My good friend wrote in her blog about how she is reluctant to make a change and strive for more, because she has a secure job which she's content doing. She's not making huge progress, but she's relatively happy doing what she's doing. I wish I could be more like that. In a way I do. I would hate the monotony of doing the same thing day after day, but it's part of having to grow up I suppose. That's what a job usually is. Having a boss is something most people have to deal with.
I wish I could.
In every single full time job I've had, I've done well at first and then once I've mastered it and once it becomes a routine, I become so utterly bored that I begin to make stupid mistakes. When I was 18 I got my first full time job working at the mall. It wasn't a bad job. It was in photo frame and picture/printed art store, and the job sometimes involved looking at art prints and framing pictures. This I didn't mind at all. I discovered Elvis at this time and I got to peruse the folders with paintings and prints and order things at a very good employee discount. Sooner or later though, it all became so mundane and routine that I started to hate the customers. Everyday was the same. Watching people dig through the purses for small change. This was in the days before bank cards and pin machines. I started giving people too little change back. Finally my boss got fed up and I was replaced. I was never actually fired, just slowly phased out.
A few years later I worked in a grocery store, and I started making the same mistakes there. Giving people a 10 back when they should be getting a 50, that kind of stuff.
While routines turn me into a zombie, having a boss to answer to turns me into a crabby bitch. I have always had a tendency to be a control freak, and it's only gotten worse over the years. For me, a permanent job with a boss is suffocating. I start to resent my bosses. I almost always do. I know I'm wrong, but I can't help feeling that they are in control of my whole life. I simply don't like to have to answer to anyone. I know that this is immature and not at all practical, but there it is. To top it off, I'm not a team player. I'm a lone wolf. I work fast and I do my best, but don't ask me to work in a team, at least not when I comes to creative work. In working with data entry, which I do on an on-call basis, I am like a robot. I work fast and my only focus is getting the job done and going home. Hardly the attitude that is needed to advance in a company is it.
Then there is the feeling of a lack of freedom from being locked into a job day after day, performing the same tedious tasks. I wonder if I were to feel differently about this if it was something as stimulating as working as a writer for a magazine. Most probably. Unfortunately this type of opportunity has yet to come my way. So the only experiences I have to draw upon are menial, dead-end jobs where I have felt like a drone. Even a brief stint I did summarizing and translating newspaper articles for an information company was mind-numbing after a while. The facts still remain that I'm simply not a 9-5 person. Routines are like death to my spirit. I wish it wasn't so, because that would make life a whole lot easier.
So now I work irregular hours, and sometimes I have very little work. I'm all over the place, going from teaching to interpreting, from interpreting to translating, from translating to some occasional data entry. Somehow I make ends meet. My only comfort is that at least I'm my own boss and my schedule is varied.
I'm like Peter Pan, I refuse to grow up. A darker, crankier version of Peter Pan, with a need for constant control.
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