Homecoming Thoughts
Last night was bad. It started with a case of chills and turned into one of the worst cases of night sweats I've ever had. It was so intense that I had to get up at three in the morning just to shower off. I haven't perspired that much since working as a heroin mule. Thank God I get to go home today.
Whenever I spend more that a few days at a work conference or training, I find myself getting sucked back into the fanatical idealism that permeates charitable work. At best, it's like mass hysteria. At worst, it's a cult of self-important do-gooders minus the cool jumpsuits.
This leads me to a difficult admission: I'm far more susceptible to outside influence than I'd like to believe. That sucks.
As a result of the Kool-Aid, all I kept thinking about during the night was whether or not I'd be well enough to make my business trip on Monday morning. Didn't I used to have a life, like just last week?
******
In between sweating though pillows, last night I dreamt that I crapped my pants on the plane ride home. I've been constipated all week and now with this flu bug or whatever, my subconscious decided to concoct a horrible (yet very logical) scenario.
I am not someone who believes in omens or premonitions. Still, I find myself getting nervous as we wait to board the aircraft.
******
Sweet. Coming to you live from First Class. I got bumped for my flight home and am currently sitting in a spacious leather seat, enjoying all the amenities. In FC (as us tasteful and discriminating travelers like to call it), you get individual salt and pepper shakers with your meal and unlimited drinks. I have all the space I need to comfortably type dirty words and sip hot tea. It is lovely.
The best part is this: If you shit yourself in FC, a stewardess will wipe you. Sweet.
Comments
Pardon if any of this sounds slightly drunken but I've completed my prerequisite semester this week. Anyway I've thought long and hard about your case and also about why I feel relatively well about my current situation. Being a true gen-ex boy I have always liked to consider myself tied to my life and not my job. Well I've passed year six at a position for the first time and still am relatively happy. I work a job that started from thoughts I had were important in high school, kind of like going back to fix issues of my youth when I held different beliefs. I joined into it after quitting cold what I had since then thought was my dream job but learned was going to cause me to sacrifice everything I felt important to advance at. The reason I feel I still love my job is that I don't worry so much. As long as they allow me to try and remold my work into the truly ethical workplace I've always imagined it seems important to me. On top of that I know deep in my heart that they day they come for me and decide that my work jepordizes the little empires others have built for themselves, hand me a few boxes and ask me to leave, that I will be able to pick up in two hands my picture frame, radio and bottle of Aleve and walk out proud. But every day they allow me to break those old school empires and protect the company over a few self interest minded folks. And everyday I work harder to futher this cause. And every once in awhile the pink slips come and I (God please grant me the permanent vacation) am still there.
So the question is, what did you think was important when you were still a young and impressionable youth, and no, fireman and train engineer dont count, that's too far back.
And neither does being Charles Bukowski.
Posted by: DaMonkeyCode | December 15, 2006 11:33 PM