Hi my name is Rudiger and I am an anti-achiever.  I have worked very hard at this, no sorry I meant I haven't done anything at all.  That's why I'm an underachiever.  It's my 35th birthday today and I can officially call myself a loser.  I've never been married, I don't own my own house, I've been in the same job for 15 years and I have no real sex life to talk of.

    Now at this point I must make it clear that if you are sympathising with me, then you too are a loser or at the very least drifting towards that end of the scale.  I have no problem admitting I am one of life's underachiever's – maybe it's about time you did the same.  As for the rest of you, you can now sit back and feel smug about yourselves – you bastards!

    I cannot really complain about my life.  It was all my own doing, I just decided at a young age not to bother with it – my life that is.
 
    I wake up ever morning and wonder what joys the world will bring me.  Of course the answer is usually none.  Instead things just seem to go from bad to slightly worse.  Nothing of note ever really happens and when it does my really nasty side comes out.  I'm talking about the very heart of the underachiever - Apathy.  A good example would be the birth of my friends son.  He and his wife were understandably overjoyed about this.  I just sort of shrugged and managed a “yeah that's great” type of thing.  Not very caring and loving is it.  My best friend is celebrating the birth of his first born and I don't even go to the pub with him for a celebratory pint – how much of a prick am I?  Actually don't answer that!
 
    For the best part of 20 years now, I have been making excuses for my underachieving.  My job would be a fine example of this.  Like a lot of people in my situation I don't work very hard.  My reason for this is because I'm employed by a multi-national corporation and they don't pay me very well.  I have convinced myself that all multi-national corporations are evil and should be outlawed.  How I came to this conclusion is anyone's guess but hey it works for me. 

        Now if I wasn't such a big loser, I would stop complaining about my job and get a new one.  Maybe start my own business or just get employment with a local firm with a small workforce, but because of my anti-achieving ways I don't.  I just sit and moan.  I am slowly discovering that I've turned into someone I don't like very much.  It's really hard to admit to yourself that you despise the very thing you are.  Even harder is to change your ways and become a better person.  I was going to try this but it seemed like too much effort.

    I decided that the easiest option was to just continue on my chosen path of underachieving and with a bit of luck something might happen that will make my life more worthwhile.  Let's face it, in the grand scheme of things we are here only momentarily and it doesn't really matter what we do with our time.  It will never make the slightest bit of difference.  This, of course, is not the right attitude. 

    You know I really hate that word “attitude”.  It is very frequently applied to myself from over baring girlfriends, Management and co-workers.  They never see it as a good thing.  They always make it sound like such a negative part of my personality.  I don't really have an attitude, I just like to wind them up on occasion.  I do get some small cheap thrills from annoying and antagonising my management.  I just like to remind them that their work should not be their life.  I hear them spouting buzz words and business jargon like it makes them more important with every utterance.  Mostly it just makes people laugh.

    I admit I may have crossed a line when my manager asked if he could touch base with me and I promptly submitted a sexual harassment complaint to personnel.  I know he just wanted to get an update on what I was working on but it does sound vaguely dirty - “Touching Base”.  Just try to think about how you would react if you had never heard the phrase before and someone came up to you and said “can I touch base with you”.  I don't think I am alone in this when I say you would, at the very least, move very quickly away from the weird pervert.

    Anyway this concludes my single thought for the day, but you never know, I may work up the enthusiasm to jot down more of my pointless drivel.  If fact let's hope for all our sakes I continue in my under achievement and never put fingers to keyboard again.