Life’s failures come at you when it’s quiet.
Another day.
She wakes at 6:30 a.m. to leave for work by 7:30. Forty-five minutes later she’s parking in the basement garage then taking the elevator up to the 24th floor. Ten steps through the glass doors then make a right. Go down past the first door and make another right into the kitchen to put her brown bag lunch in the fridge and grab a coffee. She walks to her office, turns on the lights, and closes the door. Six months at a new job in a new city. It felt like 60 years.
Sit on a vinyl chair made to look like leather at a fake desk made to look like wood. She wishes her desk were wood. There is a warmth to wood. The desk – laminate covering particle board – feels cold and unnatural. Her skin wasn’t formed to touch these things. The fluorescent lights cast shadows over her face, magnifying every crease and aging her 10 years compared to the glow of daylight. The tiny lines in her forehead look like canyons at sunset. Her eyes look defeated. Bags that could carry the world. She appears pale despite the mid-summer tan.
If an environment changes how you appear, does it also change who you are?
She finishes some reports and eats lunch at her desk. The sandwich and crackers leave her unsatisfied. This was followed by meetings and drafting a memorandum discussing the liability of some corporate client who screwed over some employees. She sends it to her boss for review. The boss returns it shortly thereafter, demanding a discussion of some irrelevant law.
Near the end of the day she makes all the necessary changes, forwards it to the necessary people, and ducks out of there. She hopes to make it home by 7. Management says her future looks bright. If she continues with the long hours and the dedication to the firm she can make partner in as little as 8 years. That was the encouragement from her boss not long after she was hired and moved here.
Partnership: the pinnacle of success. You might work Sundays and have multiple failed marriages, but at least you made partner. MORE HERE
That’s not exactly an uplifting story. No doubt there’s millions just like it, but it’s not me. I think that’s the story for a lot of single women that fell for the “you can have it all” storyline.
I have always aspired to the Pinnacle of Underachievement. 😀
DAM! I am glad I worked outside
for 98% of my career.On the water too.
Too many people look for a way to make money and then look for ways to make the work satisfying. It’s much better to do things in the correct order: identify what satisfies you and then look for ways to earn money doing it.
But it’s best to achieve your satisfaction by the way you go about any endeavor.
And that’s a GOOD job.
She is only 30? Eesh. She has gotta get some interests outside of work. All jobs include some drudgery. Think outside the box and get a sense of humor.
There is more to life than meets the eye, even under fluorescent lights.
Could somebody start a thread where those of us here that are still caught up in the grind could relate a typical day?
That might be fun.
My daily not routine is atypical as fuck for most of the population of working folks.
I have an ex-fiancee, who’s been living that lifestyle for 28 years now.
I wonder if she’s happy yet? 🤔
Bob M. 28 years later, do you really care?
I gave up the 6×6 fabric-lined cubical 10 years ago and I never looked back.
@DaveHuff
I had no other frame of reference!
All she needs to do is travel back home for the holidays and get a flat tire just outside of town. Isn’t that how all the Hallmark movies start out?
Girls, girls, girls – you fell for the bullshit, and with a vengence.
Even if you go red pill, we can never fully trust you’ll stay there.
Lowell
Well,there’s two of us. I’ve been self employed since, well for ever. Machinist. Been in biz for 35 years. Gone through some tough times thanks to “Mr Redistribute the wealth”, bouncing back. The thing is, I love what I do.
This reminds me of that movie, Joe vs. the Volcano.” A good Tom Hanks movie, before he became a commie d-sucker.
Highlight of tne week: farting on that vinyl chair!
Yes Gladys! that’s where my mind went, Sixteen Tons and all.
The night I went to the local big city orchestra about an hour early, I saw the musicians shoving their belongings into little lockers.
None of them were very happy.
I realized – Even their jobs kinda sucked.
These people were the best at what they do across maybe four states, maybe more.
The big city orchestra is the top of their field.
But to them, their job sucked too.
Just like everyone else’s.
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
Damn, no wonder so many people are on Valium, Xanax, etc, etc, etc.
Somebody’s been reading too much Mickey Spilane.
You can have it all, but be sure you want it all before you commit.
I have been lucky enjoying my job for 20 years in the USAF and the phone company for 20 years doing pretty much the same thing.