The repetition syndrome
by Matt Worley

I've begun to notice a pattern here.

Repetition is the bedrock of our society. Living life has nothing to do with capitalism or democracy or religion or anything like that. The real thing that keeps people going is routine. Let me illustrate with some conversations from work.

"Are you still mad at me, Ellen?"

"Yes."

"Jeff, we better stay away from Ellen today. She's not in the mood."

"Guess what song I heard right before getting to work today?"

"What?"

"'Don't Speak' by No Doubt."

"That's amazing, Dan."

"I told you I'm hip, Ellen."

"So, what are you doing on your day off?"

"Sleeping."

"I hear ya, man. I'm sleeping all day on Sunday."

I've heard the first conversation over twenty times. The second clocks in at about eight, and the last probably four or five. Only been working there for a little over two months, and it has all become familiar and routine. It's more comfortable working at my job now that I've come to realize these routines. Everybody has their little mojo working, everyone has their paths to stumble along. I am one of the new people on the job. Almost everyone has been working for years at this place, and the other new people worked at places that were pretty much the same. Even I have worked in a news room before, but it was three years ago and there was only one good computer. Wax the paper, cut the paper, push the paper down. That was the old job. The new one is much the same, except no wax.

Between three years ago and now, I've gone through a variety of routines. I am not unfamiliar with how comfortable they are. How good someone is at their job depends on a certain bit of immunity to this repetition syndrome. While there is expertise needed for every job, the greatest skill that can be taught is how not to be bored with doing the same thing everyday. Maybe the best thing to do is embrace the variety of different circumstances that happen on the job, rather than the things you do on a daily basis without fail. We wonder how animals and insects can stand doing the same things every day: eating the same food, running from the same predators. Luckily for them, they don't have much of a brain to think about other stuff they could be doing. One of the curses of being human is the ability to imagine something different our lives don't provide. But maybe that is one of the enjoyable things about being human as well.

Work, for me, is a big dark hole in my day. Not that it is anything physically exhausting (well, getting up at 5:15 in the morning is a bit exhausting), but I'm working for six to ten hours a day on something I don't really care about. I'm doing things that I don't want to do forever. I'm not satisfied with that routine. The upside to all of that is I get paid pretty well (considering my work history), and I do have bills to pay.

I've been trying really hard to understand what it takes to keep doing the same thing every day for years and years, and I haven't quite figured it out. Every time I've quit a job, I've been quite happy about it. Sometimes it was so invigorating, I was able to change other parts of my life I wasn't as happy with. So now I'm looking at a job that could last forever and I'm wondering what course of action I should choose. I know the routines and the right things to say when the higher ups realize that I screwed up. I know I'll be working the weather and obituary page tomorrow. I know I'll have to put little numbers on the map of Albuquerque to advise whoever actually reads the traffic report where they shouldn't drive. And I know I'll probably make a joke about the poems to dead people. And because I have no other opportunity for well-paid repetition, I'll probably go back on Tuesday and do the same damn thing.

Matt Worley becomes a quarter century old next weekend and is wondering if there is anything else in store other than weddings, death and sex occasionally.

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