Working for a Living
I must tread carefully. It is common knowledge (or at least it should be) that if you blog about work, you best not broadcast your name or business on that said blog if you want to keep that job. (This will prove to be interesting after I am sworn into service).
I have no complaints about where I work or who I work for, and I am extremely thankful that I have been able to find something to do for the time inbetween grad school and the Peace Corps. It just occurred to me today when I was getting some order slips to run through a credit card machine today how long it's been since I've had to do the kind of work that I am doing.
I have not had an office job since May 2001 when I worked at WCU, and I have not needed to rely on the newspaper since before even that. It's been a long time. And I found working at WCU to be not rewarding in the slightest, other than meeting some really nice people. I actually enjoyed working at the Local more, because at certain times the job that I did held a certain level of importance. I was a go-between, a mystery solver, a soother, and had a lot of responsibility. Granted, this level of importance was really only me thinking that I was important, but if you can at least see your job as having a greater purpose or having some meaning, I think that it adds a value to it.
Here I know that I am easing the work of others, which does have its own benefits, but after being a VISTA and setting up college kids with underprivileged elementary students, hosting various community service activities, and being involved in higher education (which was absent in my prior university job where my primary responsibility was to answer phones), a lot of things pale in comparison. Even graduate school was difficult for this reason. It was hard for me to justify all the time being so self absorbed with my "work" which was just reading and writing. Really, graduate school was boring. I liked classes and enjoyed teaching, but that was not my full time job. My full time job was to read books and relate them in some way that interested me. That job was difficult, because reading postmodern theory and then relating it to my thoughts about politics or poverty was... impossible. It all seemed so... unimportant and French, yet the stress of getting good grades and not being perceived by my peers as a flunky was enough to have me play as much of the game as I could. Which was really not at all.
I remember sitting in a class that I really did enjoy and thinking to myself "I could be volunteering right now. I could be going to a soup kitchen, helping out in a woman's shelter," etc etc. Those thoughts made the rest of the night class just seem so pointless and stupid and actually made me angry, because I was never great about reading fast or being able to bs enough so that I could spend more time doing those things instead.
Happily, I don't feel that way when I work. I suppose it's because it's somewhat mindless work (although it does involve enough thought to keep me interested) and I get paid I don't think about volunteering as much as I do about... well nothing really. Working sort of just makes my brain go "blah blah blah blah blah." I no longer ponder about Bradgelina or Ukraine or my mom's cute cat or e-mail. I just become a drone and work and work work work work. And I suppose that I fear that. The more that I sit at that chair running credit card numbers, the more I think about a life of selling advertising and how "glamorous" that might be. How easy it would be. Not easy in that meeting goals and deadlines do not involve pressure or stress or hard work, but that I would have to think about much of anything when I was working and that a job like that would be perceivably more easy to leave behind at the work place, something that I was never able to do as a VISTA or a grad student and I doubt that will never be possible as a Peace Corps Volunteer, as you are constantly reminded of your status as foreigner.
Anyway, I'm working for a living, for the next few weeks, and I like it and the honest to goodness simplicity that it brings me. I just wish that it would be a bit more stressful (as long as I'm not messing up stress, just keeping me busy and on my toes stress) to make the day go by quicker. And that the air conditioning would get fixed.
To all of you with the 9 to 5, I would like to hear your two cents about your thoughts on work and what you think about during work, because man, I just turn into a drone.
I have no complaints about where I work or who I work for, and I am extremely thankful that I have been able to find something to do for the time inbetween grad school and the Peace Corps. It just occurred to me today when I was getting some order slips to run through a credit card machine today how long it's been since I've had to do the kind of work that I am doing.
I have not had an office job since May 2001 when I worked at WCU, and I have not needed to rely on the newspaper since before even that. It's been a long time. And I found working at WCU to be not rewarding in the slightest, other than meeting some really nice people. I actually enjoyed working at the Local more, because at certain times the job that I did held a certain level of importance. I was a go-between, a mystery solver, a soother, and had a lot of responsibility. Granted, this level of importance was really only me thinking that I was important, but if you can at least see your job as having a greater purpose or having some meaning, I think that it adds a value to it.
Here I know that I am easing the work of others, which does have its own benefits, but after being a VISTA and setting up college kids with underprivileged elementary students, hosting various community service activities, and being involved in higher education (which was absent in my prior university job where my primary responsibility was to answer phones), a lot of things pale in comparison. Even graduate school was difficult for this reason. It was hard for me to justify all the time being so self absorbed with my "work" which was just reading and writing. Really, graduate school was boring. I liked classes and enjoyed teaching, but that was not my full time job. My full time job was to read books and relate them in some way that interested me. That job was difficult, because reading postmodern theory and then relating it to my thoughts about politics or poverty was... impossible. It all seemed so... unimportant and French, yet the stress of getting good grades and not being perceived by my peers as a flunky was enough to have me play as much of the game as I could. Which was really not at all.
I remember sitting in a class that I really did enjoy and thinking to myself "I could be volunteering right now. I could be going to a soup kitchen, helping out in a woman's shelter," etc etc. Those thoughts made the rest of the night class just seem so pointless and stupid and actually made me angry, because I was never great about reading fast or being able to bs enough so that I could spend more time doing those things instead.
Happily, I don't feel that way when I work. I suppose it's because it's somewhat mindless work (although it does involve enough thought to keep me interested) and I get paid I don't think about volunteering as much as I do about... well nothing really. Working sort of just makes my brain go "blah blah blah blah blah." I no longer ponder about Bradgelina or Ukraine or my mom's cute cat or e-mail. I just become a drone and work and work work work work. And I suppose that I fear that. The more that I sit at that chair running credit card numbers, the more I think about a life of selling advertising and how "glamorous" that might be. How easy it would be. Not easy in that meeting goals and deadlines do not involve pressure or stress or hard work, but that I would have to think about much of anything when I was working and that a job like that would be perceivably more easy to leave behind at the work place, something that I was never able to do as a VISTA or a grad student and I doubt that will never be possible as a Peace Corps Volunteer, as you are constantly reminded of your status as foreigner.
Anyway, I'm working for a living, for the next few weeks, and I like it and the honest to goodness simplicity that it brings me. I just wish that it would be a bit more stressful (as long as I'm not messing up stress, just keeping me busy and on my toes stress) to make the day go by quicker. And that the air conditioning would get fixed.
To all of you with the 9 to 5, I would like to hear your two cents about your thoughts on work and what you think about during work, because man, I just turn into a drone.
posted by Molly | 7:38 PM
1 Comments:
i left the 9 to 5 because i couldn't turn into a drone...i hated that shite. it may seem fine to you now, but that might be because you're not faced with the prospect of it forever - i think that's when it gets scary, to those of us who are restless souls.
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