Rant about jobs

Jobs are different kinds. There are full-time jobs, part-time, contract, contract-to-hire, passion projects, soul-crushing jobs, there are self-owned businesses, gig jobs, freelancing, and whatever, you name it. As many as there are problems in our lives, as many there must be jobs because all jobs should help solve the problems we have. We all need jobs. We all should get jobs. We spend our lives working jobs, making careers, busting our balls trying to make it, or making ends meet. We are always told that “It’s good that you have a job”, “It is good to be busy”, “Busy is good, right?” I guess it depends on what you are busy with and how much of it you really care about. Most of the time, we all hate our jobs, but we have our obligations, debt, family, kids, bills, loans, and we work and work and work until we die.

I am one of those “lucky privileged bastards” who finished college, and now I have had quite a few years of professional work experience behind my belt. I am considered middle-class or somewhere near that based on my salary, and I am supposedly the one “who made it.” I came to this country, and I’ve got my education, and I’ve got multiple jobs over time, and now I am who I am, a professional. I followed the traditional path to “normal life” by getting a four-year degree and working my many career jobs so I could be promoted over time and move from one position to a better one. Back in the day, that sounded like a great plan. Back in my early college days, that seemed like it was the only way to “make it.” I didn’t want to work at factories and construction sites all my life like most people that I knew did. I wanted to be in the office, working clean and safe jobs and getting promotions as time goes by. I guess now I’ve got what I wanted. As this became my life now, I started wondering, what the fuck did I really achieve, and why am I so fucking miserable all the time?

There are a shit ton of people out there who, with or without the proper education, made a tremendous success in life, whether it is building a business or creating a new product or service or new app or whatever. Most of them never got a proper education; most of them were college or high-school drop-outs. Most of the people you know or see hitting the road to work every day on the highway, are with an excellent education are just fucking office people who none of us will ever know or hear from or notice them amongst the crowd. They are the masses, the masses who followed the plan. It is not always bad to have a secure job and steady income and keep on “growing” and living a “normal” life. The problem is the cost that you pay for it. It is not the price of your salary. It is never just those fifty or one hundred thousand dollars in school loans that you’ve borrowed because you were led to believe that you are investing in your life, your dream, or your future. Sometimes it is true, but it is so fucking false in most cases. Once I get a decent job, I think that it will take me about a year or two to pay my debt off, and then I will be free and happily living my life in peace and comfort.

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Poem: You and Me

The day changes the night
As the night changes the day,
And so it goes on forever.
There is a unique dynamic there
With darkness and daylight
With quiet and noise,
With life and death,
With you and me.

I am here and you are there.
You leave and then come back.
I talk and you don’t listen.
You do something when I don’t.
We are just like the night and the day,
We are positive and negative,
And there is this attraction of opposites
Between us and keeps us together.
I smile, and you cry.
I walk, and you run.
I leave, and you don’t come back.
And I go out searching for you.
And we are back together again.
We play this game forever
As it all repeats over and over…on and on…

Spring was still too far away

The weather forecast was terrible for the next couple of days in Philadelphia. Jake knew that if it were snowing heavily, he would be out of work again. He needed to work, and more so, he needed the money. He’s shit was out of luck. His savings disappeared as fast as the new bills came in the mail. He couldn’t get to the city to work. Jake lost his office job for the second time in the last six months, and his bank account was slimming down to the lowest balance in years. Driving for Uber was the only immediate option for him to make some money. His situation was dire. Somebody had to pay the lease on the car as well as a bunch of other bills. There were not too many options for him but to wait. The waiting was hard. Jake had a couple of bottles of red wine on the shelf. He liked to drink red wine, especially when the weather was bad and there was nothing else to do but to drink and hope that everything will be alright. There wasn’t much to do at home while the snowstorm was dumping on the city. His car was too small and useless for driving in this snow. Things were not looking up for anybody.

Jake’s wife had a full-time office job, which she didn’t like. Nobody likes their jobs, but financial stability and job security somehow make it all work. Jake remembered the days when he was supporting the family. He remembered the days when his paycheck was good enough for both of them even before she got her first job. He got used to the steady bi-weekly paychecks, good red wine every evening with dinner or on the weekend, paid healthcare, 401K with contributions, PTO’s, and the rest of the corporate benefits that are supposed to make people happy and satisfied with their jobs. That job security and stability are really making a man too dependent and much weaker. When you are always uncomfortable and struggling, you get to enjoy life’s little moments and appreciate your achievements, work, and career progress. When you are too comfortable in your job, just one thought about the possibility of you getting fired is terrifying. How would you live? What would you do? How will you pay your bills? What’s going to happen to you and your family? After Jake lost his second job that year, these questions were not terrifying anymore. He knew he could make it without a corporate gig. He knew that he needed to hustle all the time to make it. He would be driving for Uber to make enough to cover the bills and put food on the table for him and his wife. There is no more corporate nonsense, no more useless meetings, reports, no presentations, and no more pain in the aching young soul. But that fucking snowstorm for the next two days was screwing his plans. He needed to get a little over $500 to cover his bills in the next few days, and he couldn’t leave the house because of the snowstorm. Jake was becoming desperate. The weather had a different plan. The weather was always fucking things up for him.

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