Monday, November 8, 2010

New Week, Old News

So begins another exciting work week and I can hardly contain my enthusiastic rage at the thought of it. There is a serious cruelty to the work week when you hate nearly every second of your job. It’s a job that you just happened to get sucked into because you weren’t doing anything else with your life some 15 years ago. It’s a career now and you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.  Well, maybe Hitler. I’m sure Hitler would have loved doing my job.  Probably would have been promoted already.

People ask me all the time what I’d rather be doing and I always have to tell them that I’d love to write for a living. Then the person I am talking with will inevitably say, well go and do that. I then ask them if they know any Patrons of the Arts that would be willing to pay my health insurance, rent and other expenses while I cranked out the greatest novel of all time. They usually shrug and say no, thus I am forced to sit here at this desk and suffer the fools.

It’s not that I’m bitter, I’m realistic. And realism is annoying. In order to maintain the life I’ve created for myself I must continue to slog through these days of meaningless, Herculean chores. It’s my own fault and I suppose the ability to change it all is in my hands, although wrestling if from the mouth of corporate servitude is not a battle I relish.

I’ve never had a job where I wake up in the morning and I can’t wait to get there. I’ve never known the excitement or pride that goes with a job that means something, that has value and is respected. I get crapped on and yelled at by the lowest rungs of our society and I have to eat it up like ice cream and then ask for more. And every Monday it’s the same old thing. More phone calls and paperwork and typing and adjusting and stacking and shuffling and yelling and apologizing and crappy lunches and mental exhaustion and by Friday, it has all meant nothing. Then after a short weekend spent in a haze of something less than sobriety I have to wake up on Monday and do it all over again. My life is literally flashing before my eyes and I’m too pissed off to watch.  

These complaints are not new. I’m sure there was some Roman grain mill operator that dreamed of a better life for himself; but working at the grain mill was what his family did so he didn’t have a choice and died at the ripe old age of 32 without ever knowing another life. It’s really old news for sure.

So here’s to this week. Let’s get it over with already.

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