How Much Is A Soul Going For Now-A-Days?

I ask because I am currently selling mine for around $30K a year plus benefits, and I want to make sure I'm getting a good rate.

Is it wrong that whenever I get home from work that the only thing I want to do is strike people repeatedly in the face with a tack hammer until their cake hole stops moving? I feel like my entire day is spent wondering how I could possibly gone so wrong to end up in such a soul sucking position in life. The company I work for continually and repeatedly does the wrong thing on every level you could imagine. Every one I speak to tells me a different way to do my job, and many of them don't know how to do their job effectively. Whenever I feel like I am not qualified for my job, I am assured that I am doing well, yet every time I do feel like I've done my job well I get informed that it's not good enough.

I get told that whatever I thought I knew is apparently now wrong. When I complete my tasks quickly and efficiently, I get told that I'm not doing enough. When I take my time, I get told that I'm not doing my job right. I'm told that I need to curb myself, to suppress the thoughts and feelings that I have, while all around me, others complain freely and frequently. I get told I need to not care about my job so much, while all around me apathy and laziness run amok. I get told that I need to be more of a team player, while all around me, priorities are skewed. I get told to stop complaining, while all around me, discord and dissent hum like tracer bullets through the air. I get told I need to be cheerier, while all around me, threats of transfer, demotion, and termination waft like smoke, hanging over my shoulders like a shroud.

It's impossible to get straight answers, fast answers, or correct answers. I get ignored by our HR department when I have a good question, and answered when I ask what I perceive to be a silly question. When they DO contact me with answers to my silly questions, it's some of the dumbest illogic I've ever seen (like them telling me we are open on Christmas Day when clearly, we are not). I'm constantly told one thing, and then hit with another. I can not bring myself to trust anyone, because no matter what I'm told, it ends up being steamrolled under by a new truth the minute it's decided the old truth is no longer convenient. When I do decide to do something selfless, I don't complain about the pain it may cause, because I did it to myself for what I thought was a good cause. But when I DO complain about tasks that cause me pain, I get told I'm "selective" about what hurts.

Pain doesn't matter. Organization does not matter. Keeping a schedule does not matter. My opinion does not matter. My effort does not matter. My spirit does not matter. My complaints do not matter. My plans do not matter. My well being does not matter. My sanity does not matter. My comfort does not matter. All that matters is that I do what I'm told, when I'm told, and shut the hell up about it.

The only thing keeping me in the soul crushing vice of bitterness and hatred I am in right now is that I might not find another job. Not that I am unemployable; I feel like my employer would be foolish to get rid of me, and I hear it to be true from many sources. But people way more qualified than me are still looking for work. I have considered going back to being a custodian. Let me reiterate that; I hate my job SO much that I have considered, seriously and often, going back to a job where cleaning up puke with sawdust is a possible- and PROBABLE- task. If my back weren't in such a state of constant pain, I would likely have applied for that and any number of other physically demanding jobs already.

But I can't. My physical skills are hindered. My design skills are outdated. My phone skills are a matter for psychologists far wiser than anyone I work with to debate. And my people skills have been crushed to a fine talc by the oppressive weight of the hypocrisy of it all. So here I lie, trapped like a bug in sap.

I am waiting for a spark. For a thin glimmer of hope. I am one fat hypnotherapist away from being Peter Gibbons. I am one unscrupulous diagnosis from being Joe Banks.

With that, I leave you with Joe Banks as he leaves his own situation, in one of my favorite moments in movie history, and a moment I hope I can soon resonate with:

Joe quits