March 08, 2002 | 9:53 AM

7P)### Thurston St.

What�s wrong?

Nothing.

No really. What�s wrong?

(Well let�s see. You insist on working at my job even though I begged you not to. You refuse to leave. You are wasting a one-hundred thousand dollar education that I would give my eye teeth for. You drink more and more and more and party more and more and more. You gave up on all of the dreams you said you had for absolutely no good reason other than that you didn�t care enough to try to get a job or fill out a grad school application. You have ruined anything that I liked about working at the Stupid Company. You have robbed me of the chance to come home from work and be thrilled to see you because I have to see you every day for eight hours in the context of working a ridiculous marketing research job. And you don�t care or even notice that something is wrong with this picture.)

Oh, nothing. Can you pour me another whiskey and coke?

Do you remember The Promise? The one that John made about leaving the Stupid Company after six months? Well I know this is a biiiiiiiiiggggg shocker, but guess what? He doesn�t leave! That�s right, another knockout�Gullibility: 2,000,000 points. Anna: 0. It turns out you can�t trust anybody, including your own boyfriend.

When six or so months go by, I mention to John that um... you know... I would really sort of appreciate him keeping his word and getting a real job. �Cause um. He�s the one who finished college and whatnot. And um, this has so far been the best I can do job wise. And um. Even though I am growing to despise The Stupid Company, I�m um, terrified to leave. Because um. I equate this job with um having a home. And um., As much as I hate it, deep down I feel I would be destitute and useless without it. Um.

Not that I say that or even consciously think any of it. What I say is,

Weren�t you thinking about grad school? Weren�t you going to maybe teach?

Which goes over like a lead balloon.

Dude, I like this job. I�m good at it. I don�t see why I should leave just because like, you want me to.

(Hmm... let�s see. Maybe you should leave because you fucking goaded me into agreeing to this and then YOU PROMISED ME. PROMISED THAT IT WAS JUST UNTIL YOU FOUND YOUR POST COLLEGIATE BEARINGS. Six months, you said. SIX MONTHS! YOU FUCKING FUCK!)

Forget it. Can you open up that third bottle of wine? And um, can I have another shot of tequila too?

Autonomy, the one thing I liked about working at the Stupid Company has disappeared completely.

When John is promoted to Supervisor at the Stupid Company, he, Angus (Yes�that Angus. The one I slept with when John and I were broken up.) and I are the three supervisors on the one to nine shift. There is also mass overtime on the weekends. Sometimes I find myself there for twelve hours at a time. I once go sixty days without a single day off.

This isn�t, mind you, a job like most jobs. It is not as though we each have our own offices and we each spend the whole day doing our own separate work.

There is one office with one large desk. Computers are shared. The sole purpose of our job is to make sure the Interviewers do their jobs correctly, or to at least make it look like they do their jobs correctly. Thus John, Angus and I are perpetually bonded together, a three headed middle management monster, each head vying for control of how things should be. And beneath the typically obscene workplace politics are the harrowing politics of the human soul, unspoken, yet coloring each phrase and action. John and Angus might as well be hissing and spitting at each other. At one point Angus tells John,

Dude. Don�t question my authority in front of the interviewers, OK?

John rolls his eyes and giggles.

Dude. Whatever.

I sit back and watch, wondering if I should erect a scoreboard and collect for the office pool.

The tension is thicker than a Mickey D�s milk shake.

Now that John and I work together, we never really leave work. Work clings to our clothes and pollutes the spaces between us. We used to discuss literature and philosophy and music and movies and art and, and our future together. Now we discuss work.

Which interviewers were bad today. Who deserves a raise. Whether Collin will be pissed that the rate on NB11 wasn�t up to snuff. Whether Saturday work will be cancelled, and if so, how will BPD ever finish on time. And on and on and on. Day and night , night and day, drunk or sober, our world revolves around The Stupid Company. Oh, occasionally we still talk about you know, literature and philosophy and music and movies and art. But we never ever talk about the future. This, The Stupid Company, is the future. And we both know it. So what really, is there to discuss?

Everyone we know, everyone we are friends with works there. All of the other friends have dropped off the radar. Moved away after graduating. Found better things to do. We on the other hand. We are stunted. The song remains the same. The movie Ground Hog Day may as well be based on our lives. We spin out the same moments, the same frustrations, over and over and over and over and over again.

My relationship with the Stupid Company is like being in a marriage with someone you are pathologically dependent upon, but whom you despise. You want to get out of it. Leave. File for divorce. But you�re terrified to be alone. To continue the metaphor in incestuous terms, the Stupid Company has always been and still is at this point, The Daddy Figure I try desperately to impress.

I want. Yes, really and truly, I want The Stupid Company to love me. And I�m terrified that there�s nothing better beyond the Stupid Company. Because what came before it was so ungodly terrible.

Yes. Yes ladies and gents. I am indeed, a big fucking coward.

By the end of six months, I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I can hardly keep myself from screaming and crying at random points throughout the work day. It doesn�t occur to me to get another job. What I can do though, is get another shift.

The light bulb goes off in my head. Yes! I know how to make things better! I will tell Collin I want to work the day shift with him and Seth! I will say that John and Angus can more than carry the evening, but that there are X Y and Z things that need to be done during the day, and I am just the person to do them!

I sit with Collin in his office and plead my case. He listens intently and then tells me he will put me on days starting next week. We both know he is doing this as more of a favor to me than anything else.

I think I have solved all the problems.

What do you think?

Yeah, you�re right.

Stay tuned for Part the Thirty-Third...

Hold Me Now!

Warm My Heart!

Stay With Me!

Read The Whole Saga from THE VERY BEGINNING!

time capsule from heaven - Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011
31 - Saturday, Mar. 15, 2008
Dead/Alive - Monday, Mar. 10, 2008
Do not trustTIAA-CREF-- they are fucking their customers - Friday, Jul. 28, 2006
Shilling - Tuesday, Jul. 11, 2006

Before After