When people are creative in the fine arts way - writers, poets, sculptors, painters, actors - they are often forced to take jobs that have nothing to do with what they should be doing.It doesn't seem to matter how many times they've proven in the past that this is a really bad idea, their courage falters, just for a short time, and somehow they Pretend Not to Know what they Know (A bestseller for sure. See previous blog post!) and Voila, they're sitting behind some desk feeling like a sardine in a suit behind an ergonomically screwed up workstation that will render them old before their time.
Take today for example. Take where I work. I've been really sick for a week. I had to go to the hospital. That's what happens when sardines wear suits acting as contortionists just to see the computer screen at a desk that is ergonomically set up by a quadriplegic or a midget or somebody other than the person who must sit at the desk.
It's like bad interface design. It's all about the equipment, not about the human who has to sit at and use the equipment. The phone's practically on the floor because the cord is only 3 feet long. The chair's three-foot arms are as wide as those on Lazy Boys from The Brick. As a result you can't get any closer to your computer monitor than passengers in an airport trying to read the Arrival and Departure Screens. Give me some binoculars so I can input the data because the data is everything.
The laptop is a laptop when it should be a desktop. You try to put the laptop on the yellow pages to prop it up but the laptop tips over backwards because it's too heavy because it's probably 12 years old. It was the prototype for some equipment that normally only gets used in operating rooms from 1952.
Picture Frankenstein at a desk. Arms stretched out in front of him. Fingers moving and still a few millimetres short of reaching the keyboard. I like to think of it as office golf. Move your body into the most uncomfortable position, turn the flourescent lights up to maximum velocity and then open the door to let the angry, crazy people in.
The door has an alarm that is connected to cameras to protect us from the crazy, angry people who have convened on this idyllic setting making you wonder how they got so crazy and angry.
So, every time one of those crazy, angry people walks in the door, we get to hear about it as if a car has just driven up to get gas. (I'm getting hysterical. Is it showing?)
And by the way, as an aside, I had to go to a massage therapist yesterday and she informed me that I'm just getting used to the "energy" here. Did I know that Salt Spring is actually, according to the Dalai Lama when he flew over [in a plane I hope] situated on a huge crystal bed and there are only a handful of those in the world. That's why it's special. Some people can't handle it here and have to leave. Maybe you've seized up because you aren't yet able to integrate the energy from here she says. No, I think the energy from here is just fine. It's the energy walking in the door that's in need of the Dalai Lama.
Today, one of those crazy people was some friggin little 17 year old guy who thinks he's king shit. Come in darling. I've been expecting you. You are what I refer to as a Gayle Mavor specialty.
He's walking towards me. I say Hi. He looks at me like I'm in HIS living room and he doesn't know how I got there. He's got that swagger that says, "stings like a butterfly floats like a bee" or whatever the hell that saying is.
There's this static around him, it's noise and at first I can't quite figure out where it's coming from. Like some 80 year old high school teacher, my nose in the air, looking around confused I say, what? What is that? What is that noise? Where is that noise coming from? Is that your music? I say, not hiding my indignance and getting a picture in my head that's so much a caricature of some grey-hair old lady squinting and wheezing with indignance I almost laugh out loud at myself.
Please turn off your music I say to him at which point he has a little melt down. You're supposed to be here to "FN" help me he says and walks out the door.
And, right at that second I had a little fantasy. I saw myself grabbing his IPod shuffle or whatever the hell it was, taking the strings, ripping them out of his ears, throwing it violently on the floor, jumping up and down on it and breaking it into a million little pieces.
We get the people walking in who say I need a resume. Did they think to write anything down? Do they know where they've worked previously? Do they know when? Of course not because they've just had so many lousy jobs. Go figure?
Now think about that way of being and what it takes to be that way. Like I'll just walk up to a stranger and say I need a resume as if they have been my little guardian angel put on the planet for my use only. They would have to know every aspect of my life's history and in the snap of a finger like Sabrina on Bewitched they will surely produce a "Save me from myself because I'm too stupid for my cat" RESUME!
Then, we get the single, older male flirts who are lonely so they have to come in every day to talk to us and tease us and look at our tits and they have worn the same pair of pants for the last 3 months with no laundry room in site, apparently but hey, yes, we would find them desirable wouldn't we? I mean why wouldn't we?They're male. Isn't that enough? Don't pretend Not to Know what You Know I say to them in my mind and MY GOD that statement is useful isn't it?
When people are creative in the fine arts way - writers, poets, sculptors, painters, actors - they are often forced to take jobs that have nothing to do with what they should be doing.