The Ball of Hate

Where do I start? This all stems from a pissy morning on Friday and post to Twitter inspired by some idiot who doesn't sit in my cube was sitting in the chair behind me acting like he owned the place. Friday was NOT his day. Luckily he left, so I didn't have to snap his neck.

The Ball of Hate- This concept is not mine, but a great friend of mine whom I worked with at Wegmans in Virginia. We worked overnight in the grocery department and this particular Wegmans was one of the busier stores in the whole chain. Lots of volume, I'd give numbers but unless you work in the industry, it would be pointless information. We always had to bust our asses, nearly every night, to get done on time and the order for the next day entered by 5am. I had begun noticing that when we were particularly busy, my buddy would almost drop into a zone where he was very angry, ignored most of what everyone said, and flew around like a banshee. The catch was that the work got done amazingly quick. After breakdown one time (unloading the truck and stacking stuff on carts to go to their appropriate aisles), I asked him why he was so pissed. He just laughed and said he wasn't. I was like "What???" Now I'm thoroughly confused. So I asked him "Why did you seem so mad earlier, but now that we're done you're all smiles again?" His answer, "The Ball of Hate."

The Ball of Hate, as he explained it, was something generated from within. You basically thought of things that really pissed you off, focused it into this imaginary little ball inside you and let it feed your anger to the point of being on the verge of explosion. I asked "Why?" His Answer, "To work faster." My analysis- To release the adrenalin necessary to work faster and harder for a sustained period of time. I liken it similar to how an athlete gets up for a big time and goes to that next level, though not quite the same except maybe in football.

I was intrigued by it actually and wondered if I could create this Ball of Hate too. I thought of the things that pissed me off, the people who hurt me and really made me mad. Lo and behold I could and man did I work faster. I scared people, but I did work faster. To further the rush, I added some Stacker II weight loss pills which were just basically caffeine and herbs to amp you up, and some really angry, violence inducing music like "Bodies" by Drowning Pool, "Wait and Bleed" by Slipknot, "Stricken" by Disturbed, etc. You get the idea, not "nice" music. You put all those factors together and I became quite the cyclone at work. Granted I did throw things I wasn't supposed to and threw things at people who weren't working fast enough, but I got the job done. The goal was always to be done before the boss got in at 11 and we rarely missed the mark.

With all that’s gone on in my life the past few years, I've not tapped into this angry energy as one of the things I've tried to do is control/eliminate my temper. But now…it may be time to welcome it back for reasons to be discussed later. Only time will tell...