Shitty Jobs I Have Known (Disgruntled Sibling Edition)

In most families with three or more children, it seems that one or two wind up going completely, bat-shit insane at some point. Someone experiences a bizarre religious conversion, someone else marries a vile specimen of humanity, somebody votes Republican, or someone else commits himself or herself to an occupation that makes holiday meals unbearable and tense. Not in my family, though. There are four of us, and while we pretty much abused one another mercilessly in all the traditional ways as children — hiding stuffed animals, punching each other in the face and groin, stealing money from each other, blaming the youngest child for our parents' divorce — none of us have turned out too terribly loopy. Everyone married well; we tend not to punch each other anymore; we think the war on terrorism is a crock of shit; and as my sister's latest e-mail attests, we understand the agony of alienated labor:

[A]fter years of complaints followed by inaction, I am actually getting myself motivated to leave my shitty job! I've had it with this place, and things just keep going downhill. So after five years of 2% pay raises and 20% health insurance increases at a dead-end job, I am officially putting myself on the market.

I haven't turned in any applications yet, but I am getting my stack organized and updating my resume. This of course is taking time away from my usual internet trolling and blog reading activities, but I'm willing to make some sacrifices. My policy since returning from leave last July has been to work only the hours for which I feel compensated. So I come in around 10am and spend much of my time bitching with coworkers, hiding from the boss, eating snacks, pumping breastmilk (or at least shutting my office door and turning on the pump for sound), washing and sterilizing my pump parts, going on the occasional "homevisit" to Old Navy or Target, attending all the free training sessions I can find, picking dead leaves off my plants, checking all of your blogs, and making personal phone calls. It's been fun, but I sure feel like one hell of a loser most days.

And the old folks have started to completely gross me out too. Body odor, extreme poor oral hygiene, stray bits of food crusted on clothing, freaky mutant facial hairs, ill-fitting wigs, yellow toenails atop gnarly feet, leaky Depends, clothes that reek of moth balls. I'm over it. My decision was finalized last night when I had to take them to the annual "Senior" Prom. The city puts on this annual event, but recent budget cuts have caused them to forgo the trays of meatballs, fruit, cheese, fancy cookies, etc. and serve only green punch. So groups have to bring their own vittles to the dance. My guys brought chips, cheese doodles, and vienna sausages. We were the ghetto table, hands down. The highlight of my evening was having to enter a bathroom stall to hoist a very large, half naked, arthritic woman off the john. Not what I had in mind when I spend nearly 50K on grad school.

I can't wait to find something new and [my husband] is looking forward to an end to the daily rant. Plus, once I get a competitive salary we can take our student loans out of deferment and starting sending all that extra cash to the government! Whoo-hoo.

Anyway, if I don't have a new career by the end of the summer I expect to be mocked . . . Gotta go - time for a snack.