By J. Bird
The source of the leak has been located, so a grand jury will not have to be empaneled. Turns out my brother is a dunce.
He forgot to relay to his wife the vital fact that I was not sharing the news of my job loss with my folks just yet, so when my father called from Greece to see who had been trying to reach him, she suggested it might have been me – regarding the loss of my job. I rescind my threat of violence as the apologetic e-mail I received from her (which, incidentally, let me know who had done the deed) was virtually tear-stained. Pun intended.
With that mystery solved – though the full emotional ramifications are yet to come – I once again spent my morning going through help-wanted ads. This is an exercise which leads to many soul-searching questions, such as: Do I really want to work in a mail room? Probably not. It also occurred to me, in the reflection that said exercise also leads to, that all the time I spend griping about work could probably be better spent, well, working.
Granted, some conditions are not really acceptable, and my work environment was getting close to topping the list. I mean, the artist formerly known as “Boss” could have had a job torturing innocent people for the CIA. Which, by the way, is actually advertising for employees on television, which I find highly bizarre, but which is tangential to what I’m trying to say.
Which is that not working, sadly, makes you appreciate working. Because not working can make you feel pretty rotten. If I had the smallest cubicle on earth right now, I would not begrudge my co-workers their larger spaces. Just to have a cork board wall to pin pictures of my niece and nephews on would be a real pick-me-up. The bad coffee, the office gossip, the guy who can’t help but talk loudly about his various weekend nightclub conquests – well, I kind of miss them.
And I sure as hell miss payday. And not just payday, but the anticipation that comes when payday nears. I miss that.
So there’s an airline recruiting flight attendants starting in October, and I’ve signed myself up to be recruited. Why not? I’m not tied down, I can find someone to look after the pooch when I’m away, and I’ll get to travel a bit. It’s not really where I pictured myself at this stage in life, but so what? It might be fun. At the very least, I’ll get a neato uniform and people will (theoretically) have to listen to me. It’s a bit Napoleonic, but not a bad combination to try out for awhile.
Posted on September 26, 2006