Putting Holes in Happiness

Well, I know you’re not going to want to hear this and I definitely didn’t want to have to say this but I hate my new job!

There’s a lot going on with my mind and my feelings right now and I’m pretty much sick of it.  I’ve been reduced to nothing more than a whiner and I do realize how pathetic I seem.  I’m just as tired of complaining as everyone is reading/hearing about it.  All I know is that I can’t believe I’ve had another pile of crap dropped on me yet again.  And the difference is I was feeling really good about things this time.  I tried that whole sham positivity thing and it got me nowhere.  It’s times like these that only reinforce my negativity and dark outlook on life.  I keep trying to compromise, keep trying to settle, keep trying to make things work with what I have and what I’ve been given but even that never seems to work out. 

School didn’t turn out how I expected and I had to overcome so much disappointment but I eventually I tried to accept it and tried to make the best of it and just get through.  After graduation, I struggled to cope with how everything turned out, from my work, art, relationships and even myself, and how nothing went as I had hoped it would.  I put my dream of becoming an animator aside because I didn’t learn as much as I should have in school.  I instead decided to be more sensible and take a nice office job so that I could start earning enough money to move out of my parents’ home and become independent and self-sufficient.  After I had settled myself, I’d pick up on pursuing animation again.  Okay, fine.  Well, a ton of applications and dozens of interviews later, I had to take a crap job at a skank shop working with the public, something I did not want to do because I hate working with the public.  The more I work in customer service, the more I realize how crappy people are.  Plus, I just really like doing office work.  My experience at Paris Packaging was fun and interesting and while it didn’t involve my passion for writing or animating, it did involve an interest of mine in some capacity and hey, that’s better than doing something you loathe.  Yet, I had to stoop to the level of working with people, had to compromise, had to settle yet again.  And I hated it but that’s all I could get.  A few weeks later, I am offered this new job and am told how upscale the facility was going to be and how easy my job was going to be and how I was going to be tipped and all these appealing things.  I thought things were looking up, that maybe the goal of getting out of the house might come true. 

Cut to two weeks ago when I actually started working and it was nothing like they described.  And now I’d rather just stay home and take a lower paying job that will at least make me not want to drive into a tree instead of driving into work.

I feel like I’ll never be on my own, never make enough money to pay for anything except my debts and I’ll never be happy, satisfied or at peace.  And the reason why is because every goal I ever have is always slightly out of each, always never as wonderful as I hope, never as merciful as it seems.

The past two weeks have been such a blur.  I worked a fifty-hour week the first week, driving and working and sleeping and crying and that’s all I did.  I didn’t even have time to write anything down and that was a big struggle for me.  It was like my mind was shut off, just focusing on making it to the weekend so that I could rest.  What kind of life is this to wake up, cry on the way to work, work, cry on the way back home, go to sleep and do it again the next day?  I have to drive an hour and a half on the way to work and the way home so I’m putting in eleven hours a day for this crap job and by the time I come back home, I’m too exhausted to eat or write or do much of anything besides wash the stink of smoke out of my skin and collapse onto the bed.  And the job itself is not at all how it was described to me when I was first offered the position.  I am not in customer service, as I was told I would be.  I’m nothing more than a janitor, not that there’s anything wrong with that but that’s just not what I signed up for at all.  I spend my eight hours walking in circles wiping fingerprints of electronic bingo machines, picking up empty beer bottles and emptying ashtrays and this past week we received new instructions to scrape the soot from the ashtrays.  So, as if dumping out those dirty things wasn’t bad enough, I gotta get in there with a crusty rag and release all that soot and ash from the tray right into my face and carry around that soot soaked rag with me during the entirety of my shift.  It’s mind numbing and I feel like it’s going to slowly rot my brain with the monotony and repetition.  Plus, I’m not getting tipped, which I was told I would be.  Plus, I’ve had to buy my uniforms, shoes, walkie-talkies and even the cloth that I use to wipe down the machines and all of that’s being taken out of my check, which I think is such crap.  Oh, and I wasn’t trained on how to use the machines so when people ask me I just shrug like an idiot ‘cause no one told me.  There is no satisfaction, there is no sense of accomplishment, there is only inane cleaning and pushing up chairs and walking and walking and walking.  Plus, the company is being unreasonable at this point, making us come in early and leave late and changing rules every other day and generally driving me crazy and telling us not to complain.  I still don’t have my uniform pants because the company decided not to order them until the last minute and the place is still under construction.  It’s not even finished being built and on the first night, almost all of the machines went haywire, which made every guest that came in angry and of course they took it out on me because I was there first point of contact.  That was the day I had to work eleven hours (sans driving) and was only allowed a half an hour lunch break after working nine of them.  That’s just some of the crap I’ve had to endure so far.    

I just can’t believe my life has been reduced to cleaning up after dirty old people and having them blow smoke in my face so much that I can barely breathe sometimes.  And I seriously hate working with the public, another reason I wanted an office job.  And speaking of the public, I have never seen so many toothless people and women with mustaches in my entire life.  People will piddle away money on electronic bingo but they can’t save a few bucks for a toothbrush or for some depilatory?  And frankly, some of the other employees don’t look much better and yet this place is an “upscale” facility.  Please.  And my job isn’t “upscale” at all.  There is no pride in what I do.  I’m college educated, smart, articulate and I’m picking up cigarette butts off the ash laden floor for eight hours a day.  I understand that you gotta do what you gotta do and life doesn’t always work out how you’ve planned and sometimes you just gotta suck it up but this is just yet another example of how I’ve had to reduce the scope of my dreams in favor of a little bit of practicality.  Couldn’t be an animator so let’s at least do some office work.  Can’t do that so let’s go back to JCPenney, where I at least know the job and can feel comfortable there.  I couldn’t believe I lowered myself to going back there because when I quit all those years ago, I vowed I’d never return.  Now, I realize it wasn’t as bad as I remember or at least it wasn’t as bad as my job is now.  Yet, I can’t even go back there ‘cause they aren’t hiring so I have to take crappy job after crappy job and drive and hour and half just to get there because there is literally no other opportunities close by.  I am trapped by location and circumstance.

It’s sad but I’ve already started applying to other places and I’ve even applied for different positions within the company because I can’t do this much longer.  I’ll literally go insane or drive my car off a bridge.  And the positions within the company probably aren’t much better.  It’s just sad that I’ve spent so many years in school and yet I still have to wish and hope and grovel for one lousy position after another because I can’t do any better.  I have no other skills or experience besides customer service and the animation thing hasn’t gotten me anywhere and it won’t get me anywhere around here and it frustrates me.  I thought about going back to school but I can’t because I can’t afford it.  I’m stuck.

You know, the job sucks and all but that isn’t even all of it.  It’s just a small contribution to my cracked emotions.  It’s the job, yes, but it’s also that deep disappointment that’s setting in once again.  And this particularly hurts because I had felt so good about it, thought this job would be the first step in the process of moving out and becoming independent.  I was actually on the verge of feeling good about something, of actually being...happy?  But I see that it won’t happen.  That chance at happiness was shot down real quick, bullet-ridden and ruined.  I see that I’m still miserable, still lost, still behind in life and it hurts because I try to make things better.  I tried to go to school and follow my dreams because I’ve always been told to follow my dreams.  Well, I did and I fell on my butt.  I wasn’t satisfied with staying at home so I tried to venture out, within reason, to find something better, something that would allow me to move out and start my own life and that fell through as well.  No one can say I haven’t tried to better things but I keep being pushed down at every turn and it’s exhausting.  I’m so tired and there are times when I feel like giving up.  I feel like a failure as it is and yet I keep trying but sometimes I don’t want to try anymore.  It feels hopeless so I might as well not exert any more energy than is necessary.  I know the true failure isn’t in not succeeding but in giving up but it’s really hard to keep going when everything goes wrong all the time. 

As I mentioned, I’m too exhausted to write and can’t find the time to do it anyway because if I’m not sleeping or working, I’m driving.  And that sucks because I really wanted to work on my book and my blog and I started this new gig at Phase 2 Studio and I just simply won’t be able to do it all.  In fact, this entry you’re reading now was written during one of my days off and right now I’m probably either working, sleeping, driving or sobbing.  I just don’t understand why I can’t have a job that isn’t all consuming and horrible.  I’m not asking for the moon, just something that I can do to help me get to where I want to be.

I don’t even have a reprieve.  I can’t get lost in writing or reading or watching movies because I’m too tired and I can’t even catch a break in my sleep.  I’ve been dreaming about my job just about every night that I can remember.  That doesn’t bring a restful sleep.  I have two days off but it really just feels like one and a half because on my first day off, I basically sleep for most of the day.  I don’t set an alarm clock because I feel I need all the recuperative sleep I can get and if that means wasting away half the day, then so be it.

I’m just pretty sure nothing is going to be okay ever again.  As I’ve said, I have no other skills besides customer service and it’s funny because I hate people.  And yet I’m trapped with them.  I’ll never break through to something better because I have no skills, training or experience in anything else and no one will hire a guy with no skills, training or experience.  I had applied for a position within the company that I had never done before but as I pleaded my case to the lady in human resources, telling her I was easily trainable and willing to learn, she told me other people with experience had applied for the job and they would be the ones to get it.  There will always be someone more suited for the job and why shouldn’t they get it?  I’ll never be an animator, writer, or a real person.

I am just a shell at this point.