I’ve heard of some people that have lived in the same place, and the same home all their lives. I don’t know if I can even comprehend that kind of situation, because I’ve been a nomad all my life. In chronological order, I’ve lived in California, New York, South Dakota, Idaho, 8 different locations in Utah (on a mission for two years), back to Idaho, back to Utah, then to Washington, back to Utah in one home, then finally in my current Utah location. My wife isn’t calling this our forever home, and if I live long enough, I’ll collapse into a bitter old folk’s home and then eventually like everyone else, 6 feet under. So lots of places.

My dad worked his whole career at one company, which was fairly common, but is non-existent today. Nowadays, it’s so exceedingly rare to never go through a layoff, downsizing, rightsizing, retrenching or scale down, or just want to move to another company, that a one company career virtually impossible. Even I, who worked at one company for 15 years, couldn’t pull that magic trick off. They younger generation has no intention of working for somewhere longer than three years before they are off to their next adventure. That’s perfectly fine, because companies do the same thing to them. There are constant rotations of people leaving and new people coming in. It’s an eternal circle of revenge. Since revenge is my favorite, I love seeing how this all plays out.

Speaking of playing out, I used to play basketball, and they were always talking about the rotations. Rotations of players coming on and off the bench, plays that had us rotating all around the court, even rotating the basketball on your finger. If you didn’t have the right player rotations, the right movement rotations, or the ball correctly rotating on your finger, you would lose. The team would lose, or the ball would lose concentration on your finger and rotate back to earth.

Coaches and employers are constantly worrying about the rotations of their rosters. They are crossing their fingers that the ones coming into the game are equal or better than the ones leaving the court. In basketball, you usually don’t usually replace your stars, but a lot of the time, starters can be replaced by someone better from the bench. For instance, on the 2003-2014 era Spurs, Manu Ginobili was probably the second-best player on the team, but was always a sixth man, and when he came off the bench, he was always better than the starter.

As a guy that worked for a company for 15 years, I saw constant improvement over the years there. They upgraded systems (when I first started there, we were entering orders on paper), moved to bigger and better buildings and they were always creating new positions. When people rotatated out, the new players weren’t always as good as the one they were replacing. My dream of always having a better replacement didn’t always come true.

On the other hand, when I leave someplace, I ALWAYS get replaced by someone better. That is my guarantee. When we left Seattle, when we sold our house, we made sure it was clean. We even allowed them to keep the new windows we installed a couple of months before and I mowed the lawn, which let’s be honest, is kind of a lot of work.

When I left that 15-year job in Seattle, I made sure I was so lazy the last year, that the stool pigeon that replaced me was an upgrade. The stool pigeon never blogged while at work, never surfed the internet and only ate crumbs, so he left less pizza stains on his chair than I did.

Someday, when I retire from this blog, and turn it over to my daughter, you will notice a significant upgrade. Even if she only does minor surgery to the aesthetics, and writes bitterly and occasionally, it will still be much better than the mess I created in the last 10 years.

Since I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure anyone that rotates in for me is better, I think it is fair to ask everyone else to do the same. In other words, everyone who has read this blog and contributed to it either by liking, subscribing or hitting that follow button, but quits, should give me two weeks notice. And more importantly, they should train a replacement that is even better at liking, subscribing and hitting that follow button.

You wouldn’t just leave your job without telling anyone, so your job of liking my blog should be no different. All I ask is a little professional courtesy. Since many of you have left without any notice, I’m sorry to inform you that I’m not going to write a letter of recommendation to the other bloggers. And what’s worse, I won’t be allowing your benefits to continue after you leave the blog. For those of you that are still here, here is your weekly Bitter Friday Gifture benefit…

Some people spend their whole lives…

Some people spend their whole career…

I can’t relate to people like that…

Which is ironic…

Because I prefer…

And I prefer the stability…

But when it comes to basketball…

Whenever you come out of the game…

In work, make sure…

Make sure…

Is better…

At work…

By setting the bar really low, we are giving the next generation a chance to be better than us. Do your best to do your worst.

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Rotational Ben