Diary of a Mad Worker Bee
By Angela Kelley
I’ve been keeping a list of every single job I’ve held since I was sixteen years old and at this moment, there are thirty-seven jobs on this list. Now you might think that thirty-seven is not such a large number, and it isn’t if you’re, oh, eighty-nine, but I am twenty-five. I am a serial employee.
Ass Wiper (Child Care)
I’ve never seen more proof of the devil’s existence than when I worked with children. Work began at 5:30 a.m., which is when they rose, spread their black wings, and decided what to destroy first. Oh, such unholy acts were perpetrated by the terror totters. I have seen little Brittany (they are all named “Brittany” unless they are named “Tori”) take a pointed rock and pound another child’s kneecaps to a bloody mash over a swing. It took such willpower for me not to isolate an offender in a remote area and say, “Listen, you fucking little playground terrorist, you are evil, evil, evil, and if I ever catch you harming another child, I will gut you like a deer, rip out your heart, and feed it to whatever devil you worship.”
Phone Whore (Telemarketing)
Congratulations! You have been chosen to spend hours on the phone selling bullshit! All you have to do at this awful job is harass people at home and take verbal abuse! The ugly reality of telemarketing is that you are paid to be a professional liar. Nobody ever wins jack shit. The worst is when you run across the nice old lady who says things like, “Oh heavens, oh thank you honey, I’ve never won a thing in my life, my husband is dead and I, oh, thank you.” This is your cue to get a razorblade and open your dirty liar veins because a person who lies to old ladies makes the Baby Jesus cry and doesn’t deserve to live.
Mish Money Penny (Receptionist)
Receptionist jobs are a tricky breed–they lull you into a false sense of contentment. At first, you don’t mind putting down the magazine to answer the phone. “This is, after all, my job,” you think. But then, after the ten millionth VERY URGENT phone call, you start wondering if anyone would notice if you hung yourself with the phone cord. When you ask, “How can I help you,” the smart aleck on the line will say something like, “Well now let me see, how can you help me? Well I could use a million dollars! Ha! Ha! Ha!” You must exert control however, when someone asks, “Do you have a John there?” and not fall into the trap of answering, “Yes. We have a John here. We are a company of 4,000 employees. We have several Johns here. Do you want to pick one at random and waste fifteen minutes of his life like you did mine, or should I just reach through this fucking phone and tear out your goddamn neck?”
Maybe I just haven’t found my niche. Maybe my super-duper job is waiting just around the corner. And maybe that job will gratify, fulfill, and make me put my nose to the grindstone. In the meantime, my hand is killing me from all this typing, so I’m going to have to quit.
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