It's Called Work, not Fun

(Me at the Knit Nook, 2007 or so.)

It's not that I don't like working. I love the IDEA of working. I like getting paid. And I like looking for jobs. Not when I'm unemployed because that sucks. I like looking for jobs when I should be working at my current job. Because the main thing I don't like about having a job is having to go and do stuff.

Where did this laziness come from? I'm the daughter of an immigrant who worked hard in that stereotypical "I came to this country with nothing, but now look at my ostentatious things!" Success = Money way. All of my cousins inherited this drive, especially MCTVC (My Cousin the Venture Capitalist). But while he was busting his butt taking summer classes at Purdue and building elaborate science fair exhibits, I was reading books (and not like great literature. I'm talking the "My Teacher is An Alien" series.) When he was debating whether or not to go to medical school or to get his MBA at Harvard and instead did BOTH, I decided to buy a yarn store and maybe start writing YA novels.

And then there's the other side of my family that came over on the Mayflower. (As I once said, "I'm a Daughter of the American Revolution. On my mother's side." To which the person responded, "Yeah, DUH!") These are well-educated white people, repressed and polite, who work hard. They save money. They don't buy things they can't afford. They have many degrees and steady careers that pay pensions. (In fields that still have pensions!) But while my grandparents suggested education classes or a law degree, I was like, "Nah. I think I'm gonna major in English at an expensive private school and then SEE WHAT HAPPENS."

So what gives? I got immigrant American Dream energy on one side, and the Protestant Work Ethic on the other. And I hate working. It's like these two things canceled each other out. Two positives making a negative (Yes, I am an English major, but I still know that this is bad math. More importantly, it is a bad analogy.)

Sometimes I think that it's not work in general, but my job specifically. Because it would be fun to work someplace else! Like a museum. A library. The Gap! (Janeane Garofalo's character in Reality Bites and cheap jeans--'nuff said.) But I should know better than anybody that work is work. I owned a yarn store for five years, worked in one for almost ten. And how many times did somebody say, "Wow, it must be so much fun to work in a yarn store!" and I just wanted to slap their faces? (The answer: lots.)

It's like one of those Claritin commercials, where people have ridiculous jobs that only people on TV have, but even they have to deal with problems. "I can't deal with these allergies! I have a vineyard to run!"