Work Sucks

Ok. This is nothing new. And maybe I really shouldn't evaluate how I truly feel about my job at 8:30 AM after a holiday weekend. Or maybe I should. Well, anyway, I don't like work.

This morning I began thinking mutinous thoughts before the day really even began. When I'm sitting on the bus watching all the kids get off at UT, carrying backpacks and philosophy books and wearing thrift store finery, my heart hurts a little. I've been wondering whether there's anything else I could to do support myself. Sometimes I just want to escape to another country altogether. Other times I think I would be happier in a more interactive job (coffee shop here I come!). But, the money and the great insurance benefits here at work would be hard to replace. And I can barely afford my apartment as it is. Thus we see that I've been enslaved to the free market already. (Does anyone else find the designation 'free' a bit ironic at times?)

Mostly, I've been mad at myself for failing to anticipate how much I would not like my situation. I live alone, and I spend all day alone in a cubicle working alone on boring research for stressed out lawyers. Don't get me wrong: they're very nice lawyers (most of them), but they're stressed, which makes the work environment less than enjoyable most days. And I have to read insurance code on a weekly basis.

Insurance code does NOT increase my faith in our state's governing abilities. If you have ever read Texas insurance code then you know what I mean. It is a mess. Sections of the code refer to other sections of the code, but when you look up the mentioned section of code, you find that it was repealed 4 or 5 years ago or that it was moved somewhere else in the code. Where? You don't know. Noone knows, but you must find it, which involves possibly hours of trying to decipher the table of contents and skimming through tens (sometimes hundreds) of pages. This is enough to kill anyone's spirit or at least to dampen it considerably.

But, I am determined that I will not become lazy and embittered. I really don't want to become one of those sad people who goes to work all day and watches TV all night (and there is some danger of that!). So...remind me to read things that will challenge me and ask me whether I've found a volunteer opportunity. And don't let me complain instead of doing something about it.