I adore these little acts of rebellion. My own comes from when I had to work as a warehouse picker. One had to get a quota of something like 2000 greetings cards an hour. Of course I didn't achieve that because I couldn't be bothered. After a few days I was called into the office and told I was to leave at lunchtime and not come back. So for the next few hours until lunch I did 3000 cards an hour. Just to make the appropriate point. I don't know whether that's an Aquarian tendency of mine or my Sagittarius ascendent coming out. But it definitely felt good.
The next temp job was a different warehouse. It was a combination of young people like me and old-timers. For the latter, I don't think I've ever seen faces displaying such nihilistic despair with life since. The radio music selection was horrible and chosen by those old-timers. Everyone went to the pub at lunchtime and drank as much as they could. The final straw was when they sent me to first sift through a pile of broken things to see if anything could be salvaged, that was in the morning, followed by an afternoon sticking little stickers on boxes of little lightbulbs.
The problem wasn't necessarily the zombification of the work, it was the fact that it required just enough concentration so that I was not able to completely dissociate and spend the day in an internalised creative trance. I remember hearing an anecdote about Ian Curtis saying once that he didn't mind working in a chicken factory because he was able to daydream creatively.
Some zombie jobs allow one to do that. Others occupy some middle ground and they are the ones that threaten to destroy your soul if you don't resist. Whether that's what hell looks like, or purgatory, remains an open question.
I was laughing and nodding aggressively all through reading this comment. I have found myself really enjoying some mindless jobs—picking apples being one of them. It was outside. I’d daydream in the sunshine. Nobody was watching me. It felt quite relaxing.
I think with this particular supermarket job I couldn’t daydream at all because someone was always on my back pointing out the amount of items I had forgotten to reduce.
I do need an awful amount of daydreaming time in order to feel content. I’ve felt annoyed about the lack of time I can spend in my inner world even when employed with less mindless, better paid work.
The image you painted of those old-timers will stay with me.
I am totally with you on the need for daydreaming time. Without it I would have a far more serious mental health condition. Especially as I'd hardly be able to write.
Picking apples sounds like a great job. We have fruit bushes in our garden so I have spent a few mornings already picking raspberries, and I can definitely daydream doing that, whilst also appreciating the nature.
Our baby apple tree isn't ready to fruit yet. A few more years to go...
A century ago I worked for 2 days in the lingerie department of a fine department store. It was so boring--I had to be sure all those stupid little hangers were neat and tidy and I wanted to shoot myself. I transferred to the shoe department and was happy as a clam.
Love this! I exited my first paid employment as a paperboy after being on the receiving end of one scowl too many from Mrs Martin the newsagent, and responded by delivering an entire round of Sunday papers through the letterbox of the first home on my route. I loved to think of the chaos and angry phone calls she took that day! Hardcore, eh? On balance, I feel I had a far more valid reason to never return to that shop than you, perhaps 😆
I fuck-ton a love this. It is JUST what I needed today. A shot in the arm of fuck-you-this-is-real-life-too! I LOVE this. It's funny funny funny. I keep restacking lines and phrases. Thank you for making my fucking day, Deer Girl.
Brilliant! My first High School job (after I thought I was too old for my paper route) was in a nursery loading sod and plants into people’s cars for $1.75/HR. I thought it was beneath me. I used to think I could manage the place myself at 14. When they hired a second kid to work with me on weekends, being the more experienced guy, I thought I’d take advantage of the situation, and start delegating all the loading to him. I’d tell him I had to go check inventory. One day, while sneaking a smoke in the back tree lot, the owner caught me slacking off. I told him I’m ready to be a boss and that I was teaching my partner how to do all the loading on his own. Well, within 10 minutes, I was on the bus headed home to tell my folks time to look for another after school job. Took me a few more years to figure it out.
Hahaha. The arrogance of youth! I think I was probably similar… thought I should be running the Co-op, not just putting stickers on things (in reality, the place would’ve fallen apart).
Sorry if you bought any…😂 Feel like this could be a little film. Reads like a screenplay. Perfect visuals/descriptions/little mini scene cuts. I think the best writing puts one solidly in the story and makes you long for the author, the protagonist. I still want to be with Holden Caulfield in that story. This story of yours makes me long to be your co-worker in aisle seven stocking the soda waiting for the girl in the blue trousers and Doc Martens to saunter by aimless. You’re a special, special writer.
LOL! This took me back. Right after high school I went to a sea resort to work as a waiter (very popular summer/seasonal job here). After they gave me a uniform that made me look like a toddler in his dad's suit and had me working under at the pool, surrounded by tons of grumpy foreigners (UK mainly, btw), I thought "this ain't it". Two weeks later I just sort of got on the train home, they called me to ask where the F I was and I just said I needed to go and that's that. Luckily for me there was no contracts and everything was kind of gray zone-ish.
I'm willing to a confess to a long series of crimes only because I write under a fake name and that isn't actually a picture of me (similar though). For three years I worked the midnight shift stocking groceries at a Walmart. It was the most depressing, soul-sucking job I've endured, especially the happy, happy 'aren't we having funny' managers. We were told theft was a huge problem, so we were searched before we were allowed to leave our shift in the morning. I knew where all the cameras were so every shift I would steal a bag of candy (usually chocolate covered jube jubes) hide it behind a row of juice bottles, or whatever, and grab a small handful every once in while. I'd pop one in my mouth every time I pretended I was scratching my beard. So about 1000 shifts at $5 a bag tells me I ate about $5000 of sugar coated inedible petroleum products before I found a better job. Now you know why the Waltons can't afford their own space rocket like all the other billionaires.
Haha. I love this (and I love how people are sharing their own small acts of rebellion on this post—makes me feel less alone). The grabbing the small handful once in a while reminds me of another job where I stashed chocolate Brazil nuts in my pocket and quickly ate one every so often to get through the day.
This really took me back... to years spent working shitty jobs I hated. Like also in a grocery store, where I had a secret spot I would take juice boxes I stole and just smoke cigarettes. Or working as a security guard in condominiums and government buildings, and I would just go up to the mechanical room and sleep
Haha. The little things people do to fill the time are so funny to me. I used to unpack cheese and then read a book in the walk-in refrigerator. It was fucking freezing.
You’ve taken me back to the summer of 1997 when I took a part-time job at Squirrel Hill Hardware in Pittsburgh. I lied about having to move back home to Virginia to leave the job. I’ll try my hand at writing the story some time later. Thanks for the inspiration!
It’ll be an opening of a chapter of my life about which I am a bit embarrassed…what a great opportunity to see how much courage I have as a writer! First, gotta get Lynnto work.
The squeezing of the jelly rolls deserves more attention. Loved reading the wine bottles, but the tactile nature of squeezing products to feel something, brilliant.
There is a delightful, silly, and thoughtful movie (my review) called 10 Items or Less. Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega. Similar plot, and if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend.
I adore these little acts of rebellion. My own comes from when I had to work as a warehouse picker. One had to get a quota of something like 2000 greetings cards an hour. Of course I didn't achieve that because I couldn't be bothered. After a few days I was called into the office and told I was to leave at lunchtime and not come back. So for the next few hours until lunch I did 3000 cards an hour. Just to make the appropriate point. I don't know whether that's an Aquarian tendency of mine or my Sagittarius ascendent coming out. But it definitely felt good.
The next temp job was a different warehouse. It was a combination of young people like me and old-timers. For the latter, I don't think I've ever seen faces displaying such nihilistic despair with life since. The radio music selection was horrible and chosen by those old-timers. Everyone went to the pub at lunchtime and drank as much as they could. The final straw was when they sent me to first sift through a pile of broken things to see if anything could be salvaged, that was in the morning, followed by an afternoon sticking little stickers on boxes of little lightbulbs.
The problem wasn't necessarily the zombification of the work, it was the fact that it required just enough concentration so that I was not able to completely dissociate and spend the day in an internalised creative trance. I remember hearing an anecdote about Ian Curtis saying once that he didn't mind working in a chicken factory because he was able to daydream creatively.
Some zombie jobs allow one to do that. Others occupy some middle ground and they are the ones that threaten to destroy your soul if you don't resist. Whether that's what hell looks like, or purgatory, remains an open question.
I was laughing and nodding aggressively all through reading this comment. I have found myself really enjoying some mindless jobs—picking apples being one of them. It was outside. I’d daydream in the sunshine. Nobody was watching me. It felt quite relaxing.
I think with this particular supermarket job I couldn’t daydream at all because someone was always on my back pointing out the amount of items I had forgotten to reduce.
I do need an awful amount of daydreaming time in order to feel content. I’ve felt annoyed about the lack of time I can spend in my inner world even when employed with less mindless, better paid work.
The image you painted of those old-timers will stay with me.
I am totally with you on the need for daydreaming time. Without it I would have a far more serious mental health condition. Especially as I'd hardly be able to write.
Picking apples sounds like a great job. We have fruit bushes in our garden so I have spent a few mornings already picking raspberries, and I can definitely daydream doing that, whilst also appreciating the nature.
Our baby apple tree isn't ready to fruit yet. A few more years to go...
I planted a pear tree a few autumns ago. It’ll be a few years yet, but I look forward to daydreaming while I pick pears!
A mindless job is so soothing. Why I chose to be a writer I do not know, deadlines make me sad and anxious.
A century ago I worked for 2 days in the lingerie department of a fine department store. It was so boring--I had to be sure all those stupid little hangers were neat and tidy and I wanted to shoot myself. I transferred to the shoe department and was happy as a clam.
You ought to watch Netflix's KAOS. In the underworld, they have to work, but there's no point to anything. Anything. It's an overlay on reality.
Love this! I exited my first paid employment as a paperboy after being on the receiving end of one scowl too many from Mrs Martin the newsagent, and responded by delivering an entire round of Sunday papers through the letterbox of the first home on my route. I loved to think of the chaos and angry phone calls she took that day! Hardcore, eh? On balance, I feel I had a far more valid reason to never return to that shop than you, perhaps 😆
Hahaha, thank you for making me laugh so much at the image of this on this very murky English morning.
Your prose is so amazing, I truly enjoy reading everything you write, thank you 💖
Thank you so much! 🖤
I fuck-ton a love this. It is JUST what I needed today. A shot in the arm of fuck-you-this-is-real-life-too! I LOVE this. It's funny funny funny. I keep restacking lines and phrases. Thank you for making my fucking day, Deer Girl.
Haha, thanks Rebecca. I’m glad. I was laughing my head off writing it and really hoping others would take it the same way.
How could they not??
That last line made me LAUGH.
When we were young, the whole world seemed to conspire against us, did it not?
Nicely done, friend!
Haha. It really did! EVERYTHING was unfair.
Had me chuckling. I also really enjoyed reading some of the responses to this post. 🙂
The responses made me laugh a lot! :)
Brilliant! My first High School job (after I thought I was too old for my paper route) was in a nursery loading sod and plants into people’s cars for $1.75/HR. I thought it was beneath me. I used to think I could manage the place myself at 14. When they hired a second kid to work with me on weekends, being the more experienced guy, I thought I’d take advantage of the situation, and start delegating all the loading to him. I’d tell him I had to go check inventory. One day, while sneaking a smoke in the back tree lot, the owner caught me slacking off. I told him I’m ready to be a boss and that I was teaching my partner how to do all the loading on his own. Well, within 10 minutes, I was on the bus headed home to tell my folks time to look for another after school job. Took me a few more years to figure it out.
Hahaha. The arrogance of youth! I think I was probably similar… thought I should be running the Co-op, not just putting stickers on things (in reality, the place would’ve fallen apart).
Brilliant. ❤️
Sorry if you bought any…😂 Feel like this could be a little film. Reads like a screenplay. Perfect visuals/descriptions/little mini scene cuts. I think the best writing puts one solidly in the story and makes you long for the author, the protagonist. I still want to be with Holden Caulfield in that story. This story of yours makes me long to be your co-worker in aisle seven stocking the soda waiting for the girl in the blue trousers and Doc Martens to saunter by aimless. You’re a special, special writer.
Thank you so much Billy! :)
LOL! This took me back. Right after high school I went to a sea resort to work as a waiter (very popular summer/seasonal job here). After they gave me a uniform that made me look like a toddler in his dad's suit and had me working under at the pool, surrounded by tons of grumpy foreigners (UK mainly, btw), I thought "this ain't it". Two weeks later I just sort of got on the train home, they called me to ask where the F I was and I just said I needed to go and that's that. Luckily for me there was no contracts and everything was kind of gray zone-ish.
‘Just sort of got the train home’ has me in hysterics.
I'm willing to a confess to a long series of crimes only because I write under a fake name and that isn't actually a picture of me (similar though). For three years I worked the midnight shift stocking groceries at a Walmart. It was the most depressing, soul-sucking job I've endured, especially the happy, happy 'aren't we having funny' managers. We were told theft was a huge problem, so we were searched before we were allowed to leave our shift in the morning. I knew where all the cameras were so every shift I would steal a bag of candy (usually chocolate covered jube jubes) hide it behind a row of juice bottles, or whatever, and grab a small handful every once in while. I'd pop one in my mouth every time I pretended I was scratching my beard. So about 1000 shifts at $5 a bag tells me I ate about $5000 of sugar coated inedible petroleum products before I found a better job. Now you know why the Waltons can't afford their own space rocket like all the other billionaires.
Haha. I love this (and I love how people are sharing their own small acts of rebellion on this post—makes me feel less alone). The grabbing the small handful once in a while reminds me of another job where I stashed chocolate Brazil nuts in my pocket and quickly ate one every so often to get through the day.
This really took me back... to years spent working shitty jobs I hated. Like also in a grocery store, where I had a secret spot I would take juice boxes I stole and just smoke cigarettes. Or working as a security guard in condominiums and government buildings, and I would just go up to the mechanical room and sleep
Haha. The little things people do to fill the time are so funny to me. I used to unpack cheese and then read a book in the walk-in refrigerator. It was fucking freezing.
That fleece gilet guy deserved this. Pounding on the bathroom door while you're in there is beyond the pale
I’m glad you think so because I still dwell on how outrageous that was.
You’ve taken me back to the summer of 1997 when I took a part-time job at Squirrel Hill Hardware in Pittsburgh. I lied about having to move back home to Virginia to leave the job. I’ll try my hand at writing the story some time later. Thanks for the inspiration!
Haha! I look forward to reading it :)
It’ll be an opening of a chapter of my life about which I am a bit embarrassed…what a great opportunity to see how much courage I have as a writer! First, gotta get Lynnto work.
You made me laugh, Deer!! Thank you. <3
🫶🏻
Sheesh, we could quit? I didn’t know that was an option back then.😱😂
Apparently we had free will, but it didn’t feel like it at the time!
I was just happy to have spending money!
The squeezing of the jelly rolls deserves more attention. Loved reading the wine bottles, but the tactile nature of squeezing products to feel something, brilliant.
There is a delightful, silly, and thoughtful movie (my review) called 10 Items or Less. Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega. Similar plot, and if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend.
Haven’t heard of it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I deduced you were a reductionist without ever having been reduced. Loved it; so many smiles.
Thank you :)