Saturday, November 17, 2007

T.G.I.F.

As many of my friends know, I was unemployed for a number of months until I managed to secure employment last July. I was grateful to have the job too, because I was about to run out of money, and having money is much better than not having money. If you don't agree, then try buying a pepperoni Hot Pocket® with nothing but a losing lottery ticket and a heart full of song. That and two quarters will get you a phone call, or maybe some watermelon Jolly Ranchers.

I really wanted to rock at this new job. I had such high aspirations when I first started. I was going to take the company by storm, work hard, diligently apply myself and rise through the ranks until I could eventually acquire enough power to funnel the corporation's vast revenues into fulfilling my lifelong dream of creating a vast army of atomic-powered laser-shooting titanium-shelled super robots capable of taking over the world and executing my every capricious decree with ruthless efficiency. But I think, that every mature working adult realizes that there comes a time when even the purest of aspirations have a way of being brutally crushed by the unforgiving weight of unmitigated laziness.

Actually, "laziness" is a label that stupid people give to a psychological phenomenon that is actually complex in its pathology and diverse in its manifestations. When I was a young man of about 19, I was feeling unexplainably unmotivated and unfulfilled by my work as a gas station attendant. In an attempt to determine the mysterious causes of my distressed mental state, I went to a psychiatrist who ran a rather thorough battery of medical and psychological tests. In the end, I was diagnosed with a condition called Work-Avoidant Personality Disorder, which the DSM IV describes as a psychopathological disorder characterized by hypothyroidism, low levels of serotonin in the blood and abnormally high levels of lead in the ass. At last, a diagnosis that made sense! I was able to treat my condition by reading comic books at work and leaving all the really boring work for the Mexican guy who worked the shift after me. He seemed to enjoy that stuff, whereas I was unfairly saddled with a condition that stole away all the excitement and glamor of emptying trash, mopping floors and cleaning toilets and rendered these tasks colorless, tedius and dull to my poor addled mind.

So this explains why, after just 4 months of working at my new job, my dreams of promotion have been replaced by daydreams about Don Knotts and Bob Denver slugging it out in a no-holds-barred cage match to the death. Instead of spending my free time reading policies and procedures on the company website, I spend that time reading the backs of my eyelids. I am not a bad person...I am a victim of nature.

1 comment :

Beniy said...

Jeff Bridges espouses a similar viewpoint, but unlike most of us, he has good looks, and is a tragic victim of nepotism. Thus, the film career and the house in Montanna.