Paid To Poop

Can I just say how great it is to be employed?! I'm not looking to throw it up in the face of the unemployed, I'm just saying. When you go in to an office five days a week, spending more time with co-workers than with your family, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the silver lining. Me, I'm always trying to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, so I like to busy myself concentrating on all of the awsomeness that comes along with a regular hourly j.o.b..

For one, there's all the free coffee you can drink! Seriously, I do enjoy coffee and it's hard to complain about the quality of the coffee when it's free, (although I sometimes still do). On top of the coffee, there are free sugar, Equal, Splenda, and non-dairy creamer available. Oh the things we take for granted. At some point in history, like maybe in the 40's or something, business owners must have thought, "WTF, we get you free coffee and now all you greedy little bitches want cream & sugar too?! What  do you think this is, the Hilton?" But now we expect it. Don't forget a water cooler, 'cause who the hell drinks out of the tap anymore? Sure, most villages in Rwanda have more fatalities due to unclean drinking water then any other cause of death, but we need ours from Culligan, if you please.

Then, there's the bathrooms. They're all fancy now, with high-velocity hand dryers that sound like a jet taking off. Plush toilet paper that I can't afford for home. Guys, is it just me, or since the advent of smartphones, do you find yourself going into the stall way more than you need to? Checking email, stocks, sport scores and Facebook. It's true, the sit-down pee isn't just for your weird uncle Harold anymore. On top of this, you don't even have to punch out when you go to do your business! I can't tell you how many times I'm 15 minutes into the "Giant Drop" and I think, "Hot damn, I'm on the clock! I mean, they're actually paying me to take a dump!"

Also, there's food. Lots. And we get to the point that we expect it and when it's not there we bitch because we had hoped we wouldn't have to actually pay for our lunch today. This is sad and I know it, yet I've had more than my share of bagel lunches so I shouldn't talk. There's birthday lunches, holiday feasts and potlucks seemingly every day of the week, I can't imagine why we're an obese nation. My place does movie theater style popcorn twice a week complete with all the salt and butter you can shake a clogged artery at. This is the same place that gives discount memberships at the local gym, go figure.

On top of all of this, there is perhaps the sweetest of all aspects of being employed...vacation days. Ironic, isn't it, that the most beloved part of your job are those days when you aren't there? Maybe this shouldn't surprise me, since, when you're a kid, your favorite part of school is recess. You're off doing whatever, or nothing at all, and getting paid for it...all...day...long. There's not really much that can beat that.

And that is why I love being employed.