PEOW and full-time work thoughts
2023.01.01
I like diary comics… they feel personal and nice. But, the actual comic P.E.O.W., kind of stung… basically Jane is an office lady and deeply depressed and stressed to the point that it makes her physically ill regularly… She feels despair, it’s been most all her work experience, and you’re always seeing fucking clients, and they want you to accomadate them, smile, be friendly, never show the harm, the dread, the way waking up every morning feels like being forced to be alive, then dredge back and fulfill your bodily needs so you can do it again the next day, without any sense of being, existing, personhood.* They’re always right, your boss is always right, they’re never being rude or unreasonable, and if they’re asking the impossible, you better handle them with kid gloves, make sure they never have to acknowledge or recognize the inconvenience, the unreasonable demands and the fury their stress their anxiety when you cannot fucking meet them, the vitriol, that they’re spewing at you. You do this forever, until you die, or it kills you. Jane claws her way out. I don’t know that I ever will, and it really might kill me. Who knows, who cares. One more sacrifice to the work culture. At least I’d’ve earned it. At least I’d’ve worked hard to get to die.
*[You exist to work, you exist to stand at a desk all day and be misgendered by everyone who sees you as they go through the motions, or worse, harass you for things you cannot change. Your life is work and you do nothing else. When you get up in the morning, it’s for work. You wake up too early, get out of bed when it’s cold for work. Put on clothes, for work. You are not even allowed the minor right to self-expression. You have no time to get up, as a person, and feel the day, and be present and of mind while doing your tasks. You do them, you walk to the bathroom and brush your teeth and hair and piss, for work. You grab food, for work, so as to not inconvenience your boss, your coworkers, god forbid, the clients. God forbid you have needs. Like some kind of human being. You get there early, for work. So everything can look in place by the time people arrive. No one arrives on time exactly. And it is not stated that you be there early. But you must. It is expected and you will be punished, whether lightly or harshly, for not adhering to this unspoken expectation
You take your break stressfully, knowing they don’t want you to, knowing this will be understood as you inconveniencing your coworkers, who certainly have much more important things to be doing, who do not have the time in their day to be doing your lowly tasks, or otherwise, the ones who do not know how to help, and who’s lack of understanding will be seen as an annoyance by your shared boss, and will hinder the other work that your work relies on when they inevitably do it wrong (it’s not their fault – it's the fault of your boss, and your pushy ass clients). You take your lunch, for work, on time so inconveniently and too late, equally inconveniently – you have work, you see. Far too much work to eat. Your boss doesn’t eat until 5pm. You eat as hurriedly as possible, you don’t have the time. You focus on eating quickly and have no time to take a break, think, sit, relax. For work. You spend 9 hours of your day, 5 days a week, for work. And then you pack up, walk hurriedly to the transit station, for work. You have to get this train, or you’ll miss your bus, and you’ll be walking a half hour home, across unwelcoming and hostile roads, for work. You spend at least another hour, in addition to the hour you spent getting there, and the half hour you spent being there too early because of your transit situation, for work.
You get back home. You clean up around the house, do dishes, laundry, whatever else. So that you can still be alive to keep working. For work. You make yourself food. It takes an insurmountable amount of effort to get all of it together and it tastes like nothing. It gives you acid. The stress of the day, of your ill-fitting clothes, of your food choices, weigh on you, your body hurts, you’re on edge, you feel disconnected from reality. You’re so tired. You scroll through social media. It’s all you have the energy to do. You barely have the energy to respond to friends. You can’t possibly keep up with all of them. You lose many of them, and even more to work. Your depression and dread take the rest from you. You don’t have the energy to talk to them. When they do talk to you you’re irritable and rude. You’re perpetually scared of losing the rest of them, what little there still are, because of this. You go to bed at a somewhat decent hour. For work. So you have even a chance of having the energy to get through the day. For work.
Your weekends. You do the rest of your chores, your work at home. The ones you didn’t have the energy to do during the week (because of work). You wash your clothes. You have to have the right kind of clothes for work. You get groceries. You have to have food, to fuel you for work. There is never anything else.]