Sorry, Mom; It WAS A Shitty Job

So far today, like most days, has been pretty uneventful.
I talked to my mother, who took exception to me referring to my grocery store job as being a shitty one in yesterday’s entry.
“It wasn’t that shitty,” she told me.
I disagreed and pointed out that she wasn’t the one going there night after night and dealing with the shittiness.
For reasons that have never been clear to me, my mother has always seemed to become personally offended whenever she hears people complaining about their jobs, past or present.
The best I can determine is that it has something to do with gratitude; you should be grateful to have a job, any job, and that you should just go in, do your job, and keep your mouth shut about it.
What that fails to take into account is that people complain about their jobs no matter what.
It’s what people do. It’s pretty much expected.
Setting aside the fact that my job at the grocery store was a shitty one (low pay, lousy hours, tedious, repetitive work, having to struggle to get in at least 32 hours every week, being tired all of the time because human beings aren’t meant to work overnight: the list goes on and on), and the fact that my mom was just as glad as I was when I got out of that dead-end job, I probably would have complained about it, at least every once in a while, even if I’d loved it.
Consider my current job. Apart from the fact that it will probably be disappearing in about a month, I really don’t have anything to complain about. I make a lot of money for not much work, I only work three days a week and I accrue more vacation time than I can actually use in a year, I have access to all kinds of training, much of which I actually get paid for taking, and yet I complain about my job, just like everyone else does. Why? Because it’s my job, and people complain about their jobs, period.
And it’s not like I have to make up stuff to complain about. There are all sorts of things to complain about: having to get up so early, the long, boring hours, the various irritating personalities that you encounter in the course of a day, the drama of office politics, the drive in/home, etc.
That being said, I would be complaining even more if I didn’t have the job because the irritations that accompany a job, any job, are nowhere near as irritating as not being able to make your mortgage payment or buy food.
So yes, I am grateful to have a job, and I’m especially grateful that it’s nowhere near as shitty as my job in the grocery store, my stint as a garbage man, or, worst of all, my year spent in call center hell.
And mom, I didn’t write this to pick on you or to make fun of you, I was just using our conversation as a convenient springboard for an entry.
Later today I have to bring my car in to the dealership to leave it there for them to work on tomorrow. I’m not holding out much hope that they’ll finish the work before Monday.
I also need to call Brian to remind him that I need to catch a ride from him tomorrow morning (and, of course, tomorrow evening, and probably the rest of the weekend…).
It finally seems to have cooled off a bit around here as I’m no longer existing as a semi-motive puddle of sweat on the floor.
I’ve even been able to accede to my inner cheapskate and turn off my A/C.
Tomorrow my nephew Jeremy turns 17, which seems impossible to believe. That’s how old I was when my mom and I took the train down to Texas to spend a month helping my sister and brother-in-law out as Jeremy’s birth neared.
They’re celebrating Jeremy’s birthday by my sister having surgery. Okay, the two things aren’t actually related, it’s just odd timing.
In any case, not much has happened or is likely to happen today, so I suppose that I will post this and get on with the business of not doing much of anything.