Or: Why one should do shit jobs every now and then.

Today is a day spent entirely on the most brain-dead job I’ve ever been able to imagine, let alone have been involved in. It comes down to sitting next to a person, doing absolutely nothing expect for pushing a certain button when this person, my respondent, moves and starts a new activity. I can’t think of anything more boring. However, it pays extraordinarily well and the best thing of it all is: I can bring my laptop along and write all day while being paid for pressing a button twenty times a day or so. There’s no better deal possible, is there?

Nevertheless, having plenty of time on my hands, this job triggers me to think about other shitty jobs I have had in the past. I remember counting traffic while standing at a crossroad at 6 o’clock in the morning. On another occasion, I had to pick paper napkins off plates at the beginning of the dishwashing process in a hospital restaurant. Note to my fellow beings: quit stuffing your napkins inside of your drinking glasses. It’s disgusting. Thank you. I have also spent a lot of time in a liquor factory, some days checking the labels on the bottles, other days sticking the same labels on the same bottles manually. And let’s not forget my cleaning jobs. Who wouldn’t enjoy plucking pubic hairs out of the urinals of office blocks before cleaning them? Yes, shitty jobs, I’ve done them all.

And, despite the nature of these jobs, I’ve always considered doing them as one of my better traits. I was standing on my own feet, making my own money, contributing to society. It made me feel proud.

Evil ex Willard didn’t share this point of view. In fact, he thought quite the opposite. Coming from a keeping up appearances, middle class, but desperate to be upper class, family, he refused to do any work that he considered ‘beneath him’. Persistently holding on to this opinion, he chose to be unemployed for several periods in his life, waiting for a worthy job to come along, in the meantime living of money from the government and his mum.

Being someone who doesn’t mind getting dirty hands, I had quite some difficulties respecting him for this. I remember a very penniless period during my study years. I was about to leave the house to go clean another office block: ten euros for two hours of labour. The office block was at the other side of town.
“That little money?” he started to whine. “I’ll give you a tenner if you are so desperate for some cash…” he continued to impose his negative views on me.
“That’s not the point, you idiot!” I replied. We weren’t very far from our final break-up by then. “It’s the fact that I actually work for it. Something you don’t seem to understand, you mommy’s money mooching prick!”

You see, I have a philosophy about this. Doing shitty jobs shows your willingness to work for your money. Even more important, it also shows you what other people might do for their entire lives. Yes, you may study and have the prospect of earning real money by the time you are 25 or 30. But some of us will continue to snatch pubic hairs out of toilet bowls forever more. Moreover, shitty jobs let you experience what it’s like to be considered a lower being, merely because you occupy a low position. For instance, the young woman that’s my respondent today acts like I’m an ugly, twitching cockroach. She really despises me. She doesn’t ask me anything, no small talk, no interaction at all. I’m sure she doesn’t realise I’m probably both older and higher educated than her. Doing a shitty job sure makes you rethink your own prejudices.

Considering that, I doubt anybody can ever really enjoy his or her job nor be truly grateful for what they do, if they have never experienced what it’s like to be on the lowest sport of the ladder. I cannot describe the glow of happiness I felt inside when I found out about Matt’s past dirty and shitty jobs. I think that could well have been the moment I knew he was the one.

Column published by Cecile on Monday, May 12th, 2008.

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