I’m an aspiring writer who works short-term temporary accounting jobs to pay the bills. I work temporary jobs because a) as a boring, anal-retentive profession that drains the life and fun out of you, accounting is best handled in one- or two-month doses, and b) temporary work is task-oriented and the companies don’t expect me to buy into their corporate propaganda, which means I show up in the morning, do my work and can go home at the end of the day with my precious identity intact. But try explaining my lack of a career to someone who drives a sport utility vehicle and has their time of retirement planned to the exact second. Good luck.

The phrase I truly love hearing from such folks these days is "real job." As in "when are you going to get a real job?" This, of course, is an euphemism for "career." Or "when are you going to join the rest of us in Corporate America so we can put a convenient label on you?" Real job - hmmm... okay, but along with a real job comes real meetings, real bosses who change their minds after you get your stuff done so you have to redo it, real whiners, real people with their real boring conversations, real bad coffee that only a few people don’t feel above making, the real copy machine that only a few bother to feed with paper, the real voice mail, real - actually phony - team spirit (corporations love teams unless workers form the biggest team possible - a union - then a team is a bad idea), real parking spaces, real (nonpaid) overtime, real assholes on the phone, real doublespeak from management worthy of 1984, real bad jokes, real office politics, real corporate bureaucracy and red tape, real cost-of-living increases, real company gatherings where we’re all supposed to pretend we’re a family or something, etc. Anyway, if I get one of those real jobs then the next step is to buy those materialist goods that go hand-in-hand with such career choices. The nice car. The nice house. The nice furniture. You get the point. I actually had a friend recently tell me that I should look into getting a cell (note prison connotation in that word) phone because they and their airtimes are coming down in price. Uh-huh. Let’s see, I hardly ever answer the phone at home, so why would I want to carry one of those things around with me? Anyway, I’m in this whole work thing solely for the money, not for an identity or some feeling of a job well done. I guess that pisses people off or disturbs them - but hey - that’s capitalism, baby.

Besides, I’m having too much fun being a temp. Not "fun" as in I joke around with my coworkers - office humor is at best forced, repetitive and basically lame-o. No, I have fun in more subversive ways. For instance, on my current assignment, there’s a guy in my department who’s going upwards on that proverbial corporate ladder and he’s got all of the corpspeak cliches down cold. When I’m working with him and he uses such language, I’ll play dumb and pretend to not understand. The other day he gave me this spreadsheet to work on and after explaining what needed to be done he asked "do you have the resources necessary to complete the task at hand?" I gave him a blank look. "Can you do this?" he finally asked. "Oh, yeah. No problem." I said and then because he thought I’m kinda slow I made sure to not complete the task at hand too quickly and worked on some baseball lineups using their software.

Another classic caper involved this software which I taught myself to use and after using it for about a day and half I got the reputation as being the department expert. So when people come to me with questions and I don’t know the answer I make something up. "Let’s see. You should always put a one in that field, no matter what." I don’t want to ruin my rep, ya know?

And it’s not like things aren’t challenging. Trying to not get busted for looking at the legs of the manager of the contracts department when she walks by is tough work. It used to be easy because she never looked in my direction anyway as she’s Suburban Ice personified with her medium-length black hair, serious demeanor, and business attire complete with the matching skirt and jacket and pumps. But last week we ended up riding in the same elevator at the start of the day and she was talking to the new cutie intern about the horrendous traffic and while she’s talking during our four floor journey, I’m sneaking peeks at her and constructing an elaborate fantasy where I’m at her mansion cleaning the pool or delivering groceries. She’s pouring me some iced tea and talking about how her husband doesn’t keep her satisfied and why doesn’t a handsome young man like me have a girlfriend and then SUDDENLY "did you notice that?" she asks me, we’re back in the elevator and it’s her first words to me ever and she’s talking about the traffic. "Yeah, it’s like New York City." I say and she nods and goes back to talking to the intern. I ride the bus, what the fuck do I know about traffic?

A big reason to avoid getting a real job at all is that to get one I would have to go through the interviewing process. Interviewing sucks. Maybe even as much as dating does. Ever notice they’re a lot alike? When you’re looking for an interview/date, you tell your friends to keep their eyes open for prospects. You might get desperate and scan the classifieds/personals. On the first interview/date you have to wear clothes you normally don’t, pay attention to the questions being asked of you, think of clever questions to ask, figure out which lies will help you, and figure out which lies you can get away with and not get busted for in the future. Then after some successful interviews/dates, you end up with a job/relationship, and it takes you away from what you really want to do, which is to sit at home and drink beer while watching sports on TV. After a while, you get sick of the job/relationship, and you go out to look for another one and have to tell your employer/lover little white lies about your absences. And the whole sick cycle starts over.

The last time I had an interview was months ago at a company which I had only sent my resume to because they’re located about a mile from where I live. Working in my neighborhood appeals to me. Not so much in the it’s-good-to-help-the-community’s-economy way so much as it appeals to me in the way that the commute is short, which means I would get to sleep in later. Plus the bus route would take me right by my favorite bar on the way home. I ended up filling out an application (like what is this: Burger World?), taking a personality test and sitting through interviews with two people. They then told me I was overqualified because it was an entry level position. Yeah, I’ve got your entry level right here. There’s an hour of my life I’ll never have back. I wonder if they ever considered maybe reading my resume? Shit, I coulda been at home seeing how I was doing in my NCAA hoops pool! I proceeded to go home, crack a locally-brewed longneck and listen to Appetite for Destruction at loud volume.

The following is a list of the answers I wish I’d give to the canned questions they ask in interviews. One of these days I might actually get brave (or drunk) before an interview and use these.

Describe yourself: "In the words of Iggy Pop: ‘I am the world’s forgotten boy / The one who searches to destroy’"

What is your greatest strength? "I can identify all the drug references - both explicit and hidden mind you - on Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street."

What is your greatest weakness? "Chicks, man. They drive me nuts just by smilin’ and tossin’ their hair back..."

What do you consider to be your biggest accomplishment? "I created my own weekly newsletter that details what kind of beer I keep in my fridge; what it’s like to hear certain songs on the radio in your car when you’re driving home from the grocery store; and how much I hate interviewing with corporate jackoffs like you who ask idiotic questions and preach teamwork but in actuality get to the top by stepping all over whatever nice persons get in your way."

Tell me about a situation in your past where you had to overcome adversity: "Way back in ‘84 I went to see the Replacements at the Regency Inn in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. I went with some of my buddies and we didn’t know who the hell the Replacements were, just that they were from Minneapolis and that they were some kind of punk band. Well, we got to the dance and ended up sitting down and just checking out the punks who were in the crowd. You see, we were all northern backwoods boys and had only seen punks on TV. After the opening band’s set, our eyes focused on a drunk punk just a few feet away from us. He was laughing and talking to his punk buddies and drinking some sort of mixed drink and then he proceeded to puke all over his shirt. My buddies and I were disgusted and amused at the same time. Ten minutes later the Replacements hit the stage and the aforementioned punk turns out to be their lead man, Paul Westerberg. The ‘Mats (as us later-to-be hipsters would come to refer to them) were loud, obnoxious and horrible. I hated them and truly thought they sucked. But many months later, with the persuasion of my friend Gary (who wasn’t at said Regency show and therefore didn’t have the built-in prejudice against drunk punk bands who vomit on themselves; actually, he probably would have thought it was pretty damn cool - too bad he wasn’t there too show us the beauty of the whole thing) I gave the ‘Mats a second try and they went on to become one of my all-time favorite bands. There used to be a saying that defined overcoming adversity - ‘You have to hate the Replacements before you can love them.’"

A family member was baffled when I told him that I’m not looking for a real job because "I’m taking more time off" and asked "how can you take time off from doing nothing?" "Kinda Zen-like, isn’t it?" was my response and I almost got away with it, but then he went on to point out how these periods of underemployment don’t look good to interviewers. Don’t know why I’m supposed to be living my life in fear of what some future interviewer or employer might think. Flash back to college when I was told that I had to join some clubs, societies, etc. so that it would "look good on my resume." Instead, I hung out with my friends swilling beer, listening to loud music, fantasizing about coeds, etc. Flash ahead ten years. Whatever geekoids/ass-kissers/wannabe yuppies joined those clubs are now in some shit jobs, meekly agreeing with whatever their bosses say, going to all the company functions "because it looks good to the executives" and probably unhappily married. Me? I’m happily underemployed and swilling beer with my buddies, listening to loud music, fantasizing about gals in coffee shops, etc. Joke’s on them, I guess.

- Damaged Goods #2, 1997

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