Bad Attitude

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
- Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"

I hate having to work. I resent that so many of my waking hours are taken up in making a living to support myself. The work itself is just a small part of it. What I dislike most is having to deal with people not on my own terms and I hate giving up such large chunks of my privacy.

I'm not a go-getter Type A personality; I'm a definite classic Type B slacker. I believe that people on their deathbeds never wish they'd spent more time at the office.

The older I get, the younger my supervisors become, and the more menial, low-paying, and brainless the jobs are that I'm obliged to take, the worse this feeling becomes. I'm at the point now where I have to talk myself into going to work, each and every day, and talk myself out of reasons to call in sick. Sometimes, I lose the battle and I call in, but usually I can talk myself into showing up, simply for the reason that I need the money.

I do my best to do what I'm doing correctly, but I don't take the work itself too seriously. When my barely-20 year old supervisor tells me to "hustle up" in getting the orders out the door, I just roll my eyes at him and continue at precisely the same pace I was working at. I make sure I have all the correct items and have pinpointed where I'm going before I head out the door -- his urging me to hurry isn't going to change that a damned bit.

I'm tempted to tell him that we're just delivering pizzas here; we're not paramedics leaving to go save a life, and thirty seconds one way or the other isn't going to make a difference. But I don't bother, because I know I'd be wasting my breath.

Perhaps I'd feel differently if I'd ever had a job I was truly suited for; a job where I could actually use my natural strengths and abilities. But in all the jobs I've ever held, I've had to spend an inordinate amount of time fighting my weaknesses to do the job. It's very stressful to have to spend one's work days swimming against the current like a salmon, especially when I know I'm capable of something better.

Ideally, life is lived in a balance of work. leisure, and rest, but when you have a dead end job you abhor, it's hard to keep up the work end of the balance with a good attitude.

I'll stop ranting now. It was cathartic just to write about it and get it out of my system.