Why I'm not Cut out for the Workforce, Part One

"I think I should, like, design tablescapes for a living," I told my mother as we perused the buckets of ten dollar floral arrangements at the supermarket, fawning over the textures of the corollas with the same "ooohs" and ahhhs," that would issue from our lips while thumbing through fashion magazines, their pages embossed with innumerable textiles and colors.

"Oh, God," my mother said, quickly steering me away from the flowers, which clearly nurtured my ever blossoming imagination. "What are we going to do with you?"

"What?" I asked, as though her words were true blasphemy, and I wasn't just a dreaming, doe-eyed little dolly. "It's the people who dream big that make it big. You have to have far reaching goals to ever really get anywhere in life."

"You're right," my mother said, drawing out the last word steady and even, like making a foot long line with a wooden ruler. "Help me find this cheese for my quiche," she said, pointing to a jotted down recipe with a French sounding dairy ingredient that neither of us was going to even attempt to pronounce. I scanned the shelves in the refrigerated aisle, looking for those pressed curds of milk, and the instant after I spotted the right type, uttered an "I gotta get outta here," shivering my way to the warmth a few paces away outside in the summer evening air. On the way out, I noticed the button down, Hawaiian shirt uniforms of the employees, and considered how they could look vintage esque with a forties style curl set and pin up red lips, and thought about how I wouldn't mind working there if it meant I could get discounts on those dark chocolate covered pretzels and organic yogurt I so loved. But that's the issue: I'm as flaky as that grated cheese my mother was headed to the check-out line to purchase, never able to make a decision, melting under a mere ounce of pressure. Two days on a summer retail job and I was braced to quit, convinced that I had been right all along: my best suited career path was clearly housewifery.

It's not that I don't possess the competency to wrangle in employment, and I've honed my panty arranging skills and less than thirty second bra fittings at a national lingerie boutique, that, let's face it, is well known enough to not be categorized as any sort of elusive little secret. I may fumble for a few moments while wrapping up those lace panties in tissue paper at the cash wrap, but I practically assist browsing customers in my sleep. Literally. This evening, my mother reported to me about her entrance into my room during the morning hours, which was speedily greeted with a not-so-groggy sounding and polite, "What are you looking for?" "My black flats," my mother told me. "You've come to the right place!" I said, enthusiastically, and my mom, who had been searching for a while, continued her hunt even though the shoes were in fact in the foyer downstairs, while I rolled over and fell right back asleep. I have absolutely no recollection of this little exchange, but I do know that it mimics the conversations I hold with customers on a daily basis: "What are you looking for today?" "A great push up bra." "Well, you've come to the right place..."

The point is, I learn quickly, so long as we're not talking about mathematics or quantum mechanics or genetic engineering or anything of a semi-scientific, methodical nature. But, the problem is, I don't want to do any sort of laborious task if it isn't somehow synced up with my vintage fantasy world, sex, swing dancing, reading memoirs, and being generally slovenly. Oh, or eating chocolate.

Now, I know there are a great number of people out in the world pursing their lips like dried up fruit, all crinkly and shriveled, writing me off with a tuh sound or an internal Join the club, sister, and for those of you who would genuinely like to give your two weeks' notice and retire at an age closer in years to adolescence than to granny-hood, I commend you and will hopefully someday soon see you in the, "I bought a recliner before I hit sixty" league. But for the remainder of you, who I like to imagine as that annoying little fraction that I always forgot to carry up at the end of a long division problem in grade school - those ones who whine about never having enough days off and the flat out ineffectual nature of their supervisors, but twiddle their thumbs and feel entirely unfulfilled lounging on the couch for a full afternoon, and gnaw at their nails if they work anything under forty hours a week - you my friends, will never understand my predicament. I know that my arguments entirely discount necessities like paying bills and generosities like donating yearly to reputable charities, but I like to think that these toilers would "keep up the good work," so to speak even if all their finances were perpetually in order and they had no need whatsoever to usher in that biweekly paycheck. These people, even if half of their vocabulary consists of the words "hate" and "job," nevertheless find themselves somehow continually fueled by working nine to five, always on the go and hardly ever needing to be rebooted, like eco-friendly cars with seriously great gas mileage. I on the other hand, truly, genuinely, and confidently can proclaim that I have about as much desire to become a permanent member of the workforce as I have to change my major in college to Biology.

Of course, all convictions aside, there are always aberrations, and if I could have a completely impractical, whimsical career that involved planning garden parties or working on essays at my leisure or maybe tasting wine five days of the week, I'd drop out of school now and book my oneway ticket for the Employment Express. But as fanciful and imaginative as I can be, I can at the very least acknowledge these daydreams are never going to be actualized, and rather than quitting my job on the spot, I let the menial labor workforce keep me on its line, alive but skewered, like a fish who, as they put it, fell hook, line, and sinker.