George shifted the car's transmission from drive to reverse, palmed the headrest of the passenger seat, turned his head clockwise from twelve to four, and backed his car into the farthest possible parking space from the entrance of the Public Utilities building; he wanted the extra distance to mull over his forthcoming announcement.
George arrived to work only five minutes earlier than normal, but the building’s interior seemed completely different: there was no one yet in the front office, no doors left sociably open, no one wandering the halls, and only a handful of needed lights turned on. George’s inner monologue took a back seat to the thoughts and images of his co-workers arriving like locusts in the next five minutes and franticly opening doors or turning on lights. He continued down the thinly-lit hallway to his boss’s office, passing by his own in the process.
Good morning Bess.
Good morning George, how are you?
I’m ok; can I talk to you about something?
Sure, have a seat.
George entered the office, closing the door behind him, something that Bess took note of. Instead of putting down his coffee and removing the laptop bag slung around his shoulder, George just sat down, awkwardly trapping the bag in between the chair’s armrest and his leg, and leaving his arm at a ninety degree angle, coffee thermos in hand. As George stared at Bess he tried to remember the much-rehearsed opening line of his resignation, but couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid laptop bag wedged by his leg and how much of a psycho he must look like after closing the door to his boss’s office unsolicited and then sitting down without making any of the adjustments that a normal human being would make. He was also getting flashes of the front office staff arriving for work: running in and out of offices turning on and off lights and opening and closing doors like a Benny Hill sketch. When George noticed Bess shift uncomfortably in her chair he realized he had already begun talking.
I just don’t know if I can do this for the rest of my life: sitting in an office all day, behind a computer. I mean, what am I even supposed to be doing anyway, what are my job responsibilities? I don’t have any work to do, so I just sit in my office, and I can’t do anything on the internet because it will show up on the usage report, so I just sit. I just sit in front of a computer all day and do nothing. I sit and I think to myself I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I think about how my dad worked for thirty three years as a firefighter without complaining. I don’t know if that’s what he wanted to do with his life. I don’t know if he didn’t sit in his office at the firehouse and have those same thoughts. Am I not man enough? Whatever that means. Is my role as a father, and husband, and provider, just to shut up and father, husband, and provide? Obviously firefighter is a way cooler job than whatever it is that my job is, but doesn’t everyone hate their job to some level? Am I just being dramatic? I’m very grateful for the job and opportunity, don’t get me wrong, but it’s making me hate everything. I don’t enjoy anything anymore because Monday through Friday I’m trapped in a windowless interior office with literally no more than five minutes of work to do. And then I think about how ungrateful and over privileged that sounds, and how lucky I am to be in a better position than probably ninety nine percent of the country, if not the planet; so I don’t say anything, and I’m not complaining, or at least I’m not trying to complain. I compare all of this to my dad because that’s the example I have, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask any of those questions, and now he’s dead so I can never get those answers anyways. And that’s what I do for eight hours. Yesterday, I got trapped in a two hour long conversation with James about whether or not Bon Scott was gay because of the lyrics in Dirty Deeds and then he started talking about sending death row inmates to islands populated by cannibals so we don’t have to spend our tax dollars on them anymore. I mean do you know the lyrics to that song? He just kept saying no no no, he says ‘backdoor man,’ don’t you know what that means? He’s a backdoor man, man, he’s gay, that means he likes guys’s backdoors! He ignored literally every other word in the song and just kept referencing backdoor man; it’s like he was purposely getting it wrong to push my buttons. It takes a lot of effort to misinterpret something that poorly. Have you seen him use the ice cream machine? It doesn’t make any sense. It was one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever had in my life and it was followed up by an argument about feeding people to cannibals which is THE stupidest argument I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t work with someone like that, even though there’s going to be someone like that wherever I go. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Do I just suck it up and sit my office for the next thirty years because it provides for my family? In the face of that all other options seem incredibly selfish. Why shouldn’t I be happy with that? I have a job that more than provides for everything I need. Woe is me. But I just can’t do it. I can’t force myself out of bed another morning to go to a job I hate for another day to spend another eight hours starring at my dumb reflection on a blank computer monitor. Thank you so much for opportunity I know you took a chance hiring me for the position and I do really appreciate it. I hate that I’m leaving you holding the bag on this, but I don’t know what else to do. I really can’t do it another day. I just can’t. This can’t be what I’m supposed to do with my life. There are so many other things I would rather do with my life. I practically lied about all of my experience in the interview anyway. I don’t feel I’ve done a bad job per say, but I’m sure you could find someone way more qualified for this position than me. I don’t even enjoy computers that much for starters.
George...
All that stuff about my experience with databases was a lie; I had worked on one before that interview, and I had to watch hours of YouTube videos to finish it, which I guess could be a commentary on the modern workplace, I don’t think it’s that terrible, but it definitely sounds bad, I watched YouTube videos to learn my job. I even bought one of those Databases for Dummies books, which is a total piece of shit. I mean who’s going to read eight hundred pages about databases? I suppose you could use it as a reference but even then, have you seen it? It’s the size of a phonebook, it’s not even a regular book size; it’s probably like sixteen hundred regular book pages.
George, I think you need some help; maybe you should go see a doctor
Ok, thank you.
George stood up, opened the door, and left. He felt refreshingly empty, and no longer regretted holding onto all of his belongings when he sat down, as he now had nothing to delay his exodus. The realization felt rewardingly efficient.