I Used To Work For Satan

The title of this entry may seem like hyperbole, but I am fairly certain that I used to work for Satan. You know, The Dark One. Beelzebub. Lucifer. Old Scratch.

Or as I like to refer to him, "Pure Evil Trust Fund Jackass Son-of-a-Bitch That Deserves To Slip Under The Wheels Of A Large Tanker Truck And Taste His Own Blood Before His Skull Is Crushed Like An Overripe Melon".

Yes. I am still bitter.

It's been twelve years or so since I've worked for Satan, but I still sometimes feel like I can't wash the stink off of me. I'm a computer programmer, and I once worked for a guy that made life very interesting for all of his employees. And in this context "interesting" is a euphemism for "absolute living hell". It's a wonder that I'm so well adjusted after living through it all. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The most obvious "interesting" thing about working for Satan was the incredibly long workdays that I had to work in order to not be appreciated. I once worked 36 hours straight, without sleep, to get software completed for a customer demo. A demo that the customer cancelled. And that wasn't an isolated incident. My co-workers and I consistently worked long hours for projects that had been promised on impossible timelines. "Over promise and under deliver" was our company slogan. Well, not really, but it could have been. Satan would convince clients that we could build a 1/8 scale model of the Moon in six weeks, and then grind us down with 18-hour workdays to attempt to do the impossible.

"Why would anyone work for this guy?" I hear you ask. Well, Satan is charismatic, as you've most likely seen in the movies. He would butter you up about how well things were going because of your hard work, and then convince you that you really deserved a new car. I referred to this as the "Car Payment Trap". Because soon you'd think "you know, I do deserve a new car". And along with the New Car comes the New Car Payment. And now you've got another $300 a month to pay. Evil.

One week, our paychecks were late. When they finally showed up, Satan assembled all of the employees in the conference room to berate us for moaning about getting paid late. He rambled on about how "money wasn't every thing" and that "work was its own reward" or some nonsense like that. This coming from a guy that had a trust fund, a company car, and wrote off every meal he ever had as a business expense. Pure Evil.

This is also the same guy that decided, with his wife seven months pregnant, that he just didn't want to be married anymore. He just needed to be away from women for a while. That "while" wound up being long enough for his separation to become official before he started seeing another woman. The woman that I had been seeing. You know the rules of HomeWrecker Poker, right? A Porsche beats a Hyundai.

And after Satan has to be taken to court about child support payments, he tries to claim that his Ex-Wife's child is not his child. That simply makes him a Prick (yes, with a capital P). But when he tries to claim that the child is mine, that earns him enough Frequent Asshole Miles to be automatically upgraded to "Pure Evil Trust Fund Jackass Son-of-a-Bitch That Deserves To Slip Under The Wheels Of A Large Tanker Truck And Taste His Own Blood Before His Skull Is Crushed Like An Overripe Melon" (as mentioned earlier in this entry).

Satan is still out there, making his money by exploiting well-intentioned souls for his own monetary gain, and still refusing to have anything to do with his child. I'm not the kind of person to genuinely wish misfortune on people, but since he doesn't count as a "person", per se...

In that case, please join me in wishing something really hateful on him. Like his penis falling off, or rheumatoid arthritis, or kidney failure, or something else really fun.

Satan did get a small bit of come-uppance a while back. I heard that he fell off of a stepladder, breaking both of his wrists while trying to stop his fall. So that made me feel a little better. Oh, and HomeWrecker had to wipe his ass while both of his hands were in casts. Payback is a bitch, isn't it?