Tales From a Female Traveller

So it's monday and I'm back at the 9 to 5-er.

With my big trip looming you might imagine that I am pouring over every single guidebook I can get my hands on for every area of my journey. Right?

Well that's true to some extent. But there's only so much you can do with a guidebook before you trek off to the destination that's making that bug itch. So what else can you do? My answer was to watch The Motorcycle Diaries. Now don't get me wrong, I am no extreme leftist guerilla soldier... but I am travel addicted, and I seem to be drawn to anything inspiring and The Motorcycle Diaries is just that.
At the core, it's a beautiful tale of friendship and new discoveries. Friendship between Ernesto and his friend Alberto, frienship between them and the people they meet and friendship between the two men and the lepor patients they volunteered to help treat. Watching this story only made me want to move my trip forward and leave straight away. But it got me thinking about a few certain things.

I think I may go insane if I don't leave soon. I am sick of the money hungry businessmen who think they alone are the most important people in the universe. Like booking their parking space for their meeting is a life or death situation. It's amazing how they can feel so big about themselves when a life or death situation in Africa boils down to whether or not you'll get your bag of rice for the month. It pales in comparison to the parking space dilemma. God forbid he has to pay the $2 metre fee to park on the street.

Sometimes I feel so insignificant to any of this. What is the point in it all? I come to work, I sit at my desk, I play the game to get my pay, I go home, I sleep, and wake up to do it all again the next day. And for what? To provide a service to someone who could care less what my name is and then expect me to be all "yay, go team"... as though the "team" actually mattered to anything but producing more money.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Oh she's just another jilted girl who's sick of her boring job. And honestly, I am sick of the job. But my main question is, what is it all for? Think about it... if you're a telemarketer, secretary, an administration assistant in ANY large company.. do you really think they believe all that team propaganda they put out? Some people are happy to be one of the masses and have the routine I described above. It provides stability, an income and a profession if they choose to take it seriously, and that's fine if that's what you want. But I feel I want more. I don't feel that the 9 to 5-er is something that I would strive to achieve.

Here's an example of what I am talking about. Every year the company I work for has a huge.. let's just say... party.. for interests sake... to report to its faithful employees what's in store for the year ahead. It's normally a pretty fun thing once the boring business centered speeches are over and the bar tab kicks in... but I just find the whole thing so rediculous in the big picture of things. It's supposed to be all about team building and I am expected to go. But... in the "team" that I am supposed to be a part of, it'll be just me going to this event! You see, my boss is having the day off, my partner is on leave for two weeks, the admin co-ord is taking leave and the admin junior is also not going.. so that leaves me. So you can see my gripe? It's just all so fake. It makes so much more sense NOT to spend the money on rediculous events like this, give everyone a cash incentive and let them get to their jobs so they can earn their money, go home and forget about the crap job they have! LOL. But I digress, I am being cynical. It's a reflection of my frustration with the mundane.

All in all, the job isn't what I am bitching over, the job is fine. It's all the people I describe above. The people who call up and abuse the first person that takes the call because one of the hundreds of people the company employs hasn't returned a call in the past .3 seconds, the people who, even though they are aware you did not personally reject their cheque insist on you doing something yourself to get it authorised and that if you don't they will report you to your respective manager, or the people who call and ask for "Chris", and when you ask which Chris, they respond with "I don't know, couldn't you find out?".... like... YEAH... I'll happily put you on hold to make dozens of phonecalls to every single Chris in the building asking if they called someone from Adelaide WHILE taking every single other call that comes through AND deal with every other issue that happens in that exact instant.... right. Sure, I'll put you on hold... but as far as calling around... forget it. I really love the whole business world. It's so friendly and rational.

Anyhoo.... so here I am at work... wishing I was elsewhere.... I'm sure you all feel the same way.

posted by Lucyspeak @ 2:43 pm