largely meaningless and that it chills your very soul?
I worked at a series of temporary job that paid appallingly little. For seven hours I took orders from people far less capable and intelligent than myself, working mostly on projects of complete insignificance. My day to day life was worse than any nightmare I had ever experienced. How could real life be so completely devoid of meaning and nourishment?
Each day I would trudge to work, knowing that it was going to be another dismal seven hours of uninteresting, meaningless labor. All I could think was that for boredom like this, they should pay better. Soon, by observing the people in more elevated positions, I discovered that they were no more enthralled than I was. Everybody was just working to get through to the weekend. Oh, there was the occasional lucky slob who liked what he was doing, someone who had managed successfully to merge his being with the routine tasks he completed daily, or someone whose need for recognition propelled him to an executive level and by being there got ego food. “ I have a secretary, therefore I am, ” seemed the executive credo.
I felt stale and sour and overwhelmed by everything that seemed like a tidal wave of negative experiences designed to drown me, or worse to drown my spirit while requiring me to remain inside my body as a prisoner of the work force. I had my quota of widgets to produce, whether my heart was in it or not. It didn ’ t occur to me that this is what grown ups do. Nobody had ever taken me aside to say that every moment of life wasn ’ t meant to produce happiness or even fulfillment. Sometimes you ’ re just cleaning a toilet and when it ’ s clean there is indeed satisfaction in that although no violins may play in the background. Somehow I clung to the notion that I was entitled to be fulfilled, that life should be not just fun but rewarding on another level, that there should be a sense that my time was going toward something which to me had some intrinsic value.
Even though I worked all the time, there was never any money. What I earned barely sustained me and was not nearly enough to provide fun or entertainment. Once a week if we were lucky, Violet and I would go out. That meant a trip to Napoli Pizza for dinner. Violet was delighted to dine on pizza with pepperoni, but I felt like more of a failure than the women on welfare. My expectations of life were simply too high to be met by my reality, and I had no clue about how to elevate reality to meet my standards. I was trapped. Surely there was something more, but even observing the people who were doing something more, I recognized that their lives and sources of livelihood were meaningless to me and often to them. Even so, I would have been willing to sell out, only nobody was buying.
Once I had a long term assignment at a foreign bank. That was enjoyable because the people employed there had a terrific work ethic. They liked to work long and hard, not just for the money, but for the experience of the labor itself. Their cheer and high spirits were catching and I found myself enjoying being buried in the letters of credit department. The other part of the story was that the red button philosophy had escaped them. Once the boss noticed that I was smart, he reassigned me from the menial task they hired me to do to something that required thought and skill. And although the work wasn ’ t hard and had its aura of routine, it was a relief from the meaninglessness in which I usually was immersed.
Before it was time for me to leave, the Vice President called me into his office and offered me a job paying a salary which at that point sounded like a fortune. And although I had always been interested in more creative endeavors, I decided to say yes. If this was selling out, I would line up to sign up. There was one formality — a visit to the personnel director, who turned out to be the typical red button type. What? Pay me, a mere temp who earned a pittance
I worked at a series of temporary job that paid appallingly little. For seven hours I took orders from people far less capable and intelligent than myself, working mostly on projects of complete insignificance. My day to day life was worse than any nightmare I had ever experienced. How could real life be so completely devoid of meaning and nourishment?
Each day I would trudge to work, knowing that it was going to be another dismal seven hours of uninteresting, meaningless labor. All I could think was that for boredom like this, they should pay better. Soon, by observing the people in more elevated positions, I discovered that they were no more enthralled than I was. Everybody was just working to get through to the weekend. Oh, there was the occasional lucky slob who liked what he was doing, someone who had managed successfully to merge his being with the routine tasks he completed daily, or someone whose need for recognition propelled him to an executive level and by being there got ego food. “ I have a secretary, therefore I am, ” seemed the executive credo.
I felt stale and sour and overwhelmed by everything that seemed like a tidal wave of negative experiences designed to drown me, or worse to drown my spirit while requiring me to remain inside my body as a prisoner of the work force. I had my quota of widgets to produce, whether my heart was in it or not. It didn ’ t occur to me that this is what grown ups do. Nobody had ever taken me aside to say that every moment of life wasn ’ t meant to produce happiness or even fulfillment. Sometimes you ’ re just cleaning a toilet and when it ’ s clean there is indeed satisfaction in that although no violins may play in the background. Somehow I clung to the notion that I was entitled to be fulfilled, that life should be not just fun but rewarding on another level, that there should be a sense that my time was going toward something which to me had some intrinsic value.
Even though I worked all the time, there was never any money. What I earned barely sustained me and was not nearly enough to provide fun or entertainment. Once a week if we were lucky, Violet and I would go out. That meant a trip to Napoli Pizza for dinner. Violet was delighted to dine on pizza with pepperoni, but I felt like more of a failure than the women on welfare. My expectations of life were simply too high to be met by my reality, and I had no clue about how to elevate reality to meet my standards. I was trapped. Surely there was something more, but even observing the people who were doing something more, I recognized that their lives and sources of livelihood were meaningless to me and often to them. Even so, I would have been willing to sell out, only nobody was buying.
Once I had a long term assignment at a foreign bank. That was enjoyable because the people employed there had a terrific work ethic. They liked to work long and hard, not just for the money, but for the experience of the labor itself. Their cheer and high spirits were catching and I found myself enjoying being buried in the letters of credit department. The other part of the story was that the red button philosophy had escaped them. Once the boss noticed that I was smart, he reassigned me from the menial task they hired me to do to something that required thought and skill. And although the work wasn ’ t hard and had its aura of routine, it was a relief from the meaninglessness in which I usually was immersed.
Before it was time for me to leave, the Vice President called me into his office and offered me a job paying a salary which at that point sounded like a fortune. And although I had always been interested in more creative endeavors, I decided to say yes. If this was selling out, I would line up to sign up. There was one formality — a visit to the personnel director, who turned out to be the typical red button type. What? Pay me, a mere temp who earned a pittance
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