Wednesday, December 29, 2004
(10:21 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
My Job: A Candid Assessment
My last day at this job is January 14, so a candid assessment seems appropriate and timely. I have worked for a local chiropractor for the past two and a half years, in a clerical, data entry, and receptionist capacity, with some additional responsibilities in x-ray analysis -- a true factotum. I have received a fair wage for my labor, and I have been able to take off as much time as I wanted, even calling in the very morning I was supposed to work. I never even felt any pressure to claim I was sick -- they knew I was a student and sometimes needed some extra time. The only drawback to my aggressively part-time status was a lack of vacation time and insurance. I did, however, get unlimited free chiropractic adjustments, something I now wish I'd taken advantage of more.I was planning on complaining about my job when I first started this post, but I've apparently become much more mature within the last ten minutes. There were times, such as this morning, when I dreaded coming to work, but my real problem was not so much with this job as with work as such. I have certain kinds of work I want to be doing -- which I incidentally haven't been able to do very much in the last two weeks, leaving me feeling very stressed out and frustrated -- and very few jobs that are currently available to me are going to allow me to do that all day long. But all these people are still demanding my money month after month, so if I had to have a pointless job just to make money, this pointless job was fine. And sometimes it really does feel good to make sure that everyone got back to see the doctor in an orderly fashion, that all phone calls were answered, and most importantly, that all the numbers balanced across.
