ain't gonna sell my monkey butt no more
I was driving around town the other day, running errands and thinking that it's been nearly two years since I've had a real job. I've worked at different things all during that time, and mostly kept the money coming in and always kept stuff paid for. It works well enough. And I have yet to miss sitting in a cubicle and having my actions monitored by people who were mostly morons.
I don't know why I've been thinking about this lately, but I have, and then along comes Halley to say the same thing, only funnier:
Memories of the way we worked. I mean THE WAY WE USED TO WORK. I mean when we were OFFICE CAGE MONKEYS. When you went selling your body -- yes, you were selling your body like a hooker -- to an office from 9:00 to 5:00 and they kept coming by to check to see if your monkey butt was still in your swivelly chair. That was the idea of work. Even in 1999. It was no different from 1899 really. That's the strangest part of it, that we didn't notice in a century it hadn't changed the littlest bit, but then it changed big time. But now you don't have to sell your monkey butt no more. The song has changed.
Barring catastrophic events, I am never going to live like that again. It was never a healthy thing to do in any sense of the term. I got physically sick at least once a year, usually more, and was psychically sick more often than not all the years I worked that way. Now I haven't been really sick since I quit, and I'm on a university campus and exposed to infinitely more people and germs. I have time for my family and work and friends, and things are way more balanced and manageable, except for the ends of the semesters. And even those last few weeks are still better than having my entire holiday season wrecked from Halloween on because of peak shipping season.
But really, the biggest luxury is being encouraged to think about things I want to think about, and that are important to me and my interests instead of What's Best for the Stockholders*. I don't have to sneak my books on breaks and lunch hours like they're a crack pipe - I can have them all the time, in plain sight. That's the biggest reason that I'll never sell my monkey butt again.
*Of course, I live in hopes of contributing to my field - but it's stuff I'm interested in, not stuff that's assigned to me.
Comments
This concept is something I subconsciously assimilated when you were a little girl -- cobbling together a bunch of things to reach a personal goal, or at least to come as close as I could. At that time, it was about having as much time as I could manage for you and your father, while still contributing significantly (45-49%) to the household budget. In the olden days, this method of working used to be called "freelancing." (Actually free lancing is mythicized to go back to medieval days, when knights "free lanced" for whomever paid and treated them best, so this "new stuff" y'all are blogging about actually proves that there is nothing really new under the sun.)
Anyhow, it was very encouraging and refreshing to see this written about not just as some quaint eccentric's approach to work, or even as some quirky trend to ride out a recession, but perhaps as a new and vibrant -- and dare I say workable -- workstyle for educated and ambitious Americans who also happen to be seeking a balanced life.
Posted by: mom | February 28, 2004 3:37 PM
Thanks for this. Sometimes I forget, in my current "escape from academia" mode, what a benighted and miserable existence it is to whore yourself out to The Bottom Line.
Posted by: MisterBS | February 28, 2004 10:31 PM
I read this a few days ago and reflecting later, thought that perhaps another difference between your experience and mine is that although I'm not chained to the desk from 9-5 (and still remember enough about that life to appreciate it), I'm in a GA where a second of appearing to be "studying" as they call it would still be wrong. (I call it reading; therein lies one difference.) I love that your Mom posted her response because it lends to a clarification of priorities that constantly require reiteration.
Posted by: Chel | March 4, 2004 12:40 AM