Monday, April 11, 2005
I hate thinking too long about work. I hate thinking about the ways in which we I try to cope with the reality that every Monday morning at 8:20 I put an end to what I want to do and start doing what I have to do in order to pay for rent, food etc.
It's ridiculous that I view it as what I 'have' to do, considering noone is forcing me to take this job. There is no overwhelming force in my life that necessitates that I go to my job 40 hours a week. Anything that may seem like its exerting a force on my life that is impossible to resist is simply something that I can change or alter. There is nothing mandating that I do the same thing five out of seven days a week.
Either I'm lazy (check), lacking ambition, or I'm here because I want to be. You can make yourself believe that work is not so bad and that it's better then the alternative, looking for work or adjusting your life so you are doing what you want to be doing. It's easy to make work somewhat palatable, there's all sorts of coping mechanisms to making responsibility seem like it's a favorable burden to shoulder. One would be to call work, a responsibility. Truly the world would fall apart if your cog did not exist. Certainly there is not a legion of the exact same parts making the exact same products. You possess the attribute of responsibility that is why you soldier on. Anyone who has reached a point in their life where they start viewing responsibility and reliability as elite attributes is already lost.
Breaking down the week is great way to make it through it. The first day is Monday, noone likes Mondays. You can literally talk the whole day about how it's Monday and you can't believe where the weekend went. You can get away with all kinds of mishaps and mistakes on Monday because you're not expected to be on top of your game. People talk about the nice things the love of their life did for them on the weekend, other people bemoan that fact that they don't have a love of their life. You usually want to kill both these types of people, but you realize that you're exactly like them. Killing them would only lead to a breakdown in the workplace. Eventually everyone would be hunting down everyone else and slaughtering them in the hallways at work and feasting on their entrails. It's better that you just listen to people lament the bitter remains of their lives, hope that that doesn't happen to you, and know that they have to listen when it's your turn.
Tuesday is the day in which you talk about how terrible Monday was. You're expected to do some work, but not a lot. It's a great day to lie, bluff, and complain about how much work you have. Whereas Monday is the day you complain about the vacuous piece of shit that is your life, Tuesday is the day you complain about the vacuous space that is your workplace.
Wednesday! You're fucking halfway there man! You can taste the scent of the weekend in the air. You're tempted to even sleep in in the morning. This is all enough to make you work harder so that the day passes quickly and you're closer to that bloody sanctuary.
Thursday you wake up and realize that you're a chump. Wednesday is not that close to the weekend and there was no reason at all to work hard. You didn't move time faster, you just tired yourself out so that Thursday will feel like the longest day of the week. You hope that there's fire drill scheduled or that someone passes out on the third floor. They may not close work, but the sight and sound of an ambulance is a nice mid-week stimulation. Thursday is also the day that everyone simultaneously gets bored with rescuing themselves from the quagmire (real or perceived) that has engulfed their lives and wants to know about the minute details of yours. This is usually when people talk about their dogs or their lives before this 'career', go figure noone envisioned themselveswasting spending the best years of their adult lives here. This presents the best time to lie. Lie about what music you like, imply that you were raised in a broken home, create a new life for yourself, let some manufactured chump work the week, while the real you has the weekend. Yeah, like that'll work.
Friday isn't so bad your favourite tv show was on the night before and I'm sure someone middling famous died so you can always talk about that and of course you can always fall back on the old reliable, caffeine. You can have twenty minute conversations about a subject only students and working stiffs, the two most trite and annoying groups of people on the planet, care about. Make as many references as you can to legal speed, It'll be enough to get you through to noon which is when you can devote the rest of your afternoon to talking about the weekend. You can talk about all the grand plans you have and then the next Monday you can talk about how they never happened.
It's ridiculous that I view it as what I 'have' to do, considering noone is forcing me to take this job. There is no overwhelming force in my life that necessitates that I go to my job 40 hours a week. Anything that may seem like its exerting a force on my life that is impossible to resist is simply something that I can change or alter. There is nothing mandating that I do the same thing five out of seven days a week.
Either I'm lazy (check), lacking ambition, or I'm here because I want to be. You can make yourself believe that work is not so bad and that it's better then the alternative, looking for work or adjusting your life so you are doing what you want to be doing. It's easy to make work somewhat palatable, there's all sorts of coping mechanisms to making responsibility seem like it's a favorable burden to shoulder. One would be to call work, a responsibility. Truly the world would fall apart if your cog did not exist. Certainly there is not a legion of the exact same parts making the exact same products. You possess the attribute of responsibility that is why you soldier on. Anyone who has reached a point in their life where they start viewing responsibility and reliability as elite attributes is already lost.
Breaking down the week is great way to make it through it. The first day is Monday, noone likes Mondays. You can literally talk the whole day about how it's Monday and you can't believe where the weekend went. You can get away with all kinds of mishaps and mistakes on Monday because you're not expected to be on top of your game. People talk about the nice things the love of their life did for them on the weekend, other people bemoan that fact that they don't have a love of their life. You usually want to kill both these types of people, but you realize that you're exactly like them. Killing them would only lead to a breakdown in the workplace. Eventually everyone would be hunting down everyone else and slaughtering them in the hallways at work and feasting on their entrails. It's better that you just listen to people lament the bitter remains of their lives, hope that that doesn't happen to you, and know that they have to listen when it's your turn.
Tuesday is the day in which you talk about how terrible Monday was. You're expected to do some work, but not a lot. It's a great day to lie, bluff, and complain about how much work you have. Whereas Monday is the day you complain about the vacuous piece of shit that is your life, Tuesday is the day you complain about the vacuous space that is your workplace.
Wednesday! You're fucking halfway there man! You can taste the scent of the weekend in the air. You're tempted to even sleep in in the morning. This is all enough to make you work harder so that the day passes quickly and you're closer to that bloody sanctuary.
Thursday you wake up and realize that you're a chump. Wednesday is not that close to the weekend and there was no reason at all to work hard. You didn't move time faster, you just tired yourself out so that Thursday will feel like the longest day of the week. You hope that there's fire drill scheduled or that someone passes out on the third floor. They may not close work, but the sight and sound of an ambulance is a nice mid-week stimulation. Thursday is also the day that everyone simultaneously gets bored with rescuing themselves from the quagmire (real or perceived) that has engulfed their lives and wants to know about the minute details of yours. This is usually when people talk about their dogs or their lives before this 'career', go figure noone envisioned themselves
Friday isn't so bad your favourite tv show was on the night before and I'm sure someone middling famous died so you can always talk about that and of course you can always fall back on the old reliable, caffeine. You can have twenty minute conversations about a subject only students and working stiffs, the two most trite and annoying groups of people on the planet, care about. Make as many references as you can to legal speed, It'll be enough to get you through to noon which is when you can devote the rest of your afternoon to talking about the weekend. You can talk about all the grand plans you have and then the next Monday you can talk about how they never happened.
