Life: Full-time Job; Benefits Optional
March 24, 2005
Life is pretty hectic isn’t it?
If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Work… school… soccer practice… family/friendly obligations. Factor in all of the things we can’t avoid, like paying bills… cleaning (which I guess is technically avoidable)… grocery shopping… getting up in the morning… and it seems like there’s never really a spare moment. I won’t even begin to talk about the added work required to run a family and keep it functioning! Needless to say, living is a full time job. How do we do it all with only 24 hours a day? 30 would be better… maybe even 35.
While there’s no easy answer to the how, there apparently *is* an answer somewhere. I mean, we do it… don’t we? Most of us even manage to set aside a few hours for sleep here and there. There are exceptions, as always. But for the most part, we all keep going and chugging away with life here on planet Earth. Maybe if we were on a slower moving planet we’d have more time to get things done… maybe days would be longer… maybe a year would be 665 days instead of our Earthly 365.
They say life has a lot to offer. Oh does it ever! Just look at the list above and then add your own personal additions. Don’t worry… you can use the back of the page if you need more space. You’ve worked hard for that job you go to. You’ve sacrificed a lot to raise that family. You’ve killed off billions of skin cells in your hands keeping your house spotless and made even more fat cells happy with all that grocery shopping. Really… that’s a lot for life to offer. And we can’t seem to get enough of it. Wake up… work… kill cells… fatten cells… rinse… repeat… keep out of mouth and eyes… do not induce vomiting…
Most full time jobs offer some sort of benefits package, don’t they? Other than the full time job of parent, housewife, or any of the other pay-less jobs, most offer something to make it worth your wild (and yes, even those pay-less jobs offer something of their own). Benefits packages usually include some sort of paid time off, sick pay, medical/dental/sometimes vision insurance, and if you’re lucky, a stock option or 401k plan of some sort, right?
So, in exchange for devoting your time and energy to their cause, your employer is going to give you the “benefit” of being able to afford to be sick (because come on… it’s under your control… duh). And if you *do* choose to be sick, they might even give you the benefit of being able to afford to go see the doctor. If your teeth are rotting out, they may even let you afford to go pay the dentist to rip them out (you can’t do that at home with a string and a heavy door anymore). Some employers even allow their employees to funnel some of their money back into the company stock so the bigwig’s one million of shares of stock will be worth five cents more each. Of course, the employee does get something back out of the stock as well… each employee’s 40 shares of stock goes up five cents too!
Employees can’t seem to say no the benefits package, either. In fact, the most commonly given reason for why people work full time is the benefits package. I mean, let’s face it… those benefits are hard to pass up. I’m sure being given a paycheck helps, too. But most people would leave a job with a paycheck in an instant for one with a paycheck AND benefits. So my question then becomes: life… where’s my paycheck? Where are my benefits?
It seems like you can’t spit out a bitten-off fingernail without hitting someone who’s bitching about how busy they are. I should know… I bitch about it all the time. It’s one of the few universals that all people in the U.S. can agree on. We can’t choose a President together… we can’t decide on abortion together… we can’t even decide if we want the McRib to stick around permanently or not (it’s back… it’s gone… it’s back… it’s gone… come on… make up your mind… the thing is nasty… let’s just be rid of it once and for all). But we can all agree that life needs a serious serving of anti-lock brakes and a nice, cushy airbag with flower-scented air inside. At the very least we should be able to have one of those limo-style partitions installed to put up whenever life gets too frisky in the back seat.
I’m not going to hold my breath waiting to get paid for simply being alive. Paris Hilton might be able to pull if off, but I can’t (someone should seriously talk to payroll about that). But what can be done about that holy grail of a benefits package? Should I hold my breath and wait for that? Do you? Are you swollen and blue like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka’s factory? Do you want it and want it now? Stick in a pin in yourself and deflate quickly… it’s never going to be given to any of us.
But don’t worry… hope is not lost.
You can work your full time job and get your benefits package at the same time (and maybe have your cake and eat it too if you’ve got the extra time). But it’s not going to be given to you. We’re going to have to go drag that little bugger into the picture… kicking and screaming, if need be. Life will take and take and take until it can’t take anymore… if you let it. Life owes you nothing. It doesn’t owe any of us a damn thing. Nor does anyone else. You can save the lives of a thousand orphans on a burning bus (it’s a very large bus… or very small orphans… stay with me here)… and still, you’re not really owed anything. But that doesn’t mean you can’t collect on the debt life has created in your existence.
The only person that owes you anything *is* you and, luckily, it’s your choice whether or not you make a withdrawal from the cosmic cash machine of benefits to repay yourself for the full-time job you never applied for and never accepted.
Become your own most annoying bill collector and start harassing yourself for repayment (even on Sundays). Make a list of all of the debts you’ve racked up and then come up with a repayment plan of benefits. Don’t go easy on yourself either. You’ve been a horrible debtor… one not to be given any more credit. Throw the book at yourself and make the repayment plan as full and time consuming as you want. Don’t just take a vacation from work. If you take a vacation from work, take one not just from the nine to five… take one from any and all forms of work, even if that means the effort of even waking up. Take off a week, and spend an entire day in bed… then an entire day in the tub… eat your own body weight in pudding on the third… walk out in the woods and lay in an abandoned beaver’s den for hours on the forth… whatever floats YOUR boat. Do something for you. Or do nothing at all. Absolutely nothing can be great when it comes to how you spend your time.
Life will never slide a great job offer across the table for you to consider. It will punch you in the face, knock out your teeth, and then give you ice to crunch for an hour. When you’re done, wipe the blood off your chin, lock the door, turn off the ringer, and spend a relaxing day on the floor… gumming a McRib… and whittling new wooden teeth…
Posted in Advice, Human Nature, Noteworthy
July 7th, 2006 at 10:09 am
[...] Back in March of last year, I wrote this in a post called Life: Full-time Job; Benefits Optional: You can work your full time job [live your life] and get your benefits package at the same time (and maybe have your cake and eat it too if you’ve got the extra time). But it’s not going to be given to you. We’re going to have to go drag that little bugger into the picture… kicking and screaming, if need be. Life will take and take and take until it can’t take anymore… if you let it. Life owes you nothing. It doesn’t owe any of us a damn thing. Nor does anyone else. You can save the lives of a thousand orphans on a burning bus (it’s a very large bus… or very small orphans… stay with me here)… and still, you’re not really owed anything. But that doesn’t mean you can’t collect on the debt life has created in your existence. [...]
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