I suspect that them people called coworkers are waiting for the heaping pile of pending work to grow roots before they start realizing that they’ve got work to do — NO — that they were, to begin with, hired and paid to WORK! It’s either that or there’s a conspiracy going on that I’m unaware of where I’m supposed to be the only one working while their sole duty is to give meaning to the words slack and shirk. That would have been perfectly OK with me if their paychecks go to my bank account every month (I’ll make sure to add that clause on my next contract renewal).
Well I could choose to join them (since I can’t beat them) if I wanted to but the compulsive worker in me is keeping me. Don’t be mistaken. I do not intend to go on a self-glorifying recitation about how much of an ideal and perfect employee I am that my boss should be thankful to every known God for bringing me into existence. Like most everybody, I whine too when there’s work to do, and whine more on busy days. In spite of that, I still have enough responsiblity to always make sure that whatever needs to be done is finished at the end of the day. Ironically, there’s the rub. My ZERO EVERYTHING syndrome gets so bad that I end up doing other people’s work because I can’t bear to see the database full and crowded with the same and already ancient-old pending tasks everyday - lying there untouched, rotting and waiting for their deaths. All that while the freeloaders with elephant-thick skins surf, play games and sleep. Bleech!
Sometimes I wish I were like those so-called evil people in the office - the ones who’d tell on you at the slightest chance that they get, the ones who can tell you straight in the face to go to hell for not doing your share of work, the ones who are capable of giving insults of the sharpest and most humiliating magnitude that you would have to use up all your leave credits to recover from the shock and trauma.
Unfortunately, I am not cut for such wickedness (or bravery) so I contain all my anger in seething silence. In between, I engage in fanciful illusions like wishing they’d turn to actual hyenas from laughing too much because of frequent visits to those joke sites or that they get the pink slip at a time when they need a job most ( they don’t know the value of having one anyway!).
I now understand why some people wish for and take immense pleasure in others’ misery. It’s because there are just those who deserve it. The term schadenfreude has never sounded so right and positive.
