Sunday, September 14, 2008
I, Poopsmith
Before we begin: this is going to be one of those posts. And I hate to break a two-month silence with one of those posts, but that's how it is right now. Feel free to skip this one if you're looking to be cheered up.
So, after the promise of my last post, it appears I didn't really have anything to write about. I'm still in a state of flux - that much is true - but at the moment the valleys are seeming deeper, and the mountains harder to climb. Don't get me wrong, though. There are still many great things in my life. The flat, for example, whose novelty may have worn off but which is still as gorgeous a pad as ever. Or Ben, who I am not and will not ever go out with, no matter how many people say we should, and who lives up to his title of "rock husband" exceedingly well, because he is my rock, and because I nag him like we're married sometimes.
These things, and more besides, are great and precious to me. Yet I'm miserable, almost every day.
The main offender? My job. Now, in theory, it's a great job. I'm sat on my arse all day in front of a computer, talking to people without having to come face-to-face, and getting paid a wage that's pretty respectable for a fresh graduate. In practice, however, I may as well just wear a toilet on my head. I am being paid to be shat upon, mercilessly and relentlessly, by the human race I used to place so much faith in.
You know what this job has done to me? It's convinced me that people are shit. We're self-centred, pedantic little arseholes who love nothing more than giving a battering to some faceless entity in order to make ourselves feel better. We assume that the systems our society is based on are perfect, and that when they fail, they were designed to fail just for us, and isn't that our lot in life, to be constantly failed by the rest of the shitty fucking world?
Yeah, that's how much I think of people at large right now. Now, the people I work with are fantastic. I respect every last one of them more than I respect myself, because it doesn't (or doesn't seem to, at least) get under their skin as much as it does mine. I don't take being constantly shat upon too well. To my customers I'm just a voice, but I represent the whole company and all of their failings - as I belong to the department that deals with screw-ups. These screw-ups are nothing to do with us - they're caused by people that we have no contact with, yet more phantom faces that we can't control. If this were Freetown, USA, I'd be the Poopsmith. Heck knows where this shit came from, and heck knows where it's going to, but I've got to shovel it, nonetheless.
That's the long and short of it, I guess. I'm not a poopsmith. I didn't spend four years in uni to end up in a job that's essentially turning me into my dad.
There's a few other straws to add to my camel's back lately, just to cause me even more grief. I turn 24 in four days, which should be a cause for celebration (and I have my extended weekend bender planned out already, thankyouverymuch), but which has caused an unexpected case of the birthday blues - whether it's a cause or an effect, I don't know. Also, we're two days away from the first anniversary of the last time I spoke to... well, you know. I don't have to say his name. It was also around a year ago that The Situation came into effect, and I damn well know I don't have to go into that. Back in the present day, Pook's employment status is giving me grief, not to mention the fact that she's seeing more of my friends than I am. But that's another tale in itself.
The Tohru Honda in me is telling me not to complain. There's a lot I have to be grateful for. But the Light Yagami in me is bored senseless and pissed off at the world. Don't worry, I'm not going to proclaim "Kira desu" anytime soon, but mankind's got some work to do if my faith in it is to be restored.
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