Career du Jour

My goddamned telephone has become a horribly intrusive Wheel-of-Misfortune. At some point in the early morning it's virtually guaranteed to ring, bringing with it some unenticing and low-paying offers of work.
Sometimes I wonder if Jill from the Temp Agency makes up some of this shit, just to fuck with me. I mean, she seems nice, but...

Would I care to do data entry for eleven dollars an hour less than I made at my last real job?

Uh, no. ( The pay is so low, I can turn it down without harming my unemployment check status).

We've got a three-week spot at a call-center for...

No. No call centers. Ever. It's on my Agency profile.

Well, I know you didn't like the envelope stuffing job, but there's a mail-clerk spot open. Decent pay. Be there at eight?

Gimme directions . Fuck. Why do all these places expect me to be on-time? My last job let me come in late, blog for a while ,take a three-hour lunch and then go home early. A couple days I just went home at lunch and stayed there. (My work,however, was always exemplary and that's all the Boss cared about.)

So I drag myself to this enormous fucking supply warehouse. I'm already bad vibin' on this place, but maybe it's just rush-hour stress jitters.

I add a new "Visitor Pass" sticker to my rapidly growing collection. A small man with very large moustache comes to greet me. He looks like the Social Studies teacher who tried to molest me in sixth-grade. I'm not feeling good about this. (Let's not drag that up...)

I follow him through a maze of cubes and offices-it's bigger than a dozen Wal-Marts. Pretty swank place-I peek into a break room. Three micro-waves! A soda fountain! Four burners of coffee! Cool! Feelin' better now.

We get into an elevator and plunge 10,000 feet into whatever Infernal Circle is composed of concrete, forklifts and loading docks. I thought I knew my Dante fairly well, but I don't remember reading about this place.

I notice an eight-foot pile of bags labeled "Sand. 60 lbs." Unless you work in a combat zone, you do not want a giant pile of 60 pound sandbags anywhere near your job. Trust me on this.

We need to load these onto palletes.

Can't do it. Bad arm. See my scars?

Hmmm...I see. Can you run a postage meter?

Damn Skippy I can run a postage meter! I'm like a human postage meter! Hand me a business-size envelope-any weight- and I can tell you exactly how much domestic postage will cost.

So me and the Pervy Guy go into the processing room. There's some sort of menacing press robot filling the room. It looks perfectly suited for printing obituaries, but little else. I don't need a crystal and a battalion of Hippies to tell me this gizmo is Bad Karma.I've never seen such a machine. It's gigantic. It looks like something used on the Daily Planet set from the 1950's Superman serials.
What is this thing?

Well, you:

a) load about a gabillion letters into one hopper.

b) load another trintillion business reply envelopes into another hopper.

c) load a yazillion brochures into yet another hopper.

d) load an uncountable amount of pre-addressed envelopes into ,you guessed it, a hopper.

e) hit a big red button. Cover your ears. Hold your nose !It's very loud! It's stinky! I inspect it to see where you shovel the coal into , but come up empty. Maybe it's diesel.I mention OSHA regs and am provided with earplugs, a facemask, and a very dirty look. Bosses hate employees who can quote OSHA regulations.

In theory, this contraption folds the letter, inserts the letter, brochure and return envelope into the larger envelope, meters it for sixty cents and spits it into a USPS bucket. In reality , it's more like a Rube Goldberg confetti-maker. Shreds and scraps fly everywhere, along with a handful of stuffed and sealed envelopes. I assume I've totally screwed up and run for help.
No, that's normal, I'm told. When the batch is done, gather all the "spoileds" and count and bundle them. I assume they get a postage refund from whomever they lease this Jet-Age mail-mangler from.

I notice every envelope is addressed to 'Resident'. Suddenly , I know what it's like to be swallowed by a whale.

This is the Belly of the Beast.
This is where they make Junk Mail.

I ask Pervy,would it be OK if I went to the breakroom and grabbed a cuppa ?

No. That's for Administration only. The cafeteria is that way. If we hire you on, you get half-price. Oh boy! I do cartwheels of joy all the way to the cafeteria! Half-price! WhhooooHoooo!

I've done a lot of stuff on the job. I've gotten drunk. I've gotten high. I've gotten laid in my office and in the stock room. I've played Wasted Hopscotch on the roof of a five-story building. I've told bald-faced lies to the then-current Governor and the Mayor and convinced them that it was all true. Made really long personal calls. Hell, 3/4 or more of this very blog was written while at work.

But I've never paid $1.69 for a cup of coffee at work. Until today.

Gee. If I do a really good job, it'll be 85 cents soon.

Problem is, despite my unorthodox attitude, I do a really good job. At five o'clock they're ready to induct me into the 85 Cent Club.

Gee. I'd love to work in a room with what has to be a direct ancestor of the Terminator and a sign on the outside of the door ordering, "Please Close Door immediately To Keep Fumes Out of Workplace!"

I envy the damncube drones and their free soda and coffee. I wish someone cared enough about me to give me a cup of fuckin' coffee and help keep the fumes out of my goddamn workplace.

All I smell is bullshit and toxic inks.