Hating the job and other observations
by Matt Worley

"What you call the disease, I call the remedy/
What you're calling the cause, I call the cure."
"Another Drinkin' Song" by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones

It started a while back, I think. Just this sinking feeling that I will never leave that place. That place called work. It's not that I hate what I do--I'm, if anything, terribly indifferent. I don't hate the people I work with--although I could say a few things about the ones I work for. And I don't get paid terrible--just terrible for the job I'm doing. I mean, I used to make $4.25 an hour to check out videos a few years ago--that wage isn't even legal anymore. But being paid slightly more than interns (who don't get paid at all--money wise, that is) is a little insulting. So I'm hating my job. I'm hating the hours (which start before the sun gets up). I'm hating the mouse clicks and the keyboard clicks. I'm hating the preparation, the set up and the end product. I'm hating the job.

Maybe it's summer. Job hatred (especially when one realizes the summer is getting close to being over) always comes at this time of year. Last year I was barely working at this job and sleepwalking through the days I did. It was definitely more fun than this year--but the money sucked. The summer makes everyone slow down, and I don't mind slowing down every once in a while. Watch the sun set. Watch a 2-0 curve ball slice past the catcher to the backstop. Watch the clouds go by. Sometimes I'll even watch the roaches walk across the kitchen floor--until I pick up something heavy and hard and slam the bastard home to its maker.

So all this job hating led to what I'd like to call the Wednesday Night Massacre. I'd been thinking about getting drunk all week. And it was the job's fault. Wednesday night was the night. And it started at 8:30. I'd taken a nice long afternoon nap after work (about 3 hours), eaten some leftovers and was ready for a good drunk. Not one of those kind drunks where the feeling of being drunk comes on slow and comfortable until everything is rosy and nice. Nope, this was gonna be a rager. I was gonna drink, drink, drink, and then drink some more.

Some friends were playing in a jazz combo together at Sprockets--the bar formerly known as the Fat Chance. The Fat used to be an old drunk hangout. For us--for my friends. We loved to get wasted at the Fat. And Sprockets, for all its new paint, neon bright lights, and inadequate seating does have one thing on par with the Fat. Cheap drinks. All pitchers were eight bucks. If (and this never happened) we felt like drinking Bud Light, the pitchers were $4.50 (this price lowered to $3 around midnight--still didn't go for it). Because the jazz combo didn't get paid, their arrangement was free drinks and an unlimited guest list. So our cover cash went into the beer as well. I went to bed Thursday morning around 2:30 while the world spun around me. Mission: Accomplished.

Thursday proper was not good. I was hung over till the sun went down, and moved in a radius of about fifteen feet from my bed the entire day. I can't drink like that anymore, but I didn't feel as bad about the job as I had earlier in the week.

Friday I discovered a new development in pop culture's effect on the populace--the emergence of the Katie Holmes Girl. Holmes is an actress on the immensely popular WB show, "Dawson's Creek." She's also in (from what I've heard) a dismally idiotic horror flick called Disturbing Behavior (at your multi-plexes now!). However, a Holmes doppelganger showed up at the Dukes (baseball) game on Friday. She resembled Holmes in the face a bit, wore her hair long and straight (a 70s homage?), and her halter and jeans combo were impressively tight. Beware gangsta girls, the Holmes Girls are gonna take your boyfriends. This is apropos of nothing--except I drank a few beers at the ball game and found it amusing.

By the time I rolled around to get up for work on Saturday, I was mostly away from the hate-the-job thing. But not totally. I am not cured. I haven't decided if the answer is a new job or more money. Maybe it's both. Actually, the best cure would be to win the lottery. But since that ain't happening, I guess I'm still gonna have to drink. A lot.

Matt Worley drank Saturday night too, but Sunday morning was much nicer than Thursday.

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