Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 16:31:22 -0500

A few months ago, a woman at work took a week's vacation, all at once, and spent the whole thing cleaning her house. As far as I could ever find out, she didn't sit still and read or think (actually, I suspect she's incapable of either), or do anything with her family, or go anywhere, she just scrubbed everything. I think she might have worked in her yard a little, but that was a very mimor side note to the house work. She took a vacation to get up early in the morning and do more work.

A few weeks ago a small group was talking, I think about the lottery, and one girl said "I'd be bored if I won the lottery. I wouldn't know what to do all day." Two of us chimed in with "I could find something" and I managed not to say that her problem was that she was an idiot who didn't know and couldn't figure out what to do unless someone else was dictating it, that she had no mind and therefore could have no life of same, although even I was at a loss to figure out how she really couldn't believe she'd find things to do. She doesn't have friends at work, really, but she does have a family, and pets.

We've had mandatory overtime at work for over six months now, and although the hours have been reduced some it's still too much for the kind of work it is. Resentment isn't uncommon, but it's not as widespread as I would have expected, either. We've had some people quit over it, a lot that are continually looking, but an amazing number of people take it in stride and don't seem to resent that any more than they resented the normal forty hours. I think they're incapable of really filling their lives up themselves anyway, so however boring and tedious the work may be they don't mind it, it saves them from solitude and from having to find their own lives, or having to develop minds of their own. Most of them just go home and watch TV, anyway, everything fairly passive, no active thought or effort involved.

And everyone seems to take this for granted, that it's normal. I think it's hideous and sick, but then I think of work as evil and tend to question its necessity, especially in the amount that it's usually done. There's no law in most states to limit the amount of overtime that can be required, and I can't grasp that. I can't understand why there's no movement to take the standard work week down to 30 or 35 hours. How much of the work that gets done now is really useful or needed? How much is really make-work as it is?

It doesn't help my attitudes about all this that some nights (usually Sundays, but sometimes during the week) I lie down and cry because I've got to go back the next morning. I loathe the place where I work, but rarely get any response to the resumes I send out. I don't include my thoughts on work in them, so I think it's a combination of overeducation and lack of verifiable useful skills and abilities. It's hard to prove or demonstrate most of what I can do with a resume and a half-hour interview.

Plus I never really want those jobs, either.

It's not so bad now that I get to see daylight sometimes besides just on the weekend.

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