From Pathetic Life #6
Friday, November 11, 1994
This is how we honor the nation’s veterans — by not delivering the mail.
Veterans Day is one of those holidays that are only holidays if you work for the government. For poor schlumps like me, it’s a work day like any other, except that I stupidly forgot it’s a holiday, and futilely went to the post office at lunch to buy some stamps.
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Once I was a hard worker, as I recall. Seems to me, an employer is basically paying my rent and stocking my refrigerator, and in exchange I ought to give ’em an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, as the saying goes. So I’ve tried to be worth my wages and maybe a little bit more, and maybe I’ll try again, at some job in the future.
At this dump, though, I’m done trying. It’s a pigpoop company, so I’ve become a pigpoop employee.
An e-mail from New Jersey reminded us that the company’s e-mail system is only for work-related communications. In response, I wasted an hour today, sending and receiving replies to that e-mail, jokes and gibberish to and from 17 other inmates on the same cellblock.
I was also seriously distracted by Carlotta’s cleavage, so yes, it was a fine day at the office, making my minimal effort and waiting patiently to be canned.
Maybe it won’t be much longer. Merger-mania continues, illegally. An e-mail from Personnel (or ‘Human Resources’) claimed again that there’s no need to worry about staff reductions after the merger, but … since so many people have been asking, the e-mail said, here’s the severance policy.
“If” there are layoffs, ‘associates’ (workers like me) will get a week and a half’s pay for every year they’ve worked. I’ve been here for a year, so that’s a week and a half’s pay. Fire me now. I need the money.
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Jennifer was reading today’s scab Chronicle at her desk. What an asswipe. The strike has turned the morning newspaper into an asswipe-detection device, “and it really, really works!”
Jennifer usually doesn’t read the paper at work, so did she buy a Chronicle only to announce she’s an asswipe? We all already knew, Jenn.
I didn’t say anything about it, though. Office politics. I gotta work with that woman, five days a week. That’s shit enough, without talking politics.
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It’s twilight on a Friday. Home from work, I sat at the typewriter, and far as I’m concerned the weekend is already underway and it’s fabulous.
In this tiny room, in this dumpy hotel, with the sound of wind and traffic and a beggar on the sidewalk three floors below, with my 50-inch britches unbuckled and smelly t-shirt off, I am happily hitting the wrong keys and typing what I want to type even though it’s all worthless words.
No plans for tonight. No plans for tomorrow. Hardly anything planned for Sunday, and everything is going according to plan. This, dear diary, is the life Margaret called pathetic. It’s the best.
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More good news! I had my first bloodless b.m. in months just now, perhaps the first tangible evidence that my mostly-vegetarian diet is agreeing with my body. Also, it still hurts where that tooth used to be, but four aspirin every four hours seems to be exactly the dose and schedule that keeps the pain minimized.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
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