Sunday, August 17, 2014

Back to Work. Temporarily.


So last week, I went back to work. Temporarily.

As the culmination of a freelance assignment I’ve been working on for over a month, I spent two days “on-site.” In other words, I put on my big-girl panties, my dressy work clothes, high heels, and waddled my butt onto to a bus and into the big city for two days of real, honest-to-God work. Just like a normal person with a job does. So there I was, surrounded by all the other blank-faced employed people as they scurried to their desks, cash registers, service shops, or wherever they go to earn money.

It felt strange and wonderful; stressful and busy, overwhelming and nostalgic. Yes, nostalgic, because it reminded me of a life I once had and may never have again. I was once an employed person. Now I’m not.

And a life I’m not sure I want anymore. As I hustled to the job, nearly crashed into by people too self-involved to see me coming, I thought, do I really want to go back to this? Do I want to live at the whim of a boss who’s nice to me one day and then raging the next? Do I want to work with co-workers who pretend to be my BFF and then stab me in the back to save their own job? And do I want to come into work everyday wondering if a group of managers who barely know my name have decided in some gruesome closed-door meeting that my position no longer fits in their grand business scheme? Pack up your desk and leave… And the commute? Let’s not go there, shall we. Sheesh! On the first day, I waited 45 minutes for my bus!

Do I want to continue to be one of the thousands of workers who everyday prostrate their souls for the Greater Corporate Good?

That may be a bit too harsh. When I completed my two days of work, I was reminded of how we need to work. Not just for the money that buys us shelter and food and the things that make our lives worthy, whether that be travel or clothes or jewelry, but for the sense of accomplishment we feel when we finish a project, close down shop for the day, or fix that engine. That’s a powerful and necessary emotion for us humans, one that can’t be diluted by nasty co-workers or duplicitous managers.

That’s how I felt as I walked home the second day when my work was completed. Oh, I felt the quality of my work could have been better, but I always feel that way. But I signed on to do a job, and I did it. For that I feel satisfaction and yes, even a modicum of pride. It’s also good to know that after being tossed aside by two former employers and well into my second stretch of long-term unemployment, I can still do the job. That made me feel good.

And I’ll feel even better when they pay me.

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