Employee Ennui

I've heard the term "bored shitless" bandied about by people who claim to be REALLY bored, but I've never really understood the nature of the term. Is a person apparently so bored that he or she has endlessly empty bowels? But now I understand. I believe that the term refers to a state of being in which the only highlight of your day is reading books on the crapper, but one only has to go so many times in a day, so eventually one is simply shitted-out.... bored shitless if you will.

I, ladies and gentlemen, to use sophisticated verbiage, am bored shitless.

While my current temporary (though I'm starting to stretch the definition of "temporary") job has decent pay and very flexible hours, it's extremely menial work. On most days, I'm filing or copying church bulletins, organizing my boss's library, or sometimes I get to stretch my mental prowess by showing my luddite employers how to use Microsoft Word. Some days get really exciting. Just today I helped them take down their Christmas tree. How holly fucking jolly is that!?

Don't get me wrong. I really like my employers; they're incredibly nice people, and they are really gracious to give me an interim job when I so desperately need it. But when your entire day consists of filing papers in a position that doesn't have any bearing on your future career plans, the everlasting ennui (ten dollar word being used to prove that I still have an advanced vocabulary) begins to set in. I almost prefer the summer when I could be out mowing grass and weed eating all day. The manual labor often makes the hours go by faster.

Sometimes I amuse myself at work by coming up with clever and subtle ways to subvert the religious teachings of my boss in her church bulletins. For those not following along with blog continuity, Mrs. Employer is the pastor at a nearby church, and I am often responsible for proofreading and copying her bulletins. I'm fairly certain that Mrs. Employer doesn't know that I'm a soulless heathen, so she has no idea that I really have no spiritual life to speak of. While I would never change the words in her bulletins without her permission, I often play devil's advocate (sometimes quite literally) in arguments with her. In one instance, a bulletin had a section about the power of prayer, and I got into a rather lengthy debate with her about prayer seeming to challenge "God's will." I knew I wasn't going to change her mind - the woman has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible - but I killed almost 45 minutes of work time by listening to her explanation and got paid for doing so. Then she decides that she has to clarify her bulletin so as to account for any difficult parishoners (such as myself) who may be in attendance.

Today, I was looking through various bulletin covers to find a picture about communion. I found one with bread and communion cups on it, so I said, "I found one!" She asked, "Does it have a chalice in the picture or communion cups?" I held the picture up proudly. "Neither!" I declared, "JELLO SHOTS!! How very inappropriate!" She actually got a big kick out of that, and it led to a fine discussion about the importance of wine in the communion ceremony. My inner atheist is simply going, "Blah blah blah churchy-shit" but my conniving lazy side is thinking, "Ha ha! I'm finally getting paid for putting up with religious instruction."

These instances are few and far between. I'd rather not press my luck (unless whammies are involved). On the whole, one tedious day is the same as the next, and it gets a bit maddening after awhile. I'm trying to compensate by reading more and relearning to play the trombone (I plan to join the Kittanning Firemen's Band this year so that I have something to occupy my time), but it's hard to go to work every day to a job that doesn't challenge me. I never thought I'd admit this in writing, but...... I think I miss grad school. At least there if I was bored it was because my lazy ass didn't do the reading for class, and I couldn't contribute to the conversation. I think my fortunes will improve when I can start my teaching certification program in the fall. Then I can feel like I'm actually making some progress in my life again.

Or I could always decorate my employers' house with Satanic cult objects for my own amusement. For their sakes, we'll see if my sanity can hold out for another eight months.

As if it hasn't already gone out the window.

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JP: He may be a lousy employee, but he's a detestible human being.