Work

Do you have a job? Are you in school working towards getting a job? Or are you working a job and in school at the same time?

Work is something I think about constantly these days. It's the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning and the thing I come home from grovelling. It's the reason I ask myself why am I here? Does any of this actually matter? If I burned down this place tomorrow would they even notice?

Being in transit during rush hour is always a trip. I love watching everyone all bundled up in their coats like schmucks, cramming themselves into these tiny silver boxes only to move from one claustrophobic place to the next. Are they heading to some high rise building in the sky? I always wonder what it's like to work that high. Is it isolating to be up top?

I know money is the biggest motivator. We never have enough and could always use a little more. Rent costs are high and living in a city will eat you out of house and home, besides a new phone might be nice every once and a while. Should that be our motivating factor for work? Working like a dog only to get a paycheck and blow it on something you don't need but think you need. Where is the happiness in that?

I don't work a fancy job and maybe my contempt comes from that. I serve the suits. There's always a sense from the people I speak to that if I just “play my cards right” I will get a job as good as theirs. But if you ask me they look miserable. If I had a job like that I would spend every waking moment planning how to jump out that high rise window. Office culture looks like what walking into a Zellers did just before they closed. Dark and desperate, it's a hollow shell of former glory. Save the grey carpets for a funeral home, I'd rather visit a prison.

I know my perspective will always be from the outside looking in. I don't truly know what it's like to work in an office. I only know what the people who work in offices like to drink. A propensity to drink bone dry cappuccinos does not truly mean I know how bitter you are inside. It just means I know you're a fussy person when you order.

What makes work good? What makes work a means to an end? I get immediate satisfaction from cleaning a store from top to bottom. Would I get satisfaction from growth and expense reports? How do I determine the overall level of satisfaction from my work? If my hard work is something that can be measured on paper does that mean it's legitimate? Where is there room for the work that I've been doing?

I may work a different job than a lot of my customers but I don't think I'm far off from trying to understand their type of work. It's grunt work. The only difference is I am grossly underpaid for the type that I deliver.

People are always going to ask for more. More labour more effort, more smiles more dedication, but who does that serve? I count stacks of money that will never reach my pocket. How would that make someone feel? If you feel a disassociation towards your employer does that mean you are inherently working for “the man” or does that mean you're unsatisfied with your job and need a career shift?

I know I like talking, and writing. I like to think I know a few things and can hold up a conversation decently. But does that get me a job in today's economy? It gets me a job in coffee that's for sure. But I must ask where in the twenty first century does a job in a colonially-crafted good get you? Just about one good story at a university party that's for sure.

Work should be satisfying and meaningful, but how does that make you money to pay the bills. I've been told all my life “find a good job, the rest will follow,” does a good job get you out of poverty if it's honest? When have you truly “made it”? These are the questions I ask myself as I cram into that silver box underground waiting patiently reach my stop. Is there an end? When will I know?

No one really knows.