Office Space
Posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Today, I am reminded of something. The blissful waves of the 4-day weekend have washed from me, and I am suddenly staring stark in the face of something. Something bad.
Despite the frequency with which I scan job postings, send resumes, and, the past week at least, go into an office for freelance work, there is this problem I have.
I hate working.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate all jobs, and I don’t hate all situations of work. There have been a few – including some in the fairly recent past (one of which, gulp, was right around the corner from the place I currently trek to daily) – that I’ve rather enjoyed for reasons such as the following:
• Great coworkers who make me laugh and impress me with their smarts
• Creative freedom, and the ability to do amazing, often groundbreaking or irreverent stuff
• The potential to learn – and by learn, I mean uncover new skills and abilities and really develop them, not just find out how to spell “anthocyanin”
• The chance to tackle a challenge, and make improvements
• Authority. Getting to tell people shit when they actually have to give a hoot
• A working water cooler
I wonder, though, if these are outmoded expectations these days. When a job, just a job, any job is the ultimate goal, will said job ever be more than a chance to spend a few moments with the dictionary now and again, shuffle some papers, listen to coworkers discuss who died most recently and of what form of cancer, and hope for reasons to leave early and get back to what I truly enjoy (blogging, alphabetizing my bookshelves, parcheesi)?
That – and not the job, or whatever I happen to be doing for 8 hours a day – is what gets to me. That’s what scares me. I have this fear that it’s never going to be the way it was. I mean, I know it’s all changing, but … Will any cubicle thrill me again? Will I ever again be not only pleasantly surprised, but positively floored, by coworkers? Will I – maybe a long time from now, but someday, someday – ever again have that glorious buzz attained not from too many glasses of wine but from the feeling of doing something truly great, that I believe in?
I don’t know, I really don’t. Bloomberg announced today that he is introducing a media stimulus program that will create 8,000 jobs for us displaced magazine souls. So I guess we can hope. And pray. And shuffle to our refrigerators to open that chilled Vermentino that’s been waiting for us all day while we slaved away like the sad little corporate drones we are.
Or maybe I just have a case of the Tuesdays.
