Buckethead Works Hard for the Money

First of all, I’m not complaining. I love the job I have. I enjoy the people I work with. But this transition thing is a little bit of a drag. It does make me feel a certain solidarity with my children, who are suffering through final exams and a lot of downtime this week as their school year winds down. I just wish I had a yearbook to tote around for everyone to sign.

On today’s agenda: Meetings, One of which has already been cancelled, and the other which may or may not take place depending on if I can find out where it’s actually supposed to be. (I got a call last night about the meeting, but the details were a little hazy.) All of this is connected to the contract transition from CWI to Fluor Idaho, which only affects me in all of the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, since it’s still North Wind that cuts the paychecks.

That’s not the reason I’m writing, however.

It’s been ten years. Ten years working at the RWMC on a job my wife was convinced was just going to be a temporary thing. Ten years as of May 31. And I am the better for it.

I’ve already gone over the merits of the past ten years in this blog post, so I won’t go down that road again.

So that kind of negates my “That’s not the reason I’m writing, however.” Just wanted to mark the date in history.

And also to say this: I’m glad I’m here and not out hiking as we were Monday. Liam and I decided to try for the vent out at Hell’s Half Acre, but by the time we made it to the 3 mile marker (it’s 4 ½ miles out to the vent) we were both pretty knackered. Hiking on that lava rock is pretty rough, both on the feet and on the psyche. They say it’s 4 ½ miles out there, but I’m sure that was measured with surveying equipment from pole to pole, not taking the circuitous routes one hast to take through the lava beds. I’m pretty sure once all was said and done that we got a good ten miles in, which was the intent of the hike anyway, as Liam works on his Hiking merit badge.

So even though I am workin’ hard for the money, at least it’s not out in a hostile environment where you nearly wet your pants when you suddenly find yourself within yards of a rattlesnake. And since it was a holiday, I was technically getting paid about $26 an hour to do that hike. Though I could have been paid the same if I’d stayed home and watched MASH reruns. But there’s no merit badge for that.

But to get back to the reason I’m not writing this blog post.

I am, mentally, a lot better off now than I was ten years ago. Of course, ten years ago I was getting tossed out of a newspaper job ass-first for a screw-up and overt laziness. Now you’d think that wouldn’t be a good quality to bring in as a government worker (all the government worker jokes aside) but I have worked hard for the money, present days excepted. The work has been a lot more enjoyable. Maybe not satisfying to the soul of a writer, but because I haven’t been finding writerly satisfaction at work, I’ve been doing so writing novels. I might have one ready to send to publishers this year (I know I keep saying that, but this time I believe it’s true). So generally I am a happier man, career-wise and feeding-the-soul-wise.

Take that, Karl Marx.

Now I’ve got to go vacuum the cereal off my shirt.