Your Friend on Benefits

So I have recently chomped down on the big one and decided to quit my job.  For the first time in my life I’ve joined the ranks of the barely living and become state dependant, at least until I can find a new way of making a living.  After having spent the last four years in quiet trepidation of a lifetime spent as some kind of shit-buffer between corporation and customer, you’ll undoubtedly understand my tremendous relief with this situation.  It’s not ideal, but it’s hard to put across exactly how badly my previous working arrangements affected me.  Sure, there are many who can tolerate, dare I say even enjoy such a working environment.  However, for the unnecessarily Narcissistic among us it’s a daily dose of having your pants pulled down and your backside slapped for all the world to see.  All of which would, I suppose, be on the borderline of acceptability if the job simply required you to be turn up, perform menial tasks and clock off.  No.  This modern incarnation of the working class factory job demands that you engage mentally, that you must endeavour to improve yourself as an employee, that you must demonstrate the ability to work as part of a team (whilst spending all day dealing with the mundanity and inanity of your customers that your colleagues are in no way party to), that you must constantly exceed what you have previously achieved, as if there was the slightest possibility that you might be able to proceed upwards within the company (there isn’t).  This way you get to spend all day sitting at your desk yet go home mentally spent, with no resources left to apply to any activity which might afford some level of intellectual fulfilment.  A lot of people remedy this by visiting the Gym.  Not a fucking chance. 

In light of all the above, I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t quit now, I would spend the rest of my life killing myself slowly and excruciatingly.  So I had the pleasure of submitting my resignation in writing, which added a welcome poignancy to the event.  The management didn’t share in the emotion of this momentous occasion – although I did feel that they were happy to see the back of me, which I suppose is proof of their humanity if nothing else.  Whilst exiting the building into the threshold of a new life, a strange feeling came upon me.  I recognised it as a mixture of hope and excitement, having once experienced these emotions at the age of 17 before the cold realities of adulthood had crushed my spirit.  There was also a dash of fear in there, which was to be expected, however the prevalence of positivity rendered it toothless.  So I strode forward, jettisoning the shackles of barrel-bottom employment as I went.

Now, as with most (if not all) of my epiphanies, this one will surely prove to be fleeting.  I severely doubt that I will ever regret the decision (another rarity for me), alas before long I’m sure that I will desperately accept any work that comes along.  Which will inevitably be in the field of answering telephones and being presided over by a pyramid of Little Hitlers.  Until that day I shall continue to relish the freedom that I have been afforded, try to find a more permanent alleviation of my anonymity, if only for a brief period.  Because, as a great man once said:

“Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colours”

That man was not me.  If you want to know, look it up.