MY JOB IS
HELL!!!!! What did I do to deserve this? What? What did I do? Why
does work have to suck so bad? Is it just the nature of things or
is there some more sinister explanation? I'd really like to know because
I suspect a conspiracy. Also, finally, can you tell me how to take
stress disability so I can screw the company I work for out of lots
of money and never have to work again? Thanks for your help.
Okay, excellent
questions all. And very relevant since many people such as yourself
who periodically experience employment during their life do encounter
at some point the silmy, sticky, gooey pits of Hell known as Unbearable
Job Stress, Job Hatred, Take This Job and Go Fuck Yourself in the
Ass With It, Get Me Out of This Job I'm Dying, and Huffy Severe
I Hate You All and Want to Quitness.
Now some of your
questions we can answer quickly and others will lead us to embark
on a long, meandering, time-wasting stroll through Job Philosophy
101 which will improve your attitude towards yourself and increase
your cynicism towards everything else. Always a worthy endeavor!
So let's get started.
First, let's dispense with the whole ridiculous idea of stress disability
or whatever. Of course you can claim stress disability and
stop working and screw the company you work for out of lots of money.
You can even sue them if you'd like. You may not have a reason to,
but this America, and you don't need one!
The only disadvantage
to this plan of action for dealing with Job Stress - is that it's
stressful! That's a major drawback. You'd think sitting around on
your ass would be relaxing and soothing, but believe me, there's paperwork
and bureaucracy involved and if you thought your actual job was bad,
wait til you get a load of stress disability. It will fucking kill
you. And soon everybody, even people that you actually liked who didn't
have anything to do with your job, will see your paperwork and bureaucracy
and lawsuit oppressed self and they will start to see you as a pathetic
loser and they will all edge away from you surreptitiously until you
are all alone in the middle of an invisible circle of isolation fighting
Capitalism, Companies, The American Work Ethic, Bureaucracy, Injustice,
The Health Care System, the Legal System, The Various State and Local
Governments in your area, and your own Stress - all at once. You're
not that ambitious! Forget about it.
Now you may know
some people who taken stress leave or disability or what have you
and you may think to yourself, Fuck! Those people have it made!
Why am I not doing that? But realize that underneath it all, you fucking
hate those people and despise them and think they're unnatural. They're
unAmerican. They are Cheating The System, and screwing Institutions
and big business and the government and other things that are bigger
than them.
And that's just
not the way to earn respect in this country. In this country, we earn
respect, money, and adulation by screwing things that are smaller
than us. For example, Bill Gates - maniacal destroyer of itsy-bitsy
competitors, nascent products, small businesses, and the long-forgotten
concept of computers that actually work is also Bill Gates - industrious,
obscenely rich, and vastly admired. Whereas a Welfare Cheat is
not. Welfare Cheat - bad and lazy. Bill Gates - powerful enough
to kick your ass, no matter where your ass may be.
I'm not saying
this is right or wrong. I'm merely gently suggesting that this
is America, buddy, get with the program. If you want to be an
American, then act like one, we work for what we get around here mister,
get off your ass loser, stress is for pussies! We like being
ruthlessly exploited in this country goddammit! It's one of the
precious freedoms we fight and die for! (Well actually mostly our
ancestors fought and died, thank goodness we didn't have to, that
would really suck, but anyway somebody fought and died!). We
know ruthless exploitation is the foundation of incredible billionaire
richness and as long as we are being exploited then we feel in our
guts we have the chance to get incredibly rich. And if you are the
kind of exploitation rebel who'd rather take leave than work your
exploited fingers to the bone -well then I guess you just don't
want to get rich now do you, you pinko America-hating Commie!
And so on.
Better I say this
to your face now - because other people will certainly think it behind
your back. When you get off the treadmill and start cashing in on
the system's freebies, you make everyone else feel stupid for their
blind dedication to their own misery - and nobody likes that!
Everyone will hate you!
Now that I have
scared you off stress disability and unexpectedly subjected to you
some entirely undeserved verbal abuse, it's time to move on to conspiracy
theories! Because you weren't really going to file a stress claim
or anything else, you don't even know how. And finding out how would
involve researching your rights and dealing with HR and all sorts
of other things you are too lazy and depressed to do, god bless you.
So let's move
on to your idea that there's a conspiracy. Of course there is. It's
a conspiracy of Capitalism and Human Nature. Those two big
guns have teamed up to press your squirming little body into a job-sized
Hell. Capitalism is, among other things, an Idea, and when Ideas and
Human Nature team up, watch out, all kinds of Fucked Up Shit is bound
to ensue.
Ideas are one
of Human Nature's very most favorite ways to fuck itself up, and when
Human Nature and Capitalism conspire to waltz around together in your
neck of the woods an incredibly bountiful multitude of shit jobs will
shower like fireworks from their love affair and they will land on
your head scorching and singeing you until you are bouncing around
screaming 'Ouch! Shit! I am being showered with the scorching sparks
of Capitalism and Human Nature in my shit job as I try desperately
to clamber my way out of the gooey, slimy pit of Job Hell.' Or something
like that. If you are really tired, you may just say 'God, I hate
my job so much.'
Either way, let's
face it, you are not going to fucking reform either Capitalism or
Human Nature. Not only is reforming these things a Big Job With
a Low Salary (take a look at the lives of Social Workers if you
are not convinced) but you don't even want to. Even if you don't much
care for Human Nature, you like Capitalism and reforming it
is boring. People have tried - it's boring. They are still trying
- it's boring. Reform involves massive quantities of Ideas and Other
People and you don't like either of these things. And while you and
everyone else may be secretly convinced that your own personal job
is Not a Good Idea, you and everyone else are still convinced that
Jobs In General must be a Good Idea because they Power the Economy
and so on. You can't fight big Ideas like that, you are too tired
from working in your stress pit Job Hell to even want to fucking figure
them out.
Let's face it
- if there is going to be a conspiracy involved in your Job Hell,
you want it to be a much more interesting one. Because what
you want is not reform - it's Emotional Satisfaction. That's
why you want to fantasize about being rich and never having to work
again, winning the lottery and never having to work again, taking
stress disability and never having to work again, getting another
job that pays so much you'll never have to work again, or even killing
your boss, or proving to all the fucked up people in your Job Environment
how fucked up they are until they are overcome with remorse, or Quitting
In a Huff, or any of a number of other things that will provide that
elusive Emotional Satisfaction.
So let's hone
in on the source of your Emotional Dissatisfaction, take aim
at it, kill it in an emotionally satisfying way, stomp on it after
it's dead, and then celebrate, exult, dance around, and generally
tell everyone that doesn't like your triumph that they can kiss your
ass.
Sound like fun?
Okay, let's start.
Sometimes it will
seem like the source of your dissatisfaction is long hours, low pay,
lack of advancement opportunity, overwork, stress, unreasonable demands,
lousy working conditions, or something else abstract that is not directly
caused by Other People. But think about it - who the hell is demanding
that you work those long hours? You? Of course not. Other People
are. Who the hell is paying you that lousy low salary? You? Of
course not. Other People are. Who's responsible for those unreasonable
demands, that hellacious stress, that overwork and those lousy working
conditions? Other Fucking People, that's who.
The Other People
may be corporate bigwigs who set company policy, they may be Titans
of Industry who built the goddamn factory, they may be your very own
boss, co-workers, direct reports, rivals in other departments, or
even someone else. Other People can pop up anywhere in your job, and
unexpectedly. They can make more money than you or less, they may
know your name or they may not. But there they are, popping out from
around corners, pouncing on you, and affecting your Job Situation.
You may call it a Personality Conflict, or you may call it That Bitch
Who Runs My Department, or that Goddamn Incompetent Director of Accounting,
or Those Idiots I Work With or That Problem Employee, The Client From
Hell, or just Office Politics. Whatever you call it - your problem
is Other People. It's enough to make you want to get a job as
a forest ranger where all you have to deal with is grizzly bears.
(Bonus Tip: Forest rangers accidentally have to deal with Other
People too. So you can cross that one off your list.)
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