I Just Couldn’t Even

                Have you ever been all, like, I just can’t even?  Me, too.

                What’s that?  Some of you don’t know what being all, like, I just can’t even means?  Well, it’s a fun way that the kids nowadays have of saying, essentially, that they’re apoplectic.   Of course, some might say that they’re literally apoplectic, but what they mean is that they’re figuratively apoplectic.  If they were literally apoplectic, then they wouldn’t be able to come up with the words to indicate their apoplexy, or, as they say, that they just can’t even.   And, seriously, the word “apoplexy” isn’t about to make a return to buzz-worthiness again, any time soon, like “selfie” or “synergy” or “buzzword.”  So, the kids just say, “I can’t even.”

                And that’s what happened when I decided to quit my job at the Department of Veterans Affairs.  I just couldn’t even, anymore.  And that’s a phrase I’ll use right now.  I just can’t even.  I’ll use this because it will help me depersonalize this.  I don’t want to call anyone out, right now. 

This is what your tax dollars got
you for nearly eight years.

Saying “I just can’t even” won’t really help that, but I just want to tell the story of why I quit my job.   And I think “I just can’t even” is going to be a funny way to tell this.  Besides, this was a very emotional decision for me.  I, both literally and figuratively, just couldn’t even anymore, and this is my story.

                A few months before the end, I had completed a very technical bureaucratic analysis of minutia for the Togus VA Regional Office in Augusta, Maine.  Rather than bore you with all the bureaucratic minutia and bullshit, I’ll just call this a bullshit report, and in the interest of providing a little background, I will say that there are dozens of these bullshit reports completed each year at the regional office.  For the last few years at Togus, I’d completed one or two bullshit reports every fiscal year.  I’d also helped a number of people edit the passive sentences out of their bullshit reports. 

                Passive sentences are bad.  When passive sentences are used in a bullshit report, it is very bad.  Bullshit reports are very, very important.  They can’t have passive sentences used in them, even though every single fucking award and denial notification letter sent to veterans by the VA about their disability compensation decisions is chock fucking full of the passive voice.  Internal bullshit reports are much more important than the letters sent to veterans.

                And I liked writing and editing bullshit reports.  I have an analytical mind, and as you can clearly see, I write good.

                One of my favorite memories of working on a bullshit report was when I helped my friend, Lee, edit the passive sentences out of his bullshit report.  When one of us submitted a bullshit report, a bean-counter would use the Microsoft Word review tool for a spelling and grammar check.  The percentage of passive sentences is also shown by the tool, and if there were passive sentences, the bullshit report would be returned to the author for correction.  When I got together with Lee, he said something along the lines of, “What the hell is a passive sentence?  Will it help if I end more of them with ‘comma damnit?’”  Bean counters don’t like passive sentences, so I showed Lee how his passive sentences could be changed to good ones.

                Anyway, I had completed my last bullshit report at the end of April, and I submitted it to the bean counter.  I had no passive sentences because I was a good bullshit reporter.  This bullshit report included a formal recommendation that we start reviewing some of the bullshit data from this bullshit VA intranet website.   My rationale was that we could review that bullshit data and identify bullshit training needs, hopefully helping us reduce errors and potentially speeding up the process for some claims.

                Brilliant idea, you say?  I know, right!  You have my wholehearted agreement on that one.  However, the bean counter—possibly not of his own decision—called to ask me if he could remove my recommendation, not because of something terrible like the passive voice being used, but, essentially, because it made another person’s bullshit report look bad.  The other report recommended a very round-about way of obtaining access to the intranet site that I had referenced in my recommendation.

                Now, I explained to this bean counter that I had nary a fuck to give about the other recommendation, for I had actually resolved the problem of getting access to the site.   All I had to do was ask for access and then get local management’s approval.  It was very simple.

                Furthermore, I explained that my recommendation could have a very real impact on the quality and timeliness of completing the VA disability compensation claims we processed.  I told this bean counter, in no uncertain terms, that if he removed my recommendation, I quite simply would not even be able to, anymore.

                Indeed, I wouldn’t even fucking be able to.

                “Okay,” he said.

                Flash forward to early July.  I was looking at the information that needed to be gathered for my next bullshit report, due at the end of July.  (This second bullshit report of the year for me did not happen, because—spoiler alert—I could not even.)   I decided to look at the saved copy of my previous bullshit report on the shared drive.  My recommendation had been removed.

                I could not, fucking, even, nor would I any longer, fucking, even be able to.

                So, I went home and shut down for a day or so.  I had been feeling trapped in this job for a while, and this was the proverbial last straw.   Not only was I no longer intellectually or creatively challenged or stimulated, but now I could not even.  I had to leave.  I went in, and gave my notice.

                It was actually a pretty easy decision.   Being no longer even able to in a job makes leaving the only thing to do.