To start, I actually really love what I do for work. Ooooooops work lover alert. I am an optician in the US, so half of my job is helping people figure out their actual correctional needs and how to help them stay in their budget (use discounts to try to make glasses an actually appropriate price or try to pin in all on insurance). The other half is helping them choose something that suits their style, and makes them feel fun and confident. It may sound stupid, but I worked in the service industry for 15 years. It feels so good to do something important AND to be able to make someone light up.
This has been my first week at my new office. It’s fine. Standard. Decent pay given that I’m still uncertified and don’t have years of experience. But slowly the posters they’ve put up to hide the cracks start to fall.
I’m working for a big company now, and I really need to keep one job for longer than 6 months. It’s been so many years of just hopping along, and I’m getting older and understand that I do need health insurance. A house is probably not an option at this point, but my partner is convinced that we can make that happen someday. I really would like some stability. I am tired of meeting a brand new set of coworkers every 3-6 months and seeing all of the fun new ways companies come up with to tear down people’s esteem.
I wish it weren’t such a scam to live. If I could actually live my life without stressing about how much I’m spending on food and gas and rent..? I honestly can say I could work 40-50 hours happily. If that’s really what it took to keep society going, fine. But every single morning I wake up, still broke as shit, so confused as to how the hell we let this happen. We let them get us addicted to consuming products. We let them get us used to not knowing how to prepare food. We gave them all their power somewhere down the line, and it’s hard to push myself out the door every day when I truly am just chained to this broken system. This system has been purposefully designed and has exploited everything in it’s path. It boggles my mind that we sit back and let this happen every day but what do we even do?
Learning about the French Revolution was powerful for me as a teenager. My dorky ass would even buy a baguette to celebrate Bastille Day because of it. I have always believed in the power the people hold. But maybe I really am just a naive millennial. Maybe I just watched Bug’s Life too many times and I’m just some leftist softie. I’m just tired.
Anyway, time to get up for work. Thanks for the place to put this rant.