Swinging

As Labor Day fast approaches here in the U.S., I’m happy to point out that I recently started a new job; a full-time position with a firm that does a great deal of government contract work.  And, if you know anything about the U.S. federal government, there’s a lot of work to be done!  It’s similar to the kind of work I did with an engineering company more than a decade ago.

Yes, that’s me in the scary unretouched photo above – slaving away over a hot keyboard and fighting spreadsheet eyes.  Although my company has a local office, they switched to remote work at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago and have found that it seems to be the best functional model for everyone.  So I get to sit at a desk in my home bare-chested and in gym shorts shuffling through a myriad of digital documents.  As a devout introvert, it’s a utopian environment for me.

It’s especially ironic in that I’ll be 60 in some two months – and finding a job at this point in life is challenging for anyone.  I’d been doing contract and freelance work since 2010, so it’s quite a change.  But welcome nonetheless.  Yes, it’d be great if my debut novel (or any future novel) could be sold to a motion picture company for X amount – preferably in the seven figure range – that would be extraordinary.  But I know how unlikely that is.  I’m not naïve.

I listen carefully to close friends and fellow bloggers as they vent about their own struggles to get from one point to another in the working world.  One friend lives in the Los Angeles area and works for a major television network.  He studied filmmaking and screenwriting at New York University in the 1990s and is witnessing – and feeling – the impact of the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes firsthand.  I commented a while back about his education.  “A lot of good that did me!” he replied.  I often felt the same, as I struggled over the past decade to find work.  I kept relying upon that degree in English I finally earned.  What good has it done? I asked myself more than a few times.  But I’m still proud of it.

My father was essentially forced to retire shortly after turning 62 in 1995.  When he called the local Social Security office to apply for his benefits, the clerk stated (almost sarcastically), “I guess you want your money now.”  My father answered, “You’re damn right I do!”  In the middle of one day several years ago he decided on a whim to have a glass of wine.  One of my uncles lives alone in a neighboring suburb with a cat and once told me, “I’m happy to sit around on my fat ass and watch TV all day!”  Aside from a brief stint in the U.S. Army in the 1960s, he worked in warehouses most of his life.  Like my father, he did hard labor – donkey-type work; the kind that wears out people quickly.

Other people, like my mother, did white-collar work – the kind that wears on the mind.  I don’t know what’s worse – mental or physical exhaustion.  I suppose they’re equally stressful.

Regardless I’m back in the swing of things with the labor force.  I actually enjoy what I’m doing – mainly because I’m doing it from home and can sit around bare-chested while listening to music such as this.  It helps fight those spreadsheet eyes.