I've Joined The HERD...

observations on this life

Why, as a college educated person, would I choose to join the HERD and take a packing and shipping job in a lighting factory?....
I'm having a great time being blue collar....
The horn sounds and we all trudge to our stations.... we work.... the horn sounds and we all trudge off to break.... the horn sounds and we all trudge back.... we work.... the horn sounds and we trudge off to lunch.... we eat, or smoke, and most of the guys play ping pong as if it was Superbowl sunday..... the horn sounds we trudge back to the stacks and boxes and pieces and parts that need to go into the boxes..... I pushed a cart around today, the kind hotel laundry usually goes in, and collected this stuff they call snake paper to wrap the most enormous light fixtures with.... I WAS SMILING.... which isnt' something I've done at work for years....
Being your own boss can be a real pain in the (insert foul word here).... Shit, I don't miss pissy clients.... I don't miss working fifty ba jillion hours a week and still having things that needed to get done yesterday....
I like leaving work at work.... I like the horn, it's become something to look forward to..... like being back in elementary school and knowing the bell for recess will ring in three more minutes....
I'm surrounded by people from Butan, Tibet, China, The Ukraine and every other break away republic, Thailand, Mexico, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, and who knows where else.... In my other life the only people I saw were white, upper middle class pricks who never really wanted to pay the bill, even though they asked for the service... These are a simpler kind of folk, who actually have something to smile about and actually give two shits about the person standing next to them on the line...

On my first day...I forgot to pack a lunch, as I've always been able to go where I wanted and take as much time as I needed... this kid that works at the station next to mine offered me some of his lunch.... my high falutin' clients never did that for me....

There is something to be said for following the horn and being in the herd.... there is safety in numbers, and now that I no longer have to crunch the numbers, I'm liking working again.... who knew...
I have time to write
I have time to study all that culinary shit that arrives in the mail and actually take a test a week and I'll probably graduate on time...
I have time to sit on my butt and watch a movie and not think about what has to be done tomorrow, because some other shmuck is probably glued to a screen in the factory, wishing they were at home instead of working late trying to figure out how to get more product shipped to the masses than they did today.... silly them....