Thoughts on a Monday

My job sucks. This is not something that is up for discussion.

Yes, I am grateful to have a job. I recognize that others are not so fortunate as I, and have to stand in unemployment lines and sell their homes and clip endless coupons. I have vacation time, sick time, and other killer benefits. And, as I've stated many times; every Thursday that direct deposit magically appears in my bank account, making it "all worth it". Right? Right?

I was absolutely desperate for a job last summer. My grad school loans were gone, I had about a million resumes out there, I had gone on scads of interviews. But people don't like to hire people with masters degrees (or, then, half-a-masters-degree...) for clerical crap jobs. They're wise enough to know you'll quit the second you have the chance. So I got broker and broker, and more and more desperate. Ridiculously desperate. I mean, I ate rice and pudding I learned to make from cornstarch and milk (when I had money for the milk). I would go to the neighborhood whole foods store with change and buy as much oatmeal or cornstarch or rice as I could to eat. I had to stop running every day because it burned too many calories and made me too hungry. When I recount these tales to Sean, he gapes at me incredulously and says "But why didn't you tell me?!?" Hell, he was already feeding me on weekends.

So, I fell into a temp gig that became a permanent gig that now seems a far more permanent gig than it was intended to be. Where are the jobs? Where, I ask you?

I'm stuck with this one for now, lines and lines of data entry in a huge warehouse of cubicles filled to the brim with people who are beaten down with the futility of working in this department. Negativity festers here like athlete's foot in the boys locker room. And I type and type and type and try to ignore my ever-worsening RSI, so bad now that I've been here only an hour and change and I've already got the shooting pains in my arms going on. And my fingers are going numb. And I haven't even started with the 'serious' mousing project yet. I'm still just entering a few addresses.

But I've got some money. Not much, but some. I can pay for dinners out and my share of large appliances and concert tickets.

The thing is, I think I was happier when I was broke.