Monday, September 21, 2009

What For?

I've come back from vacation to work. The house is almost (but not quite) sold. I need the money. But I'm not doing anything useful or purposeful in my job. As a matter of fact, my job is not what I signed up for, and even if it was, I'd still be having an existential crisis.

I work to maintain a status quo that is misguided at best. My job is to aid and assist in creating more landfill and waste. I make it possible for people to buy large amounts of stuff that they fill their homes with, and consequently have to throw away packaging, the previous thing that the new thing replaced, and ultimately, the thing itself, which must then be replaced later with new versions of the previous thing.

On top of this, the decisions I make are ignored by folks higher up, since they don't jibe with maintaining a different status quo, the nature of which I can't go into without getting myself fired, and solving the problem. Suffice to say that, when presented with a better mousetrap, my bosses are only looking at the brand, and cook the results of the test to reflect their views. So much fun doing R&D when the conclusion is foregone (which we should have known).

Toilet paper will always be a best-seller.

As a codicil to the previous statement, my stomach is currently running circles around my spine, and I can't keep food down. Something must be wrong. I can't keep doing this, and I'm not sure what I should do.