Career musings
Most people hate paperwork. They hate the tedium and sheer drudgery of mucking about with paper, printer, figures and such.
I like it. It beats the hell out of what I usually do for a living; hauling big heavy things, wrangling them into place and wielding great heavy tools about to get the big heavy thing to fit just right, all the while making a LOT of noise and spewing dust into the air like a savage demented beaver on speed AND a deadline to build the damn dam before the flood hits.
Compared to that, paperwork is serene, placid, a hell of a lot cleaner, and far less sweaty.
I know there are worse jobs in the world than mine; Porta Potty cleaner, for instance. Somehow the idea of sucking some one else’s body waste out of a plastic bucket with a huge vacuum cleaner mounted on the back of a truck does not seem like something I would want to do. Its bad enough I have to use the smelly closets every day, but having to clean them seems like a job for that guy that always stands at the exit on the freeway with the sign saying, ”Will work for food” and his finger up his nose to the second joint.
Another job I could never wrap my brain around is roofer. Standing on a roof makes me kinda queezy and watery at the knees, but to have to work there seems unreasonable. Its HOT up there, there is never any shade, and the idea of hauling heavy bags of paper soaked in tar, then sprinkled with tiny stones, up a ladder seems worse than hauling big heavy things on the ground. On the ground I feel sure I am not going to slip and fall off the edge.
I don’t think I would want to be a doctor, either. I don’t have the people skills to tell someone that I am going to have to cut off their leg because they slathered themselves in bacon grease before leaping into a pen of rabid badgers and venomous snakes. I would laugh and call them stupid. “I am going to cut off your leg because you were stupid” is not what someone about to loose a limb wants to hear.
So paperwork is the dream for me. Sitting in a nice clean office, moving pieces of paper (Which weigh practically nothing) from one pile to another, making entries into the computer, and commenting on how tacky Carrie from accounting looks today seems like the perfect job.
Answering the phone is no problem for me. Try answering the phone while you are holding a spinning saw in one hand and someone that you pissed off earlier in the day is bearing down on you in a huge orange forklift. That should be a test for phone answering school, keeping your cool while someone on a forklift tries to ‘industrial accident’ you. That will prepare you for the office, where the only orange thing that threatens you is the big fat guy in the parking garage that wears an orange vest and waves his ‘flashlight of doom’ at you for parking in a spot other than the one that he picked out for you.
My father always said I should be a lawyer. Now that I am grown, I can see his point of view. They make obscene amounts of money for arguing with people. That’s something I can do, arguing with people. Sometimes I will get into an argument just for the fun of it, not because I believe in a particular point of view. Too bad that at the time I was so busy being stubborn and pubescent that I never listened to him or anything he said. I was so stubborn that I am surprised that I remember that he told me that I should be a lawyer. He was probably being sarcastic at the time. I always remember sarcasm.
Unfortunately at this stage of my life, paperwork is not looking likely. I have been making dust for a long time and people know that. Once you get known for doing something it gets harder and harder to break out of the mold and do something new.
I am not unhappy at my job. I feel that I get paid rather well for doing something that gives me a lot of satisfaction. Its just some days when the ol’ bones seem to hurt that I think that I made a mistake and should be in a nice, clean, air conditioned office looking at the latest thing in women’s fashion on the women that make that fashion look nice.
But let’s face it. I would not be happy in an office and would probably piss the boss off to such an extent that I would never work indoors again or worse yet, the only job I could get is Porta Potty cleaner. ‘Tis better to stick with what you know. After all, someone has to build the air conditioned offices that the pretty girls go to every day, don’t they?
I like it. It beats the hell out of what I usually do for a living; hauling big heavy things, wrangling them into place and wielding great heavy tools about to get the big heavy thing to fit just right, all the while making a LOT of noise and spewing dust into the air like a savage demented beaver on speed AND a deadline to build the damn dam before the flood hits.
Compared to that, paperwork is serene, placid, a hell of a lot cleaner, and far less sweaty.
I know there are worse jobs in the world than mine; Porta Potty cleaner, for instance. Somehow the idea of sucking some one else’s body waste out of a plastic bucket with a huge vacuum cleaner mounted on the back of a truck does not seem like something I would want to do. Its bad enough I have to use the smelly closets every day, but having to clean them seems like a job for that guy that always stands at the exit on the freeway with the sign saying, ”Will work for food” and his finger up his nose to the second joint.
Another job I could never wrap my brain around is roofer. Standing on a roof makes me kinda queezy and watery at the knees, but to have to work there seems unreasonable. Its HOT up there, there is never any shade, and the idea of hauling heavy bags of paper soaked in tar, then sprinkled with tiny stones, up a ladder seems worse than hauling big heavy things on the ground. On the ground I feel sure I am not going to slip and fall off the edge.
I don’t think I would want to be a doctor, either. I don’t have the people skills to tell someone that I am going to have to cut off their leg because they slathered themselves in bacon grease before leaping into a pen of rabid badgers and venomous snakes. I would laugh and call them stupid. “I am going to cut off your leg because you were stupid” is not what someone about to loose a limb wants to hear.
So paperwork is the dream for me. Sitting in a nice clean office, moving pieces of paper (Which weigh practically nothing) from one pile to another, making entries into the computer, and commenting on how tacky Carrie from accounting looks today seems like the perfect job.
Answering the phone is no problem for me. Try answering the phone while you are holding a spinning saw in one hand and someone that you pissed off earlier in the day is bearing down on you in a huge orange forklift. That should be a test for phone answering school, keeping your cool while someone on a forklift tries to ‘industrial accident’ you. That will prepare you for the office, where the only orange thing that threatens you is the big fat guy in the parking garage that wears an orange vest and waves his ‘flashlight of doom’ at you for parking in a spot other than the one that he picked out for you.
My father always said I should be a lawyer. Now that I am grown, I can see his point of view. They make obscene amounts of money for arguing with people. That’s something I can do, arguing with people. Sometimes I will get into an argument just for the fun of it, not because I believe in a particular point of view. Too bad that at the time I was so busy being stubborn and pubescent that I never listened to him or anything he said. I was so stubborn that I am surprised that I remember that he told me that I should be a lawyer. He was probably being sarcastic at the time. I always remember sarcasm.
Unfortunately at this stage of my life, paperwork is not looking likely. I have been making dust for a long time and people know that. Once you get known for doing something it gets harder and harder to break out of the mold and do something new.
I am not unhappy at my job. I feel that I get paid rather well for doing something that gives me a lot of satisfaction. Its just some days when the ol’ bones seem to hurt that I think that I made a mistake and should be in a nice, clean, air conditioned office looking at the latest thing in women’s fashion on the women that make that fashion look nice.
But let’s face it. I would not be happy in an office and would probably piss the boss off to such an extent that I would never work indoors again or worse yet, the only job I could get is Porta Potty cleaner. ‘Tis better to stick with what you know. After all, someone has to build the air conditioned offices that the pretty girls go to every day, don’t they?
posted by MizfiTroll at 6:03 AM
3 Comments:
Okay Mister! You are definitely treading on sacred ground here. You think pushing papers is a piece of cake, you may be able to do it a few hours a week, but let me tell you something....try doing it 40+ while running around like a chicken with is proverbial head chopped off fixing all the problems including scheduling the likes of you people to come out and fix the buildings you supposedly did right the first time around! You keep up conversations like that and your precious "dog house" is likely to become more permanent!
Love ya!
P.S. Topics like that should be run by spousal units before posting...
Damn......Can't a man whine anymore??
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