I went to a meeting today where someone actually suggested a Hawaiian Shirt Day to boost morale.  I know I just got back to this company, but jesus christ.  This is exactly the kind of thing I was happiest to leave behind.  What is the point of eleven meetings a day?  What is the point of euphemistically re-naming “stuff you’re doing wrong” to “opportunities?”  What is the point of people with highly expendable jobs bitching about how overlooked they are?  People, it’s a job in an office.  It doesn’t matter.  No, really.  IT DOESN’T MATTER.

And you know, this sucks.  I was really thinking that I could go back to work with a new attitude.  I wasn’t going to let everything bother me like it did before.  I wasn’t going to take everything so seriously.  And I wasn’t, at least, not until this Hawaiian Shirt bullshit and then my boss tells me it’s required that we wear “a crazy pair of sunglasses” to our weekly meetings.

Like I said, this kind of thing happened occasionally before, but now it’s taken on a whole new level of absurd.  For starters, my department (the red-headed stepchildren of the company; thankfully I already have red hair so I’m sort of prepared) was recently moved (AGAIN) to another building.  This building is staffed mostly by tech support.  I have nothing against tech support individually, but overall, they’re a homely bunch.  Furry.  Slouchy.  Shifty-eyed.  And it’s not their fault.  The only time they deal with the public is on the phone, and it’s practically a requirement to do so in a condescending manner.  They just don’t know any better.

So imagine tech support’s reaction when everyone in my department starts walking around like a bunch of special needs kids on a field trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

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I’m trying to get used to having two jobs again.  When I first moved back to St. Louis, I had three jobs and logged about 70 combined hours a week.  Now I have two and I’m clocking 64.  Well, give or take, depending on whether or not I have any business at the bar.  And most of the time I’m hoping I don’t, as long as it’s after 11 and I can go home if I want.  I’ve no idea how I worked and partied so much just 5 years ago.  I couldn’t have gotten that much older since then.  I wasn’t even drinking that much coffee then, either.  Now I’m up to two pots a day and still feel like a ragged husk of a crone by closing time.

Man.  Unemployment was sweet.  It was poor, for sure, but how nice to spend seven straight months sleeping in, keeping the house clean, and doing pretty much whatever I wanted.  It all went by so fast.  Save enough money for your bank account and you can be a happy bum.  I wouldn’t have believed it eight months ago, but I’m here to tell you all know.  Enjoy joblessness while it lasts.  Stay in bed until noon.  Wear pajama pants all day.  Spill stuff on them, your co-workers aren’t around to care.  Do stuff during the day.   Get out in the sunshine.  At least once, be drunk by 3pm.

It’s glorious.  Trust me.