Job Description

2005-01-31 - 5:28 p.m.

So, the temporary employment news has officially become permanent employment news, at least so long as I want to keep doing this.

"This" is working for a cleaning supply redistributer, basically unloading boxes (mostly toilet paper and paper towel but with enough boxes of industrial-sized bleach and whatever to keep me sweating) from the delivery truck in the morning and loading the same boxes into customers' cars throughout the day.

The bosses are a husband and wife team, not from the Middle East, but actually from East Africa (Kenya, for the husband), and while they can be snippish, they seem like good people.

I've only worked three days now (I worked 13 hours Friday! Straight! How the hell did that happen?!), but I'm already feeling like I could settle in to this job for a while. I like being so active throughout the day, and even though I'm physically tired when the shift ends, I don't feel drained, like I did so often at my last job. Maybe it's the comfort in knowing I won't be yelled at or berated out of nowhere for no reason, or maybe it's because, with only four people working in the same building, there's a lot less "office politics" to deal with, maybe it is all the endorphins from the exercise I'm suddenly getting all the time.

The downsides are mainly the pay, and the awareness that this job was a "triage" choice, made for the sole reason of having no money and being desperate. I'll have to really pay attention to my finances if I want to continue taking courses and playing rugby, because this is the sort of job that can easily become a black hole, the kind where I can only afford to work.

I'm waiting a few weeks before I start making any real plans - my boss could be a closet psycho, the store could burn down, I could have an embolism - but I think this place will be a good place to stay for a year or so while I finish up my editing credits and build my freelance business and maybe write a novel or two. It's nice to have plans that carry over from one job to the next. I feel like I'm about to settle into my old life, but without all of the old work-related stress. If I recall correctly, I was mostly happy with everything except for work...maybe I'll have a year of being mostly happy with everything, which is a pretty nice gift.

Man, this entry was supposed to be about how work makes me feel like a monk or the Karate Kid, using mundane physical activity to heighten my connection with the mystical Other that binds us all.

Cheers,

The Magus

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