#menial work

[dk-thrive]

You find yourself reliving what you thought you’d outlived, and in a matter of hours become the hireling you’d sworn never to be again. Things come back; life repeats itself. Fate isn’t very inventive.

— André Aciman, Roman Year: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 22, 2024)

[isomorphismes]

Freedom is meaningless if you don't know how to use it. We've been oppressed and confined so long that it's hard for us to change our mind-set and achieve real freedom. We're used to the existence defined by evasions and negations. Most of our individual tastes and natural appetites have been bridled by caution and fear. It's more difficult to break the self-imposed tyranny than the external constraints. In short, we have lost the child in ourselves.

Nan Wu

in A Free Life by Ha Jin

[plagueonurhouse-blog]

Translating Capitalists

"Only boring people get bored." Stop complaining about your mindless, menial, poverty-level job and keep working.

[dragonphage]

stayed up for twenty hours and slept all day but i still wanna get some more playing in before bed *says i at ten pm when I should by all means be in bed already*

[gbrownco]

These Are The Things That Upset Me

As you can see this is going to be a rant post. Not going to bother making excuses for why I haven't posted, because I don't have any. I was busy and had no ideas.

Back to the real reason I am writing:

I hate note taking ... but not just any kind of note taking, the root of all evil writing ... the minute taking.

What the heck is that?

Well let me explain ... it is a method of torture devised by important type people designed (so they say) to keep track of what happens at meetings.

My feeling? Who cares!

I have to take the minutes for meetings ... which sucks because its NOT my job! My superior (who shall remain nameless) decided we needed to be a more formal organization ... yadda yadda ... what it really means is "your job is not wasting enough time so I must add menial work to kill your soul."

Yup, I said soul ... because all my creative energy is being wasted writing down who agreed with some stupid report on the utterly useless.

Am I bitter? You better believe it.

I hate it because I have to write things down while simultaneously pretending to care what they have to say. And its not like I am getting anything out of it ... every few meetings I am told I need to take better notes and deliver those notes promptly to the people who were in the meeting and could have taken their own damn notes if they really cared about what happened in the meetings ... because they don't even look at the minutes I give them.

All that wasted time ... I'm sure if I tabulated all the hours I spent recording the minutes I could have written a novel or two

Does this rant have a message? Something you readers can learn from to avoid my mistakes?

As always, yes.

Always read the fine print - find out what your job entails. I mean if I had known that my valuable time was going to be wasted I wouldn't taken the position.

Make time to write - Some days you need to say "screw it, I need to write." And you must follow through, don't let people convince you you need to do something that can be put off until later (this of course does not mean ignore your homework/ work type things)

All in all I can sum this message up into one sentence:

Don't let the man bring you down!

Yea, I just said I hippy phrase ... but its true and in this instance it is totally relevant.

Man, there is nothing like a good rant to get you in a good mood!

[wordbirds]

Handyscam Holiday

N. (Phrase) 'han-dee-skam 'hah-lid-day  When hosts invite friends to a country place, summer house, or farflung villa in the guise of generosity, but rope their guests into performing menial work and chores once they're there. Usage: Martin and Cassie were overjoyed when the Murrays invited them to Tuscany, but after spending a week repairing roof tiles, weeding the garden, spreading gravel, and painting newly-stuccoed walls, they realized they'd fallen for a Handyscam Holiday.