I doubt the title of this post in any way reflects the content, but it's the song I was listening to when I wrote it.
Quit my job the other day. Still looking for a new one, but as my faux arrogance told someone "This is Alberta. A new job will find ME." Right now all I want to do is live in my little basement suite, watching Fight Club, selling homemade bombs online, and spewing out poorly constructed anti-establishment rhetoric. "Right now" actually means at this exact moment, since ten minutes ago I wanted to eat ice cream all day and ten minutes from now I'll be sleeping. Long weekends kick ass. I wonder if "Selling homemade bombs online" will pop up on Homeland Security's watchlist. If I'm arrested and sent to Guantanamo, I'll be sure to post all about it. Like what kind of mints they put on the pillows.
Much of my frustration these days comes from the way the "real" world seems so final. The reality and absurdity that goes on daily is simply accepted by those who have worked at it for even a small amount of time. When you're in school, it's pretty easy to be idealistic and defiant, thumbing your nose at those who say you should probably have a useful skill to ply. As soon as my time was winding down, I started looking for "professional" type jobs only to find that there isn't exactly a Political Science section. Accounting, Aeronomics Engineer, Biotech, these are the categories the world's jobs fit into. This lessened any chance that I'd be able to get a job with people like me, who knew the same things and had similar goals. So, I settled for a generic unremarkable job where I at least knew somebody. That worked for a few months, until things got worse at work and my accomplice not only quit but left town. You make one crack about the French...
I found myself working at this typical office with the same kinds of typical employees and typical office problems that I'd first been exposed to in a wide variety of secondary forms: satirical/humourous (Dilbert, Office Space, The Office) violent (Fight Club) and existential (The Matrix). Having prior exposure to the reaction against office lifestyle before the lifestyle itself made conformity difficult, as it was hard to take everyday workplace situations seriously. Seeing people complain about the fax machine and long boring meetings without a trace of irony took some getting used to. More than that, being exposed to the frustrations, apathy, and futility of the office world made me want to instill change rather than continue the bland status quo. That's why it seems so final, those who have lived in the cycle had to conform and attempt their best to excel in this silly little world despite, presumably, knowing from the start that it's pretty ridiculous. By the time my term at this bland generic job was over, there will not be a single thing I can point to and claim to have improved. I have to wonder if I hadn't already been told that office lifestyle is boring if I would ever have known.
When complaining about the many absurdities in my job, whether job-related or employee-related, to friends of mine who do not work in offices, their reponse is the same as the one I had when watching Office Space or reading Dilbert: "That boss is an idiot," "That policy is stupid, this is how it should be done," or "Your job sucks." Yet now I find that I understand why a boss said what he did, why the policy is the way it is, and that the job just "is what it is." What becomes depressing after a while isn't knowing that your job sucks, it's that you fear that all jobs actually suck and this whole little model we've built in our society is nothing more than an exercise in futility. Bosses will always be stupid, policies always obtrusive and archaic, and it will always suck to go to work instead of sleeping in. Yet somewhere, somehow, there are people out there who like their job and like going to work. Knowing this creates what I think is the central struggle for young professionals, which I base entirely on informal conversations at lunchtime: It it my job that feels so Sisyphusian (a word I just made up), or all jobs? If it's just my job, then my complaints are justified and I can do better, but if all jobs suck then my complaints are out of line and I'm the one with the problem. I have every intention of finding out how that's done and emulate these mythical creatures who don't wake up in the morning and feel like driving the car into a tree just for a good excuse to stay home. A whole new paradigm indeed.
Quit my job the other day. Still looking for a new one, but as my faux arrogance told someone "This is Alberta. A new job will find ME." Right now all I want to do is live in my little basement suite, watching Fight Club, selling homemade bombs online, and spewing out poorly constructed anti-establishment rhetoric. "Right now" actually means at this exact moment, since ten minutes ago I wanted to eat ice cream all day and ten minutes from now I'll be sleeping. Long weekends kick ass. I wonder if "Selling homemade bombs online" will pop up on Homeland Security's watchlist. If I'm arrested and sent to Guantanamo, I'll be sure to post all about it. Like what kind of mints they put on the pillows.
Much of my frustration these days comes from the way the "real" world seems so final. The reality and absurdity that goes on daily is simply accepted by those who have worked at it for even a small amount of time. When you're in school, it's pretty easy to be idealistic and defiant, thumbing your nose at those who say you should probably have a useful skill to ply. As soon as my time was winding down, I started looking for "professional" type jobs only to find that there isn't exactly a Political Science section. Accounting, Aeronomics Engineer, Biotech, these are the categories the world's jobs fit into. This lessened any chance that I'd be able to get a job with people like me, who knew the same things and had similar goals. So, I settled for a generic unremarkable job where I at least knew somebody. That worked for a few months, until things got worse at work and my accomplice not only quit but left town. You make one crack about the French...
I found myself working at this typical office with the same kinds of typical employees and typical office problems that I'd first been exposed to in a wide variety of secondary forms: satirical/humourous (Dilbert, Office Space, The Office) violent (Fight Club) and existential (The Matrix). Having prior exposure to the reaction against office lifestyle before the lifestyle itself made conformity difficult, as it was hard to take everyday workplace situations seriously. Seeing people complain about the fax machine and long boring meetings without a trace of irony took some getting used to. More than that, being exposed to the frustrations, apathy, and futility of the office world made me want to instill change rather than continue the bland status quo. That's why it seems so final, those who have lived in the cycle had to conform and attempt their best to excel in this silly little world despite, presumably, knowing from the start that it's pretty ridiculous. By the time my term at this bland generic job was over, there will not be a single thing I can point to and claim to have improved. I have to wonder if I hadn't already been told that office lifestyle is boring if I would ever have known.
When complaining about the many absurdities in my job, whether job-related or employee-related, to friends of mine who do not work in offices, their reponse is the same as the one I had when watching Office Space or reading Dilbert: "That boss is an idiot," "That policy is stupid, this is how it should be done," or "Your job sucks." Yet now I find that I understand why a boss said what he did, why the policy is the way it is, and that the job just "is what it is." What becomes depressing after a while isn't knowing that your job sucks, it's that you fear that all jobs actually suck and this whole little model we've built in our society is nothing more than an exercise in futility. Bosses will always be stupid, policies always obtrusive and archaic, and it will always suck to go to work instead of sleeping in. Yet somewhere, somehow, there are people out there who like their job and like going to work. Knowing this creates what I think is the central struggle for young professionals, which I base entirely on informal conversations at lunchtime: It it my job that feels so Sisyphusian (a word I just made up), or all jobs? If it's just my job, then my complaints are justified and I can do better, but if all jobs suck then my complaints are out of line and I'm the one with the problem. I have every intention of finding out how that's done and emulate these mythical creatures who don't wake up in the morning and feel like driving the car into a tree just for a good excuse to stay home. A whole new paradigm indeed.
PS:
I've read of a few studies on MSN that say things like 58% of Canadians like their job, 60% think there boss is super, stuff like that. I can't cite the specific articles (sorry school's over, I don't construct arguments with proper referencing anymore, but rather on VOLUME and arm gestures) but the impression is that the majority of Canadians actually like their job. Yet somehow there is a high volume of anti-job humor and satire relative to the apparently few disgruntled employees. The conclusion is clear: People who are unhappy or bored are funnier, more creative, and churn out more influential humor, satire and criticism than happy pleasant fools. It's also somewhat sort of kind of maybe just maybe possible that they're also more self-laudatory as a defense mechanism and simply choose to direct their creativity into their chosen frustration outlet rather than their job, meaning they don't get promoted and remain unhappy at work and continue the cycle. Great. Now I've really depressed myself.
