June 17, 2012
I recently wrote and delivered a speech meant to yield me a sweet retirement package that would have put me on a great monetary and security trajectory for the next 5 years…fact of the matter is: I could have put $16,000-a-year into my annuity for the next 5 years.
But Fate wouldn’t have it so. The bastards I work for (whom I’ve managed to piss off in my role as union secretary) would not grant me a-4-day-business-waiver and slip me in under the June 30th cut-off (you had to be 55 on June 30th, and I turn 55 on July 8th). Mark Antony was also kept from the Senate that fateful day.
So I had hoped that by verbally petitioning our school board and the superintendents (the fellows who make the retirement decisions and whom I’ve pissed off) I might sway, hypnotize, or otherwise mesmerize them in much the same way Shakespeare’s, Mark Antony did with the Roman mob. I thought I might pull out some rhetorical tools that would have made the school board and superintendency mob – putty in my hands. No such luck.
Mark Antony and I both knew that we were in precarious positions: one misstep on Mark’s part and he could have been kababed like Caesar: If I had overstepped the boundaries in our school board meeting – I might also have been censured. Mark tried, and succeeded, in turning the Roman populous against Caesar’s assassins – driving them from the Rome, and, in-some-cases, seeing them apart. I was merely hoping to get the school board to pressure the superintendency into granting me the golden parachute (no one needed to be torn apart). And, while I managed to secure the support of-a-number-of-the audience; including the teacher of the year and some former students (who said my speech was brilliant), I didn’t sway a single board member or superintendent (even with veiled threats). I thought they might give me a parachute just to jump the plane!
I was actually quite pleased with my speech; particularly when I heard that the superintendency was re-opening the golden parachute offering! I felt very Mark Antony-like!! But alas – the golden parachute remained folded for me.
I did fire off one-more-volley — with the-formerly-veiled-threat that the superintendency had better make the golden parachute list public, or, I’d be going over their heads to the county board of supervisors, and, and, and…they made this list public…
So there I was…with my dick flapping in the wind (well, those who have seen it will consider this hyperbole): I’d burned each bridge that could have given me that sweet, golden parachute – and, I have nothing to show but more-of-the-same (45 snotty, crazy, needy, juvenile convicts each day).
I know I can’t do this anymore. The energy required to maintain hyper-vigilance, day-in-and-day-out, has deserted me. My post-work naps grow longer-and-longer (but I am down to a 7-workday-countdown).
I still have a few aces up my sleeve – though they won’t get me exactly what I want; which reminds me of an old psychotherapist saying: There is only one thing worse than not getting what you want, and that is: getting exactly what you want.
Did Mark Antony aim too high? Was Cleopatra out of his league (did he even need oratory skills to bed her?)? I guess I’ll never know…and for now…I probably just need to keep dodging my own sword…