Clerking 9
Happy To Be Here
Some things I only
learn through a joke. This one came when I was standing at the check-in desk
with one of my co-workers. We were making conversation because it was cocktail
hour at the library. It is always cocktail hour when you work with other people
in public service except there are no drinks or hors d’oeuvres and you have to
constantly keep busy. So actually it's like being a host at a cocktail hour,
a crowded one, with lots of demanding guests who you didn't get to choose.
And though I said there are no drinks most people around you do seem a trifle
plastered.
So there I am
chatting with my co-worker and she says:
"I really don't
want to be here today."
Not only is this an
extraordinarily common comment for me or one of my co-workers to make, but, it
struck me then, it was a comment I had heard with some regularity from this
particular co-worker. What was unusual was that this person not only professed
to love her job, but she had made some serious and, frankly, heroic efforts,
through a series of personal trials, to be at this job. I responded with what I
thought of as a joke.
"We're sort of
like opposites," I said (I am less erudite when speaking) "You say
you love working here, but you never like actually being here, whereas I say I
despise coming to work here, but I am always delighted to be here."
Usually I am at least a little funnier than this and slightly nicer and while I
was verbally trying to backpedal away from this ungainly statement, my mind,
nearly of its own accord, was reeling. Am I actually, secretly, always
delighted to be here?
I loathe the
tedious, unending, mundane work. I watch the clock incessantly, trying to bring
breaks and closing time into being through the sheer force of my longing. My
co-workers can sometimes irritate me to the finest center of my being. Patrons
won't leave me alone and are entitled not to. Management regularly befouls the
place and batters at my dignity. It is terrible.
But, people are nice
and funny and heartbreaking. I love being the little king of little rules,
working my tiny, tiny corner of the world's justice. I love the deranged
theater of it all. I love dodging work, complaining, working too hard in
adverse circumstances, working to not work. I love knowing so many people but
none too well.
So am I always
delighted to be here?
No, ugh, don't be
silly. Of course not. Absolutely not! But sometimes, in some failed joke of an
observation, out of the corner of my eye, when the lights coming through just
right, the answer is, god help me, Yes.
Thank you for sharing this in my job I almost always love being there and working but ironically it's the work I take home and the meetings that are cumbersome. I like meeting people and what a rich stew it is. Also, the free food, though it happens, is not nearly as common as the free food there at the Library. I believe that Feldenstein Calypso should take pictures of the free food.
ReplyDeleteIt was my pleasure to share! I am so delighted you always love being at your job. I didn't know that, though I knew about the home work and meetings. I have thought about photographing the food too and am glad to see your interest in it. I don't have a proper camera at this time, but I'll work out a solution eventually. Still, though, have you seen how the free food just tanked this last week? It was terrible! And by terrible I don't mean "Bad" which is more or less a given with the free food, I mean there just wasn't any. I hope things pick up!
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