On Facebook, there’s a group that I am in and follow, and it has to do with work. Frequently, people post requests for advice in finding jobs. The posts go a little something like this:

Hello! I’m currently employed, but my job is driving me crazy. I don’t get acknowledged for the hard work I do, and the person who sits behind me eats crunchy food, which annoys me. I’d love to work from home. Actually, I NEED to work from home because I can’t stand being around other people. I don’t have a degree, but I have 20+ years in the workforce. I have ADHD, Autism, I’m allergic to nuts, have a bad back so I can’t lift more than 10 pounds, and I’m on several medications. Does anyone know of a job where I can work from home, doesn’t require a degree, not have the boss breathing down my back, adequate support if I run into a problem, great insurance and be paid at least $25 an hour? Thanks!

Please bear in mind I’m not really mocking these people. I’m here to say, “work is a four-letter word.”

When I was younger, it never really occured to me I could make a living doing what I liked. That period of time only happened maybe once, and it was for three years. I STILL wasn’t able to write about whatever I wanted; that had to come in the form of a ‘zine I published myself. I offered to write movie reviews, but was downvoted on that because if the one movie theater in town was running a movie I didn’t like, well, there go the profits.

And it still kind of blows my mind that people look for that in terms of jobs. I get that people don’t really want to do something they hate for a living, but to me, a job is a way to get money. It’s nice if you DON’T hate your job, but it’s rare to enjoy it. So the idea of having a way to make money that I actually enjoy really sort of shocks me. Is that how life really works?

And I’m well aware the difficulties disabled people have to deal with in order to find work. Especially work that supports at least one single person. With the way rent is now, I think the average person should be pulling down $4,000 a month after taxes, if not just a bit more. How many grocery shelf stockers are earning that kind of coin?

How many cashiers?

How many office workers?

How many work from home employees?

I’ve pretty much decided that when I do decide to go back to the United States, I’ll have to change careers. It’s going to be a hell of an age to do that, but I will say the career that I’m planning to train for (yet again) got me a job when I needed it. And it got me another job when I needed it. Then I stopped doing it because I got moved to another part of the company. But I ended up staying another eight and a half years. Not bad for a place I thought I’d be at for three years tops.

But yeah. It kind of tickles me when these people post these job requests. If you want a job, you do the job that needs doing. Never mind whether or not you like it. You want work, THIS is what you do. Need additional training? Suck it up and do it. I can ill afford to be like some of these people, who say they’ve been out of work for two years. How the hell are you surviving? Did you have $100,000 saved up and that’s what you’re living off? You’re just waiting around until someone hires you?

Personally, I don’t have the patience. I’d look for what needs doing NOW, blue collar, white collar, pink collar, whatever the fucking color collar, get training and do it.

I’ve reached the point in life where I will probably never have my dream job. When I come home, whenever that is, I just want a job. Something where I get decent training, they don’t expect me to learn everything on the job in 30 seconds, somewhere they won’t penalize me if I have a question, and I make more than $15 an hour.

My God.

I sound like THEM now.