Work

All right, so it's been a while since the Coyote sat his ass down and howled for a while. Usually I have a lot to say, as any of my friends (and various enemies) can attest. So why has it taken so long to write another blog and hopefully entertain people with rants on any subject under the sun?

Work.

I love my job. The only reason I don't talk about it much is because I don't want strangers reading about what I do for a living. Don't get excited. I'm not a pimp or a gunrunner, nor am I a spy for the CIA. Fact is, you've got to be very careful with blogs. Telling the world all about your family and your workplace might seem like a good idea at the time, until some idiot decides to screw you over for whatever it is you've said. Bitching about your boss or calling your mom a nag is not a good idea on the biggest party line in the universe.

Anyway, work's been taking up a lot of my time. I don't really look at it as work, because I like what I do and I get a lot perks out of it. For example, today I met a pretty cool guy who sings Latin love songs to make ends meet. After that, I went and chilled out with two young ladies who were soaking up the Brazilian sun with as much gusto as their oiled bodies could muster. Which is to say, not much.

I've never been a big fan of tanning. I find it a bore. Women covet it, but I can't understand why they use the word 'tanning' as a verb. "We're going tanning." That implies that they are going to do something. They aren't. They are going to lie down as if they've been shot by a Colt .45, and they are going to do it to the sweet sounds of Shakira coming out of their iPods.

Today's tanning episode got me thinking about work. You see, these two chicks are showgirls. That's their job. They're great friends and I love them to death. So as they were lying there, they asked me if I'd mind moving their chairs (whilst they were still lying on them) so that they could get a better angle from the sun. As women do, they had unstrapped their bikini tops and were lying on their stomachs. It was much easier for them to ask me to move the chairs, rather than tie the tops, get up, move the chairs, lie back down, and untie the tops again. So the thought crossed my mind to do it.

Then I saw something. Over their oiled, tanned, gorgeous kick-line butts, I saw a man painting a light fixture. He was sweating his balls off in the afternoon sun, paint chips all around him, the stink of varsol and epoxy in his nostrils.

I told the girls to stick it.

Point is, work is a pain in the ass for most people. I'm not one of them, and I'm lucky. The two showgirls, same thing. But most people don't enjoy what they do. I listen to people bitch about work all the time. If they aren't bitching about what goes on at work, then they bitch about the drive to work, the weather on the drive to work, the damn kids who need to be picked up after work, the good-for-nothing coffee machine that is broken in the break room, so forth. I know waiters that put in 12 hours a day for lousy tips, and I know financial advisors that want to murder the chairman of the Fed. In fact, now that I think of it, I hear a lot more bad things about work than I do good things. I bet you do, too.

It's hard to nail down what jobs are good and what jobs are bad. I hate bugs, but I once met a guy who was absolutely ecstatic about being a public health inspector. I mean, he loved it. He told me all kinds of things about cockroaches. He admired them. He told me that they are very smart and quite crafty. "Take the soda gun," he said. "People always forget to check there. I can go into a restaurant and not find one thing to gripe about. Then I take the top off the soda gun and look down the hose. Bingo. Eggs galore. Yeah, they like their sugar."

He smiled when he said that. I wanted to barf. He told me I wouldn't get hurt by roach eggs, but if it really bothered me I could just order soda in a can. Thanks.

Travelling through South America has given me a ton of choice Coyote Law #1 examples. Watching these guys build houses is as frightening as any horror movie. Nails and glass everywhere, lumber falling from the heavens, and these guys are all in bare feet. For head gear, they wear a sweat-soaked bandana or a dirty Yankees cap. (Random aside: the marketing guy for the Yankees is doing a hell of a good job; Yankees caps have dominated the entire planet, take it from me). Yet the builders look happy. Hot and tired and moving at an incredibly slow pace, but happy. And why not? In poor places, what are you going to bitch about? When you don't have something, it's hard to complain about it when it's broken.

That's the paradox of our culture. There was a dumb bumper sticker making the rounds a few years back that said, "He who dies with the most toys wins." Okay, but you have to work to get those toys. You've got to drink lousy coffee during meetings, and you have to take static from a fat blowhard that stinks of onion every time he passes by your desk. When you open up the box on the new DVD player, washer/dryer, microwave, or high-def television, you might feel like a kingpin, but you're merely forgetting the fact that you had to scrape ice off your windshield 72 times in order to buy the thing.

Work is a bitch because it's supposed to be a bitch. I complain as much as the next guy and immediately forget my own platitudes when someone pisses me off about some project or other. But then the check comes, and suddenly the angels sing from the heavens. I buy a round of drinks for the ladies, and I purchase a brand new something-or-other. Then it's back to work.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing all about how we wouldn't have to work when I was older. We'd have a ton of free time, because robots would be doing things for us, and we'd be able to fly our helicopters to the Hamptons whenever we wanted.

They lied to me, the bastards. Technology hasn't set us free from anything, because new laptops and kick-ass TVs cost money, and in order to get money, you have to do something for somebody. That's what work is, in case you've forgotten: doing something for somebody else. Unfortunately, people work harder when you pay them for it, which is why a deck built by a pro is level, and the one built by your cousin Todd is a piece of crap. I wish my job came with a billion dollar paycheck like the movie stars get, but it just ain't gonna happen. What most people do for a living doesn't have as big a price tag as what the movie star does. For some reason, millions of people want to watch Julia Roberts cry, but they don't want to see a guy shovel dirt. Strange.

So yes, work has taken up a lot of my time lately. But as said, I can't bitch. At least, not right now. But give me five minutes, and I'm sure I can think of something...