Tell me why I don't like Mondays

Jay-sus. I'm burning a copy of the new Cirque du Soleil soundtrack for my friend Debbie and the processing is dragging down my blog editor. Words on the screen are sputtering out in a few seconds delay, like I'm on live radio or Eminem at the Grammys or something. Makes it really hard to pound out coherent thoughts, but it is improving my spelling skills (since I waste even more time going back to fix my mistakes...ah, such a cruel education).

Nearly didn't go to work because "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" was on TV this morning. Okay, I own the film on DVD, but seeing it pop up on the screen is akin to an extra treat you weren't expecting. But, I had to go to work because my bosses have this kamikaze notion of not having anyone fill in for you if you can't come in. So, if I miss a day, I'm backlogged for that day plus I need to get done that day's work to make my weekly Wednesday deadline.

All of which brings me to my topic for this blognote. I'm really torn right now: I hate my job, but it has so many benefits that leaving would be suicide, especially in this Seattle job market. My job is basically glorified data entry with the same routine week in, week out. There's little hope of job advancement, because someone has to die to get ahead in my department. I could, in theory, do my boring, dead-end, predictable job until I'm 40 because it's so easy to do plus I'm doing so well at it that my bosses won't think of firing me. Plus, I double as a copy editor (or I used to until my boss thought it was brilliant to hire two part-timers instead of one extra full-timer) when times are tough. My job will be my job for as long as I want it, forever. And that's the problem. It'll be the same job. No advancement, no new duties, nothing to fatten my resume or my paycheck.

At the same time, I do have a job. I have health insurance. I have a retirement fund. I have a company-subsidized parking spot in Seattle (well, I only pay $17 a week, a steal in the Emerald City). I get paid for 40 hours, even though I come and go when I please and maybe clock 35 hours in any given week. I'm in no physical or environmental danger (unlike those poor bastards pulled out of that Pennsylvanian coal mine). I have T-1 or better Web access. I can make free phone calls (Well, I'm billed for my long-distance stuff, but I always write it off as business related). I can surf the Web until my eyes bleed, I can freely post to my blog and, thanks to my union, I have nearly seven months in vacation built up. I mean, crikey, it sounds like I'm in France.

The problem is, as mentioned earlier, my job is going nowhere. There's no challenge, no excitement. I do the same thing every week, every day. Example: On Fridays at 10 a.m., I'm getting done with mail and working on building the upcoming visiting authors listing. Tuesday at 3 p.m.: Halfway through the family events listings. Go ahead: name a date and a time and I'll tell you, in Rain Man fashion, what I'll be doing. Thank heavens I have my headphones and my trance/trip-hop collections to distract me long enough to give me the aural rush which enables me to delude myself into thinking that my life a bit more interesting. Oh yeah, I get to listen to music, too.

Even copy editors get some change up in their daily routine. Oh sure, they bitch and moan about workloads, but at least they get to read author interviews, film reviews, cooking tips, wise-aleck television criticisms (and I mean that in a good way) and (until recently) the wisdom of the now-departed Ann Landers. Copy editors get the option of writing headlines, a Zen Master skill requiring you to distill an 800-word story down to an eye-catching and original 6-word sentence at the top of the story. Sure, it's not as creative as writing the story, but you (as the copy editor) get the sadistic glee of hacking words and phrases apart and bending prose to your will. Like a good sensei, you can effortlessly show a student what skill really is with a few deft slices here and modifications there. If you're really good, you can make the writer's eyes widen in acquired wisdom and humility. Learn well, grasshopper.

But my job and that of the copy editor share the same fate in the long run: We sit and watch other people's ideas pass before our eyes. Mock, if we may, a writer's use of a metaphor or trash someone's crappy press release...at least someone out there is actively sought after for a book signing or someone on our writing team pieced together a kick-ass story. Support staff and copy editors never get the spotlight on them...we merely buff and shine the show ponies for their big moment in the arena.

So, I'm stuck. I'm at a dead-end job with great direct and fringe benefits. I can stay and be doing the same thing, risking madness with each passing year, or I can try to make a break for the wall and see what's on the other side. I could wander jobless for months (not good in a down market, especially with a mortgage at your barbeque-soaked heels) or I could land in a type-A position where my keystrokes are monitored, I have an asshole boss and I'm stuck in glorified data entry because to the entropy on my resume.

Of course, I think I already know the answer. Stay at my job and write at night so I can get my long-dormant writing career off the ground. I've already figured I'm never getting promoted and my other attempts at promotion elsewhere in the company has fallen flat, so why not ride it out, cash the paychecks and write like I have the devil himself chasing me.

The good thing about my job (which I failed to mention) is that it is so mind-boggling dull that the boredom, which sets in despite how loud I have Massive Attack's "Blue Lines" turned up, sends my mind into an energetic zone of abstract thought, making story ideas, snatches of dialogue and more spring from my brain and onto a waiting notepad.

A notepad considerately supplied by my bosses, no less.

Quit yer bitchin'

Whine as I might, at least I don't have this job. Read it and prepare to laugh and be grossed out. Apparently the author was recently featured on the NPR program "This American Life." If you have audio capabilities on you computer, I urge you to lend them your ear.

I'm confused

With Bush and Cheney both dodging unseemly episodes form their CEO pasts, with Qwest reporting it'll have to wipe $1 billion in profits off its books, with no corporate executives as of yet facing criminal trial for their malfeasances, and with Bush about to sign a toothless corporate reform bill, why is the market taking off like a rocket?

I don't know either. I'm convinced that Bush will stay in office through 2004 (even if the Republicans lose Congress in November and Bush has his now-scaled back, albeit still idiotic war with Iraq). If the shenanigans at Enron and Harken, a crap economy, countless global embarrassments and depleted 401(k)s going into the scot-free pockets of Bush cronies don't convince the populace to topple the enfant terrible of the Bush family tree, then nothing will.

French Word of the Day

Enfant terrible (ah fah tay ree bluh): an unruly child; an impetuous, embarrassing person.