Saturday, January 17, 2009

Employment

I've been fittingly procrastinating at work by deciding to reach out and eavesdrop on strangers' lives by following them on this account. The disturbing trend I keep finding (besides the fact I am not the only witty white person on the planet and there are probably a lot of others in line for that book deal), is that a good majority are unemployed.

Lucky. Bastards.

No, I know. Not really lucky. This economy bites the big one, and you need money to feed your kids, and your dogs and to afford an internet connection to keep blogging - because dear lord, it's probably kept quite a few of us from being checked into nut houses. Which are very expensive. So, when you get out you're still unemployed, still broke, still have no creative outlet and therefore will probably commit suicide. Which only goes to show nut houses are a complete waste of time and I really wish my friends would stop pressuring me to go and live in one.

I'm fine, thanks.

Let's be fair. I don't hate being employed really. But there are a few things I find less than desirable about it.

I hate not being able to blog about my employment. I'm a lawyer, a neophyte lawyer, who works on incredibly sensitive shit. That I can't talk about. EVER. In a way this is a really good thing because I went to law school thinking I would wind up in some cool top secret position in the foreign service, or the CIA or the FBI or at least the SPCA. Helas, I could not qualify for those positions because I a) wanted to actually make money and b) couldn't pass my background check because every time they called my so-called-trustworthy references, they would say shit like "Erin? Working for the government? You are aware she is supposed to be in a nuthouse, right?" or "Erin who?"

I know that attorneys aren't supposed to talk about their cases anyway - but that doesn't stop a lot of them from doing so. I think this is mainly because many attorneys are really not very interesting people, so they depend on the haphazard drama of the misfortunate people who have landed themselves into court to please a crowd. I feel bad for transactional lawyers, because they don't get to see a courtroom and that means they're just straight up boring and never get to live under the impression they're entertaning other people at gatherings. Or maybe they do. Lawyers drink a lot.

I am mum about my work, both because I did swear to uphold the code of ethics, but more importantly my blog (under a different address) has been discovered by my employer before and I think the last thing I need is to lose my job over some juicy details I decided to share with my internet audience, however limited.

They're not really that juicy anyway. Besides, I'm interesting - or trying to become so. I suppose I could always become a pathological liar. God knows I've had enough experience with them.

My main problem with employment these days (besides the fact that student loans are eating up what I once considered to be a generous salary), is that my filter has never been great on the best of days. And I work in an environment where it's uncouth to walk around with a foot in your mouth whilst holding a coffee mug - and so I'm starting to turn into this mad recluse who always keeps her office door closed, never has anything exciting to contribute to the lunch conversation, and has actually considered getting one of those SARS masks to make sure I can never make any sort of awkward, inappropriate or inadvertantly racist remark again. I also don't like when I make a joke and no one laughs.

The fact that other people I work with do it regularly makes no difference. While I hardly judge them (and wish that I could write it down in some form other than my secret files), I know not everyone's so forgiving about people's slip-ups. I don't want an evaluation in which they point out that my response to a retired partner's story about his dog horseplaying with its bed being "Well, I have two lesbian dogs who totally get off on each right in front of me while I am watching The Office" might not have been the professional thing to say.

That might really affect my job performance scores.

I guess I'm happy to be working, since it gives me something to do, but oh - how sometimes I long to spread my arms wides in my concrete and glass tower and spout obscene and horrible thoughts like a Tourette's patient on meth. And then go back in my office, close the door, and act as if nothing ever happened.

2 comments:

Irish Gumbo said...

"...spout obscene and horrible thoughts like a Tourette's patient on meth."

Whew. Glad to find out I'm not the only one, I was feeling a bit weird, you know?

Oh, and they already called, I told I don't know nuttin', so it's cool. And find that thing you really want to do, it's important...

J. Neas said...

I followed a really interesting blog kept by a homeless man for awhile. He used the computers in his local public library to access it and post about his experiences as a homeless person. He wrote some really amazing stuff about those experiences, what homeless shelters were like, what it was like to be someone who, mentally, had a very tough time keeping a job, etc. So, blogging truly is the vox populi in a lot of ways.