First order of bidniz... yeah, I am getting rid of the *infamous* bro tat. For realsies. I'm waiting a couple paycheques, a car tuneup, and one mortgage payment more, then going in for a consult at Deadly Tattoos to figure out what's gonna cover that bitch up. For those who don't know, that stupid little Chinese character on my ankle (it means either 'ginger beef' or 'fuck you in Chinese' depending on the day or what mood I'm in) was acquired when I was eighteen with my BFF at the time (named Cam). I think we just did it because we were bored, but it seemed 'symbolic' or whatever. We did stay friends for a long time, but in more recent years he just kind of disappeared from my life. Sometimes I see him around still, but we really aren't friends anymore, and haven't been for some amount of time. I think I hung on to the tat not because of the whole 'bro' thing, but because what it actually is supposed to mean (and probably doesn't actually, but when you're eighteen, who's keeping track?) is 'strength'. Anybody who knows anything KNOWS I went through some major shit in my twenties. I had a lot of stuff happen, and I guess that any time something started to get really fucked up, I would look at my ankle and think, 'Oh yeah. Strength. Right.', and slowly things would start to sort themselves out.
But I'm ready to get rid of it because now it's just some old faded symbol of things I can't change. So it's time to focus on the things I still have left to do. Yeah... so bye bye, bro tat. It's been... well, it's been.
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Secondly? Let's talk jobs. I used to like my job. You know, when it was fresh and new, and I still had a lot to learn, and they were more than willing to pay for work training and so on, so forth. But now, I've been here probably half a decade too long, and other than that I am currently completely reliant on the paycheque it provides, it is no longer a place I wish to be every morning of my godforsaken life.
Maybe the most fucked thing is that whenever I ask anybody for job leads, they always go back to the same old same old. Some shitty desk job where I'd be doing the exact same thing as I'm doing now. And honestly? I need a break from this. I was talking to some people the other day about the fact that I come from a family where they kind of expect me to have some respectable white collar job... but you know what the most rewarding work I ever did was? Manual labor. Not a word of a lie. I used to install lawns (and golf greens, etc.) for a living. I'd get up at the ass crack of dawn, drive my crappy old Chevy boat down to the yard, then jump into crew cab to drive off to the job site of the day. And I'd usually pull 12 hour days, at least. Dirty work, too, not the type of job you'd necessarily want to do if you can't stand being hands and knees down in the mud all day, every day. At the basis of all of this, I guess I'm just a lot more blue collar than I've been led to believe that I supposed to be. The point is, I actually sort of liked that job because at least by the time I got home, showered up, and cracked that first beer, I felt I'd earned it.
Right now? Fuck... I'm writing a blog post. I've earned nothing. I don't even deserve that shitty can of Black Label that's in the very back of the fridge. I sit in my corner office, and I'm lucky if half the time anybody even remembers I'm here. What I always get from people is the same garbage, "Isn't it awesome to get paid to do nothing?". Mmmkay... no. No it isn't. It sucks because I feel like such a fraud. I don't feel like I'm headed anywhere in particular, and because of that I hate getting up in the morning (okay, so I always hate that... not a morning person).
Do I necessarily know what I want to do? No... but I'm pretty damned intuitive, and when the right opportunity rears its head, I will know.
2 comments:
I will only say this - if you don't feel like you've earned the Black Label, then yeah - it's time to find something new....
It's been a long time coming. I no longer feel like this is a productive environment- for anybody here. The morale is so low some days, but I work w/ a lot of people who are basically just zombie-ing the days away waiting to collect their pensions. It's awful. And I do not want to fall into that same trap.
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