work week

Prologue

Right around the time when work was gettin real boring I started noticing how cyclical some of my feelings toward my job were becoming. I started writing down what I was thinking in the moment, basically in brainstorm format, and later would clean up the structure for sake of fluency. This piece is nothing more than the collection of those thoughts. A good amount of it I left raw, here and there there are some notes sprinkled in to help me remember why I was writing certain things, but for the most part it's unrefined. I end up coming to a sort of conclusion by Sunday but in no way was that the purpose. I found it interesting, so maybe you will too.

Monday

I thought about leaving Monday out, the way Multiplication Rock didn't make a song for ones. But that's kind of what this piece is about. My hero zero. The placeholder. Monday.

Tuesday

It’s the afternoon and everything is pending. It really gives you time to consider things, not just think about them. You always expect Monday, so even when your weeks start off like any Monday does, you accept it; assuming the rest will be better. That’s the thing that concerns me right now, that I've been thinking about Friday, really thinking about it, on Tuesday. That I’m living no more than 1 week at a time.

 I look at the people I work with. Two of them like it, 3 of them complain about it, 7 of them do it, and that’s it. You can tell who’s in the last group by the things that frustrate them; the air temperature, the smell of the room, the amount of sunlight in the building. I've noticed all 3…

 I have the most ideal job (for me) offered at my office. I know I’m privileged. I’m reminded everyday when I walk past the huddle of men smoking in the cold with their work boots and their rough hands and their slow eyes outside the temp agency on the ground floor below us. I know they see me pull up and go through the gate; I can hear what their feet are saying when they watch me turn the corner and put my badge up to the RFID scanner to get in. I look more like them than everyone else who has or will have taken that route. If it’s a group there’s a Drake joke, if it’s just 1 there’s an unintentional stare. I know I’m privileged.

 But knowing where you are doesn't stop Tuesdays. Sometimes I drive home 90 or better just so my car will shake a bit; just to make it apparent that some things are above my control. That’s what it takes sometimes. It’s weird. I like being injured or sick, in a way, because it keeps me sane. How bored I get scares me.

 I’ve taught myself not to worry because I know it’s either worry about everything or nothing; I know no middle ground. But that’s the 1 thing. I worry about how bored I get. This brings me to the title:

 It’s certainly some combination of my generational upbringing, my social class, and pure genetics. It’s the ADD generation - I can’t sit still. On top of that I have an education that’s stuck between trying to churn out STEM majors and foster creativity, and it did a poor job of combining the two. The people who used to be in charge were confused about what they wanted from us. So as a result they got about 10 years worth of kids who are the resultant of conservative experiments.

 I’ve always felt like, mentally, the middle class has it the hardest of the three. When you’re poor, you know you’re poor, you know that with certain drive you can be better than you were. If you’re upper class you know you can either continue to make decisions that prolong your wealth, use your wealth to do what you want, or become poor. When you’re a middle-class American though it’s super easy to stay middle-class, there’s so much stuff that you wouldn’t notice. And that’s the worst to me, when people have no interest in progressing, That’s what brings about this air of entitlement that we know all too well; that’s what makes us lazy, and boring, and sloppy, and dangerous. That’s what makes us dicks. We’re all dicks. We think of boldness and modesty as opposites.

Wednesday

Wildcard Wednesday. The thing about hump day is that it doesn't have an antithesis. Lunes is unhappily but faithfully married to Viernes as Martis and Iovis smooth the transition between beginning and end but Mittvoch... sits there, every week, like Xenon, knowing it's supposedly stable but scheming up ways to surprise you.

There's still enough time for people to expect you to finish Wednesday assignments by Friday, but never enough time to work those assignments into your schedule.

Thursday

Either Tuesday's the day that fools you into thinking you hate work or Thursday's the day that makes you think it's not actually that bad. It's gotta be the notion of what's next that drives the attitude of what now.

Friday

No comment.

Saturday

It's what we live for right? Monday morning is dreadful because it's the end to what Friday night started. Friday night's free because Saturday is yours. Although it goes unspoken I'd say a good bit of our happiness hinges on the release that Saturday brings. But when you write it, doesn't it seem sadder?

Sunday

How's work?

It's always good, relatively speaking. I'm not a taste tester for a king, or a smuggler for a crime mob working out of necessity, I'm not even an average paid regular employee, I have a better job than that. But I can never bring myself to say it's good when someone asks; it feels dishonest, because while sensibly I know it's good, I just don't feel that. Naturally I thought I was just spoiled, which I am by my parents historically responsible decisions and high work ethic, but I don't think that's fair either, here's why.

When jobs were invented, in the negative 2000s or whatever, people worked because their community needed them to perform a task, not because of career interest. Not to say that people didn't start "businesses" to follow their callings - as long as there has been passion there has been business - but no one worked jobs because it was an inherent part of life. Fast forward positive 4000 or whatever years. Now we work for goods (barring money as a middleman), we work to not be bored, and it's pathetic.

If we're going to live in a society that deems mandating 1/3 of 5/7ths of 60% of your life to being in a specific place making specific movements to maintain status quo as normal, I honestly think we're entitled to having that time optimized for us, because really all we have is time. What I'm saying is you should freakin love your job.

For clarifications sake, no one owes you a great job, no one (besides your early educational institutions, but that's another story) has to dedicate their time to making sure you get where you should go, that's on you. You owe you a great job.

But what should you do though?

I think in our current socio-economic state, people manifest shooting for that life with start-ups. They're beautiful and I'm all for them, but as they become more prevalent I worry that it'll become just another way of not being bored. I mean, people are building startups just to sell them, and I can't help but think that once that becomes a business model per se, it will lend itself to a less potent but still unending fault of unhappiness with your work. 

And I think people get in the mindset that being your own boss is the pièce de résistance, when really most people end up either over or under critical of their decisions without an equal partner. You have just as good a chance finding fulfillment by joining an existing team of people like you as you do starting an idea from scratch, because if they were looking for you and you were looking for them, your help will be as welcome to them as their knowledge will be to you. And when you think about it, there are only goods and services, goods for people and services for people, so the end game of work is to give someone something they want or need. So if all products are made by and for people, the input and interaction you get from your crew about your product is invaluable. The ergonomic depth of your product can make or break its success, so the higher the quality of people you have giving their constructive opinions on your product, they better it will do, and the happier you will be to work on it. So as a result I think that people will only truly be happy with their work when they work with people they like, doing things they like - emphasis on people.

So that's it really. Sorry it wound down to a less philosophical and kind of generic, Dear Abby column end, but I don't think helpful responses to life's basic issues require a brand new phrase that triggers some desire to live fully. Find what you like, find people to do it with. And just do it.