![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I decided years ago that the pleasantness of a job was generally inversely proportional to what I got paid for it; it's the kind of thing that makes you have contempt for wealth, innit. My new part-time job pays even better than the day-job, and in theory it is a mixture of taxes (mostly small business), data entry and learning how to be an accounting clerk, which is exactly what I wanted, omg yes, the inevitable catch being, um.
Accounting creates paper - really, money creates paper - and I guess it requires a strong will to bind that paper to an orderly filing system. My new employer does not seem to possess this skill. My cubicle is walled with documents in drawers, stacks and literal shoeboxes, still advertising 'PillowSoles' or something and biroed over with months and names. There's a quarter-inch layer of dust on the backs of some of the office chairs. Also in my cubicle were three boxes of floppy discs, a Red Sox drinking cup, a CD that, to the creeping horror of my inner homestuck, was labelled 'DAVE'S PIX', and a framed picture of the Everett Little League 2002. I wondered if anyone else had ever wondered how many of them can vote now. The mysterious Dave had also left a bottle of pharmacy-grade ibuprofen - I didn't check how old it was or if there was anything still in it. In the back I found paper in giant sacks. At this point I knew I was in the smalltown-accounting equivalent of L-space and was not destined to emerge for three months.
My new employer is a quiet-mannered elderly man and his smalltalk is about bank reconciliation, mobsters and Vladimir Putin and this is the part where I realised he is actually unhinged, although it wasn't until later that he started with the periodic maniacal laughter. The mob is somehow connected to the People Upstairs, who are hacking into his computers. I'm not 1337 or anything but I couldn't help but notice that said computers aren't password-protected and Windows Firewall is turned off, and I am still not sure how I stopped myself from corpsing when I realised this. The smalltalk is, in general, rambling and encouraging and polite and I know that at some point I am going to drop off some mental patience cliff and feel less nicey-nice about being patronised for money. The things I do for money. He isn't sure of my name, but thinks it is one of two things that are not my name but share a couple of consonants in common with it.
I am learning allegedly useful things, on antiquated software that introduces tons of redundancies and opportunities for human error. I don't like his tax program and amazed it functions for 2012 law, and after asking a few questions I realised that it's not so much that he's not good at this shit as that he doesn't care if anyone's return is factually accurate or not. This isn't quite like the situation I was in with D.M., where I knew she was an incompetent hack in every respect; somehow, this guy makes enough money to not mind paying me an exorbitant sum for incredibly light work, even given all the mess and his seeming nonchalance about whether so-and-so does or does not owe money to the State of Maine. (Apparently Maine is scary and will manifest and do terrible things if you draw attention to yourself by speaking its name. I want to see it go ten rounds with Ohio now. Ohio is the state that beats you down if you try to leave. (can someone please ban me from engaging in state revenue department kismesis shipping.)) I can go with the climate, sure, but it is more or less the opposite to how my pernickety brain works.
Now look, America, I know you have this weird narrative kink for small businesses, but I can't help but notice that they are mostly terrible, dead-end places to work and the people who run them generally do so because they're too unstable to hold down a job working for anyone else. I have worked almost entirely for bugfuck crazy managers, but it's the self-employed ones who have been the least functional.
(no really, I have only worked for three outwardly normal and reasonable people, two of whom were shackled to a bugfuck business partner - and I may be being generous in including Dani K here, who was a complete dream to work for (and I barely saw her asshole partner) but who watched Fox News in the office all the time; the third would be nice newboss at otherjob, so I may just not have found out what's wrong with her yet. Not sure how unusually bad my luck is.)
Accounting creates paper - really, money creates paper - and I guess it requires a strong will to bind that paper to an orderly filing system. My new employer does not seem to possess this skill. My cubicle is walled with documents in drawers, stacks and literal shoeboxes, still advertising 'PillowSoles' or something and biroed over with months and names. There's a quarter-inch layer of dust on the backs of some of the office chairs. Also in my cubicle were three boxes of floppy discs, a Red Sox drinking cup, a CD that, to the creeping horror of my inner homestuck, was labelled 'DAVE'S PIX', and a framed picture of the Everett Little League 2002. I wondered if anyone else had ever wondered how many of them can vote now. The mysterious Dave had also left a bottle of pharmacy-grade ibuprofen - I didn't check how old it was or if there was anything still in it. In the back I found paper in giant sacks. At this point I knew I was in the smalltown-accounting equivalent of L-space and was not destined to emerge for three months.
My new employer is a quiet-mannered elderly man and his smalltalk is about bank reconciliation, mobsters and Vladimir Putin and this is the part where I realised he is actually unhinged, although it wasn't until later that he started with the periodic maniacal laughter. The mob is somehow connected to the People Upstairs, who are hacking into his computers. I'm not 1337 or anything but I couldn't help but notice that said computers aren't password-protected and Windows Firewall is turned off, and I am still not sure how I stopped myself from corpsing when I realised this. The smalltalk is, in general, rambling and encouraging and polite and I know that at some point I am going to drop off some mental patience cliff and feel less nicey-nice about being patronised for money. The things I do for money. He isn't sure of my name, but thinks it is one of two things that are not my name but share a couple of consonants in common with it.
I am learning allegedly useful things, on antiquated software that introduces tons of redundancies and opportunities for human error. I don't like his tax program and amazed it functions for 2012 law, and after asking a few questions I realised that it's not so much that he's not good at this shit as that he doesn't care if anyone's return is factually accurate or not. This isn't quite like the situation I was in with D.M., where I knew she was an incompetent hack in every respect; somehow, this guy makes enough money to not mind paying me an exorbitant sum for incredibly light work, even given all the mess and his seeming nonchalance about whether so-and-so does or does not owe money to the State of Maine. (Apparently Maine is scary and will manifest and do terrible things if you draw attention to yourself by speaking its name. I want to see it go ten rounds with Ohio now. Ohio is the state that beats you down if you try to leave. (can someone please ban me from engaging in state revenue department kismesis shipping.)) I can go with the climate, sure, but it is more or less the opposite to how my pernickety brain works.
Now look, America, I know you have this weird narrative kink for small businesses, but I can't help but notice that they are mostly terrible, dead-end places to work and the people who run them generally do so because they're too unstable to hold down a job working for anyone else. I have worked almost entirely for bugfuck crazy managers, but it's the self-employed ones who have been the least functional.
(no really, I have only worked for three outwardly normal and reasonable people, two of whom were shackled to a bugfuck business partner - and I may be being generous in including Dani K here, who was a complete dream to work for (and I barely saw her asshole partner) but who watched Fox News in the office all the time; the third would be nice newboss at otherjob, so I may just not have found out what's wrong with her yet. Not sure how unusually bad my luck is.)