Real Jobs

They were paving the parking lot at Amalgamated Monster yesterday. We watched a crew out in the hot sun working with steaming blacktop.

“It looks rough out there.”

“No chairs.”

“No AC.”

“No snack machine,” said Pee Wee who was seriously addicted to peanut butter and jelly nabs.

“And they’re doing real work,” I said. Everyone nodded solemnly.

Things may seem horrid at Amalgamated Monster. We spend much of our time avoiding some of the most sadistic people that Mother Nature or the Great Pumpkin chose to put in management above us. We also spend a great deal of energy looking busy, but not a single one of us does any real work.

So as we looked busy and avoided said work, we discussed what constituted the realest of real work.

“Preschool teacher,” said Scratchy.

“Kid’s party clown is worse,” said Pee Wee.

“How’s that?”

“It’s preschool work where the kids are additionally hopped up on sugar and high expectations.”

“Roofing sounds pretty bad to me,” said Stinky.

“Plumbing is worse,” said Pee Wee.

“How can plumbing be worse than roofing?”

“Something about the job just makes all plumbers crack.” Maybe it was the nabs that made Pee Wee so wise.

“How about the guy that cleans out the port-a-potties?” asked Fish Bait.

That silenced everyone for a few minutes. I don’t even like walking by port-a-potties. I couldn’t imagine having to clean them.

Finally Pee Wee spoke up. “Politician.”

“Politician is worse than port-a-potty cleaner?” I asked.

“Politicians shovel a lot more crap said Pee Wee.

It was only hours later, after everybody left, that I thought of publisher. They don’t seem to get anything done, but they’re always too busy to work on my novels.

I wonder what Pee Wee would say about that?

Here's a little work-related song we like to sing  at Amalgamated Monster when the bosses are out getting... lubricated.