Just Kidding

Just kidding. I have more to say before this terrible year of our Lord 2005 comes limping, beaten and bloody, to its eventual end.

It is 2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. I had originally planned on going to bed around ten, waking up at five, and spending a good thirty minutes running on a treadmill at the local gymnasium before starting my day at seven. Instead, I have wasted countless hours surfing the internet and attempting to read “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.” Neither has proven worthy of the time and effort expended.

I have to work tomorrow. I have to work the following day. Then I get five more days off. Some people are envious of the expanse of time that exists between my working days, but I consider it no great thing. When you hate your job as much as I do, you spend an inordinate amount of your free time under a cloud of gloom brought on by the knowledge that you must return. And no amount of holiday merriment or copious consumption of expensive liquor can assuage this sad fact. I might currently have a reprieve, but time is cyclical and it will again roll back to previous bad ugliness no matter how much I pretend this is not so.

I applied for another new job today. I apply for a lot of new jobs on a daily basis, 8,456 jobs in all 50 states and at least 6 different countries over the past year and a half to be exact (my family tells me I should have been an accountant, where I could have put my incessant counting to good use. I majored in accounting for three weeks, two days, and somewhere between four and five hours. The minutiae of time quadrants escape me at the moment, thus proving that I do not have the temperament for accountancy, no matter what my sister says), but this one was different. I am actually interested in this job.

The position is for a local university and is entitled “Campus Coordinator.” The job description leads me to believe that the work involves ensuring that classrooms and the faculty who use them are well stocked with the requisite services and equipment they require to undertake the arduous task of pretending to educate college students who, in turn, pretend to learn things about which they have little interest outside of a perceived monetary value they hopelessly affix to the poorly crafted knowledge they receive. The good thing is that it’s a second shift position, so I wouldn’t have to go in until nearly two. I would work nine hours Monday through Thursday, and then nine in the morning until two in the afternoon on Fridays.

Second Shift. I think I am well suited to the solitary lifestyle and lack of social interaction required to operate under such a lenient schedule. This is why I majored in computer programming. It is also why I have been uable to obtain a position in this field, despite my vociferous effors.

Chances are that what little supervision the university plans to lord over whomever they decide is worthy to fill said position will likely disappear by five at the latest. Given the tendency of managers in university settings to shirk responsibility, that estimation might even be a bit generous. They may leave earlier. This means that if I get the job, I would spend countless unsupervised hours completing tasks, uninterrupted by pointless meetings and useless discussions on topics about which I care very little. I would also avoid traffic on the way to and from work.

This is good.

All my hope is likely for naught, however, since these people, like everybody else with whom I have interviewed, are probably not interested in a candidate who is not specifically tailored to the underwhelming job descriptions they made up on a whim while drinking bourbon out of their ofices on a Friday afternoon when they were supposed to be doing something constructive.

This, of course, means I will probably remain in the cublce farm hellhole of a regular nine to five (or, in my case seven to five) job. It also means I had better get used to going to bed earlier if I plan on keeping this job. I think I’ll make another valiant attempt at this right now.

Goodnight.