The first Challenger album had 5 songs about shitty jobs.
Found myself unemployed again. Uh-oh! Woes can be stacked high as you please, and then you can bowl them over with whiskey. I'm not feeling too bad about the situation: I'm only feeling a little upset about finding another job that will serve simply as a means to an end.
I remember when I was 18, I was working at Bob's Produce Ranch and we had this incredibly inane employee retreat. At the retreat we were shown a series of videos, one of them highlighting the maintainence of your work ethic while on the clock. The solution, as I recollect, was to associate your ill-feeling about the job with the ironic capitalist anti-virtue of selfishness. So, for example, if a customer was testing your patience, you were to say something to yourself like, "I am certainly an ass for not being my nicest to this stranger that is only speaking to me to satiate some desire for their own asinine fulfillment, so I ought to treat them like they just cured cancer and brokered peace between Israel and Palestine."
The video then cut to footage of guys working at Seattle's Pike fishmarket. You know, the one that is famous for the guys who throw fish around and make smart-ass comments about throwing fish around. The narration practically sung praises of the tossing and catching fishmongers as being champions of work ethic. Which I thought was a hilariously innappropriate juxtaposition, because I'm sure making smart-ass comments and throwing things around at work, which would make any job more enjoyable, would typically be seen by management as being a behavior worthy of termination. I thought this was especially true while working at Bob's Produce Ranch, where you had to clock out before using the restroom. And you know that any management that won't let you piss on their dime will be the last to honestly listen to your new progressive workplace practices.
It seems that the only way to avoid shitty jobs, like hangovers, is to not get one.
So I am taking a few days off from worrying about unemployment. I have some meager savings and my wits about me, so hard times are definitely nowhere near where I am.
I remember when I was 18, I was working at Bob's Produce Ranch and we had this incredibly inane employee retreat. At the retreat we were shown a series of videos, one of them highlighting the maintainence of your work ethic while on the clock. The solution, as I recollect, was to associate your ill-feeling about the job with the ironic capitalist anti-virtue of selfishness. So, for example, if a customer was testing your patience, you were to say something to yourself like, "I am certainly an ass for not being my nicest to this stranger that is only speaking to me to satiate some desire for their own asinine fulfillment, so I ought to treat them like they just cured cancer and brokered peace between Israel and Palestine."
The video then cut to footage of guys working at Seattle's Pike fishmarket. You know, the one that is famous for the guys who throw fish around and make smart-ass comments about throwing fish around. The narration practically sung praises of the tossing and catching fishmongers as being champions of work ethic. Which I thought was a hilariously innappropriate juxtaposition, because I'm sure making smart-ass comments and throwing things around at work, which would make any job more enjoyable, would typically be seen by management as being a behavior worthy of termination. I thought this was especially true while working at Bob's Produce Ranch, where you had to clock out before using the restroom. And you know that any management that won't let you piss on their dime will be the last to honestly listen to your new progressive workplace practices.
It seems that the only way to avoid shitty jobs, like hangovers, is to not get one.
So I am taking a few days off from worrying about unemployment. I have some meager savings and my wits about me, so hard times are definitely nowhere near where I am.
posted by Rustle @ 12:57 PM
1 Comments:
At 5:20 AM,
Spacebeer said…
I totally had to watch that video when I worked at Barnes and Noble, and even though they were all hot on it, you can bet we weren't allowed to throw the books around the store.
Post a Comment
<< Home