By J. Bird
Okay, Bird’s in a real pickle. While your feathered friend didn’t get “fired” or “terminated” (the boss’ words), I will, in the shortly forseeable future, be forced to find other employment, mainly due to not being the “right fit”.
This could be a marvelous thing. On some levels, I’m elated. But on the levels that have to do things like pay the bills, and find a new job, and so forth, I’m definitely saying “Oh, fuck.”
We put up with a lot of shit at work. But work is, ultimately, better than no work. And not just because we’d rather stay home and watch TV and surf the Net and travel around and meet interesting people. Work is good because it pays at least some of the bills. It sucks that there’s a bottom line, but we eventually have to grow up and realize that the piper (and Comcast and SBC and ComEd and the rental company and People’s Gas) have to be paid or they get pissed off and turn off your services and kick you out of your house.
I’ll probably never meet the person the boss finds who is the “right fit.” I imagine it’ll have to be a pretty passive individual who cranks through work like a machine. No play and all work. No thanks.
In the meantime, I’ll be on the prowl for gainful employment somewhere that pays reasonably well and is a little less, well, intense, to put it nicely. And you can continue to follow my travails right here, even if I have to briefly write about Life Without Work.
J. Bird is the Beachwood’s pseudononymous workplace affairs correspondent. You can read the Life At Work archive here.
Posted on September 13, 2006