Retirement (by Juana Bimba)

Friday was my last day of work, and I'm happy. Work is highly overrated. To paraphrase King James:at work, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happens to us all. I say, forget time and chance: evil assholes happen to us all. At work, you'll always have to suffer someone who has their foot up your ass, just because they can put it there. It doesn't matter if you're good at what you do, in fact, it's worse, because the more competent you are, the more of a threat you'll be to some insecure wretch.If you work in government, being college-educated will be held against you, because government jobs are the passageway to middle classdom for all the unwashed masses of mouth breathers.Ethnicity doesn't matter; you'll encounter trash of every color in government work. Worse, people there generally get promoted on the basis of race, so you might find yourself working for someone who dislikes you just because your skin color doesn't match theirs. And so, the whole work system encourages mediocrity--why bother to stand out, when your best efforts will only bring you more grief? Better to call in sick. You'll only get ahead if you're willing to practice the most abject of sycophancies--God forbid you should have a spine, or some measure of dignity, that just won't do; you'll become a target. Throwing people under the bus, not letting them solve their own work-related problems or stepping aside to let them be gored by some random injustice are common practices among managers, and union bosses can't be bothered to defend union members against the nasty whims of management, who happens to pay the salaries and stipends of union bosses.The two routes of escape from all this misery are to run your own business (and most people aren't comfortable with that level of insecurity) or to love what you do so much, that the work will be its own reward. (It happens. I was once there, when I worked for a major daily newspaper and didn't really care whether I got paid.) But now I'm finally retiring and I'm happy, even if I'll no longer have money to throw around, and even if it's only for a few years before I plotz. I'm now free and at liberty to say/write whatever I want, whenever I want. I'm only sorry that my poor son still has to go through a lifetime of that shit.Now, after venting, I must mentearion at least two good things about working (in this order):1.You make money 2.You make friends.This Friday, I'll be leaving behind the most charming bunch of people I ever met under one roof and I will truly miss them. Too bad they're supervised by two worthless shitheads.