So, check this out...I've been stuck at home for four days feeling miserable from a sinus infection. Instead of being free to recuperate in peace, what am I doing? Worrying about my job. I'm worried about if I'll have a job when I return to work. Not because I love the job, but because it's a steady paycheck. I wouldn't miss the place or the people one bit, but that bi-weekly direct deposit warms my heart every time I look at my bank account online.
Over the two years I've been with the company, I've been absent a lot. I have practically zero sick and annual leave. High blood pressure, a terminal parent, and a family make for a lot of unforeseen problems. My boss appears understanding when issues arise, but I know it's an act. She works when she's sick and she works late every day as if she doesn't have a life. She has made it clear to me that she wants me to be fully committed and excited about her, the job, and the company. What she doesn't get is that she is asking me for the impossible.
I'm a professional writer with a day job as an executive assistant to pay the mortgage. I hate my job with the same passion that I hate when people pull out in front of me in traffic only to drive slow enough to come to a complete stop. I hate that job like cellulite and split ends. Take one part creative person, add one part job to pay the bills and you get a recipe for sheer boredom.
As I lie in bed contemplating how to deal with the boss's attitude when I go back to work and what I'll do if I'm fired, I begin to experience growing indignation. I am mad at the time clock. I'm mad at someone having the audacity to tell me when I have to be at the office and what time I can leave. Even what time to eat and how long. Slowly I come to the conclusion that a full-time job is really jail for people who haven't broken the law.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why offices exist with all of today's technology. With SharePoint, laptops, texting, video conferencing and a million other electronic ways for making us more remotely efficient, it is apparent that offices should be obselete. There is absolutely no reason anybody would need to be in an office five days a week, eight hours a day instead of in their pajamas or on a beach doing the same work. It is ridiculous. It is stupid. It is...time for me to grow a pair and make a plan to get out of the rat race and into life as a working writer. Starting today.
