Well, I did have a nice six day reprieve from work, but that ends tomorrow (uhh, make that today.) Joy joy, joy joy joy.

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever hated my job as much as I do now. An awful boss running us into the ground, an awful coworker whose useless, fat wide load of an ass takes up valuable real estate in our section, a workload that’s spiraling out of control, and colleagues with frayed nerves that makes me wonder if my bullet riddled carcass might soon end up on the news.

I guess it’s no surprise then that I’ve thrown everything into getting this blog off the ground, not only to boost traffic levels, but also to make some serious coins out of it so I can get the holy hell outta here. 7 years I’ve been at this job, with no end in sight. Something’s gotta give.

I really thought I had something going though by deciding to apply for law school, and I can’t believe how it all turned to crap, even in spite of almost two years of praying, seeking, knocking and begging for answers. Instead of being shown the way, I get jerked around by a God who really seems to be doing His darndest best to show me how much He hates my filthy hide.

Fine. Message received. Way to show the world how You take care of your own by screwing them over when they need Your help the most. Sheesh. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not Lord, but I’m feeling pretty fricking abandoned and betrayed right now.

Ok, calm down Linc…. breathe in… breathe out… serenity now…

To be honest, it really is disconcerting to feel this deep seated rage boil up within me whenever I think about the events of the past few years, from getting evicted out into the streets, to getting stuck in a dead end, soul sucking job, to watching my health deteriorate and my prospects dry up, even while everyone else around me find their true loves, marry up and move on to greener pastures, and here I am, still stuck in first gear, partly because I was stupid enough to believe God had something better prepared for me, and that I need only be patient enough to wait for it. Sure, all fine and good, until I finally realized that only applies to people He actually gives a rip about.

Well ok then, how about this: You hate me, I hate You, so let’s just stay out of each other’s way from now on, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to salvage the remaining pieces of my almost completely destroyed life, mmmmkay?

My old boss was a pretty standup guy, always helping out with the work, making sure nobody goofed up, but at the same time letting us take it easy when there was a lull in the workload. Because of him our section was run pretty efficiently, and for once was actually a fun place to be. I found myself having more time in the evenings to relax and hang out until my shift ended because of how smoothly things were being run.

Then he got transferred abruptly, the result of the powers-that-be shuffling around three managers from three different sections. Enter new boss.

Don’t get me wrong, my new boss seems like a good guy too, but he’s a bit laid back… ok, maybe a bit TOO laid back, but I guess that’s better than being an all out psycho. Nevertheless, I was cheesed, mainly because he has to learn everything all over again, just when my former boss was finally starting to settle in. The move didn’t make any sense to me. Why did three COs (commanding officers) get shuffled around just like that without any warning?

Then I got some intel from a mole in the department, who let on that one of the COs’ subordinates from another section had boosted a kayak (that came from God only knows where), and while the CO knew what the guy did, he did nothing about it. So the gist of if was that he had been disciplined and then transferred out because of his failure to handle the situation. My old boss now works that section.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “I lost my boss because some idiot in another section boosted a KAYAK???”

“Yup.”

“Where did this friggin’ kayak come from anyway?”

“Good question.”

So now should have been an isolated incident instead ended up affecting three separate divisions. What the blank were the powers-that-be thinking? How ’bout you just reprimand the CO and his subordinate, suspend them or whatever, and be done with it? No, you had to throw 3 divisions into chaos with brand new bosses who don’t know which end is up, and this you call good management?

Unbelievable.

One of the things that has made it darn nigh impossible for me to make a decision about law school is the fear that I may be trading in a job I hate for a future job I’ll hate even MORE.

The truth is, my current job really isn’t so bad, relatively speaking. I only have to work about 35 hours a week, I get four days off every other weekend, and if I work fast enough, I usually have the last few hours of work to myself for doing pretty much whatever I want (short of leaving). I have a decent salary and excellent medical benefits, along with a pension plan that would provide enough reasonable security for me when I retire. The people I work with are for the most part pretty decent folks, and I don’t even have to dress formally (I haven’t worn a suit in several years).

But the work itself is a mindless drudgeship, the kind where I truly have little to no impact on anything. For the most part, I simply proofread documents and perform data entry for hours at a time, until my brain gets so numb I have to take a moment to collect myself lest I should lapse into a coma.

I always thought I was meant for bigger and better things, and the thought of continuing this drudgeship for another 30 years frightens me to no end.

But what frightens me even more is giving up the security blanket I enjoy now for a career that will make this current job seem like paradise. What really, am I getting myself into here? Will I really enjoy being an attorney, or will I find it so unrewarding, so aggravating an experience, that I will yearn for the days of old when the only trial I had to endure was the daily drudgeship of entering documents into my department’s database? It’s almost a certainty that my first job (post-law school) would offer little security, inferior benefits, and a hostile work environment where I’m pressured to perform, and deal with a crushing workload. Instead of enjoying an atmosphere where nothing short of burning the place down would have any serous repercussions for me, I would instead be dealt a greater responsibilty where people’s lives may literally be in my hands, and one little screwup could cause utter catastrophe for them (and me). Do I really want to handle that kind of responsibility?

As I read the primers and study some of the materials people use for law school, my mind does seem able to grasp the legal principles easily enough, and I do enjoy performing a “lawyer like” analysis of hypotheticals. But then again, there’s some days when I just don’t bother at all with it. Even if I couldn’t get enough of playing with hypos, it only provides a glimpse into what I may be doing as a lawyer. The profession requires excellent networking skills (which I don’t have) and the ability to relate and socialize with people (which I don’t have). It would also require the ability to sift through dry legal material, while in turn writing dry legal documents in the form of motions, briefs, memos (and whatever else it s that lawyers write). Is this something I can do competently, and more importantly, is it something I could ENJOY doing?

I simply don’t know. I’m so confused and perplexed right now that my decision is literally changing by the moment. The other night I was resolved to go to law school, having firmly made up my mind, only to wake up the next morning with a sense of sheer dread that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. The $150,000 price tag alone guarantees that if my decision to go to law school turns out to be a mistake, it would be a mistake I’ll have to pay for for as long as I live.

Too bad I can’t win the lottery. Having 200Gs or so to play with would obviously make this decision a little bit more palatable. I’d lose nothing by trying, and I could always go back to my old job (based on the one year grace period I might be granted).

But alas, I must deal with reality. On the one hand I can accept a life that is secure, but boring and unfulfilling, or a life that may turn out not to be a life at all, where I end up pissing away those things I’m taking for granted now.

Or maybe there’s a third option that has still to make itself known…