Mean Girls: The Limit does not exist!

The Limit Should Not Exist! How Arrogant and Unprofessional of You to Have Boundaries!


Hey folks, I bring you a revelation from my struggles to find (and keep) gainful employment, just in case you didn't already know: In business, being direct/straight-talking and honest is something you want to avoid. Why's that? Well, having boundaries/limits and principles on which you're not prepared to compromise is "very arrogant and unprofessional to say the least", according to one recruiter. In my experience, that's definitely the case. Mentioning that you value clear communication, honesty and respect is a sure-fire way to flunk an interview (particularly if the interviewer/potential employer is religious). If you want to get ahead and be successful in business, you've got to do things the way Donald Trump does them: Cheat, lie to, manipulate, steal from and threaten anyone with whom you work (especially if you're selling them a product). Those are the abilities/qualities that corporations really seek in employees, but they'll never state that directly; it's all wrapped in doublespeak. If Newspeak was a programming language, Big Tech would trip over themselves to switch to it with haste.

“Never do business with a religious son-of-a-bitch. His word ain't worth a shit — not with the Good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.”
 — William S. Burroughs; Author and artist

IMO, recruitment agencies are like Joe Biden talking about how he's going to get things done. They can't even get to a meeting (never mind the end of one) before putting their feet in their mouths and going, "Oh, never mind", but have the sheer audacity to claim that I'm unprofessional because I'm keen to work with people who want to get work done and am upfront about it. I need them to find me employment as much as I need them to find me a date: Not at all. I'm done wasting my time with them. I'll find work the same way I have to do everything else: On my own, by my fucking self! Out of about fifty that I've approached/contacted, a grand total of exactly one has proven helpful. That's because I deal with a person whom treats me and her business contacts like we're a person with aspirations, boundaries, desires and flaws, instead of as if we're machines (or components thereof) or resource to be exploited and which don't get to have a say in the process. (Unfortunately, it's a common problem with businesses and employees, particularly those in IT.) Indeed, how dare I have the arrogance and unprofessionalism to think I have a choice in for whom I work and under what conditions?!

It's funny how predictably people turn nasty and rude, lose interest in you, as soon as they discover you're not prepared to let them push your boundaries or otherwise give you shit you won't take. I call it the Schrödinger's Suitor phenomenon: A potential match is simultaneously amazingly wonderful and utterly repulsive until the suitor interacts with them and decides which. If it's the latter, the suitor throws insults at them, usually along the lines of "I was keen to meet you until I did and realised you're an ugly fat bitch".)

It is my experience that if others are not willing to negotiate and work within those parameters that I have, it sets a bad precedent and working relationship going forward that's best avoided/terminated as soon as someone shows their true colours. That's a relationship clearly devoid of mutual respect and bound to get worse. If they can't respect the simple things (such as not being willing to accept that there are certain technologies I'll not use because they are not safe, detrimental to my mental health and I'd rather not give data to the CCP if I can help it), you can be sure they won't respect the bigger things, regardless of how keen they are to pay me for my knowledge, skill set and services. I'd rather not work for/with such people to begin with as we'll be wasting each other's time. I'd think that non-men, of all people, would understand that quite clearly (which is one of the reasons why I prefer to work for/with them), but evidently not.

My anxiety about going back to work full time is debilitating/obstructive enough as is; I'm not willingly going to add to it because the work environment is not a good fit. I may be desperate for a job that pays a decent income, but not desperate enough to compromise my tentative mental health that I've long been making an effort to stabilise and manage (largely unsuccessfully), only recently making slow progress. I've sabotaged myself long enough for the benefit of others and no longer give a fuck.

My Boundaries/Limits

For the sake of such limited privacy and safety as I can get online, as well as preserving my mental health, I'm not prepared to work for/with the following organisations/people and/or technologies:

  • Christians (for anti-religious reasons)
  • Heavily patriarchal organisations (over-represented by cishet white men). Yes, I'm in this demographic, but I don't like it and it's not my choice/fault.
  • Amazon
  • Discord
  • Google
  • Meta (Instagram, Facebook and Threads)
  • Pinterest
  • Slack
  • Zoom

If my not being prepared to compromise on that is viewed as "arrogant and/or unprofessional", then so be it. These are not the employers or recruiters for which I'm looking, so I'm updating my CV to state my limits and moving along ...

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Great White Snark
Great White Snark

I'm currently seeking fixed employment as a S/W & Web developer (C# & ASP .NET MVC, PHP 8+, Python 3), hoping to stash the farmed fiat and go full Crypto, quit the 07:30-18:00 grind. Unsigned music producer; snarky; white; balding; smashes Patriarchy.


Return to the Source
Return to the Source

Use the Force; read the source! This blog is mostly a collection of study notes on ASM, ASP .NET, Blender, BASIC, C/C++, C#, ChucK, Computer Architecture, Computer Literacy, CSS, Digital Logic, Electronics, F#, GIMP, GTK+, Haskel, Java, Julia, JavaScript (ES6+) & JSON, LISP, Nim, OOP, Photoshop, PLAD, Python, Qt, Ruby, Scheme, SQL (MySQL & SQLite), Super Collider, UML, Verilog, VHDL, WASM, XML. If I can learn it and make notes on it, I'll write about it. || Blog images copyright Markus Spiske and Pixabay

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