NO You May NOT Have Cheese With That Whine.

I don't know who created this, but I concur. 

I walked forlornly to the break room to get yet another cup of coffee and found myself wishing I was retrieving a shot of Jaeger….. at 10am. What could possibly drive a grown ass woman to feel the need to anesthetize with shitty liquor at 10 am on a Friday morning? I’ll tell you what. WHINING MEN. I’m pretty certain that a propensity to whine might be the most unattractive quality in a grown man, or really any male over the age of 9. (Okay. Perhaps lack of cleanliness, dishonesty and pedophile mustaches are less attractive, but that’s splitting hairs). After that age, you need to get it together and put your big boy pants on. I’m not saying whining is more tolerable in grown women. For me, however, it’s not an issue of attractive or not, it’s just plain annoying.

            So, perhaps said male needs a juice box and can’t find one so he’s whining thinking his mommy is listening, but I’m not his/your mom and don’t want to hear it. As I am not into polygamy it is most likely I am also not said male’s girlfriend/wife either. Again, I don’t want to hear it. And if I were the girlfriend, not only would I not want to hear it, I would probably make fun of you for the whining. Well, frankly, I might just do that anyway.

             The topic in whining that has been grating my last nerve lately is that of work. Perhaps I have a different perspective on work in general being a musician who has a “day job.” We collectively call these jobs “day jobs” and it is understood by the entire professional music community that this is a thing we do during the day which we’d rather not be doing that pays the bills. We only take these awful things when our true interest and skill set is not providing ample cash flow. I’m a horn player. I want to do that. When I go home from my “day job” I still have to do my real job, which is to keep practicing my instrument for no pay until someone calls me and offers me an acceptable sum of money for it. When I get up to go to work in the morning, my attitude is such that I will certainly work hard at work and do my best, because that is what I am paid to do. Sure, I'd rather be at the beach or the spa, but the employers and I have a mutual agreement that I will do what I was hired to do and then they will give me a check. It works out quite well and I don’t see anything wrong with the situation. I certainly don't waste my energy complaining about it. So, why do people come to work and complain about having to do work at work?

            Is this a problem that comes from people having never had to work in service jobs or other thankless jobs where you work extra hard and get paid not very much? I’m referencing things such as retail, food service, cleaning houses…  Or are these nitwits taught in university that they are smart and shouldn’t have to do much or anything in a timely fashion? I used to drop my jaw in disbelief when I heard about how many former schoolmates at Harvard would get extensions for papers and projects. You know what happened at Indiana University if you asked for an extension or any special treatment? They laughed in your face. Oh, you were sick? No one cares. Oh, someone died? Show me a death certificate. I'm not joking. People were asked to see death certificates for missing rehearsals/concerts. Real life training.

So these WHINERS who spend more time whining about how busy they are and how much work they have to do than actually DOING the work seem to have this idea that people are interested in listening to their “sob story.” They’re missing some key knowledge of workplace dynamics – everyone knows who’s making more money than he is. If you’re whining to me about how much work you have to do at your job and how much it is inconveniencing your desires to be on Facebook or eat peanuts, I am sitting there thinking, “Buddy, you make more money than I do to do that stuff, so shut your trap.” And trust that many people who make less than you do and are at lower level jobs are not there because they aren’t smart enough to do YOUR job, but because they’re smart enough to know they don’t WANT to do your job. And if you’re whining to your boss, your boss is probably thinking, “Well what the hell am I paying you for? If you don’t want to do your job, maybe I should find someone else to do it.”

There is enough negativity in the world. And there are things going on that are distressing that matter. The fact that you forgot your big boy pants and think that I want to listen to you whine does not matter. Not in the least. Stop contributing to the bad juju with your bitching! Nobody wants to hear it. If I have to hear it before I’ve had ample amounts of caffeine, I can’t guarantee you that I won’t come after your face with some mouth-shaped foam packing and a piece of tape.

Do You Work With Someone Who Moves Slower Than A Goldfish In An Icecube?

I always smile and look at the sky when I carry
heavy shit. Don't you? YAY, WORK!

           Working is great. I love working. I love practicing my instrument. I love writing. Well, actually – I hate writing, but I love that I can do it by myself. I believe the biggest problem I have with work is when I have to do it at a workplace, with other people, but who DOESN’T have that problem. As musicians, we get a bit spoiled with the amount of time we’re expected to actually collaborate with others. Rehearsals and concerts are generally not longer than two to three hours, as opposed to your usual eight or nine hour work day.

            They attempt to prepare you for a real world work environment by giving you “group projects” in school. Those would be the ones where one kid thinks he knows how to do everything (but doesn’t) and tries to guide the project. Then there are the kids who don’t have any idea what’s going on and drool drips out their mouths while they listen to the kid who thinks he knows what’s going on as he has arguments with the nerdy hardworking kid who doesn’t want to fail the project and hates group projects even more than he hates the letter F. Inevitably the one kid who knows what’s going on does the entire project, builds up enormous amounts of resentment towards the other kids for letting him do all the work, enormous amounts of resentment towards the obnoxious kid who thinks he knows everything and will take all the credit, and enormous amounts of resentment towards the teacher for assigning the group project in the first place. I think this aligns fairly well with your average work environment. You have your know-it-all(s) who do nothing and pretend they're busy, your slow people who don’t get anything done, your bosses, and the people who get stuck doing all the work and cleaning up the messes.

            I find it really interesting how many different interpretations there are of the word “work” at work. I generally find that when I go to “work” I assume I am supposed to be “working,” as in not reading my personal email, not looking at porn, not on Facebook, not going for meandering walks around the building, not on the phone with my Great Aunt Hilda’s dog psychiatrist, and not hanging out in the bathroom. I was surprised when I learned that this was not a universally agreed upon thought. There are also several different speeds for getting things done at work. While a rational person might think the most desirable speed for completing a task would be as fast as efficiently possible, that rational person might be wrong! Other speeds for accomplishing tasks I have encountered in the work force are slow, constipated whale shit, stop, and dead grandma. And then there’s this really odd interpretation of who owns company property. I used to think that things bought for your store or company, such as office supplies, toilet paper, and Creamer for the coffee were for the office and taking them home would be the equivalent of stealing product. I didn’t know that I was wrong about that too. At least the majority opinion seems to imply that I’m wrong about that.

            On the Internet I found a definition of the word “work” to be, “Be engaged in physical or mental activity in order to achieve a purpose or result.” I Googled it. I suppose if you use that definition, the "purpose or result" could encompass quite a wide variety of goals. So really, all your coworkers have to do to actually be doing “work” at your job to fulfill this definition is killing brain cells…..