I woke up this morning with the starry eyed wonderment of a kid on his way to some magical rodent-filled theme park. It’s Monday. The freshly baked beginning of my typical work week. It was time to drink in the sun rise, scramble up some menial tasks, and bake some fresh, buttered accomplishments. Eventually I will learn that having any level of optimism about my job is a mistake.

The bullshit actually started yesterday—Sunday. About 4pm, I received a text message from one of my team leads requesting that I come to work at my normal time. This may not seem significant to you, but if there is one thing that will surely get under my skin, it’s for some person to feel the need to tell me to do the same shit I do everyday. The text message was basically, “hey Jae, keep breathing, remember to eat something, and don’t forget to shit every once in a while.” My fist physically clenched to the point of my knuckles popping. Insult was added to the injury when just three hours later, the other team lead called my phone to tell me the same shit. I ignored the call. It was Sunday, my day off. As far as I’m concerned, every person involved with my job should have gone to hell until 730am, Monday.

The day started as a typical work day. I was tasked with handling all the “customers,” while a lead wrote down their names. Each customer had about 50 items, there were 14 customers. I had to personally check every piece for viability and serviceability as well as mark and record all of their missing items. The lead just needed to walk around in a circle. Good job, lead. Way to pull down that extra dollar an hour. Since I’m the only person that seems to work there, I also had to make sure everyone signed out before leaving the premises. When all that was done I was sent to the dungeon to stare at boxes, because that was of the utmost importance.

Surprisingly I was given a small strike team. With the added hands, I was sure to be able to execute the mission quickly. But for some reason, Clorox wipe Jae was used in the usual manner. Instead of dividing the work evenly, I was asked to retrieve, move, wrap, push, breathe on, and fuck every fucking box in the warehouse. I mean, if I didn’t have this NDA preventing me from telling you all everything, you’d truly grasp just how bullshit my situation is. There are thirty people on my team, and you’d swear their names were all Ask Jae.

“Who can we get to do this dumb shit? Oh I know, Ask Jae! He can do that dumb shit. It’s his whole existence!”

“Good answer!”

One of these days I’m gonna shit in the refrigerator and piss in the microwave. Knowing them though, they’re just going to ask me to find a way to cool and heat their food afterwards. Ugh!