I Hate Work - Part 1

Rushing out of Sam’s Club this morning, at the exit, a guard dog of a lady feigned a scan of my purchase while simultaneously magically matching the items with those listed on the receipt, even when some were buried under other purchases and invisible from view – all in 3.6 seconds. Finally she handed back the receipt after slashing it with a magic marker with symphony conductor like precision. She then told me I was good. I asked her if she was sure that I was good - and she looked defensive and puzzled. 

The truth is that I may be good overall as a person at least most of the time. But today I’m not good. Today, I’m a little frustrated, I’m a little bad, I’m a little mad, but I’m definitely not good.

It seems like everyone (slight exaggeration) close to me is MISERABLE in their work. Not everyone I know, but everyone in a tighter circle of selected friends and family. I suppose this writing will provide me a little respite or release from pent up emotions and accumulated frustration (so it turns out I’m writing this for myself…hum), and maybe even a bit of a catharsis if I can think of anything intelligent to say. In any case, so much of my recent interaction with four of these individuals revolves around updating the daily drama episodes and offensive sagas related to their work life that I can’t help but feel involved and somehow responsible.

Before I start, I have to stress that I have never been personally miserable in my work. On the contrary, I have been extremely fortunate that I had a great career devoid of major lasting drama and conflict. That doesn’t mean that I love everyone I work with or they love me. It just means that I have gotten a fair shake in my career, and have never experienced the kind of treatment, betrayal, lying, power hungry abuse, insinuations and innuendoes, careless disrespect, or insensitivity that I have recently witnessed indirectly through the eyes of those affected. To be sure, this comes directly from them and through their eyes….eyes I trust and believe in. This is not a research project, and I‘m not an investigative reporter. However, I respect each individual as truthful, I believe in them and their integrity. I see them as honest, talented, and exemplary individuals, both as humans and as professionals in their work.

Nevertheless, I am reluctant to tell their stories in detail. This is a small town and those who know me might figure the identity of the individuals with unpredictable consequences. It’s always my experience (and expectation) in life that those who wrong others eventually receive their just reward. In Hawaii, it just seems that judgment day comes at least two years after it should, after exacting many casualties in transit. Yet at the same time, if I were on my death bed with but a moment to live, I would reveal all of the names of those involved, the good and the bad, and the shortcomings of the miserable creatures whose have wronged my friends by their ineptitude and ugly spirit.

By way of introduction, the four individuals that I am presently thinking about chosen from a sea of victims work in diverse environments; one in a public university, one in a private company, and two in the same major hospital system. The themes that I will explore in no particular order have to do with the failure of upper management to lead. These include: responsibility without authority, failure to appreciate or understand what subordinates actually do in their work, an overpowering bully with a messiah complex who arbitrarily targets other workers, and the plight of a unit that experiences a set of new, not so honest managers who impose their ideas and vision without engaging the existent staff in any meaningful dialogue.

Sometimes you just want to say FUCK IT and quit and move on. I certainly go back and forth on my advice on what to do, if anything. Like a bad marriage, you want to give it enough time and make the effort to explore any viable option to rescue it; the marriage…job…whatever, to feel you have given it your best. At the same time, you don’t want to be shattered in the process. Life if too short….yada yada. You have to live with yourself whether you win the fight or lose it. And if you walk away, you will need evacuate you mind and cleanse your body of any telltale contamination.

Overall, in this day and age, the tendency is to try too hard to make things work and to endure too much pain and suffering in the process. We don’t take too well to failure and want to avoid it at all costs. Sometimes this attitude is counterproductive and self destructive in the damage that it creates. 

......and the self destruction becomes self propagating after a while...........

....and it ignores the real possibility that misery at work represents a real opportunity for choice and change that never would have presented itself otherwise.......

Indeed, a few days away from work, away from cell phones and computers – looking at yourself without a mirror and coming up with a conclusion, an epiphany, some level of self realization leading to a plan of action maybe the best advice that anyone can give. Move yourself into a closet if you have to…. Only you know yourself but you cannot be free to think clearly if you are fighting off bullets every moment fearing for your life.