Dear Rowan, August 26th Wichita, KS
I give up. I have still not found
another job that seems like it would be any better than where I am, and that is
a very low bar to get over. I thought my last job was bad, well I know know
that it was a call center heaven, a downright eden compared to this job and
this place. At least at the old place I had my own desk and a sense of
community with my coworkers. Here the desks are catch as catch can, and if you
can't find a desk just lurk in the aisles until someone goes home, then race
the other poor jerks who are loitering the same as you are to see who can get
to the desk first and clock in before they are "late." The good thing is, if you grab a desk that someone has been
using for a few hours, it is more likely to be functional and not missing any
equipment, like a mouse, or a keyboard, or a headset, or a monitor, or a chair. You can
never tell what might wander off from a desk between one day and the next, since there is not a guarantee of enough equipment to go with every functional computer. And
it is also more likely that your phone and headset will work, unless the last
guy played with the cord too much and tied it in knots or picked off the
insulation to work on fraying the cabling. Yes, it happens. A lot. And people
gouge holes into the desks, and cut or tear up the fabric panelling of the
cubicle walls. Or just write on any permanent surface they can find, the walls,
the desk, the keyboard, the phone, the monitor screen. If a pen can write on
it, it will get written on. Its like working in a high school for juvenile
delinquents, except the inmates are old enough to vote, if not to drink. Not
that they don't drink anyway, apparently it must be easier to answer phone
calls a few sheets to the wind.
What this lamenting rant is really
leading up to is the news that I have (once again) quit my job. And no more
throwing darts for me. I refuse to settle on a new city to live in until I have
gotten out and seen the world. Well, seen America at least, as much of it as
can easily be seen from decent driving distance of a major interstate or
highway. I went to a truck stop and got a trucker's atlas, and I am
going to plot out a driving route all over the US. I am going to try to find
something good in this supposedly great country of ours, because right now I
feel like our entire culture is shallow, selfish, and rude. I think that this
comes from working at two call centers in a row, where all I hear every day are
other people's problems and how they can't fix them on their own but don't want
to put out any effort to try, and don't want to have to pay someone else to fix
their problems for them. Apparently tech guys who make house calls are all
charity workers and go to the homes of others and fix their gadgets out of the
goodness of their hearts. Or maybe it is just that you really don't see
repairmen getting paid very often on TV, so people think that they must not get
paid anymore because they have not seen it in a sitcom. Of course, people don't
go to the bathroom much on TV shows, but I bet that the people who watch those
shows still have to go during commercial breaks, even if the characters don't.
So, The open road is calling, and I
shall answer it! I do feel a little like Mr. Toad, although I am not going to
get a new car. My little hatchback actually has a lot of room inside. If I fold
the back seats down there is enough room that I could lay out a sleeping bag
and sleep back there, and not even have to curl up. Of course, the fact that I
am short probably helps with this, but at least being short is convenient for
once! Isn't there a Goofy movie where he takes a road trip? That could be me
too, I am definitely a bit goofy for thinking that this is a good idea. But I
have lost my faith in humanity, and I am setting out on a quest to restore it.
Or something like that, at least. And before you bring it up, I am getting rent
every month from the nice guy renting my place in Arbuckle, so that is a little
income. Plus, I am going to write articles about my traveling, every place I go and all the sights I see. I plan on spending a few days in a different town every week, so that should keep me pretty busy. I should still have time to finally get serious about my own
writing too. Travel writing is great and all, but it is more of a job, not what I want to
be known for writing.
Maybe this is what I needed to get me
to really set in and work on my own writing. Maybe I needed to find jobs that
were so horrible I could not be complacent and just punch my time every day and
go about my daily life and not write and not hate that I wasn't. For my past two jobs now,
I have wanted to write but I kept finding that all I could get out onto the
page was angry and bitter and bitchy. And usually I was so wiped out and brain
dead after work that sitting staring that TV was an effort, and writing was out
of the question. So now I have quit my second soul sucking job and I am going
to set off in search of humanity and joy in America, and I am going to write my
stories. I am going to live my life, every single day of it, instead of just
watching my days roll by with nothing to show for them except a paycheck that
was not worth the abuse I had to put up with to earn it. I am going to be free,
and I am going to be happy, and I am going to find the good in the world again.
I knew it was there, years ago, before these last few horrible jobs. Somehow
they drained all the color out of the world, and all the heart out of me to try
and fix it. But now I am going to put the color back into my world! I might
even take it into technicolor! I am going to read, and I am going to write, and
I am going to travel the nation and see all the things I want to see and go to
all the places I want to go! It will be a grand adventure, and it will be
wonderful.
In the Romantic books from England, young gentlemen were always
going off on a Grand Tour in Europe. Well, I am going on my own Grand Tour, all
over America. I want to see New York at New Year's, and New Orleans at Mardi
Gras, and San Francisco for Pride, and anywhere else I can find people gathered
just for the joy of being together for something special! I will have plenty of
time for running too. Maybe I will enter a few of the big races around the
country. Runners are always a fun group, and running helps get the mind working
so it will help with my writing. I will run and write and live life for the joy
of it. I wonder if Salem, Mass. Has a Halloween run? It could be fun to
celebrate Halloween in Salem, I have heard they have huge and elaborate
Halloween parties and festivities. And a costume run is always fun!
Of course you know, that since I am
going to be in New York for New Year's, do you have plans? I want to see all the
best things to see around New Year's in New York, and you are the specialist,
so you need to show me, right? Please?? It will be great fun! We can hang out,
and party, and play, and just have fun. That is the point of this Grand Tour of
mine, to have fun and find joy wherever I can! Maybe we can get together for
Christmas too! Although I want to be in some quaint little town for Christmas.
Not too small though, I want to be able to have Christmas morning in front of a
Christmas tree and a crackling fire, and see a Christmas play, and maybe listen
to a Christmas concert. We should find a place over on the East coast that we
can go to that has all that, so we can have a cozy, festive, Christmassy
Christmas.
So that is my plan. Since this little
rat hole I am living in rents by the month, I will be hitting the road on the first
of September. I am not sure where I am headed first, I have not looked over the
maps yet to see where the first stop along the interstate will take
me. I think I will go northeast, though. That way I make it along the East
coast over the winter for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New
Year's. Then I can wander my way down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and who
knows where I might go after that. I know I want to be in San Francisco in June
for Pride, but there is a lot of country between New Orleans and San Francisco,
and I have months to get from one to the other.
I will write you once I set off on
this mad, wonderful, Grand Tour adventure and tell you where I am heading
first. Until then, stay sane if only because one of us has to and it is
certainly not me!
Your crazy friend,
Emily
No comments:
Post a Comment