The Welder Inmate

Ever since I was a kid, or lets say a teenager, I admired career folks, people that got to their job every day, 9 to 5, doing it good, having their regular vacations, monthly paychecks and being consistent on something. I admired that until I had my first 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, done it quite good, had my regular vacations to the sea side, mostly, and started to hate the monotony of such a life quite soon.

I haven't quit this lifestyle after getting my first long time job but, after trying and working multiple qualified, or non qualified jobs, I kind of started hating the 9 to 5, and wasn't seeing my long admired ones as such anymore. They were becoming some sort of inmates for me, and that's how some of them really feel, after a life long working inside their cells, at the same working place, doing pretty much the same damn thing every day.

I feel like this because I never worked what I loved, and never got to fell in love with work, and maybe I'm lucky for all this, or not... I do have an example that worked the majority of his life what he was passionate about, and that's my father, he played saxophone for more than forty years as a living. Not gonna write about him because it would be a way too long post, and don't have the audience for that nor the mood to type that much, instead I will mention about a neighbor of mine that I will call the welding inmate.

He works as a welder for about 40 years, at our local naval constructions site, and he's close to ten months from retirement, and the way I perceived his emotions regarding retirement he seemed thrilled about that, he seemed. Not every one does the same, when being set aside from his life long work place, for good. Some even die quite soon, not out of boredom but, probably out of having no purpose at all to get out of the bed every morning and dress for something, not their couch and TV.

He told me today that for forty years he felt like he was going to prison, eight damn hours every day, Monday till Friday, and these are his last months doing time. I felt for him but, asked him also why he hasn't changed his profession, and the answer was that it was all that he knew, and wasn't the type to learn new skills, nor try swimming in unknown waters. I guess he simply just confined himself and drowned in his own 40 years long misery.

He's not the only one seeing the work place as a prison, and some have had the luck to try multiple such prisons. I guess you can call that karma, the miracles of the industrial revolution, or simply pleasing with what you have and not be willing to run the extra mile for something better, or take the risk to start a business or... why not, start your own damn blog, like some of us, that are pretty good at and have done it in here for a while. Man, that was a long phrase, sorry about that.

For over two months though, almost the entire planet has lived under a full lock down, and although for quite many countries the lock down is closing to an exit, the virus still has time on its side, and plenty of people are still working from home or being paid for staying at home. I'm in neither of the two situations and honestly wouldn't know what to pick if I'd had that option. On one hand getting paid for doing nothing sounds good, on the other, considering that you're not on the best social media in the world, #hive, you might get bored as fuck doing nothing.

But, isn't that what many of the work inmates have dreamed of for a very long time? I guess it is, and still, many are marching for going back to work, and I can understand their position as well, probably earning much more when working than staying inside. The narrative though is that no matter on what side of the working imprisonment we might be, there's always a rejection towards that situation. It's like the monkey ate the perfect spot.

Many were complaining, before the lock down, that they didn't had time to spend with the kids, go jog more, play games more, have more sex, listen to much more music and sleep more. Now that they have the time to do all that, they wanna go back to work... Pleasing humans is like trying to train a cat, similar to how you would do with a dog. Moreover, as my mom was telling me today, some closed ones, are afraid that after all this ends their jobs might be taken by robots.

Fuck it, let the damn robots take all the jobs in the world and let us travel, dance, eat sleep, rave, repeat... or whatever everyone feels like. If there can be an UBI and they're testing it right now, by they I'm actually referring to world governments, let there be an, at least decent universal basic income, for every one of us, and let the bots take our work places. I won't mind. Well, they actually don't have what to take me but, you get my point. You won't fully satisfy humans though, and some are like they were designed to live in misery for their entire life.

Pretty much like my neighbor, the welder that is ten months away from retirement, considering himself an inmate of the naval construction site and probably hating what will come after retirement as well, when he'll get the taste of it for a couple more years. My true appreciation though, goes to artists and whatever other category of people, that love what they're doing and don't feel like working when they're actually working. They're quite rare unfortunately, much like my posts hit by huge whales...

Thanks for attention,
Adrian