Job Jitters: We Don't Need No Education

Nervously, I sat in the chair of my superior's office, waiting as he slowly read the conduct reports. Actually, I say “my superior”, but he really wasn't. My superior was the secretary (I'm sorry, administrative assistant) who worked in my same office here at the college. Her superior was the administrative assistant in the office next door, and her superior was the dean who she directly assisted. And when I say dean, he was technically just the dean of the art school, and his superior was on the school board representing the whole college, and his superior was in the Administrative Building. It was in the office of this last superior that I sat, awaiting my judgment.

“Well, Harry, I assume you know why you're here.”

“My work isn't good enough?” I ventured.

“No, no, your work is fine. You have been an excellent...” he adjusted his glasses while scanning the paper for confirmation of my title, “...administrative assistant's assistant's assistant.”

“Oh, well then have I not been getting along with my co-workers?”

“No, actually, they all seem to love you. The assistants called you a life saver, and one teacher called you brilliant.”

“Oh, then this can only be regarding... the outburst.”

“Yes, that's it. The outburst you had last Friday. You had, um, quite a lot to say, didn't you.”

“I tend to express myself creatively, sir.”

“Indeed. It says at one point you described this job as 'a huge, steaming pile of... baloney sandwiches'. Wait, why baloney sandwiches?”

“This is a pretty tame blog, sir. Families read this, children even.”

Children exclusively, I should say.

“I see. Well, what, might I ask, is the main reason for your concerns?”

“Well, this job just carries with it a whole lot of baloney sandwiches. Like, all the paperwork. I mean an insane amount of paperwork. We have books that keep saved paperwork going back as far as 2008, and that's just on the shelf. In the storage closet, we still have final grades that go back twice as far. And most of it's so useless. There was a huge stack of papers, I kid you not, 600 sheets at least, that were two days late being sent out and were suddenly useless. And I had to shred all of them, one by one, because they had private info on them. There's so much paperwork, 90% of it useless, that our file cabinet just for the empty forms that people have to fill out for any little thing looks like the closet in Zaboomafoo.”

Editor's note: Harry, I want you to make more nostalgia jokes. Internet audiences really respond to nostalgia jokes.

“Okay, well, is that all?”

“No, other problem is that nothing is ever done as it's said. So many times has someone told me to do something, explained it in length, and then when I did it, it was wrong because they expected something else. Even with my hiring, I was only here for a temp job while you looked for someone to fill the spot permanently. But now you've got her, and I'm still here. Then you said you'd reduce my hours so I'd only be coming in 3 days a week, but that never happened. Hell, first you said I'd be paid one thing, then I actually get paid less.”

“To be fair, you weren't qualified for that job title, therefore we hired you at a lower title to do the same work for less.”

“Yeah, but that's another thing that points to this job just being a frustratingly overcomplicated mess. Look at my resume. I'm qualified to do this, I've had similar enough experiences before. But when I applied, I spent an hour and a half being coached by my boss to get previous job experiences to match, word for word, to what your job posting called for. Stupid, little things, like not saying I 'checked out customers' when I was a cashier because it sounds like I was hitting on them; and saying 'experience using a mechanical adding machine' instead of saying cash register. I had to alter the minutest of details and wordings just to get this job. I spent more time carefully rewording my application, after I was already selected mind you, than I did learning what I was going to be doing, all so my bosses wouldn't get in trouble with you guys for hiring someone who wasn't qualified for the $1.00 pay difference between job titles. And the thing is, I'm not really qualified, not for this. I can input data, organize, deal with customers or technology and anything else that the job posting said, but what the posting never said, and what I've never had experience with, was this level of total BS. And because of a well meaning superior stretching my resume to fill a needlessly specific yet woefully under descriptive job requirement list, I'm suddenly in a job where I have no idea what I'm doing and am expected to do it anyway. It's like I'm living my middle school nightmares about the workforce where I ended up in a job I couldn't do and if I screwed up it would be a negative mark against future employment opportunities and also I forgot to wear pants.

The workforce, how I see it. Did I mention this blog was also created by a child?

I mean, this is supposed to be a college. Teachers are trying to actually get some stuff actually done, and students are trying to get an actual education, but it's made increasingly difficult by your ever mounting pile of pointless, stupid, inane, petty BS.”

There was silence in the office. My superior shuffled the papers, staring at them hard, and eventually let out a long sigh.

“Well, Harry, I'm sorry, but there's only so much I can do. Perhaps my... superior could address your concerns more completely.”

“Wow, that sounded... sinister...” I began, though before I could finish, he had stood from his desk, leapt to the door at the side of his office, the door I had somehow failed to notice until now, and rapped gently on its wooden frame. He was responded by a light gurgling from the other side of the door.

“Sir, I hate to disturb you, but we have another dissenter. He seems quite perturbed by the workings here. Shall we invite him in for a look at the... bigger picture?”

He must have received a nod of assent, because without further sound from the thing past the doorway, he turned and bade me enter. Against my better judgment, I slowly made my way to the door frame and peeked within, and found myself confronted with a great and colossal being that defied all reason and spat upon the notion of sanity itself. It looked upon me with ancient eyes, and all I could feel was dread; the dying warmth of the last day of summer, the bitter tears of an old friend's departure, the painful droplets of rain ruining an otherwise perfect day. There were so many details about the monstrosity that it could only truly be described as indescribable; it's face had fangs, yet also mandibles, yet also tentacles; it's limbs were hideously bulbous yet acutely lithe; its breath was sickly sweet yet nauseatingly bitter; its skin was of some tone that I was certain my eyes were not able to see and no language was able to name; it had so many countless eyes and yet when I stared deeply, uncontrollably, I could see only the one. It's craggy, eldritch visage was nothing short of Lovecraftian.

Editor's note: And internet audiences really respond to that one horror writer you don't really know much about other than that giant squid guy. Also, you don't have an editor.

It spoke with a tongue that lashed and slathered, and while its language was alien to my ears, the words echoed inside my mind with startling clarity.

“Speak, insignificant one. Voice your concerns that I may answer with mocking and laughter.”

“I... I don't understand why you make this job so difficult. It should be easy, it should just be light filing, and organizing, and occasionally answering simple questions to bewildered freshmen. Why is there so much complications to this simple job?”

“You lack the capacity to truly understand. This is a question I cannot answer in full.”

“Then answer in terms I can understand.”

“Very well. I, I and my kind, we do not subside ourselves on physical food; our forms require much more, nourishing delicacies. Frustration, panic, fear, dread. These emotions to us are the most filling bread, the sweetest wine.”

“Then, you're torturing us on purpose?”

“That is correct.”

“But why this college, why these people, why here?”

“Again you do not understand. This campus is not our only source of food. The entire world is rife with our secret presence. This college is but one of many, of thousands, of myriads of places where we exist; slowing things down, mucking things up, complicating processes and perplexing workers the whole world over, and feeding. Always feeding.”

“So here, and in other colleges?”

“Yes.”

“And in courts and legal proceedings?”

“Yes.”

“And governments?”

“And Hollywood?”

“Especially Hollywood!”

pic:

It makes so much sense!

“No!” I cried, “This can't be allowed to continue! I have the knowledge now, and that compels me to act. I can tell the others, I can make everyone see what you're truly doing to them!”

I was greeted with nothing but laughter, much of it foreign and unrecognizable, but a small part of it human. I quickly realized this part was my superior, standing in the doorway still, laughing maniacally with the beast before me.

“You foolish whelp, there is nothing you can do. No one will believe you, and even someone did, we control everything. Any investigation would be put through bureaucratic hoops until it dissolved, any party who sought to confirm this would be met with frustrations upon frustrations, until nothing was left of their curiosity except lamentations and defeat. You are powerless against us.”

“Then I'll bring them here, to look directly upon you. No bureaucracy can stand against man's resolve when it sees these horrors with its own eyes!”

“Ah,” it countered, “How can you bring others here when your clearance to these offices has been revoked!”

“Wait, what?”

“Bwa-ha ha ha ha ha!” it laughed once more, it's languished cries of mirth filling the room and beyond until the very sound of it felt as if it must shake the earth to its core.

I am fired.