Thoughts of a Working Man

It's one of those mornings where I'm dopey tired. I'm not physically tired, but I sure don't feel alert and ready to tackle the world. I feel more like going back to bed, which is odd since I got at least 8 hours of sleep last night, and I sleep with a CPAP machine because I have sleep apnea. I guess that just goes to show that technology is wonderful but hardly perfect. It's a quiet week in the office, as you can well imagine. A good number of the people who work here are off for the holidays. They'll come draggin' themselves in here next Tuesday complaining about all of the emails that have piled up in their absence and wishing they were still off work. That seems to be how we human beings operate. We spend the majority of our waking hours 'at work' doing what we have to in order to be able to live as close as possible to the standard we want to the rest of the time. And we worry, rightly, about what will happen unexpectedly to end all that. The Christmas--I'm sorry--the Holiday decorations are still up. I expect they'll come down next week, too. It's a wonder season, this holiday season. It's a time of the year when we're nicer to each other than we normally are. Not that we're bad to each other the rest of the time, but this time of year we buy each other presents and even say hello to strangers in the spirit of the season. We recognize the people in our lives with little gifts and big ones. Sure, some people stress out over the holidays, but by and large we're pretty darn nice to each other. Too bad the season is so short. Not much poppin' on the job front at the moment, either. I expect that will pick up after the first of the year, though I may be out of work for a month or two. Frankly, though my wife cares, I do not. We have savings we can use; everything can't be saved till it's too late to spend anything. Another contract will rear its ugly head in the first quarter, and I'll take it, and I'll wish I wasn't tied to a work schedule and doing things I wish I wasn't doing for money I need. It's not a whole lot different from prostitution except the hours are better, the working conditions at least marginally cleaner and safer, and the clients are not so guilty about what they're doing. Still, somebody's gettin' screwed. It's a living.