I Want to Stop Working
82Explanation
I'm fed up with work, bored with work, out of love with work. I don't want to work anymore, the only reason is money.
It's difficult to get up in the mornings, hard to be motivated and it's boring me witless.
Today was a down day. Tomorrow might be a good day. But they will both involve crawling out of bed at an unearthly hour, driving a ridiculous number of miles, feeling stressed and tired.
On the plus side - it's nice to come home.
...
There's a number of things I could and should do...
- Look at other jobs
- Downsize
- Change direction
- Retire
... but these require some serious thinking and effort - oh and money. Did I also mention I'm lazy?
So in the absence of a plan or sufficient get up and go - I thought I'd just put some words down to get it off my chest.
Anyway, here's the thing. I don't know if you could call it poetry or prose, or perhaps just the first signs of a total breakdown. Whichever - enjoy it if you can, or ignore it. I'm easy. I hate reading 'creative' ego stuff myself.
But having written it, I thought I might as well publish it.
The Work Thing
Brr, brr. What time is it? What day is it?
Ah, work day.
Get up.
Cold. Dark. Slippers.
Stumble into kitchen, kettle on.
Cup, spoon – brain in automatic mode.
Coffee, cigarettes, email.
Shit, shave, shower. Hair. Teeth. Dress.
Follow the exact same ritual every working day.
Suit, commute, pollute.
Drive, drive, drive, drift – sleep – WAKE UP – near miss, drive.
Arrive at beehive with one aim. Survive.
Swipe security card with practiced habit. Access building for building stress.
Enter office battery farm. Some desks have photos, cuddly toys in vain attempt to counter the greyness. This isn’t the Google office and even if it was… it’s still an office.
Coffee, switch on computer. My computer has a different help desk number to the guy next to me. The personal touch.
Bleary eyes.
FOCUS.
Work email. More stress. Sometimes funny. Not often, and they didn’t mean it to be.
Boredom prison. Life sentence. No remission.
Eight hours ahead.
Check clock. Seven hours and fifty nine minutes to go.
Not even a tick tock to listen to. Silent master watches you all day. Measures your life with tiny electronic movements. I hope they give it to me when I retire. Then I can smash it into a zillion pieces.
What to do today? Need to work, find something, anything to be productive. Be useful. Be part of the team.
No matter how bad working is - unemployment is worse. You have to work. Need money. Repeat mantra to yourself.
Whispers, gossip – budgets, responsibilities, lay offs, priorities, cost, upskilling, down sizing, cutting back.
Reorganising.
Nothing stated, but adds to pressure.
Screw is turning.
Did the boss smile at you, or is he covering something?
- Responses to emails.
- New emails.
- Copy in emails.
- Playing games emails.
- Junk emails.
Everything you ever needed to know. And much, much more.
- How come you reply instantly, and get a response a week later?
- How come the office whistler always sits near me?
- Why is it I don’t fit in?
Hello Mark - are you free? Well I’m fairly cheap.
The easy joke, the expected response, the office worker dance.
Repeat after me, one thousand dreary times.
No risk, no fun, no danger, no edge.
Behind the charade they’re all just people like you. Trying to get through. That may be true.
I wonder, but I don’t care.
- Did you watch the game?
- Do you like scuba diving?
- What do you think of the new office timetable?
- Did you know sales are up?
- Have you ever seriously thought of changing direction, doing something different, rather than this pointless shuffling of electronic paper?
I jest of course, the last one never gets asked. And what would be the reply? Every single minute of every mind numbing day. Don’t worry, just thinking aloud – the daily game of what I should have said. To tell them, really tell them – what I think.
What’s funny, well slightly ironic, is that I am a boring drone, just like them. Nothing out of the ordinary. Trying to get through each working day. I was special once. A different life ago. Young and thrusting, now old and untrusting.
Lunchtime measures the half day done. Sandwich. Desk – online personal stuff. Twenty minutes escape. Could be anywhere.
Shut down fun life, my life, stuff I want to do and… back to work. Check clock, three hours left.
Find a task; be useful, productive, energetic. Belong. Be helpful. Be happy. Feeling tired now.
Someone needs you. Oooh excitement. Switch to positive mindset. Don’t yawn. Deal with it, be nice. Save sarcasm for the blog.
Don’t make jokes. They wouldn’t like your jokes. Not the biting ones. Always keep it light, non threatening, nothing too clever.
- Middle ground
- Middle income
- Middle class
- Middle life.
Back to grind. Computer, stress, boredom - life leaks away. The work leech sucks at your blood.
- Is this the path I made for myself?
- Was it the best I could do?
- When did career turn into drudgery?
- What if I won the lottery?
It’s home time!!
...
- “See you tomorrow”
- “See you next week”
See you never, if I had the choice.
Walk out door. To car. My space. Stress melts away.
Drive, drive, drive.
Arrive. Home.
And relax. Until tomorrow.
Coffee, cigarettes, email.
Bedtime. Don't forget to set the alarm.
Thanks Are Due
To you for reading if you got this far. And apologies for being such a miserable ungrateful so and so.
I’d just rather be skiing or whatever it is that people say they’d rather be doing – anything other than stuck in a traffic jam looking forward to another day at the adult kindergarten.
Tomorrow's another day...
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Ah well, I got material for a blog out of it....
- I Hate Work
It's my blog where I let off steam about work. It's not all as depressing as the above though.
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CommentsLoading...
Thanks, Mark.
You're more than welcome Jordan...
@Twilight - well you had a vocation and that is a world of difference with a non vocational job (without being too specific). My contribution is measured in business efficiency - numbers on a bit of paper - benefit to humankind precisely zero.
Of course work has plus points - a metronome for life, a reason to get up at all, and income of course. But once you stop climbing the greasy pole (and using every cliche in the book), probably made extra slippery by the gravy train - then it begins to lose it's appeal.
But tomorrow the sun might be shining, and most of all - it's nearly the weekend!
I bet you feel much better after having written this, Mark.....lol. This piece reminded me a lot of my last hub, even the ending is kind of the same. Only that Í am on optimism pills and they are kind of working..lol (promise not trying to make you read it...lol).
I do feel better Edlira. And I see what you mean about your hub, which is very good btw. I absolutely promise I hadn't previously read it! I suspect there's a lot of people suffering from the back to work blues.
Héj Mark. I am sure you hadn't. I was just making fun at the fact how most people feel about work ...lol, and that feeling precisely accounts for the similarities. Like your sense of humour. Will be back to read more :-). Have a great weekend. Cheers, Edlira.
Thanks Edlira... I was being a bit paranoid. That's what a day at the office trying to cover your back does for you.
You have a great weekend too - and we'll both be humming a cheery tune Monday morning. (That's guaranteed to annoy them).
Great Hub, Mark. I feel the same way 90% of the time.
Fortunately my personal life with my wife and daughter is a success, but work is an absolute failure.
I suppose that's probably why we are both on here trying to figure out the whole internet thing.
Good luck to both of us!
Hi Bogerk, it helps to know you're not the only one. Family helps to keep you sane, work doesn't. Good luck to us all.
I have been unemployed for a while, but your post brought back memories. I am glad I'm at home. lol.
Hi Karen... well, I'm sure not all offices are the same or have such miserable and ungrateful employees as me. Fairly sure.
Great hub!!!
Great hub... bad day.. good day tomorrow. Maybe.
Hope your days get better at work! I used to have days that I felt that way when I was going out to work. Maybe you are just bored with the job and need more of a challenge? Whatever it is, I hope things get better!
Thanks Dawn - I need less of a challenge, like staying in bed all morning.
And I thought I was alone feeling that way
Incidently there is a poster near me which reads
"you are not stuck in traffic; you are traffic"
Took me the whole journey home to figure it out.
Great read
Thanks again Aiden, you've had a bit of a tour round this evening! This hub could almost have been my first poetry hub, if I'd put some rhyme into it.
I know; I am beginning to feel like a stalker, well what I would imagine a stalker would feel like if they were stalking someone and the person they were stalking commented on the fact that they were stalking them; if you know whatI mean.
Lol - Thanks Aiden, I'll go for the being flattered, rather than being stalked angle.
Hi Mark, just read a few of your hubs-I think this is really good. Been there, done that and got the clock!! it's still ticking away on the mantleshelf reminding me of all those lousy days watching and waiting to start life again. Trouble is Mark I'm too knackered to do anything now. Excellent read.
Thanks a lot Brian. I fell slightly less depressed than when I wrote it, but I can't say work is where I want to be. Have to keep that money equation in my mind, it's the only reason for being there. I hear what you are saying about being too tired for doing anything now - what's great about the net though is that are plenty of possibilities for having an active life in one way or another. If I wasn't working, I'd be writing more - at least I think I would. And I can tell you, I'm pretty tired after the early start, the commute, and the day!
This is incredibly profound, an actual serious work of yours I think. I'm afraid I may be that whistler. Why do I whistle? When I feel like I'm in no man's land, idle and without purpose, then I whistle. I usually do this when I get to work and change in the bathroom (yes, they keep the lockers in the bathroom - yech). I suppose it's my way of adjusting to work.
I may be the whistler, but one of my managers is the "burper." It's kind of funny, but in actuality I think its his way of peeing on all the posts or maybe he hates his job as much as I hate mine.
If I may. I believe the 40 hour work week and the cost of living are at an equilibrium. Whether by insidious design or that's just how things work out for the rich (because that's the reason we have to work so hard), this in my eyes is the perpetuating cycle. The way to get out of it is to work a second job or overtime so you can set yourself up for part time work, starting a business or saving up for school. Of course if you're already working overtime to pay your bills, you're screwed, sorry.
Last year I worked 2-3 days a week and let me tell you, it really changed my life. I could think again, and dream. My budget was limited but I was free. I slept better, felt better and dreamed better.
The reason I am working full time with overtime now, is to save up money for flight training so I can do what I love and earn decent money eventually. Even then, I hope to work part time.
Maybe this helps, and maybe it's just bunch of blather. I just want to say I believe there is a way out for you.
Thank you Alexander, yes it was a serious moan, heartfelt prose for a change. Great response from you thanks.
I hear what you say about balance - unfortunately I have done what people do - increase expenditure as income increases. So there is never any spare money / time no matter how successfully I work. There's always some new must have thing that we, er, must have.
Downsizing is an aim, or more accurately at present a dream. One day...
Oh boy! Do I relate! I've been in my job for 20 years. Twenty years too long. I feel the same way you do. I've turned into a clock-watcher. Wake at 3:30 am, to be to work by 7 am. 50 minute commute. Why do I get up so early? For me time. Get ready, feed the kitties, then play for about an hour on here. Off to the daily grind by 6 am. Get there, turn the computer on, get coffee, check emails, priortize the day. Go downstairs for morning bagel or muffin and back to my desk to face the day. Oh, yippee, it's almost 9:30, time for my break. Out I go for my smoke. Back upstairs to my desk. Watch the clock. Yeaa, almost lunchtime! Out to my truck to sit and unwind for an hour. Trudge back upstairs and watch the clock. 2:30, yeaa, time for my break. Out to the truck, 15 minutes later back at the desk. Oh boy, getting awake now, 1 hour till quitting time. Oh, did I mention what I do all day is mostly proofread technical documents, and some writing. By 3 pm everything is a blur. Words become meaningless and whiz by my eyes, if they don't put me to sleep first.
Gee Mark, I think I could go on and on about this and may have to write about it myself.
Just know you have company. I feel and share your pain :)
Great comments Trish, I like your description. It helps to share I think, not everyone is a thrusting go getter looking ahead to another day of challenges and excitement. What you say about ME time I recognise. I sometimes get up even earlier than I need, because that extra time is your very own, no one else's.
Hi Mark,
Yes, I started waking up earlier and earlier back when I was married and my kids were young. It was the only me time I could get. Unfortunately, as the years dragged on, I pushed the time back further and further, to the current 3/3:30 am. Sometimes I even wake up before the alarm. Weekends come and if I sleep till 5 or 6, that's a good thing. But 4/4:30 is usually the norm. The downside is, I find in the middle of my day I'm needing a nap. Then I have a hard time going back to sleep at bedtime and so the vicious cycle goes. If and when I ever get to retire, that will be one of the first things I work on. Getting proper rest, nutrition and all that jazz.
This is a pretty powerful Hub. Damn depressing too. I tried to move on & read other Hubs but I couldn’t stop thinking about yours.
It brought me right back to the accounting clerk positions I spent 40 hours a week doing. It was awful! Just as you’ve described it. The tedium! I used to make stupid mistakes because I could barely keep my mind on my work. The worst part for me were the bitchy women playing out their little dramas – their dysfunctional way of coping. That constant threat of the proverbial stab in the back. It turned my day into a tense sort of boredom. Everyone was miserable. It was all so meaningless.
So many people live their lives this way! The office towers downtown are filled with them. It saddens me.
I took a giant leap & put myself through college. I’ve been in my profession now for 15 years. I’m down to two days a week with a clientele whom I love. The rest of my time is for my husband & for my writing. My life is amazing. And believe me, if I can make this happen, anyone can! I have not come from privilege.
Judging from the comments, it’s been approximately two months since you wrote this Hub? I’m wondering if you’re still making that commute & if you’re still working at that job? Have you made any progress toward living a life you love?
My girlfriend wrote a book called that: Live a Life You Love. It’s a good read – here’s the website if you’re interested: http://www.susanbiali.com/. As well, I’ve written a How to Save Money trilogy – if it helps?
Hi Sylvia - I suppose it is depressing, although I found it helped to just put those thoughts down. I don't have a lot of time to do justice to your excellent comment, because, yes, I am facing the drive any moment now.
It's not so bad as I painted it, call it artistic, call it capitulation, whichever.
I may check the link though, at some point, but as I say, it's nearly time to warm up the car.
Mark, I have been where you are. You should read my blog "I used to live where you do, maybe you should move here to" at casualworkforce.com My suggestion is, while smoking that cig at night, step back and ask yourself if you have skills that can be marketed directly by you. Play with concept even as an experiment. Me and team are building a website where people who do this will be represented. It jsut might solve your problem
Hi Dave, thanks for commenting and I read it - good story. I will eventually finish at this job, and that will be my motivation to move forward. In the meantime I hope I have some success with the writing side - let's see where I am in a couple of years.
Hey, Mark. Good stuff. Depressing, but good.
Listen, I've been through the whole life cycle on this. You can either accept that work is something you do to put a roof over your head or go look for something more fulfilling.
If you stay ... well, you gotta just accept. Adapt. Treat it like the stupid game it is and go home to things you like.
I tend to be compulsive, so I just throw myself into one distraction after another so I don't have time to dwell on how much of a downer work can be.
Hi Daniel - I needed to write this, just get it down on paper and get it done. Mostly I'm resigned to it, but I stll have dreams... and home. Thank goodness.
Thanks for commenting.
hi mr.mark..
i am vijay from india..asia...
well i work as a teller in a bank and i feel the same way as u most of the days...only for money i work..
but consider urself lucky for we work..six days a week. -all saturdays are full working days here in india..---work 12hours a day and work 72hours a week...
i could only suggest one thing though...shift ur residence within one or two miles from office..it brightens ur daily life a lot..it relaxes you......
or if u like ur current locality..find a job within one or two miles near ur home...
cheers....
vijay
Hi Vijay. Thanks for commenting. That 72 hours a week sounds really tough. It's nice to share how awful it is!
This sounds like me :) I am always scared to say it out loud because people think I might be lazy. But I am not! The type of jobs that make money these days are not what we were created for. And it's not work as such that is boring. It's the type of work we do - they have no purpose but to fill the pockets of rich people - either by working for them or using my cash to pay my bills.
I am now trying to do what I enjoy most - it won't make me rich but it will provide me with a roof over my head and food. I am starting to work with people in need and maybe as a sideline will work in a cafe. The hours will be shorter and more flexible and looking at what my friends earn in the office - it really doesn't make such a big difference..I don't need to go to Cuba or drive a BMW. I cycle and keep myself fit - don't even need to pay for a gym membership:) And I feel I do something more purposeful - helping people who are not as lucky to have good health.
Good for you Judy and I hope it all goes well for you. I'm looking at downsizing / rightsizing too - life shouldn't begin and end with a dead end job.
Twilight Lawns Level 7 Commenter 16 months ago
Thank you.
I have been feeling sorry for myself all day until now. Then I reached the end of your hub and thought:
When I was working I got up at 6:20 every morning for years and didn't have a lunch break and often left work nearer 8:00 than 7:00 And I worked all those hours in between, but I was blessed. Because I was a teacher and I LOVED my job... really LOVED it.
You have made me really grateful for my working life, mark.
Thank you.
By the way; It might get better.