Since I started this job a month ago, there are many four letter words that pop into my head throughout the day. Those are the dirty ones like "shit" or "damn" and sometimes even an "f-bomb". I have to admit, shit is one of my favorite words in the English language. It's so versatile. It can be used in frustration, anger or disbelief. Sometimes that's the only word that comes out of my mouth when I'm laughing so hard. And if you throw a "holy" in front of it you can really get your point across. Ironically, my current employment happens to be in a holy place that I probably shouldn't be using words like shit as much as I am.
I'm working for a Catholic not for profit organization. I always pictured myself to be much older when I'd be working in a place where there was a crucifix on every wall. Back in 1987, I had an opportunity to work for the General Counsel of the Archdiocese of Chicago. I was just a couple years out of college and getting back into my religion after taking time off to explore other "higher" beings. I went downtown to look at the office space and after perusing the area realized my boss had placed me 2 doors down from Cardinal Joe and directly across from the Chapel. My exact words to him were "I can't say "shit" here can I?" He gently replied "no". So, I turned down the job and went to work in the commercial finance industry for the next 22 years. In that environment I could say whatever four letter words I wanted because we were a for profit organization lending money to rich people so they could get richer. And after a while, the most important four letter word seemed to be "cash" and how much of it we were going to make after the rich people paid back our loans. Everyone seemed to be happy the way things were going for those 22 years. Until last fall when the credit world crumbled and none of the rich or poor people could pay back their loans. In case you didn't notice, rich, poor and loan are also four letter words.
So now I've entered a whole new world in not for profit. I've done a fair amount of volunteering for these types of organizations but now that I'm a temporary employee I feel like I should take my job a bit more seriously. Since I'm getting paid in cash and holy cards, I'm trying to be as productive and professional as I can. I truly am happy to be back in the swing of getting up and reporting to work everyday. It's how I'm wired and I know that simply from not having anywhere to be for the last 8 months. I did not however, expect the frustration level to be as high as it is doing the Lord's work. And I certainly didn't think I'd be swearing under my breath as much as I am.
The job I was assigned to do seems pretty simple. I'm taking orders for parish calendars. They're the same spiral calendars that my grandparents had in their house and my parents have in their house. At the bottom of the calendar is the church name with the Mass times and next to it is typically an ad for a funeral home. I never quite understood why churches always want to align themselves with death. Why don't they ask the local Greek diner to advertise? I know I'd much rather check out an ad for where I can devour an omelette after Mass instead of staring at an ad that will lovingly and gently handle my remains. But, I was not charged with sales or marketing for this job. My task at hand is to get these churches to go from paper to paperless with their ad information. It's clergy meets computers.
Computers can be frightening and I get that. It's a big change taking a completely counterproductive process and streamlining it for maximum efficiency and cost savings. The calendars are free to the churches and 100% of the proceeds from the ads go to the small, mission churches located in remote areas around the country. So my first week or so, I was very sympathetic when listening to church personnel tell me they didn't know how to use the computer very well. After a couple weeks I became a bit empathetic listening to more tales of woe but I was starting to say "shit" under my breath a lot. But now, I'm in my 4th week and fully entrenched in this crap (a four letter word) and I just think most of their stories are pathetic. I mean, I spend anywhere from 3 minutes to 20 minutes listening to these people belly-ache about how tough this is and why do they have to do "my job". Hey, guess what, this isn't MY JOB and your calendars are FREE! And the best part is, all of the callers that like to tell me how terrible this new system is always end with a "God Bless You". Ok, wait a minute. You just chewed me out because you're too lazy (another four letter word) to take 10 minutes to typeset your ad and you just said "God Bless You" to me before slamming down the phone? I'm afraid by next week I'm going to be so tainted by this experience if a priest tells me it's too hard to type his church ad on the computer I might just reply "no shit but you still have to do it Padre!"
I am working harder than I have in a long time. It's not that it's really challenging work, it's just very tedious and there are no breaks in the day. I only have this job until the end of November and I don't really want to be released before my expiration date. I think while I'm there I'll try to focus on a different four letter word so I don't get fired for swearing at a priest. Maybe "pray" would be a good place to start.
Today's EiPod: "Dirty Work", Steely Dan
