Work

Being the lazy ass that I am its 9:45am and I have just rolled out of bed. I don't have to be at work until 12:30pm today so I can lounge around and kind of relax, take the rest of the morning slow. I though I would take a few minutes to say somethings about my Job, work and Life as I see them.

First off, I have never in my life been one who wants to be defined by my work. I kind of get the heebees when I hear people ask one another "what are you?" or "what do you do?" and the reply is always their job title or function. I do not want to be what I do for a living, I want to be Jeffrey and I want to be defined by what I do and who I am in Life, not the 40 to 50 hours a week I spend making money to support my Life.

Even if I had some wicked awesome job like Soldier, Fireman, Actor, Writer, Teacher or Chef, I would prefer to be know as Jeffrey, if I must have a title call me Son, Brother, Friend, that funny guy that will say whats on his mind and apologize later that it hurt your feelings...you know titles or monikers that reference my Life and who I am and what I do with said Life.

That being said I work as a manager for a major retail home improvement store. I have worked for this company for 5 years now and besides the past 10 months where I made a painfully stupid choice to move away from everyone to try to "improve" my career, I have been very Happy with my Job. It is a very easy job, you show up for work, you help customers, you stock shelves, help more customers, you clean up messes, more customers, push some reports and paperwork and generally help customers. At every level of employment with my Company that what it is really about. It is not mentally straining, sometimes it is physically taxing but not really ever so bad I come home sore and the schedule is not set Monday-Friday 9 to 5. But there are advantages to the schedule thing too. If I open I am off work by 4 or 5pm and have plenty of time to do things in the afternoon, if I close I have all morning to lay around and goof off a bit. Mids just suck and screw up your whole day, but its part of the Job so I deal with it, they are rare anyway.

My Job is not rocket science, you don't need a degree or any real education past basic reading, writing and math skills. I have had people tell me I am "too intelligent" for my job, or that I could "do so much better". People think because I wear a little red vest with a name tag on it that I am functioning at a lower level of existence than they are. I love to be out at a restaurant meeting the friends of friends that brag about their degrees and their button down oxford shirt and dress slacks job that is paying them $60 to $80K a year. They brag about their shiny new sports car, the expensive big house they just bought and blah blah blah. Then in the next breath they talk about there crushing taxes, sky-high interest rates on their student loans and credit cards, their mortgages and best of all the ulcers and headaches cause by the stress of their labors.

I get to tell them that I have a car payment, rent and no credit cards. Basic bills and that's about it. I wouldn't know an ulcer if it bubbled up on my ass and called me Billy. Sure I have some pretty annoying people to help and I do have to be nice to them because they are the customer, but once that's all said and done even the shitty people make great and funny stories to share.

Oh and the pay?

Well its not $60-$80k a year but my last stub had me at $41k ytd with two and a half months left to go in the year...I guess I make up the difference in having a true Life separate from "what I do" and its worth every penny not to be defined by my employment and more so by who I am.