By James King
Is it a sign of sobriety and sanity to bond over what we all hate? Blog about something we love or adore and you usually receive little more than agreements in return (or some new acronym). However, tap into your endless frustrations with the world and a one-up-ghost-story kind of campfire bonding experience opens up. That secret, vengeful little voice inside you which screams when you’re silent suddenly makes friends, and we all get a little closer to the flame.
But what subject could bring us so close? Our shitty jobs.
Blog communities provide a strangely perfect outlet for venting that angry little voice when it comes to our jobs. Like writing “(____) strokes cows” on the bathroom wall and waiting for the replies, blog communities provide that anonymous who-dunnit safety-net. But unlike the stall wall, blog communities bring with it that all-too-familiar dead distance of the Internet. We never really know who left that message. All that matters is the humour that sprouts from the rage.
As I was searching for a venue to vent my own random frustrations about the lovely junk-disposal industry, I found the aptly named Fuck This Job (www.fthisjob.com). Fthisjob.com is a site dedicated to alleviating the “daily crap” that we constantly ingest from our collectively shitty jobs. Featured is an endless supply of blog entries and responses complaining, lamenting or chastising a particular aspect of their job the blogger seems unable to deal with on their own. The responses to these frustrations sometimes offer hope, but usually just reinforce the everything-is-soul-destroying-bullshit mentality that permeates the site.
The fascinating idea behind this site is that the bloggers are venting for the sake of venting. This isn’t a secret employee message board, this is simply an outlet for the frustrated and it reaches some pretty sad and funny extremes. I can’t help but laugh when I read of the employee who, at work, now researches how to say “fuck off” and “cocksucker” in as many different languages as possible for his boss and co-workers. Even more special are those amplified little details, such as how one employee “hates the way [her] boss’s knee cracks whenever he walks.” Even the suicidal wishes of department store employees break through the so-sad-it’s-funny threshold, as when “stoopidstore worker” writes how she longs to “kill Santa Claus for making this friggin holiday music shit” loop endlessly throughout the store.
While most of the entries remain pretty general, complaining about how idiot customers and asshole/demanding managers make their lives absolute hell, there are some very specific moments of hatred. One blogger, “Superboy,” worries that the “lincesee meeting” blunder has since rendered him the “infamous loser” in everybody’s eyes. Or witness “gemfem27” rant on about “that fat bitch that fucked everything up” in the hilariously titled entry “I am going to take my foot and shove it deep into corporates ass!!” These are genuinely cathartic moments for these people. Whether or not that “fat bitch” actually reads this is beside the point-it is now out in the world, and that’s all gemfem27 really needs right now.
There seems to be a deep, ritual hatred of our jobs. Part-time or full, whatever job serves a purely financial function will always go knuckle-deep into our worst frustrations. Blog communities like this spawn and grow because most of us find a deep connection with the oft-repeated phrase “I fucking hate my job and want to die.” Well, it may not be that extreme, at least not for all of us, but the way the words “depressing,” “frustrating,” “annoying” and “death sentence” are so generously tossed around on this site definitely shows the strong and gloomy bond these people share. This is one of those laugh-then-cry type of experiences. That vengeful little voice inside finds its megaphone on fthisjob.com, allowing the frustrated employees of the world to finally scream, in the immortal words of blogger “kennysiz,” “FUCK YOU KMART YOU ARE FUCKING CLOWN SHOES!”
Require a more particular form of job-hating?
Shamelessrestaurants.com (restaurants exposed by their own employees)
Bitterwaitress.com (yeah, you guessed it)
Waiterrant.net (exactly what the waiter is thinking)