falcon 1 failed in its first 25 seconds of launch instead of the last 10 seconds, and the debris fell in the Pacific and not Atlanta.
https://www.space.com/2196-spacex-inaugural-falcon-1-rocket-lost-launch.html
I’ve got a similar story about NASA Kennedy personnel wanting our team to write up Space Shuttle as being a mature system with jetliner levels of risk so they wouldn’t have to close the Banana River VIP viewing site as being too close to the pad. Then Columbia was lost.
Never give up your values. Especially to US Government types.
CYA is the Government way. One thing I have impressed upon those in the field is to Never sign off on anything that is BS. Not worth it to Get Along. End up as a patsy or worse should something Go Wrong. If nothing else having to worry about numbers not matching is ulcer 101. Like to do a study of how many 2LTs signed for crap a crafty noncom had disappeared from inventory. Now that would be worth a medal to keep quiet over
Women would rather be right about everything than have a healthy, prosperous nation that is not under their total control. It shows everywhere in New Amerika, too.
Wow. Bad bosses. And good stories.
NEVER go to crime scene B. Handle it at crime scene A, it’s always better than crime scene B.
In Mexico sometimes they kill people for crazy reasons – they call that a locomotive.
John, please consider publicizing and supporting these two men, who have not forgotten what brotherhood is in our feminist nations of Bitchdom.
These people save men’s lives, terrorize the King’s enemies, and have a fine old time doing it. They have my full support and my highest recommendation.
https://www.redonkulas.com/post/death-by-divorce-happens-all-the-time
Ray, I’ll give it a look. And the first look is that it’s a symptom of a horrid society.
Appreciate it. These two have mondo life, legal, military and female experience and do a great job transmitting it.
Many are now doing good works and I thank them all, but Popp and Toxic Male are a virtual clearinghouse for practical, para-legal, and financial counsel and information. I feel comfortable steering men, especially young men, to their site and videos and I am very picky about such things.
Not only do they provide good counsel for men and boys in our gynarchies, but they intervene the in real-life problems and emergencies of their brethren. I have been the recipient of their fraternity first-hand and therefore I can recommend them with confidence. Young men in New Amerika desperately need elders like this.
They do. It used to be coaches and Scoutmasters. But the coaches can’t talk, and the Scouts are now the enemy. That leaves dads.
“What’s the difference between E.T.® and an illegal alien? E.T. learned English and wanted to go home.”
HaHaHa! Comedy Gold!
Glad you got a chuckle!
Another excellent Wilder post, and a message close to my heart. I’ve quit every job I’ve had because at some point I reported to someone who wanted me to adopt, with enthusiasm no less, their lower standards/values. I might have a resume that doesn’t look optimal, but I can look myself in the mirror – and I like what I see.
LIkewise. It’s tough, but it’s right, and I can look in the mirror in the morning.
Had my own Captain Assholay once, miserable bastard, used to be his protector when I met him in school. Nobody would touch him… because the bullies knew I that was crossing my line, and it would end BADLY for them. Lost track for a few years while he went to college and absorbed Socialism along with airs of superiority. He got out, did grad school and wanted me to hang out with him all the time since he lived close. Misery loves company… and he made me miserable being around him.
Eventually he moved away, and finally got a job working for some company that manages an AI that analyses world news for threats and comes up with plans. He went crazy after a while talking about there would be a world collapse (like I hadn’t been telling him that for more than a decade) and that everyone would be destitute, and AIs would design combat robots to suppress the population. I asked him what he would do; he said “suck up to the AI’s and be the last one Cthulhu eats”. I told him I’d outsmart the AI’s, outmaneuver and defeat their bots, reprogram some of the bots to be my loyal servants, and ride the wastes on the back of my robot hovertank with my hot techno-barbarian handmaids ruling my fiefdom in the post-apocalypse. Really pissed him off…
My “line” with him was my insisting that far-Left political violence was unacceptable, and that tolerating it would lead to right-wing political violence and reprisals in return, and they’d have nobody to blame but themselves for the resulting upheaval and civil war that they provoked. He stopped talking to me after that, blocked me on all social media, and I swear it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. Thing that gets to me sometimes?
I never wanted to be the “bad guy”. All I ever wanted was to be left alone, live and let live. Not trying to violate anyone’s free will or equal rights; just don’t think much of people claiming special privileges and calling that equal, and I call it out whenever I see it… And that apparently makes me a “bad guy” in the eyes of the fashionable schmucks running things these days. Well, the way I see it, if they insist on casting me as the bad guy in their little fantasy, well, I can play that role. I rather fancy the idea of being an arch-villain, they seem to have a lot of fun in the movies, chewing up all that tasty scenery (scenery tends to be high in mineral content and fiber!).
Time to take a lil’ inspiration from Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, and step into the boots of the Madboy I was always meant to be. Now if only I could find the right arch-villainess to keep me company in my Fortress of Evil in the mountains, raise an army of loyal henchmen, forge our empire together, and live naughtily ever after…
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080305#.Y930ahXMK3A
Ahhh, the Fortress. I’m pining for it . . . and we just want to be left alone . . . exactly.
Illegal has earned it’s own quotation marks. “illegal”
Ha!
On the whole, if someone asks you to do something potentially immoral or illegal on the job, quite likely that they will happily throw one under the bus when the time comes.
They will. And they will say they never heard of it when their underling gets caught.