17 August 2012

file this under boring.

I don't really care about my job anymore. I guess you could say I never really cared about what I do, per se, but I always kind of valued the perception by others that I was a reliable, hard-working, proactive employee. But no more. I'd like to be able to claim that my new-found apathy—well, actually, it isn't so new—is the consequence of my realization that I am being exploited by the owners of the means of production—but let me be honest here: I don't really mind being exploited. In fact, it sounds kind of sexy. Exploitation means that I have something that others find useful, and it's nice to feel to useful.

My workplace apathy is, unfortunately, more narcissistic in nature. I'm just fucking bored out of my mind. And this isn't meant to imply that I don't have plenty of work to be done, but just that I don't find any of it terribly interesting. 

What's the obsession these days with things being interesting? My guess is that if you lived in a one-room shack on the Western frontier in the 19th century, interestingness wasn't a luxury you could afford. I mean, you didn't have television, the internet, key parties, badminton, roller skating rinks, museums, libraries, monster truck rallies, or carnival face painters to keep you entertained. Frankly, you were probably too busy trying not to get killed by Apaches or mountain lions to bemoan the dearth of Renaissance Faires. 

Before the advent of electricity and widespread literacy, I'm sure some of the most popular hobbies were staring vacantly into space and filling the lanterns with whale oil. But now that we've become inured to grand spectacle in this age of CGI films and Cher concerts, we expect everything to be absolutely fascinating or we won't give it the time of day.

Below is a current photograph of the top of the filing cabinets in my office. This is, basically, all of my filing (unfiled) since the beginning of 2012—an accumulation of seven months of neglected paperwork. (Incidentally, there's another row of stacks behind the first row.) Most of the time, I don't even really 'see' all of it; it's just additional visual noise in an office already polluted with Successories® motivational posters and Post-It notes. But sometimes the peripheral knowledge that it's there—growing larger and more unmanageable, day by life-extinguishing day—fills me with a faint terror. (Is 'faint terror' an oxymoron?) 


And yet... my lack of interest in filing always overpowers my unease about the slumping stacks of paper. When—if ever—will I be motivated enough to start just sorting all of that shit, let alone filing it? What theoretical fire will be lit under my ass to overcome the unimaginable boringness of organizing all that paperwork?

Sometimes coworkers come into my office looking for old invoices. Sometimes it's even fairly urgent (to them, anyway—nothing work-related is very urgent to me). I tell them I have to 'locate' it and dismiss them. Then I get to look through those haystacks for the needle. And it isn't easy. It might as well be Jimmy Hoffa's body I'm looking for.

And yet... these frustrating searches don't motivate me to think about dealing with the mess. Procrastination isn't even the issue. I don't say, 'Tomorrow—or next week—I'll get to it.' The truth is that I have no active intention of ever getting to it. I'm kind of pinning my hopes on the possibility that the building will burn down over the weekend. Did I mention that when the taxi drove into my office a few years ago that it saved me from having to file all the shit I had stacked in my office then? That probably wasn't a good precedent to set—anticipating major structural damages so that I don't have to do boring stuff. But a boy can dream.

15 comments:

  1. I wouldn't get my hopes up (the disappointment would be too great) but if the world ends on 12/21/12, maybe you won't have to file those papers after all.

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    1. It's really inconvenient of the world to end so close to Christmas. If I bet on Armageddon and don't buy any presents, you just watch: the world will stick around and I'll have to shop like a crazy person during those last few days.

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  2. Before the advent of electricity and widespread literacy, I'm sure some of the most popular hobbies were staring vacantly into space and filling the lanterns with whale oil.

    This made me laugh out loud.

    I don't have to file many things anymore - business is too slow and we have so few new projects - but I used to like filing. It's kind of a zen activity for me. The same goes for doing dishes.

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  3. This post rings eerily true with how I feel about my job, as well. I never used to be like this. I used to actually like coming into work every day. But now, I essentially fritter away the hours reading people's blog posts and Goodreads reviews and then—oh, my!—it's five o'clock.

    Fortunately, there's always tomorrow (to continue this charade.)

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    1. You know, Morais, I have wondered when you have time to work. You're very active on GR. (Do you work for the government? That would explain it.)

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    2. I work for a biotech company but I am no longer doing biotech. I am doing documentation and I hate it and I feel like I have not been recompensed for all the years of hard work I've put in so I've been feeling very bitter about this and I've basically been miserable now for about a year and a half. If I ever feel guilty for being on Goodreads too much during the day, my next immediate thought is, "Fuck that."

      That is how much I hate my job.

      OH! And also, I will never do anything about it because I am pathetic.

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    3. THe better question is, though, why are you not more active on the bookface? This laissez-faire attitude of mine may not last forever and eventually I might have to reduce my online time below 7½ hours per day.

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    4. Wait. Where did you hear the term 'bookface'? I haven't heard that in ages.

      (I'm not on GR that much because I don't have time to read very much anymore. Also, I don't see many threads about books that interest me...)

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    5. It is hard to have a conversation on here because I don't get notifications for these threads. Tell me what you've been doing with your time, though. A lucrative writing project, perhaps?

      Also, as far as GR, you need to adjust your perspective. Our supermarket bestsellers that we love reading might not interest you (you pretentious prick!), but maybe you find the book READERS interesting enough (more so than the crap they read) to stick around.

      Also also, sometimes I come across old posts of yours from a previous account that you apparently deleted, and it is hilaaaarious when I do.

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    6. Supermarket bestsellers?? Bah! You people travel in packs reading Bolano and Pynchon. It's almost like a conspiracy to read only authors I dislike.

      I think I've deleted three GR accounts in all since autumn of 2007... I'm a mercurial bastard.

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  4. I don't think "faint terror" is an oxymoron. And those piles of paper make me so nervous I'm practically ready to drive down and file them myself. That photograph juxtaposed with what I know of your house makes for a fascinating contrast.

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    1. Be there on Monday morning, Shafer, and let the filing begin! Maybe we could get a bunch of college students to volunteer too, like with Habitat for Humanity.

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    2. Maybe you can get an intern - aren't there some Notre Dame accounting majors who need school credit? Also, is it really necessary to keep all of that paper - doesn't it exist electronically? Throw it into a high speed scanner and be done with it. :)

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    3. I wish they'd spring for a high speed scanner—but until then I'd rather put all those papers into a high speed shredder.

      Did I mention that I also don't trust anybody else to do my filing? There's that too. Before the economy tanked, we used to have someone to do my filing, but nothing was ever filed correctly. You'd think filing was astrophysics or something...

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