Work Excited, Play Hard

This story from my journal is relevant to whatever nonsense this blog is about, so I dug it up to post here, backdated for your chronologically-correct blog experience.  I've been self underemployed for as long as I can remember.  ~ 10/28/08

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Considering their job descriptions, human resources managers really don't get much about people. 

"I'm really excited you're here," she says.  Her head bobbles when she says it, because that's what happens when you're excited.  She wants me to be excited, too.  "We're looking for someone who is just…excited!" 

"Aw, that's too bad," I say without speaking.  "I don't do excited.  If you were looking for an intelligent, competent technical writer, we might've really had something.  Shucks." 

"Well, it's certainly good to be here."  My mouth speaks words my soul never signed-off on.  Six months later, my soul will sue my mouth for wrongful death.  The punitive damages will prove excessive, as the supreme court of my cerebellum has yet to pass much-needed tort reform. 

She continues selling just how great her company is.  And for the second time in less than a month, I hear the most frightening concatenation of words corporate America has ever invented bounce excitedly from the mouth of a frizzy-haired HR recruiter: "We at [company name] like to work hard, but we play really hard too." 

I suppress an agonizing groan, and the burst of laughter which immediate follows it.  Was that a wink at the end?  I think that was a wink.

As she continues babbling about benefits, security protocols and the break-room amenities like none I have ever seen before, I wonder if I've judged her words a bit too soon.  Maybe this frizzy-haired lady is right.  Maybe these guys live harder and excitedlier than everyone else.

A dozen rows of office minions stare into monitors.  If you didn't know what computers were, you'd think these people were catatonic, emotionless monks—transcending reality by filling themselves with emptiness.  But to those of us who know better, they're working really hard.  And if you catch them on break, they'll tell you how excited they are to be doing it.

After eight hours of grueling manual labor, they commute (rather unexcitedly) to expansive, inadequately-furnished McMansions, where they'll eat leftover spaghetti while watching Lost before feeding the cats.  Then, with the day coming to a long-awaited close, they'll settle into their recliner for a little me time—snorting three lines of coke before ordering a hooker.

Work hard.  Talk excited.  Play hard.