1.
By the time my alarm screeched, my uncle was dead. Well, he wasn’t really dead, I found out later, but it sure seemed that way; I’ve always had strange dreams, so to call them weird is redundant. What else is new? Mornings have never been a favorite, and there's always a bit of grumbling and a lot of negative internal monologue on the drive in to work. “What grand conspiracy is this, and whose ingeniously devious idea is it?” I wonder; it's disappointing I hadn’t thought of it myself.
2.
The phone rings, something about the tone on the other end of the line makes me want to curl up and die but it's probably just the fact that it's a Monday and I'm not sleeping in bed. I think of Office Space. I think of Fight Club. Then I stop thinking. This, I feel, is a sorely overlooked talent in people, that by all outward appearances you can have a conversation with someone but they’re not hearing a word of it; they’re off snowboarding and probably having sex or whatever it is that goes on inside a person’s head when they space out but it’s usually better to remain in the dark about such things. You can read subtle body language and recognize cues in the voice, seemingly placed there purposely so that the other person can feel validated that their words are being followed and assimilated. A primate could do it. That’s where I come in.
With the aid of my opposable thumbs, I place the receiver back on its base, record and report the information given me and proceed back to my corner to hide; or think I can, anyhow. It gets me through the day to imagine a cloaking device shielding my work area, keeping me safe from prying eyes. I think of Predator.
How come we don’t have cloaking technology yet? Or do we? I’m sure it’s confidential. I don’t work for the government, though: I work for the crazies. The patients are here, too. I know it’s not PC to say such things but whatever appropriate catch phrase they’re using these days escapes me at the moment. Mentally ill seems accurate, or handicapped; that’s how I feel walking out of here so I’ll go with that.
The thing about working in a psychiatric facility is that the lines of sanity blur and soon enough, you're milling around rather dumbly in another world that doesn't exist outside of your own mind. There's a good chance you have a touch of it already, for even considering working in such a place. It goes to say that the staff is more looped than the patients but this creates an interesting dynamic; It’s funny, but it hurts to keep laughing at it. Would it kill a person to just act fucking normal for once? Normal. Right. Whatever that is.
My name is not an incredibly important fact; I exist, like everyone else, even if I do try to deny this fact most days. You can only rationalize denial for so long; after that, you can't help but notice it gets a little ridiculous (not that I haven't tried, though). I am employee #676433, for short; aka Shane. Lol. Jk. It's a very abbreviated society we live in, there's never enough time to form even words anymore, and that makes me feel rather indifferent. Whatever is going on out there affects me in only an abstract way and in a detached manner; it seems irrelevant, certainly doesn't seem real. People give such strange looks when you inform them of your unwillingness to stay up on current events, like you're some kind of fucking alien or ignoramus. Well, I'm not but reserve the right to think this of you by your desire to "stay in the loop", and if in doing so it doesn't leave you bitter or filled with hatred, I commend you.
3.
It's necessary to live two lives; one for business and one for everything else. People need their vices, please don't take it away from them; office life is bad enough, they shouldn't have to be subjected to dealing with shit without the help of some kind of slow poison.
You're stuck in a cage with the best and worst in people for eight hours a day, five days a week and sometimes on weekends. You have no say.
You have even less to say due to the knowledge of its uselessness; to call it desperation is an understatement.
Some days you just want to hurt people, but you don't. And you won't, though some do and you always seem appalled at learning of workplace violence, as if you're somehow above it. Fantasy can be its own slow poison. Whatever gets you through the day without a body count and/or criminal charges.
4.
There's a fire in your belly; don't just do something, stand there. It's ok, someone else will know what to do so you rely on that faint glimmer of hope to carry you through all this. Another day, dripping with hope and reeking of aspirations to reach the stars, crushed yet again under the oppressive foot of the demigod you call your boss. And it's never just one, is it? There seems to be an endless line of command, people controlling the people in control. Everybody's looking for something but there's nothing to be found; not where they're looking, anyhow.
Authority only makes you look silly. It means nothing. Treat me like a human being and you will have my respect, despite our differences. The best one in power is the one who doesn't have the power, at all. You're swimming with sharks every day, and there's blood in the water. Your blood. Swim faster. Better yet, stop moving and let your self sink to the bottom, this way you're forgotten and excused from daily living.
5.
So you're wondering, "if you hate your job so much, then quit. get a new one.". I don't hate it, quite the contrary. I hate the realization of the futility of my existence that it imposes on me every day, and that's just not something you can escape. It's all made up like bad fiction, this work "ethic". Sure, I have morals too. And responsibilities and obligations and everything else we made up and strapped to ourselves as some unquestionable law, but the whole thing is just funny to me. It seems more like voluntary slavery. Worse, obligatory. And this is our life.
It's expected of us to show up and possess superhuman abilities to summon smiles and ooze jolliness through our pores like some bloated toad. This all seems real, but every once in a while we're faced with something that slaps us square in the mouth with a glove and challenges us to a duel: to look inside ourselves and find the missing link, to understand that this is not all that there is, that there is something out there and within us that makes sense, and that is what we must do. But then comfort sets in, and suddenly, slowly, the image gets further out of reach and then you're 72 and your health is failing because you ate shitty food and drank shitty drinks and were just not nice to yourself. When you retire, all the ones who don't care about you, never did, and some who really do will come congratulate you and wish you well on your way. On the drive home you have a massive heart attack and the car you're not capable of steering anymore causes an accident, permanently disfiguring someone else you never even met, whose life you also just ruined and inherited all your bad karma. It's fucked up the way things happen.
It's a job, it's not your life; it's not even real, no matter how long you hold your breath or cross your fingers. Somewhere, someone is creating their life right now; drafting their own great spiritual architecture in their own image. They're not a slave and neither are you.
