good grief
The other day I was driving to work like always and there was an uncharacteristic halt in the flow of traffic. I took the opportunity to enjoy looking at the church my car had stopped in front of. There are a lot of big, old, beautiful churches in downtown Houston. I always thought about visiting them one day and have yet to do so. So I turned my head and admired this church in detail for the first time in my life — arched doors, stained glass, etc. And my eyes go all the way to the top, and on one of the turrets or whatever, someone has fastened a neon sign that says “JESUS SAVES”.
The traffic started up again and I drove away, feeling a bit sad and disgusted. Then I thought, “Who am I — Charlie Brown?” Then I had to laugh.
career counseling
At my last temp job, someone once sat me down and said, “Gwen, we notice that you’re very bright and have a broad skill set. You’re obviously overqualified for the task of photocopying all the files and having them interofficed to the other side of the building in case of fire. We’re interested in making you a part of our team, but only if you’re going to be happy here. If you could do anything here, what would it be? What interests you?”
I said, “Well, I’ve always wanted to get paid to drive. I would like to be the one to drive the company car very fast, very far down various state highways. If applicable, I could also take on the concurrent duty of listening to CDs.”
“We don’t have any positions like that.”
“Oh.”
“What if you could do anything else?“
“Well… I think I’d really enjoy being y’all’s technical writer.”
“Hm? Hmm…”
“Yeah… I’d love to be the technical writer.”
“I’m sorry… We don’t have any position for that, either.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll just take anything, then.”
“Okay! Secretary it is! I’m glad we had this talk. Oh, hey… do you think you could help me fix up this proposal I need to get out today? The wording’s kind of… Can you just swing by my office after lunch? Great.”
Just kidding. That never really happened.
