confessions of a professional job-hopper

Insipid people and inane tasks are generally the reason I jump from job to job without building up a pension plan or earning any vacation days. The thought of spending consecutive decades doing the same stupid things surrounded by the same stupid people drive me from company to company. I go into each new job thinking, ‘surely, this will be a place I can tolerate (because I’ve long since given up the thought of finding a job I love) and can withstand until my 65th birthday, at which point I can retire.’

And I keep thinking this thought right up until the moment I meet the office idiot which drives me to start looking for greener pastures…or, at the very least, pastures with less manure. For two months, I have been a fortress of tolerableness…and then I met Donna.

The company that I work for, in an outstanding display of retroactiveness, assigned Donna as my ‘mentor’ a few weeks ago, whose job it was to help ‘train’ me. Donna, who now works in the warehouse but years ago worked in the billing department, was apparently the best candidate for the task. So once a week I sit with Donna as she reviews my past week’s work and writes up a little ‘assignment’ sheet containing tasks which must be completed by the following Monday. For example, last week’s list included the challenging tasks of helping the sales department stuff promotional information into envelopes and aiding Betty, who works across the hall from me, in all her filing needs.

So as Donna sat across from me, lips pursed and pen poised above the checklist, she asked, “and did you help Betty with her filing last week?”

“Betty never asked for my help,” I told her, “and I hated to just barge into her office. Betty knows that I’m always willing to help her, all she had to do was ask and I would have…” but at this point I was cut off by Donna, who took this opportunity to do a wonderful impersonation of my kindergarten teacher after having caught me eating Suzie’s vanilla wafer.

“SO THE ANSWER IS NO! You knew you were to help Betty…it was on your list! You didn’t need to ask her, you just do it! That’s why I wrote it on your list! If it wasn’t a good time for Betty, she would have told you and you then would have gone back later!”

“But…”

“DON’T YOU INTERRUPT ME WHEN I’M TALKING! I put things on your list that you are to accomplish! Understood! These task lists will go in your file, so you better start living up to company expectations!”

With effort, I refrained myself from filing my foot right up Donna’s ass. I did make a mental note, however, that I was adding ‘start checking the classified ads’ to my own, personal, task list.