Seeing Red

And no, I don't mean elephant red. I mean cartoon character red, with steam shooting out of my ears in angry huffs. I'm feeling very frustrated today and have no outlet for this excess of bookstore-driven rage.

In general, I'm very content. I love my husband, second job, theatre stuff, and new hobby of baking bread each week. I've been talking with E and B and the serious readers' book club looks like an eventuality. I think everyone will bring fascinatingly different books to the table, which should lead to great discussions and a lot of new knowledge. I've also been invited to join a book club of ladies I really don't know, other than having met a woman, Kate, at a dinner party. I don't know that I'll like it, but it's nice to at least have the possibility of making new friends. Plus, it's almost my birthday and while I don't have anything planned, I did take next Saturday off from work just to give myself a whole weekend at home. I have to grade papers next weekend, but whatever. When am I not grading papers?

It's just that whenever I think about the bookstore--and I have to for 5 days each week--I feel so disappointed and depressed. There is good reason for these emotions. For example, I spent yesterday opening cartons of books, arranging the books on a table in numerical piles according to the last digit of the isbn #, taking large piles of these books to carts labeled with the same number, and then carrying duplicate titles to stacks on pallets, also labeled with corresponding number values. While I engaged in this stimulating exercise I got to listen to a coworker justify my below-standard wages and make passive-aggressive statements and facial expressions about my job competence. There was nothing wrong with my book piling technique, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with any of my job competencies, but Jonathan felt compelled to insult me all day anyway. Sometimes--yesterday would be one of those times--I feel less like I have a job and more like I live in the circle of hell that Dante's editor excised from The Inferno because it was so boring. I would also compare the toxic social atmosphere to the jail scenes from Invitation to a Beheading, but unfortunately I can't disappear my colleagues by wishing them gone.

I was poised to quit the other day, but I worry about finding a new job in this economy. I've also been thinking a lot about getting a teaching certificate so that I can work as a public secondary school teacher--or at least be more competitive in the private and charter school sectors--but the idea of going back to school for a third graduate degree is appalling. Besides, where would the money come from?

I do feel myself dying inside with each day I work at the bookstore, and I don't mean that in a melodramatic way. It's just hard to spend 8 hours each day being treated like an idiot and doing mundane tasks when one is not an idiot and is capable of more. The longer you spend being treated like an idiot, the harder it is to remember that one is not dumb. I worry that I will slowly devolve into Lorie, the older woman at work who seems to communicate through monosyllabic nonsense: when you accidentally cross her path in the warehouse, she goes, "beep, beep!"
I work in The Inferno as re-conceived by Richard Scarry.

I know that feeling sorry for myself is pointless, and that action is the only cure for unhappiness like mine. I have to motivate.

I might start by writing a series of essays about the banality of the warehouse.
I might apply for the language arts teacher position and the corporate writing job I saw advertised on craigslist.
I might live off my savings for a while, while I try to write and tutor under the table.
I might fly into a rage at my fat boss one day and quit after enumerating his managerial flaws.
I might do all these things.

Except that last one. Wouldn't want to hurt his feelings.