The Orange Confusion

Magic the Gathering Arena is a fun game. Limited chat features means it stays civil. Mostly. You can say the following:

Hello!

Good Game.

Nice!

Your go.

Oops.

Thanks!

Sorry!

And maybe a few others.

But mostly people use Good Game. And I think about half of players use it not to say it was actually a good game, but to say the game is over. The other half use it cockily, like “look how good I owned you.”

They use “Your go” when they think they’ve won, and don’t want to give you a fighting chance.

They also use “oops” to insult you when they think you’ve messed up.

They also use “nice” ironically when you are taking too long for your turn or you’ve blundered somehow.

Worse is when they wait out their timer when they know they’re going to win, and they wait for you to concede. It’s uncivil and it’s not a sign of dominance. It’s a fucking game for nerds. You can’t be alpha in an online card game. That’s about as lame as you can get. Just fucking play the game and get it over with. You’re a fucking nerd, like me, so just finish it and stop being an asshole.

I don’t trust 3 types of people. Government. Employers. Regular People. I guess  you could say I just plain don’t trust people, but especially government and employers.

Current corporation knows I’m in a bind and is abusing it. Was winter caretaker. Injured myself trying to prepare for their arrival. Was unable to complete some tasks because of my injury. They refused to allow a worker’s comp claim. They want to charge me for damages incurred while injured.

Ironically, I have proof that damages occurred before it was me alone in the damaged area.

The truth is, I keep getting shit on by employers. My previous employer refused to pay me for 6 months of work. My employer before that wanted to micromanage my classroom. My employer before that wanted to cut my pay by 50% under the threat of never recommending me. I think employers hate me.

My current employer is an Ayn Rand enthusiast. Ayn Rand is scripture. The self-made business man is the savior of the world. What rich guy wouldn’t love that sort of narcissistic feedback loop? “I’m great--the book says I am. My acquisition of money is the single most moral endeavor in the world. My workers are only scoundrels, not producers like me.”

I think they are just poised to fire me. I’m dead wood from before the company takeover. They don’t trust me to adapt the new workplace “cult” environment, rooted in an odd faux-academic conservative mormon spirituality with a twist of hippy dippy bully everyone into loving everything about the company. One such policy is that there are no titles at the company. Everyone works on their own and is under no boss. This is great and all, but what about when I want to move on to other work? How do I put that on a resume?

You can’t simply transplant one workplace philosophy to another location in another industry.

But I think it’s all corporate games to drive out the dead wood. This is new America. The employee is negligible. (Unless it’s family and friends - they get to dick around and receive all the benefits).