Work Sucks, Until It Doesn't

[Repost From Old Site]
You know, now that I think about it, every job I've ever had has sucked.
My very first job was at the Coffee Bean (Though it was known as the Coffee Beanery in those days).  I was a top performer there, but I quickly found the place to be shithole, which is why it was so easy for a 16-year old punk to be one of the good ones.
I tarried briefly at another coffee shop and them moved on to one of my most fondly remembered jobs as a full-service gas pump attendant at Amoco (now BP).  I worked there off and on for over two years, and I loved it.  It was full of zany characters and the whole place was held together with duct tape and coat hangers.  I had the run of the shop most of the time.  I could wander in two hours late and nobody got mad.  I got to wrench on a few cars, made a few bucks in tips, and had enough to buy my then girlfriend a meal every once in a while.  It was a great job... for a teenager.
Then I went to college and I didn't exactly work... let's say I dabbled occasionally in black market trade.  My clientele was so scummy that it nearly changed the course of my life, an issue I mentioned with in an earlier article.  Near the end of college, I worked at Ray's Wine and Spirits, probably my most fondly remembered job.  The place was another in what's become a long string of falling apart crap-holes, but I had a lot of close friends working there, and we made that place like a second home.  The pay was shit, but there were... fringe benefits, and the boss made a habit of looking the other way.  It was a great job... for a stoner.
Alas, I did eventually graduate (though Lord knows I stretched that out as long as I could) and I moved in with my Grandma for a few months.  There, I held two short-term jobs, one as a cashier at yet another character-filled gas station (Shell this time), and my first server job, at Smoke House BBQ.  For you Kansas Citians, Smoke House is a pale, limp-wristed imitation of Jack Stack.  Don't bother.  Both of those places offered crappy pay and crappier hours.
Then I moved on to Harpo's, a bar and grill in the famed Old Westport district.  It was my first bartending job, and I made good money.  It sucked in the end, because Old Westport is a giant clique.  If you're working behind one of the 11-odd bars in the area, you'd better spend your off hours drinking in front of them, otherwise you're branded as an outsider.
Then came Meadowbrook.  Oh, Meadowbrook.  It was a private golf club.  I loved the members and they loved me.  My first boss there was a good guy, and if  were to see him again, I'd buy him a beer.  But by the end of a long and harrowing story that I will spare you the details of, I was made into a scapegoat for all the shortcomings of an aging edifice whose ability to turn a profit was forgotten legend.  In times of recession, luxuries are the first to go, and I got the boot with them.
After moving to L.A., I worked part time at Target, which is really just Walmart + 10%.  It's an expensive Walmart.  The shit there is the same.  Target, like Walmart, was filled with trailer-trash mutants who couldn't seem to leave me in peace to zone my shelves.  Anyone who has worked big-box retail will know what I'm talking about.
Then there was the J.W. Marriott.  I met a bunch of great people there, some of whom I consider good friends.  But the level of fever-pitch insanity that was the norm there was more than I could handle.  As a cocktail server, you could hardly find a more challenging environment.  That place is asses to elbows 362 days a year, and the only predictable thing about that place is its manic unpredictability.  That job was a heart attack waiting to happen.
All of these jobs had their moments, but in the final analysis, each one took a toll on me.  Some of them merely exposed me to people I found distasteful.  Some put me in environments that quickly became unhealthy.  Some pitted me against customers or coworkers who seemed to be out for my blood.  In every job, nearly every employee was unhappy.  In every job, I quickly rose through the ranks to become a top performer, but when I was at them all I could think about was how much I wanted to be anywhere else.  I believe, during the final days at Meadowbrook, I even said that I'd rather go to prison than walk into that building one more time.
Before I've resigned from each job (always on good terms) I've felt that way.  Like being locked in a cage with a serial rapist was better than going to work one more time.  No matter how nice the place was, it always turned out to be a chaotic hell-hole when I was there.  When I left, every place either got better or got shut down.  Ray's, Amoco, The Coffee Bean and Meadowbrook all went under new management within months of my leaving, some changing their brand name in the process.  Smoke House, Shell, The Marriott and Target all had turnovers in management that increased the happiness of the employees.  After a while, I started to feel like I was a curse.  Everywhere I worked got worse during my tenure, and got better (or was at least put out of its misery) the moment I left.  And then I realized something.
This is how God works.
Since I've been "self-employed"  I've had no trouble finding freelance work when I want it, no real trouble performing such work, and no trouble moving on amicably.  I'm fitter, healthier, more productive.  My house is cleaner.  My dogs are happier, and more well-behaved.  My wife is happier.  I'm happier.  I am eager to start work every day.  When other errands impede my ability to work, I get upset.  It used to be I looked forward to sickness and car trouble so I had an excuse to play hooky.
And I'm overcome with a profound sense of deja-vu.  When I was in my mid to late teens, I published a zine that actually got a little attention.  I was featured in the newspaper.  I set up and maintained a small distribution network that saw my zine making it as far as L.A, Minnesota and Austin, TX.  I wrote often, and people liked reading what I wrote.
When I was in college, I thought I wanted to be a musician.  But every turn I made, every opportunity I explored, every connection I made turned up a dead end.  In the working world, every advance I made was punished by a boat-load of stress, and never rewarded with a substantial increase in earnings.
For my whole life, there has been a pattern of God setting things up for me to knock down.  I've been graced with the foresight to be aware of a few of them.  But nowhere have I been more lucky than when he brought me together with my wife.  Her love, patience and support had made our mutual happiness possible.  It took us a while to figure out that this was what we were supposed to be doing, but now things are going swimmingly.  I finally feel like I'm on the path of least resistance.
And who knows?  Nothing may come of it.  I may wallow in unpublished obscurity until the day I die.  I may never be a famous novelist.  But who cares?  At least I'm finally getting the message that God has been ramming into my brain for the last 20 years.  Be it cruel or kind, I'm no longer ignoring my destiny.