Jobs with benefits

Tomorrow is my birthday. The joy of it is that counting sleep, work and transit time and I'm looking at spending a wonderful 31% of my 'anniversary of breathing air' doing what I want to.

I used to be more positive about work. At least the first week after being hired. My job isn't bad, but somehow the positive-go-getter attitude fades like a skid mark after so many washes.

2 and a half decades ago, when I first joined the military reserves I was so gung-ho. A somewhat jaded superior pointed that out to me saying that 'someday you'll be just like us'.

'How depressing' I thought. 'You're downright ugly'. He also was not a happy little soldier anymore, and he was promising me the same future. 'I won't be that way, I'll serve Her Majesty with all my resolve and vigor' I promised myself.

Two years later I quit because I missed a Weird Al concert to attend a range shoot.

Each subsequent employment has had me make a similar promise to myself. And yet it happens. Work beats the desire to work out of me.

3 years ago I promised myself I would make the my job work by rigidly adhering to the rules and doing the best job I could. I believed I could be the bureaucrat who made the system work.

6 months later I asked for a transfer to another department.

Once there I determined to be the 'fresh blood' that brought new life to the department, showing them that a lack of knowledge and skill can be overcome by trying harder than everyone else.

20 months later I asked to be transferred back.

I'm no quitter. 10 years of marriage, 8 years of parenthood, I even stuck through a whole season of wrestling because I had committed to. No where else in my life am I as negative and cynical as I am at my job.

So to all you young up-and-comers (Perverts who read my blog don't have to re-read the last sentence) consider the new culture of work a positive one.

It used to be you had one career for life and were miserable for it. Now you have just have jobs with benefits.

Your accomplishments won't have a lasting impact (unless they are debacles, then you won't stay around to make another). Your retirement lunch will be later in life with fewer people attending. Still you have the gift of short term, temporary happiness. Enjoy it while you can.

Oh, and learn to love what you do, no matter what the stuffed shirts (perverts get to save time here too) say about dressing up as your favorite Star Wars character.