Reality Bites, and other non-original complaints...
THE ACT OF CATCHING ALL THESE LOCUSTS, ONE BY ONE WITH CHOPSTICKS, WOULD BE MORE REWARDING THAN MY PRESENT JOB
I am sorry I haven’t written in a few days. Oh and thanks for complaining about it. As if I was unaware of my neglect. But here’s the thing....
I HATE MY JOB. Not a little. A LOT. I am suffering from intellectual anorexia. This job is sucking out not only my will to live but also any brain cells I might have left after college. And I wasn’t working with a lot after a year in that damn house. Some of you know what I mean. Anyway, I cannot stand the thought of coming back here tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that. Its just horrible.
In college they should have a SENIOR mandatory orientation class like that bullshit freshman year one (at GW you do important things like go on scavenger hunts with people who share the same first letter of your last name). I didn’t need help freshman year. I was actually ok then. I still had dignity and hope. I NEEDED ONE BEFORE I GRADUATED. To prepare me for a demeaning and depressing job of serving others for peanut pay. If someone could have just sat me down and said, “Yes, you are a smart girl and your whole life that has helped you and mattered. You worked hard in high school and got scholarships to go to your stupid college. We are happy for you. So this will be confusing and will hurt a lot. Its time to graduate and go off into the world, and we need to warn you that you will not be valued for your intellect for the next 10 years. You will work your way up the bullshit ladder and people with no brains and no humanity will get to tell you what to do because, well, they have been around longer. And that’s important.” If someone could have prepared me for this I really would have appreciated it.
I am soooo glad so much $ was thrown into my education for absolutely no good reason. Cause in New York what matters is who your dad is and who he plays golf with. You want an interview at JP Morgan or William Morris or The New Yorker? Those jobs are taken by the social elite network. Your stupid first job is gotten for you on the 8th hole. And listen, I know I am not one to talk. Both of my jobs since college I got through connections (though I PROMISE no golf courses were involved) But I don’t even want it that way. I benefit from this bullshit system and yet I hate hate hate it. Cause it means you can only get jobs that you have an in at. Which is severely limiting.
Anyway, I hope someone reads this and takes me away from here (top choices: Sevilla, Rome, island in Greece). Until then, lets all go home and play trivial pursuit or something. Remember that you are a thinking person. Cause here is the thing. I spend at least 45 hours a week at work. And on the weekends I am either drunk in a bar OR hungover. No intelligent conversations in bars, and hangovers mean lights out, aerobed blown up in the living room, watching bad movies and drinking yoo-hoo all day. So that’s not a brainy time. You could say its my fault. Why don’t I do something cultural? Well sometimes I do. One time I went to Staten Island to see a Tibetan museum. That’s mostly cause Nate made us go and you cant refuse a visitor’s requests. But still. I have my NYC cultural moments. I do. But don’t you see? As my threshold for pain is increased day after day month after month until they break me and finally make me realize that I am a human drone capable only of stapling…the medicinal qualities of yagger become more and more necessary. Happy job = reconciling with reality. Reconciling with reality = less hangover brain fog. If a=b, and b=c, then a=c. I’ve still got it!
posted by Amanda at 6:54 PM
6 Comments:
So what's this horrific job?
Poor Manders. I'm sorry for complaining that you haven't updated your site. And I know how it sucks to be depressed. I'm finally coming out of the fog. Know what you should do? Get a vicodin prescription! Best thing I ever did! ;) And we can run away to Sevilla together any day, and go to the Churreria and eat churros and look at little children dressed up like dolls, while wanting to vomit bile into our little ramekin of chocolate sauce. :) And Alejandro will be there. Remember him? Alejandro?
It is a shame to see such talent not being fully harvested-I will happily take you away to perhaps Capri, where we can drink lemonchello and eat all the seafood in the sea. You deserve more.
It sure seems as though there are a few bright spots in your day, namely the two previous comments... you didnt happen to meet them on the street while you were wearing your fleece, did you?
A Man Duh, i dont think you should be so upset about this system that we Americans have created for ourselves, which is to obtain jobs through connections. I think if you took advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to you, you would find that there are not as many limitations as you think.
So here is a plan for you, do your job, and keep writing about how much you hate it becuase that seems to be a good release. Then when it comes time for your weekend fun attempt to make contact with at least one knew person, in a business fashion, that you might be able to benefit from. Helps if they are the same sex (different sex conversations too often for you turn into making out on the street) and make connections. It could be so much as finding out there name, title, and where they work. I will stand by the fact that at least a third of promotions and jobs acuired are done so socially, by one soon to be employee impressing socially an executive of sorts. So this is how you could use your intellectual talents to benefit you while not having to directly benefit from the i know so and so, so i got this sweet job in Fiji.
And if my advice does not appeal to you in the least, exploit the system. You come from one of the wealthiest counties, and towns for that matter, in the United States. You know everyone directly or indirectly, find someone's dad that you want to work for and do it. It's that easy.
So have fun, try not to get too drunk, and keep buying that good looking guy Austin bottles of Jack when he comes to visit and he will keep cooking for you guys. He is so poor, bored, and jobless.
I am right there with you, my friend. My first two years out of college, I wondered why I even bothered dropping all that cash on a degree only to be somebody's bitch. Then I decided to go to law school, where I am at least using my brain for a few years. And in 2.5 years, I will again be wondering why I dropped all this cash to be somebody's bitch....again.
Let's go to Greece. Now. Maybe bartend on Zakynthos? That's a good kind of being somebody's bitch.
Miss you. Tu amiga griega.
Darling,
It won't end this way. It really won't. We are time-stuck, all of us, but it can be helpful to remember this ;)
The world of business and economy is all ends and means. Happiness, sadness, anger, death, love, sex, beauty, etc. These are are the interesting parts, the things to live for and enjoy for free, and share with loved ones--all of us are avid readers of this blog!-- unlike the inconsequential K, who did a famous thing long ago for which he is now time-stuck.
The anachronistic twenties are a humiliating blip in our lives where we yearn for great things that most likely won't be realized. We are angry and hurt by this.
But real greatness--real expression rather--, is a private and privileged thing we get to share with friends only, not for commercial use. Ask the famous and recognized--even ask K.
Of course the very special thing, one which people wait whole lifetimes for, is the opportunity to have one foot in each of the parks of ends and means and love, et al. At 24, you have much time for this :) and I know that day still looms for you.
Until then, there will continue to be weekends of eternal sitting, next-day stomach pains, and bad movies, and also those weekdays where we operate on auto pilot. Most important and interesting tho is love, a center and origin of things which everything--friends, emotions, weather--orbits around.
As friends we orbit around you and you us, and that's all that matters darling. In scope, ends and means are akin to bodily functions and objects like forks, and about as interesting too. Objects and objectives, strangely, have the ability to halt time and hold us, I think. But how much I love you, that's the interesting part, and it goes on forever.. :)
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