MR WRONG: Precision scheduling
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 55
COLUMN DEP'T.
MR WRONG: These Day Jobs, They Take Up Your Whole Day
I HAVE BEEN Underemployed for a coupla years, no Day Job, just doing stuff here and there and writing the Mr. Wrong column here at Indignity, and helping out with stuff, and also helping out over at the Flaming Hydra, but none of it equals a whole job, so I have been looking for any kind of a more-hours steady job that I was even remotely qualified for, and I got rejected a lot, for a lotta jobs I thought I was perfectly suited for! It’s very irritating and makes you feel bad, seriously, in your feelings, it’s like, jeez, this job I just got turned down for, it’s not exactly Brain Surgery, and I’m no Rocket Scientist, you know? Anyway, I needed to get the cash flow going, and I am happy to say that I finally got accepted by a place to work at for money! I have a shiny-new Day Job. I now have what is called a “Joe Job” and it’s kind of annoying to have a “Joe Job” because it is my name, Joe, is my goddamn name, so I got a Me Job, and I don’t like that! However, there is the Steady Paycheck of a Day Job, so I am changing my name and keeping my “Joe Job!”
First of all, how the fuck do people do this every day? I have to get up at exactly the same time every morning in order to begin my commute to the office, and then I work until a certain time and we take a Break and then there is a scheduled time for Lunch, and then another Break in the afternoon. I guess I will get used to it, it’s kinda like, being in the Army, or something, except there’s no tanks and guns and stuff, just the Schedule part, you know, they blow a bugle and you have to get up and get into Formation and stuff, and if you’re not there you are AWOL or something worse. I was never in the Army, and there’s a reason! I need my Beauty Sleep! I can’t be getting up out of a sound Z-stacking session at Zero-Dark-Hundred Hours to do jumping jacks or whatever unpleasant Physical stuff they gotta do in the Army to be Lean Mean Fighting Machines! Drop and gimme 20! Minutes of more sleep!
Look, I’m not lazy or delicate when it comes to Work. I have worked jobs when I spent 24 hours in the office, working, no sleep. I have worked three weeks in a row, of days, no days off, and many of them 10-12 hour days, working! I’m not a lightweight, see? It’s the schedule! The thing about this job is the exactlyness about it, that’s what rankles me in my rankles, it’s like, we gotta be in the office EXACTLY, or we are late, and there’s no working late to make up! Errbody leaves at the same time, EXACTLY, every day! Urgh. It’s the EXACTLY part! I would trade some of that, to get some wiggle room, maybe for some of my money? Maybe. I dunno. I need that check! All of it!
I’m sure I will get used to this Schedule, and maybe it’ll be Healthy or something, to have a strictly regimented day, where I do the same stuff at the same time? Urgh!
Plus, it is a Desk Job, but I have figured out ways to make myself stand up outta my chair at certain points while I am performing my duties, because Sitting is bad if you do it all the time, you start to conform to the shape of your chair and it fucks up your spine. The office is in the basement, so I never take the elevator up or even down, I walk on the stairs, which is good because it is walking. For my break, I get out of the office and walk for seven minutes until the timer I set in my phone goes off, and then I walk back, and that’s my break, 15 minutes of walking, followed by a session of slurping water outta the drinking fountain. I will remain well hydrated!
So now, in addition to my Ethos of Always Be Columning, which means that I file a Mr. Wrong column every week, I will, on account of my Day Job, be typing each new Mr. Wrong column on an EXACTLY schedule, which is new to me. I have previously typed out Mr. Wrong columns at any time during a given week, but never at the same time, so this will probably be irritating, for me, so it will be my first experience of being irritated by the Mr. Wrong column, which will be a Shared Experience with the Haters of the Mr. Wrong column, so I think that’s good, for me, I don’t give a crap about The Haters, but it will give me perspective, you know? I am never afraid to Learn and Grow!
Also, I filed my column last week, when INDIGNITY moved from S*BST*CK* to the GHOST, but I don't think too many folks read it, because this move to the GHOST has been like when you have to move someplace real fast, and you shove all your junk into big garbage bags and smoosh ‘em all into the car to the point where the windows are all blocked by garbage bags fulla your Prized Possessions? That’s me, moving the Mr. Wrong column! Anyway, we’re on the GHOST now, tell people! And here, here’s last week’s column, goddammit.
* FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: A while back before the Recent Unpleasantness, I put a hundred dollars on S*BST*CK in some sort of “investment” thing, and I will take it out when I can figure out how, but I’m not even sure about how to do that, and I haven’t spent any time trying to figure it out because I been Underemployed, OK? Plus, now I’m Extra-Employed, so I ain’t got time for that shit until I am Nicely Employed!
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear, like a GHOST! Ooh! Still no refunds.
Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
TOM SCOCCA
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 27, 2024
★★ Unrelieved gray covered the morning and stayed through the day beyond. The children would need waterproof shoes by the time they headed home. Pear trees bent their blossoms over 105th Street, the white of the flowers looking grimy in the dull light. It was still cold enough to make the nose run. A truck had left a startlingly deep rut in the soft mud of a vacant tree well. The afternoon darkness thickened so quickly it was as if the winter sunsets had returned.
ADVICE DEP’T.
Ask The Sophist
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Please send your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches from New Presentation of Cooking with Timed Recipes, by Auguste Gay with the collaboration of Anne Page. Published in 1924, and now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CREAM AND SWISS CHEESE SANDWICH
For each sandwich
2 slices of buttered bread
2 tablespoons cream cheese
2 tablespoons Swiss cheese, grated
Cream the cream cheese and fold in the grated Swiss cheese. Spread on both slices of bread, put together and press lightly.
EGG AND HONEY SANDWICH
For each sandwich
2 slices of buttered bread
2 hard boiled eggs
1 tablespoon honey
Chop eggs not too fine and mix with the honey. Spread on both slices of bread, put together and press lightly.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
MARKETING DEP'T.
The second printing of 19 FOLK TALES is now available for gift-giving and personal perusal! Sit in the strengthening sunshine with a breezy collection of stories, each of which is concise enough to read before the damp ground seeps through your blanket.
HMM WEEKLY MINI-ZINE, Subject: GAME SHOW, Joe MacLeod’s account of his Total Experience of a Journey Into Television, expanded from the original published account found here at Hmm Daily. The special MINI ZINE features other viewpoints related to an appearance on, at, and inside the teevee game show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, available for purchase at SHOPULA.
