A Little Hard Work Never Killed Anyone

In typical me fashion, I was really excited about the prospect of this new job and facing a new challenge. I was determined to work hard and give it my all. I would do whatever task they gave me, and I would do it one hundred percent to the best of my God-given ability. With my never say die attitude, I would show the grit and determination of a true champion. Those are always my thoughts right before I start something I quit. It was the same feeling I had right before I tried to learn how to play the piano, the guitar, the violin, Rosetta Stone Spanish, juggling, various exercise programs, many diets, marriage, most jobs, and any puzzles over one hundred pieces.

Just for the record, I never intrinsically want to quit anything. I always start everything with the best intentions of not giving up. It’s just that the tediousness nature of things such as jobs, marriage, diets, exercise, and puzzles make are too hard to stick to. It’s all a lot of work and commitment, and to be quite frank, hard work and commitment are simply not things that I am all that interested in. I wouldn’t necessarily call me a quitter, per se. I just haven’t really found anything easy enough to stick to yet.

I was really looking forward to starting this new job. I figured some hard work would be a welcome reprieve from the confines of an office job and the stress of the mental health field. I hoped that it would help with the emotional exhaustion I suffered from at my last job.

And by the way, mom, it absolutely was emotional exhaustion. It was not just me being lazy and irresponsible like you said. Go read up on emotional exhaustion. I had all of the classic symptoms.

I had loss of appetite. Sometimes I would go five or six hours without eating. I was so emotionally exhausted that there would be times where I wouldn’t even feel like getting off the couch to get a bowl of ice-cream even when I wanted one.

Forgetfulness and trouble concentrating are also symptoms of emotional exhaustion. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Sometimes I would go weeks at a time where I wouldn’t focus on anything at work. I would just stare off into space all day and bullshit on the phone with my buddies.

People with emotional exhaustion are also known to have a lack of motivation. I was so emotionally exhausted that I would lie on the couch for hours and hours just watching movies and taking naps. My motivation was lacking so bad from the emotional exhaustion that I didn’t even wash own clothes or make my own meals. I had to have my mom do it for me.

Anxiety is another symptom. I was so anxious that I had to self-medicate with delicious craft beers like IPA’s and Chocolate Stouts. If it weren’t for being drunk all the time, I probably would have had insomnia too, which is also another symptom of emotional exhaustion. So, despite what my mom might tell you, I was not just being lazy. I was actually the poster child for emotional exhaustion.

I figured that a physically demanding blue-collar job was just what I needed, plus a little hard work never killed anyone, except for all those people who died building the Hoover Dam, and all those other construction workers who got killed doing hard work. Lots of miners died doing hard work, so did a bunch of people who work on power lines. Those people who operate dangerous machines in plants get killed all the time too. And once in a while, even a guy working road construction gets killed by a car. But for the most part, a little hard work never killed anyone.

I was looking forward to being one of those hard-working salt of the earth type guys that you always hear about in country songs. I wanted to come home from work feeling tired and dirty but feeling good because I knew that I earned an honest buck. A hard day’s work would really help me learn to appreciate every last penny I earned, even the percentage of all the pennies that the temp agency was taking from me.

They hired me in a place that was located in what was known as an industrial park, which is like a big giant theme park, only instead of rides and rollercoasters, they had giant warehouses, manufacturers, and distributors of things. The place I worked at made these rolls of tar paper, and my job was to stack them on pallets. I loved it. I was getting exercise, making money, and I really felt good knowing that I was helping others because people needed tar paper, probably. I wasn’t sure for what, but I am sure some people needed it for something somewhere, and that made me feel pretty goddamn good. I finally felt like I was making the world a better place, and that made lifting all of those really heavy and awkwardly shaped rolls of tar paper al worth it.

Well, that good feeling lasted about two hours. After that, I was only consumed with being tired, thirsty and having sore feet. I could care less about who needed fucking tar paper. That became the least of my worries.

All I could think about was how those assholes at that temp agency were skimming twenty-five percent off the top of my pay. Meanwhile, I was the one who was busting my balls for this stupid fucking tar paper that no one is probably going to use anyway. And I couldn’t understand why they had to make these rolls of tar paper so fucking heavy. If they were smart, they would have made them smaller and just made more of them. And just for the record. I am not complaining. I am simply explaining to everyone how difficult my life is. No one likes a complainer.

When they hired me, they told me that I had to wear steel toe boots. That was the one rule they were very clear on. I didn’t own a pair of steel reinforced shoes, but I didn’t want to get caught breaking the rules either, so I decided to wear the closest thing I had to a boot which was a pair of brown loafers. They weren’t steel-toed loafers, but they were going to have to do.

I learned the hard way that loafers aren’t the best shoes to wear in a tar paper in a factory. As my feet throbbed in pain, I became more and more infuriated. However, it was not the rules that I was mad at. I understand that in life there will always be rules. I was more mad at myself for trying to follow them. I should have gone with my gut instinct and just worn the sneakers. Wearing those loafers taught me a valuable lesson that day, and from that point on I never tried to follow a rule that I thought was stupid again.

After a few hours of this nightmare, right when I was about to quit or possibly be worked to death, something wonderful happened. God himself intervened. It happened right when I couldn’t lift one more roll of tar paper. Actually, that’s not true. I could have lifted a lot more rolls of tar paper. It happened when I didn’t feel like lifting any more rolls of tar paper. That’s more accurate.

That was when the machine that kept relentlessly shooting all those rolls of tar paper at me broke, and literally saved my life, or at least gave me time to smoke a cigarette and buy a soda from the vending machine. I went back into this little break room and right as I was about to quit, I was approached by this kind old gentleman who gave me the encouragement I needed to carry on. It’s funny how life works. Fate put this man in my life at just at the right place and just the right time when I needed him most. In this life we are all connected in some cosmic way, and sometimes it is a complete stranger that comes into your life and has a lasting impact on you. Just when I was about to lose all hope and give up on myself and this job, the strange gentleman picked me up with a few kind words that I needed to hear. In a calm soothing voice, he asked if I wanted to smoke some weed with him out by the loading docks. I couldn’t have been more appreciative of his kindness and his weed. I never needed to get high more than I needed to at that moment, and somehow, he knew.

It was there, out on those loading docks, where he told me about the dark sinister underbelly of third shift warehouse operations. He proceeded to tell me that because we were working third shift there were no managers on duty, so people did what they wanted and that it was ok to smoke weed. That was not the dark underbelly. That was actually a good thing because I love to smoke weed.

The dark underbelly was that while we were harmlessly smoking weed out on the loading docks on our work break like two civilized adults, all the other guys were sneaking around using methamphetamines like a bunch of reckless assholes. Fucking speed! I knew it. That explained why they were working circles around me. It was all starting to make sense to me. As I took another long pull off of the joint, I processed what the kind gentleman had told me, and I was growing increasingly concerned for my own safety.

To think that the people operating the tar paper machine were under the influence of speed was a very scary thought indeed. Their reckless behavior was putting their lives and the lives of everyone around them in grave danger.

No one should be operating machinery while under the influence of a controlled substance like that, especially speed. Smoking a little weed or having a few beers before you drive a car with a 5-star safety rating while wearing your seatbelt and going the speed limit like I do sometimes is one thing, but doing methamphetamines while operating a tar paper roll shooter? Well, that is just plain reckless.

As we continued to talk, the sagacious gentleman enlightened me on other more important matters of the world such as his ex-wife being a cunt and filing a Protection From Abuse order on him, his outrageous child support payments, his fucked-up kids, how to beat a piss test, and his bad back and why he should be on disability. He was even kind enough to point me in the direction of some of his favorite hiding spots around the warehouse that were perfect for weed naps.

We sat on that loading dock talking for the better part of an hour as I listened intently to this wise old sage give me life lesson after life lesson. We then parted ways and he offered to give me a ride to work, but only if I would pay him twenty bucks a week for gas, then told me that I owed him 5 bucks for the weed. At that, I respectfully told him that I don’t have any money and that I would just drive myself. I then disappeared off into the bright fluorescent lights of the warehouse in search of a much-needed hiding spot.

If I didn’t find a hiding spot before that tar paper machine got fixed, I may very well be killed by one of those reckless speed junkies working the machine. The mere thought of being hit in the head by a rogue roll of tar paper had me scared for my life. Plus, the weed made me really sleepy, and honestly, I didn’t feel like working anymore.

Before I had the chance to find one of the coveted hiding spots, one of the speed junkies came flying around the corner and crashed into me. He questioned me, asking me where I was going and what I was doing. His eyes were wild and crazy, and he frantically told me that I needed to start taping up boxes until the machine gets fixed.

With a boney outstretched finger, he pointed to a room that was filled with empty cardboard boxes. There were boxes as far as the eye can see. Almost out of thin air, he produced a roll of packaging tape and handed it to me. He told me to get to work, and then ran off really fast and crazy, the way only a person on speed would. Meanwhile, I began taping the boxes slowly and methodically, like only a sane person not fucked up on speed would.

As you can see there are great differences between us, the people who use meth and the people who don’t. We will never truly be able to coexist together in one harmonious world the way John Lennon had imagined in all his hippie songs about everyone getting along.

Now I try to not stereotype or put labels on people. I can get along with most everyone, black people, gays, Asians, Latinos, white, trannies, and even cripples as long as they aren’t acting like giant dickheads and running everyone over with their wheelchair, but I have to say that I will never like meth-heads. Those types of people are all a bunch of crazy fucking assholes that cannot be trusted, and no peace-loving John Lennon song about everyone getting along will ever change that.

The box taping assignment was a welcome reprieve from those crazed lunatic speed junkies and their really loud-sounding and dangerous machine. Here with the boxes, there was a certain quietude and peace. The only sounds I could hear were the interspersed rustle of boxes and the precise rhythmic tearing of the packaging tape every time that it reeled off of the spool. The beat was set to the pace at which I taped the boxes. Rustle box, rustle box, tear tape, tear tape, 1,2,1,2. The cadence was set to the soothing melodic hum of a generator while my carefully patterned breathes kept the time. The whole experience of taping those boxes had a strange songlike quality to it, and it was very therapeutic.

I must have taped hundreds upon thousands upon millions if not a billion, and quite possibly a trillion boxes. I taped those boxes for hours without a single thought entering my head. I was just lost in the musical qualities of the box taping and the slow steady drone of the warehouse. I had lost track of time and I was in some sort of trance, mesmerized by the repetitious nature of my new job. Although somewhat mundane, my new task of box taping had transcended me into a world of peace and contentment.

At last, there were no more racing thoughts, no more stress, and no more anxiety. It was just me and the boxes. I finally found the inner peace that I was searching for all those years. I finally found my home. I could have stood there taping those boxes forever and been perfectly happy. Well, maybe not forever, but at least my shift ended.

Standing amidst all of those boxes had finally purged all of the emotional toxins that polluted my soul during all of the dark painful years I spent trying to find myself. I paused for a moment to look around and take it all in. I took a deep breath and smiled to myself knowing that I had finally found my calling in the messy order of this world.

And my calling was to be a box taper. That was who I was meant to be all along. I didn’t care what the rest of world thought of me. I was box taper! I was going to run home and shout it from the rooftop! I was a box taper! Yes! I was a box taper!

But then I heard the most heinous sound. It was the grinding noise of the tar paper machine working again. Immediately, all of the crazy guys who were all hopped up on speed came over to me and started yelling at me to get the fuck over there and start stacking all those fucking pallets.

They whisked me back to the machine and took me away from my beloved boxes. I looked over my shoulder as they escorted me back the machine. Oh, how I longed for them, my beloved boxes. It crushed me to know that would be the last time that I would ever see them. And like that, my lifelong dream of becoming professional box taper was over.

I returned to the tar paper machine, and it began firing rolls of tar paper at me even faster than before. The guys on speed were running around acting even crazier and more maniacal than before too. With all the speed that they were doing, they set a real frantic pace. It reminded me of the pit on Wall Street, but with heavy rolls of tar paper instead of money. Given my lazy nature, the pot I had smoked, and my loafers, it was impossible for me to keep up. It is not that I am making excuses. I am just giving you all of the reasons why I was unable to do this job. No one likes people who make excuses.

The workers were getting angrier and angrier with my slow pace. The rolls of tar paper would get backed up into the machine, and they would have to shut down production to wait for me to catch up. They all wanted to kill me, but there was nothing I could do. My lower back was throbbing in pain, and my blistering feet were hurting. I couldn’t lift the boxes any faster even if I wanted to, which I didn’t of course.

Every passing minute seemed like an eternity in this hellish nightmare. There was no reprieve from the onslaught of the heavy rolls of tar paper that were being launched at me. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Stack nine rolls to a pallet. Shrink wrap it. Wait for the next. Sometimes late at night, I can still hear the men screaming at me like ghosts from the past, calling me all sorts of names like faggot and cocksucker, telling me to hurry up.

As the night wore on my thoughts kept returning to the old gentleman who shared his weed with me. I hadn’t seen him since our chance encounter on the loading dock. He seemed to be an enigma who had just vanished into the night air like the wind or a silent fart. I began to wonder if he ever existed at all or if he was a figment of my own imagination. Perhaps the old man was really me, and it was my weed I had smoked, like in science fiction movies or Fight Club.

It was six a.m. and my twelve-hour shift had finally ended. It was the happiest that I had ever been in my whole entire life. I was just about to call it a day and give high fives to all my co-workers, just like they do in beer commercials when suddenly the tar paper machine shot another tar paper roll at me. Then it shot another, and another, then another. This went on for almost fifteen minutes. Only now the machine was firing the rolls much faster than before and the men were acting even crazier.

Finally, I had enough. I decided to take a stand for all the people everywhere who ever had to lift heavy stuff. I walked away from the tar paper machine and went right through the exit of the warehouse. I stepped out into the crisp morning air and took a deep breath as I enjoyed the majestic beauty of a rising sun. I was proud of myself knowing that all those dirty white people, the Mexicans and even that scary black guy at that temp agency will be jumping for joy once word gets out that I just stuck it to the man.

After I took that job and shoved it, I noticed how beautiful a sunrise can be. I would have liked to see more sunrises, but they usually happen so early while I am still sleeping. It is too bad sunrises don’t happen at like noon, in my living room, because they can be very pretty. That sunrise was probably the most beautiful thing that I ever saw. It was almost as beautiful as my income tax return last year or a pair of really big boobs.

It would have been even more beautiful too, had it not been those dickhead speed junkies trying to ruin it for me. They were screaming at me and calling me all kinds of names like faggot and asshole as they complained about all the extra work they had to do now. It was difficult, but I managed to block out all of their negative energy and threats to punch me in the face, and I was still able to enjoy the splendor of that rare majestic sunrise.

In a dramatic exit, I walked directly into the long shadows of the rising sun, and never looked back. I quit that job the same way I quit everything. I kept my head held high as I looked to what lied ahead of me because that is how a true champion of life quits things.

As time went on and the years slipped away, the day I tried hard work became nothing more than a faded memory. I don’t really miss it, the work, tar paper rolls, the speed junkies, not even the old gentleman who shared his weed with me, none of it. However, there isn’t a day that goes by that I still don’t miss those boxes. Oh, how I longed for the peace and contentment that I felt while I was with my beloved boxes.

In the subsequent years to follow, I have taped hundreds upon thousands of boxes. Every time I reach for a box and a roll of packing tape, I always hope and pray that it will bring me the same feeling of contentment that it brought me that night in the warehouse. Whenever I send a package in the mail or I help someone move, I try to replicate the magic that happened that night in the warehouse, but sadly it never comes. It doesn’t matter what how many boxes I tape, I am never able to recapture the unparalleled spiritual transcendence I felt that night in that warehouse. Who knows? Maybe that feeling of unparalleled spiritual transcendence had nothing to do with taping boxes at all. Maybe I had just smoked some really good weed.