I haven’t liked my job for 37 years…

I’m surrounded by a bunch of overbearing helicopter parents in my lonely little cube. On one side of my wall today, I listened to Ms. Margaret tell her college freshman daughter that she would be happy to call the girl’s academic advisor and tell her that her daughter just couldn’t handle the difficult class that she’s currently sitting through. Um, are you kidding me, your college-aged daughter can’t do that on her own? Then there’s the father whose high school senior daughter is off to NYU next fall to study sports medicine and pursue her love of ballet (this is not all bad, but the comments from the mothers who say its going to break his heart because his baby won’t be at home anymore make me want to vomit). On the other side of me, I have to listen to my neighbor call her only daughter at least 3 times a day to talk about her future plans because Megan is about to graduate from college.

So, yesterday, on the phone, I hear my neighbor talking to her daughter about the merits of working in a stable environment like the federal workplace and how soul-draining, monotonous work really isn’t so bad. Because you make enough money to do the things you want to do. That is, if you save it all until retirement and somehow not contracted some sort of disease that will inevitably shorten your life. No matter that you sit all day on your ever-widening behind and stare at a computer screen all day so that you require glasses to see the things you’re meant to enjoy. Cube-neighbor ended this conversation by saying, “You know, I’ve been in this job for 37 years. And I’ve never liked it.” Let me pause for a minute to let that sink in.

She has spent 37 YEARS of her life in a job she DOESN’T LIKE. More than half of her life. AND SHE DIDN’T REALLY LIKE IT.

She told our newest employee something similar later in the afternoon. New woman says “so, how’s the office?” Neighbor’s response, “Well, it’s not that bad. It’s not really that interesting, but it’s really stable. Which is a really wonderful thing.” I don’t know how long this new woman has been working (it’s far longer than I’ve been working, probably longer than I’ve been alive), but I’m really disturbed that my neighbor thinks it’s just hunky-dory that she’s never liked her job.

She’s spent more than half of her life in this office because it’s STABLE so she could afford to pay mortgage on her house and pay for her daughter to go to college, so that she can sit in a chair at work and tell her daughter that she should apply for a job with the guv’ment so Megan too can spend 37 years of her life not really liking what she does so she can perpetuate the cycle.

I have to say, my reaction to this advice looks a bit like this:

If you’re not a fan of Mystery Men, I urge you to race out and watch it enough times to memorize all the lines. And then when you get really pissed off, you can use little gems like this “Okay. Right now, I’m kinda like a powder keg, and you’re the match.”

But, I digress. My point is, I’ve been sitting at work, wondering if there’s something wrong with me because the only thing that I sort of like about my job is the paycheck. And the fact that I’m not presently living in a cardboard box and can afford to pay for my own entertainment as a result of said paycheck. And now I worry that if I keep thinking like this, then I too, will one day be making personal phone calls from my desk at work and telling my daughter that I’ve never liked my job or the majority of my life either.

It seems to me I have 2 options here: the status quo or I can take this powder keg of rage that my neighbors have unknowingly agitated just by doing what they evidently have always done (read: make loud personal phone calls) and use it for fuel.

February 3, 2011. Tags: bad mother, Horrible advice, Mr Furious, Mystery Men. Miscellaneous.