Playing Hooky

I woke up this morning with a familiar ache in my stomach that dictated immediately the fact that I should not go to work. After my two cups of coffee and an hour of reflection while watching the news, I broke down and called my boss. Whenever I am new to a job, the first time calling in sick is always the most difficult. No matter how true or untrue my illness may be, I always feel that the first get out of work free card will result in a downward spiral ultimately leading to the demise of my performance and employment. The same is true for other such behaviors as well...such as scribbling personal notes in my work-issued notepad or reading get fuzzy in the morning over my third cup of coffee. I have had these obsessive kinds of feelings since I was a child at school, and whether they be psychological, superstitious or otherwise have pretty much always held true. The first call is the point at which I believe I begin to sabotage myself. I often wonder if this is true for others as well.
My second measure is whether or not I am called by said employer. This tells me just how available a resource I have made myself...how dependent on me I have allowed them to become. I had hoped that I would not be summoned, but, considering the fact that I was promoted on my second day and have become their virtually free IT support, this was way too much to hope for. The first call came at eleven from the girl who had originally trained me for her position on my first day. Apparently it is my job to configure her PC Anywhere connection while she is on maternity leave and I miraculously know where the software is kept, being the former IT guru I supposedly was. I abandoned system administration for a few reasons. One was that I wasn't really very efficient and the other was that I was so damned burnt out and stressed that I had become a monster...a stranger to myself and my wife. Unfortunately, I have managed to become the "computer girl" again. The second call was around three thirty from my boss. She had some issues with her email yesterday that I fixed for her, and I switched her from Outlook Express to Thunderbird. I am kicking myself for that now. I could go down the list of all the reasons to switch to the Mozilla package, but the truth is that I really don't care anymore. This is all from my past life and should have stayed there. I don't know why I always feel the need to help in any way I can. It makes them way too dependent on me, and I really just wanted a simple and mind numbing job to recover from my geek years.
The store I work for is a very peculiar kind of crazy. Bosslady takes her business as seriously as parents take their children and becomes very angry if someone is not "smart enough" to do their job as she would do it. She throws tantrums, she storms around the office...she leads people to quit after a few weeks or months of employment and offers no benefits other than a discount if you happen to last three months. The store sounded perfect in the interview...all animal lovers and honest, hard working people. I can understand the personalities I work with and I thought that it would be easy for me to be happy here.
Three weeks later, I am missing my time at home...longing to be a happy housewife again. I drink...I twitch...I snap at my wife. I get pains in my stomach and suspect germs crawling all over my body at the end of the day. There is a layer of filth on everything in the office from the dirt lot outside. The bathroom reeks of urine and mildew, and the office equipment looks as if it belongs in a museum rather than chugging away to process reports. It's an obsessive-compulsive's nightmare and leaves me looking at my paycheck and asking whether it is worth it. Is anyplace else really any better? All workplaces have their own brand of crazy, and it's really just a matter and figuring out which one you can deal with. I have yet to find mine. The longest I've worked anywhere was three years. At each job, I think that I should go back to school to do what I really want...and then I spend months trying to figure out what the hell that is. I suspect that most people spend the majority of their working years asking themselves that question. I never wanted to be one of them, but then, who does?
As a child, I thought I would be an artist of some sort...or perhaps a therapist. The problem is that I never quite feel good enough at anything I do. It seems to be the law that there is always someone better, and the chances of making any real money as an artist are pretty slim. A therapist, not so much, but I just don't have the discipline or the resources to finish school. I have changed my major at least five times, and despite four or five years of trying have only completed fifteen units. I haven't a clue how many of them are transferable and of those fifteen, at least half were simply a result of flying under the radar or guilting the teacher into giving me a C. It's nauseating the amount of excuses and rationalizations I could come up with.
In retrospect, though, this day off has done me good...and has also done the opposite. I spent time with my wife and took care of some things I needed to do for our trip this weekend. On the other hand, the little voice in my head is nudging me to call in sick again tomorrow or conjure a way to be sent home early. After all, one must look their worst when returning from a day of playing hooky, right?