Office Lobotomy

Monotony can kill.

          You don’t have to be hairy Einstein to figure it out. One just needs a quick tour to my office and they will witness this epiphany. Unless you are Obsessive-compulsive or plainly stoned, humans need variety for intellectual exercise. Routines can be synonymous to stress-free work but hell, your IQ will crash down to nil before you can even convince me that tomato is indeed a freakin’ fruit.

I know I’m in trouble.

          I got my head on the rope 4 years in a row. Smart-ass that I am, I’ve always manage to escape the wrath of mental overkill before it can tighten the knot. This requires me to do a Houdini before the claws of this lobotomy strikes back. I would entertain myself with unauthorized trips to record bars and magazine stores and unlimited free net surfing at the grade school library (errr…2 hours would solicit malignant glares from co-workers so it’s quite inappropriate calling it “unlimited”) within my supposed working hours. The adrenaline rush of these escapades was enough to keep me enthralled for a year. It all came with a price. I forgot all about the evaluation forms and work merits! Though I still received a fair mark, the most dreadful thing occurred: I grew a conscience. Now how tedious can it get?

          Psychometrics was a 3unit yawning marathon back in college (no offense to my eherm…generous professor…). I was just never big into theoretical and technical jargons. I have sworn to my achy-breaky heart not to be entangled with any occupation flavored with these hazards. But I was more afraid of unemployment. So when a School Psychometrician position became vacant, I transformed into a zombie and took the job. I was suddenly a living paper stack. It was all about administering, checking, graphing and feedbacking. Almost always in that order. Luckily, with gentle persuasion (credits to my mojo!), I was given a stint to be the Counselor of a level in the Grade School department. At least, facilitating homeroom classes has this cathartic feel that somehow rejuvenate my nervous system. Yet still, Microsoft Excel does not have much animations or even colors to excite me for the remaining 420 minutes.

You see office work seems fun at first since, well, the sound of “working in an office” was delicious enough to pass up. Fun in its entirety fades when paper works became all there is to inhale. Thank goodness my officemates were not as robotic (as I presumed) to add to the tragedy.

I am not bitter. That’s too deep an emotion for such pretty singular condition. Oddly, I can still boast about my job. Learning that I front a rock band too invites awe and couple of ribbings, which I satisfactorily consume as flattery. And I guess my hiatus here is still worth it in the sense that you witness human metamorphosis in progress (and that my friends, is such a wonderful sight…). But then at times, that too became monotonous as well. But look at the bright side; it’s better than being outnumbered by numbers (another known allergy of mine!) on the Accounting department.

By this time, your brows will be knitted like Mr. Pringles’ moustache, muttering helpless blasphemies on my behalf before thundering for the eternal inquiry,

“WHY CAN’T YOU JUST SHOT YOUR HOLE AND RESIGN?!?”

My friend, we are living in a third world country. Economic instability is simply not an option. Not even for a few days. I never intend my daughter to feast on instant noodles immersed in the ever-tasty MSG for the rest of her developmental years.

And before you can even suggest it, Call Centers may have more zeroes on their salary sheets but believe me, it’s a brain-diminishing program. More like the Operation: Iraq of our poor neurons. (I often wonder if this booming trend is all the doing of international terrorists…you know, making us dumber for them to dominate the world easily…and damn it’s working!)

                       I guess there’s no pleasing me.

Give me a few more Mondays then look me up on the Obituary page.

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