Corporate America, and Why I'd Rather Chew Glass.

Well, it's taken me one day to start hating work again. One day in some random office in downtown Los Angeles where everyone is in their own little world inside their cubicle, somewhere between "I'm a total loser I have the one closest to the door" and "wow I'm so neat I have a corner office with a view." Everyone hoping they're on a path to somewhere, a bigger cubicle maybe, maybe even one on the END. The whole concept of an office basically causes the gag reflex. I can't even tell you how many times I've had to take care of the most retarded work because someone was bored of getting stepped on so they hired someone else to do the dirty work for them. The WORST kind of jobs however, is when they don't really need you. You end up sitting around, looking over their shoulder from time to time, waiting for work to be given to you. Once you're given it you finish it in a short amount of time, and therefore need something else. They become irritated that you're always in their face, and decide they're better off being irritated about having too much work to do, and you're forced to move on to the next job.

Today was no different, other than for some strange reason they wanted me from 10-6 this week. What that means is when I'm forced to take lunch just because they are and there's no more work, I end up with a less than 40 hour workweek. Of course the paycheck is already hacked into from the $30 I'm paying for parking on the week. Oh and then there's the gas. The fun part was trying to FIND the parking structure, which although it has an address of 818 W. 7th St, actually has no entrances or address numbers of any kind on 7th, and actually has its entrance on S. Flower St, on the complete other side of the block. Luckily I always leave an extra half hour on the first day of temp jobs, knowing I'll probably get lost somewhere along the way. It's interesting walking around downtown, even though I'm from Los Angeles, I've probably actually walked around the downtown area with the largest buildings maybe a dozen times in my life. There's just nothing really there, other than a major hub of Corporate America.

The really irritating part of today was the fact she didn't get back from lunch until 4:30, having left at 1. I was back from my quick break by 3, having not left until after 2, since she said she'd be back "for sure no later than 3." Well, I sat around reading Ender's Shadow for an hour or two, and then finally one of the other cubicleites from across the way noticed I wasn't actually doing anything, and decided to try to give me work to do. "Yeah, do me a favor and um, research this company on the internet they're one of our competitors, just you know, facts and figures and basically come up with a proposal on how we can better compete with them than we are already." Riiiight. As if I even know what she's talking about, have any experience in the field, or even care. Eventually she comes back and decides I'm incapable of that task and gives me a list of colleges to call and find out who their Director of Admissions is. Seems simple, until you realize I got the list at 4pm, long after all the eastern and central timezones have closed for the day. Eventually the person I'm supposedly working for comes back, and says at 5:45 she's going to show me what I'm going to be doing tomorrow while she's in a meeting. She then spends (not exaggerating) thirty full minutes trying to figure out her password into one of the systems they use. She tries four different combinations of logins and passwords, over, and over, and over, as if the 9th time through they'll work. Finally she sighs and says "I guess we'll do this first thing in the morning" before going back and engulfing herself into her laptop and her cubicle, not saying another word to me. I take my book and leave, quite irritated that this is what I'm having to do in order to earn money this summer.

What's sad, is I actually look FORWARD to the traffic. The commute is actually interesting to me. I'm actually DOING something, and can see progress being made. The radio is on, and generally something entertaining is being said, or good music is blasting. You can stare at all the other drivers, trying to figure out who they are, and what their life is like. It's just a world constantly changing, as you plod along from car to car. UNLIKE a cubicle, and a clock, which only changes once a minute, every minute, for the whole day.

This is the most irritated/bitter I've been in a while. I just wish I could find some work available that I actually enjoyed. Unfortunately the economy is not ripe these types of jobs, and so I have to take what I can get, as irritating as it might be.

Check back after the end of this week, I should be better. Who knows, maybe there will actually be stuff for me to do tomorrow. I'd much rather spend time copying and collating a six foot high stack of paper than just sitting there, pretending to be busy when people walk by really you have nothing to do. I was even playing chess against MYSELF today. Like on a piece of paper, erasing and writing where the pieces are, treating each move as if I was playing it to the best of my ability. Black was winning I think before I decided to read instead. Maybe I'll finish the game tomorrow, who knows. Good book by the way, the 5th in a series by Orson Scott Card. Basically a parallel novel to Ender's Game, possibly the best Sci-Fi novel I've read. Quite fun for little boys anyway.

You'll have to excuse me, I've been home for four hours but it's time to go to sleep so I can immediately wake up and leave again so I can hurry up and do nothing.