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Literally, because as some may remember from reading my posts on here, every now and again I suffer a case of the crazies that lays me low for a while, but I always get better. Working at Pit of Despair Manufacturing, Inc., the factory where I was employed before quitting to go back to school, however, really just turned the dial on my mental health issues up to 11. I was so miserable in that job that I ended up in therapy. The therapist said that my job was literally driving me insane and that it was the worst case she had ever seen.
You know, I can live with that. I'm not ashamed of it either, because if anything, it really just drives home the point that the way we do things in the modern world does not work. People are stripped of their identities and even their status as human beings far, far too often when they become an employee. Workers are abused by their employers and their customers. Workers all too often waste away, aging out of any chance they have to pursue, let alone accomplish, their dreams and hopes. Workers are reduced to cogs in the grinding machine -- either by their immediate bosses or by the workings of some multilayered hell of lower, middle, and upper corporate management, or by their customers who know damn well that they can get away with everything short of murder and the employee just has to smile and take it.
So, no, I'm not at all ashamed that my job did that to me, and I'm not ashamed to talk about it. That was why, in my statistics class here lately, I piped up in a discussion about systematic sampling, and told the class about how that was pretty much my entire job over at Pit of Despair. Collect the parts, analyze the parts, inspect the parts, poke and prod the parts -- and God help you if you actually do find a defect because if you do, you'll be chasing it down until the end of time. That is, of course, if management isn't desperate to get parts out the door and is accepting parts that come out of the press actively on fire just to make quota. And you do all of this knowing that the full majesty of the Food and Drug Administration of the United States can crush you like a kitten under a Mack truck if it wants, and that management has set up the system so that while you may go to prison for passing defective parts that might go out and kill a consumer, their jobs will be eternally secure even if they explicitly told you to let that part go out.
But I get ahead of myself. I told the class about my job, explained the sampling procedures, and explained about the parts I had to look at -- mainly a blood separator device used by veterinarians, but which is manufactured for a company that wants to market it for use in doctor's offices and by the military. Basically, you put some blood in, a centrifuge spins it round and round, it interacts with chemical beads, and a light shines up through it and tells you what's wrong with the blood donor.
After I explained, a girl sitting in front of me turned around and, apparently trying to be funny, asked, "So did you really quit to go back to school, or did you quit because you hate cats?"
I told her I quit because the job landed me in therapy, the job was driving me insane, and the therapist said it was the worst she had ever seen. I finished by saying brightly, "Yup! I'm crazy!"
She regarded me strangely, and got quiet. The next day, we met in the hallway before class, waiting for the teacher to come and unlock the door. I told her good morning, and she looked at me strangely again before eying me warily and scuttling off in the direction of the student lounge.
Now, part of me, after that, wants to make it my mission to be her bestest friend ever in the whole wide world, just to watch her squirm. If you don't want an answer, don't ask a question, and especially don't ask a stupid question to someone who has just said that they left a job because it was horrible and stressful. The more rational part of me, of course, has let it all go... but in the process of letting it go, I realized that no, I am not at all ashamed of having been mentally injured by a job. It says nothing about me. It says everything about the job.
You know, I can live with that. I'm not ashamed of it either, because if anything, it really just drives home the point that the way we do things in the modern world does not work. People are stripped of their identities and even their status as human beings far, far too often when they become an employee. Workers are abused by their employers and their customers. Workers all too often waste away, aging out of any chance they have to pursue, let alone accomplish, their dreams and hopes. Workers are reduced to cogs in the grinding machine -- either by their immediate bosses or by the workings of some multilayered hell of lower, middle, and upper corporate management, or by their customers who know damn well that they can get away with everything short of murder and the employee just has to smile and take it.
So, no, I'm not at all ashamed that my job did that to me, and I'm not ashamed to talk about it. That was why, in my statistics class here lately, I piped up in a discussion about systematic sampling, and told the class about how that was pretty much my entire job over at Pit of Despair. Collect the parts, analyze the parts, inspect the parts, poke and prod the parts -- and God help you if you actually do find a defect because if you do, you'll be chasing it down until the end of time. That is, of course, if management isn't desperate to get parts out the door and is accepting parts that come out of the press actively on fire just to make quota. And you do all of this knowing that the full majesty of the Food and Drug Administration of the United States can crush you like a kitten under a Mack truck if it wants, and that management has set up the system so that while you may go to prison for passing defective parts that might go out and kill a consumer, their jobs will be eternally secure even if they explicitly told you to let that part go out.
But I get ahead of myself. I told the class about my job, explained the sampling procedures, and explained about the parts I had to look at -- mainly a blood separator device used by veterinarians, but which is manufactured for a company that wants to market it for use in doctor's offices and by the military. Basically, you put some blood in, a centrifuge spins it round and round, it interacts with chemical beads, and a light shines up through it and tells you what's wrong with the blood donor.
After I explained, a girl sitting in front of me turned around and, apparently trying to be funny, asked, "So did you really quit to go back to school, or did you quit because you hate cats?"
I told her I quit because the job landed me in therapy, the job was driving me insane, and the therapist said it was the worst she had ever seen. I finished by saying brightly, "Yup! I'm crazy!"
She regarded me strangely, and got quiet. The next day, we met in the hallway before class, waiting for the teacher to come and unlock the door. I told her good morning, and she looked at me strangely again before eying me warily and scuttling off in the direction of the student lounge.
Now, part of me, after that, wants to make it my mission to be her bestest friend ever in the whole wide world, just to watch her squirm. If you don't want an answer, don't ask a question, and especially don't ask a stupid question to someone who has just said that they left a job because it was horrible and stressful. The more rational part of me, of course, has let it all go... but in the process of letting it go, I realized that no, I am not at all ashamed of having been mentally injured by a job. It says nothing about me. It says everything about the job.
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