Introduction:

My job is stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, I like pay checks and employment, as I lack other methods for collecting said pay check, but working is just dumb.  To clue you in to the environment of my mental personal hell, I’ve included a scene from this mornings antics:

Method One:

Boss: “Did you print something on the color printer?”

Me: “No, I’m not printing and my work doesn’t involve printing, so you won’t find me doing any.”

Boss: (holds up 20 sheets of paper and waves them around) “Look at this, it says ‘draft’ and they only printed on one side.  Drafts should only be in black and white and printed on both sides.”

Me: “That’s good to know, I’ll send out an email reminder, so that no one will make the mistake again.”

Boss: “Who printed this?”

Me: “I don’t know who printed it.”

Boss: “Don’t worry, I’ll find out who did this.” (Don’t worry?  Was he fucking kidding me?!?!)

Me: “Good, it would have kept me up all night.”

(Boss walks away and I ponder for a moment my ability to hang myself on my badge – too cheaply made to hold my body weight.)

I swear that this is the actual conversation that I had at 6:50am with my boss and I have even cut it down to size not to include his return after he unsuccessfully attempted to track down the rogue printer bandit.  Clearly, going to “Start” opening your “Printers and Faxes” and choosing said printer and then seeing who printed it is well beyond his abilities.  Did I mention that he leads the largest and most advanced technology unit of our agency?  Welcome to the banality of my existence: the soul-raping, blood-coagulating, brain tumor-inducing world of pointless spreadsheets and process flow diagrams.

Since I know it’s all pointless anyways, I’ve just decided to completely get rid of my filter and say the first and craziest thing that comes to mind in any situation and to anyone at work.  For the past few weeks, this has actually proved to be the only source of entertainment within my 10-hour typical work day.

Method Two:

For instance: three weeks back, strange bruising appeared on the back of my hands and knuckles, is the stress and inaneness of work actually causing me to bleed out like a victim of Ebola?  The jury is out on that one, but here is a scene from a co-worker noticing this strange phenomena:

Co-worker: “Oh no, what happened there?” (motions toward my hands)

Me: “Fight club.  Shit, the first rule of fight club is to not talk about fight club!”

(co-worker leaves confused)

I guess he didn’t see Fight Club.

Method Three:

Another co-worker known for repeating the same thing in a monotone voice over and over in as many ways as possible to seem competent and knowledgeable, decided to give me lengthy, unsolicited feedback and included this little nugget of gold:

Co-worker: “I’m sorry, I have a little ADHD and I know I have just told you a ton of information.  It’s really hard for me to stay on track.”

Me: “No actually, I’ve counted you saying the exact same thing five times in five different ways very slowly.  Maybe you don’t have ADHD, maybe you are just a carrier, because I am starting to think I have it now.”

Results and Discussion:

Yeah, I just don’t fucking care anymore.  All jobs are stupid.

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Alison Burke is a writer from the Washington D.C. area, and has been a past Defenestration contributor. She enjoys cake and male models. She wishes her life was more like a Baby Bash video — save she would be the douche wearing a sideways cap as bikini-clad men grooved comedically for her viewing pleasure.