Employment

I work in an office.

My job is not glamourous. It is not fun, nor is it at all fulfiling. I am not challenged and I am not paid well.

I hate my job.

That's why I spend time writing this sort of thing from work, and it's also why I spend some time each day looking for a new job.

Now, I appreciate that there's some pretty serious financial issues plaguing North America right now. Depending on who you ask, we're either in a recession right now, or possibly even a depression.

All the same, why is it so damn difficult for me to find work that I'm qualified for?

I'm a published author, yet writing jobs are either for subjects outside my purview or "exposure only". Right. Exposure. Maybe I'll offer that up to the back in lieu of my next mortgage payment. "Oh, sorry. Not enough money. But I can offer you 'exposure'! I'll tell all my friends how great a bank you are!"

I've had short films screened at film festivals in front of a packed house, yet job interviews for industry work end in the interviewers wanting to know just what in the hell I thought I was doing wasting their time. Apparently being a filmmaker does not qualify you for the job of "office flunky". Go figure.

So what's a guy to do?

I have dreams, you know. And I promise you, they don't involve the kind of mental abuse my current employer tosses at me. I might get away with writing and job hunting while I'm chained to my desk, but every time my phone rings my boss looks up to watch me answer it, and the kind of people on the other end of that phone are always, always pissed off.

I get screamed at for about 5 or 6 hours of my 8 hour work day.

Someone recently remarked (snidely, I might add), "That explains so much."

Yeah. Doesn't it just?