AA stands for Administrative Assistant....
Today is my last day at my current job. I say current because in the past 3 years I have had 7 jobs, some of which I worked simultaneously, a few of which I actually enjoyed with varying degrees of success and all of which I am thoroughly, completely and utterly finished with. It’s time to move on. In every sense of the word.
Dead end jobs are easy to get stuck in. Most of them are involve you spending much of your day in a state of semi consciousness, a defense tactic used by your brain to keep you blissfully ignorant of the fact that the tasks you are performing are futile and irrelevant at worst and insignificant at best. Unfortunately at some point, your brain gets pissed off at you for sending it to university for 4 years and then asking it to help you focus while you type words into a computer while sitting under fluorescent lights and listening to the co-workers who have worked together for coming onto 8 years discuss the weather. It abandons you with the final thought that you are now thousands of dollars in debt, and working for a wage that is just enough to keep you afloat but nowhere near enough to help bail you out of this mess.
Wait a minute, you think, it’s not all bad. I do have a university degree after all!
Yes you do, says your brain, what was it in again?
I am the proud holder of a Bachelor of Fine Arts, you proclaim!!!
And then you can’t hear anything over the maniacal laughter in your head except the strains of Michael Bolton coming out of the radio on the desk of the woman you share your office with, who turns to you at that exact moment and asks you if you want one of her cookies.
Yes, you say. Yes I do.
And then there are the retail jobs, the part time gigs you get “just to save up a little extra cash”. And you start out with the best of intentions, it’ll just be 1 or 2 shift per week, you think, no big deal. If we lived in TV land this would be the part where the screen flips and you find yourself help some 16 year old pick out 3 new pairs of jeans, watching them pay for it with debit and realizing that the kid who just called you ma’am probably has more money in his bank account then you do. And the dawning realization that your slowly selling your dignity for a little over minimum wage an hour is suddenly a little too much to handle.
It’s easy to feel like your drowning when you find yourself in scenarios like these. Easier still to jump from one meaningless job to the next, convincing yourself that this one will be different. Nine times out of ten, that’s just the desperation talking. That or the gin you’ve started slipping into your juice at lunchtime because it makes the afternoon more interesting.
There are of course the rare exceptions to the rule. Jobs that might not offer you room for growth in your professional life, but might offer you some insight into yourself as a person. Like a job you thought would be a temporary fix but turned into something unexpected, giving you the chance to meet some interesting and compassionate people and providing you the opportunity to learn how to stand up for yourself. Like that family owned business that you’ve worked for forever and have been able to rely on to be there through thick and thin, not just as a job, but as a place to go when you didn’t feel like you had anywhere else to go. Especially when you realize after being in the “real world” for long enough, those places are few and far between, damn near extinct. Having these jobs makes it all the more sweet when you do figure out what the next step for you is though. There is nothing like feeling you once again have a purpose, something to look forward to, and something bigger to undertake
So it is with a not so heavy heart that I bid adieu to this chapter, these jobs, and hope to the heavens that I never return. It’s been an interesting ride, in a non-interesting kind of way. I hope I’ve learned what I needed to learn and taken away what I can. And although I’d love to tell off each and every arrogant and bitchy customer/manager/co-worker/associate that has ever made me feel like dirt because I happen to work in the service industry/administrative field, I have (mostly) been pretty good about taking the high road and just walking away.
Today is different though…….today, I’m jumping, skipping, screaming with joy, running running running far far away…..
Dead end jobs are easy to get stuck in. Most of them are involve you spending much of your day in a state of semi consciousness, a defense tactic used by your brain to keep you blissfully ignorant of the fact that the tasks you are performing are futile and irrelevant at worst and insignificant at best. Unfortunately at some point, your brain gets pissed off at you for sending it to university for 4 years and then asking it to help you focus while you type words into a computer while sitting under fluorescent lights and listening to the co-workers who have worked together for coming onto 8 years discuss the weather. It abandons you with the final thought that you are now thousands of dollars in debt, and working for a wage that is just enough to keep you afloat but nowhere near enough to help bail you out of this mess.
Wait a minute, you think, it’s not all bad. I do have a university degree after all!
Yes you do, says your brain, what was it in again?
I am the proud holder of a Bachelor of Fine Arts, you proclaim!!!
And then you can’t hear anything over the maniacal laughter in your head except the strains of Michael Bolton coming out of the radio on the desk of the woman you share your office with, who turns to you at that exact moment and asks you if you want one of her cookies.
Yes, you say. Yes I do.
And then there are the retail jobs, the part time gigs you get “just to save up a little extra cash”. And you start out with the best of intentions, it’ll just be 1 or 2 shift per week, you think, no big deal. If we lived in TV land this would be the part where the screen flips and you find yourself help some 16 year old pick out 3 new pairs of jeans, watching them pay for it with debit and realizing that the kid who just called you ma’am probably has more money in his bank account then you do. And the dawning realization that your slowly selling your dignity for a little over minimum wage an hour is suddenly a little too much to handle.
It’s easy to feel like your drowning when you find yourself in scenarios like these. Easier still to jump from one meaningless job to the next, convincing yourself that this one will be different. Nine times out of ten, that’s just the desperation talking. That or the gin you’ve started slipping into your juice at lunchtime because it makes the afternoon more interesting.
There are of course the rare exceptions to the rule. Jobs that might not offer you room for growth in your professional life, but might offer you some insight into yourself as a person. Like a job you thought would be a temporary fix but turned into something unexpected, giving you the chance to meet some interesting and compassionate people and providing you the opportunity to learn how to stand up for yourself. Like that family owned business that you’ve worked for forever and have been able to rely on to be there through thick and thin, not just as a job, but as a place to go when you didn’t feel like you had anywhere else to go. Especially when you realize after being in the “real world” for long enough, those places are few and far between, damn near extinct. Having these jobs makes it all the more sweet when you do figure out what the next step for you is though. There is nothing like feeling you once again have a purpose, something to look forward to, and something bigger to undertake
So it is with a not so heavy heart that I bid adieu to this chapter, these jobs, and hope to the heavens that I never return. It’s been an interesting ride, in a non-interesting kind of way. I hope I’ve learned what I needed to learn and taken away what I can. And although I’d love to tell off each and every arrogant and bitchy customer/manager/co-worker/associate that has ever made me feel like dirt because I happen to work in the service industry/administrative field, I have (mostly) been pretty good about taking the high road and just walking away.
Today is different though…….today, I’m jumping, skipping, screaming with joy, running running running far far away…..
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