Chicken Little and the Polar Bear

Straw. Camel. Back. Broke. That. The. Arrange to your liking.

There are days when I have had just had enough. This is one of them. God help the poor bastard who gets in my face. I might just pull a Columbine for the greater good.

I almost managed to pack my bags and leave my lousy office job this morning. It was actually a massive come down to discover myself still sitting here. In answer to my boss, I don’t want to be here. I’d rather be on a beach in Tahiti sipping a Pina Colada. Hell, I’d rather data capture then bear the brunt of office gossip and sniping. I swear the Taliban has nothing on these girls.

I need an out. A life raft. A parachute. Barring any of the above I’ll take a Xanax. It might mean the difference between life and death for someone. So, Mr GP, think carefully before denying me. You wouldn’t want to have their blood on your hands.

What it boils down to is one lousy day of leave and no mobile coverage in a game reserve. You’d think Chicken Little had come to town. Regardless I had a nice yell at my boss who has disappeared in fear of his life and I feel much better. Although, I’d rather have just been allowed to leave. There are times when a cardboard box and a shopping trolley are preferable to a cubicle and awful coffee.

What have I learnt about myself:

1. That I hate working in an office
2. That I hate living in urbanised, cookie cutter sprawl
3. That I want simplicity and order
4. That people can piss me just by breathing the same polluted air
5. That what society deems as priorities are actually empty shell casings
6. That I need to find an income generating option that allows me to stay away from other people for their safety and my sanity
7. That I am a polar bear

Let me elaborate on point 7. There is a difference between being a loner and being lonely. Lonely people crave the company of others. Loners eschew the company of others. Hence, polar bears. We don’t like sniffing in the wafts of germ laden air circulating around an office pen. We don’t like sharing our pens, our chairs and our coffee mugs. We need our own space. We march to our own drum. It’s not our fault if it is a different beat to yours.

I’m just not cut out to be a drone. I’m not a worker bee. Neither do I want to be the Queen. I am not a honey maker. I am a troublemaker. Hammering at me is not going to change the simple fact that I do my day job for the paycheck and not because I subscribe to some ideal utopian vision about advertising changing the world. Your print ad is never going to change the world. Making someone buy something they don’t need with money they don’t have just adds to the recession.


You are never going to solve the world’s problems by selling soda pop.
Live with it.
Own it.
Move on.

I still do a damn good job. I work weekends, I work even when 3 hours out of surgery and drugged on morphine. I do it well because I took off my rose coloured glasses back in 1995. I do it well because I am not confused between my job and my life. I know where a company’s loyalty to me begins and ends.

Maybe illusions offer a more comfortable existence, but I’ll take reality any day. And the reality is… your employers don’t give a damn about you, your personal problems, you bad hair day or your blocked drain.
Don’t take it personally.
It is not all about you.