The Benefits Package

Friends,

I’ve been thinking recently about why on Earth I’d want to drive an hour and a quarter each way to work each day. What about it, besides the paycheck, that compels me to leave my alpine paradise for the grit and traffic of the Coachella Valley. It’s certainly not a moral imperative for me to help the help the homeless. “To Serve Man” was a cookbook, after all.

It’s not the bubbly personalities at my little I.T. fiefdom. After all, it’s not hard to imagine that they put up with my nonsense and present a half-smile only because they might want some new piece of equipment at some point. It’s certainly not that I’m appreciated—I don’t get that vibe whatsoever.

The only thing (on top of the paycheck, which isn’t supporting the fuel bills) that I’m getting out of the whole thing is, sadly, seasonal. It’s cold up here, but it’s warm down there. I get the chance to thaw out during the day.

That’s it. No real job satisfaction to speak of. I do what I do, unchallenged, unprovoked. Standard-issue office politics abound. There are cheerful and chirpy newcomers who might as well have “throw me to the wolves” tattooed on their foreheads. Jaded old-timers, keen to point out how everything sucks. Tweeners who think they can buck the system and change the world. I don’t swirl in any of those circles.

The closest I come is by being able to deal with the management there. There’s a weird deal going on at San Diego’s Omnipresent Charitable Organization’s Far Eastern Outpost. They feel like second class citizens, which isn’t too surprising considering they’re an outpost, but they have a certain reverence for refugees from the mothership, like myself. Maybe reverence isn’t the right word. Trepidation might be better. I might be a spy for the “home office” for all they know.

Being the weird outsider (insider), I’m given a wide berth. One of the thoughts I had about working there was to interrupt the self-imposed isolation of mountain living. To mix it up all week with actual people. Despite the +40 degree temperature change between there and here, I’m really not feeling the warmth.

So what next?

Your pal,

bob