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I have finally given in. I’ve pledged to my employer my undying loyalty and verbally promised that I will beat on, boats against the current, and all that other bullshit.
Is it really the worst thing to be gainfully employed? It’s not as if quitting was a real option. There’s rent to be paid. A friend who is also a girl that likes to do things which, unfortunately for me, aren’t free. There’s booze to be bought and drugs to consume. They’re expensive but they temporarily numb the painful realization that there are forty years left of this before the retirement party.
Bills and food and gizmos and gadgets that promise to make my life bearable as I coast to another bi-weekly paycheck. Just going through the motions. Does anyone know what day it is anymore? Monday? Tuesday? Does it matter?
The fluorescent lighting in the office is a general anesthetic more powerful than a morphine drip.
I’ve got the thousand-yard stare as my hands mindlessly plug away at spreadsheets littered with thousands of names and companies that I only have a cursory knowledge of.
The life I formerly had – before work, rent, and bills – has been sucked out of my body. You, me, close friends, and family members – we’ve all submitted wholly to this incandescent environment where time seems to stand still. The rat race that never fucking ends.
Imagine if they pumped oxygen into your place of work – that morgue of an office building full of your peers who, much like you, do not want to be there.
No one knows what time it is because there are hardly any goddamn windows in the joint. Throw some overweight geriatrics with oxygen tanks and a couple of loud, beeping slot machines into this picture I’m painting you and it could be mistaken for a casino.
Then again, casinos are supposed to be enjoyable. A reprieve from normal life where one can enjoy themselves if only for a few hours. There is no enjoyment being derived from a day spent in a cube farm.
Sometimes, if I’m really feeling crazy, I’ll get up from my desk and walk to a window in the hallway of my office building. It’s close to 85 degrees outside and I can see the sun casting its rays over the masses that walk below me. From twenty-one floors up everyone looks happy. “Shouldn’t they be at work?” I say under my breath.
Are these people on their lunch break already? I play a game of Temple Run on my phone while I walk from the window on my floor back to my desk. Why I still have Temple Run as an app on my phone is a mystery. I think that I should probably delete the app but then I decide that this would be stupid as I still play it regularly.
Don’t look at the clock. Do. Not. Look. At. The. Clock.
It’s 9:30 a.m.
Six, maybe seven more hours and you’ll be homefree, son.
In this moment, I am having an out of body experience. A lifeless body devoid of any expression gazes longingly at a box of Cheez-Its he knows he shouldn’t touch until lunchtime.
“What kind of maniac eats Cheez-Its before noon? Unemployed people, that’s who.”
I hover above myself, mesmerized by what I’m looking at.
Here lies John Duda. Survived by his parents and little sister, he passed away unexpectedly in his ergonomic desk chair earlier this afternoon, finally succumbing to an ailment the coroner’s office has dubbed “boredom.” A toxicology report is expected to be released in the coming days, however, there are no signs of foul play at this juncture in the investigation of his untimely death. .
Image via Youtube
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jduda@grandex.co
Have your employers ever googled you and found your writing? Literally all of my jobs have had at least one person who actually told me they googled me, and I’m really trying to picture how that conversation would go down for you.
Now you guys know why I am how I am. I went down dark roads to find the truth about all of the bullshit we call human existence and basically i can tell you with a high Vegas odds probability that we are experimental slaves to an alien race and the concept of money is in itself slavery. Physical slavery requires people to be housed and fed, economic slavery requires people to house and feed themselves and money is the arbitrary thing that creates an economy and it’s value. They got so good at it that they made physical prison bars invisible and made the prison span over a planet….in other news, I just got a cold brew coffee and for the next 10 minutes I will kinda be okay with all the boring shit that’s around me lol
You guys realize you don’t have to live like this right? Whatever “arbitrary things” that “invisible physical prison bars” are prison bars you’ve placed on yourself. I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.
Break free of the bonds of tranny! Rebel and Revolt!
*Tyranny have not had my coffee yet!
Yup. If you don’t like things, make a change. If you think life is rough as a single 20 something who rents, just wait for the much more serious, and fun-sapping commitments in the near future. Get a better hobby, work just pays the bills. It isn’t life.
You’re right, it’s not a lie. It’s pretty well known to everyone by now. When you centralize a value in the form of currency (which values everything in our everyday lives ie. labor, goods, services, products, assets) using a fractional reserve banking method and then stagger that throughout every financial institution in the hierarchy, you have successfully created a global feudalist system solely based on debt that requires interest to be paid back to the source. So yes, there is a system. You’re also right that the universe is indifferent but people are not. If you say we don’t have to live like this, I would agree but in today’s world try going anywhere or doing anything without money, consistently. That’s my whole point.
Anyone know how to change career paths at age 27 without going back and getting another degree? Asking for a friend…
Sometimes when I’m bored at work, I watch out my window as they pull cars (or people) who fell into the anacostia. It’s a little dark, maybe, but passes the time all the same.
What’s an anacostia?
Excellent question. It’s a river in DC.
Wait, what? I have so many questions. How often do cars/people fall into this river?
Don’t ask questions, and don’t fall in
I do the same thing. I shouldn’t be anymore but I’m constantly surprised by the random shit that gets pulled out.
Same thing here except with the Baltimore Inner Harbor….happens a lot more than one would expect.
Read PGP, Fantasy Football Mock Draft, ESPN/CBS Sports, Zillow browse, LinkedIn Browse, Email check, company intraweb check, grab some water, repeat. Solid 45 minute rotation right there.
So did your employer actually make you pledge your undying loyalty?
Yeah man, Duda is the new FBI director!
I still think you should give weed a try
I waste time thinking of what to name my boat when I retire.
“The Wet Dream” or “Knotty Dream” are high on my list of names
Jesus christ dude, find a job you like if you’re so miserable. There’s literally millions of jobs out there. No need to suffer.
“Oh, get a different job? Just get a different job? Why don’t I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies?!”
Well done.
Loved this.
Also my visceral reaction to this article was similar to the feeling I had watching that dragon slide under the ice Sunday night.