It’s pre-Covid, I haven’t even arrived to work yet, but I’m ready to blow a gasket.

     I pull out of my parking space in luxurious Santa Monica and there’s the guy with the leaf blower – you know the one, the barbaric guy with that loud gas machine strapped to his back blowing leaves from one side to another?

     I never understood that.

     What is he accomplishing?  He’s taking leaves and moving them from one area to another while polluting the air.

     Get a rake, you lazy F, and properly put them in a bag and discard them!

This is only the beginning of the stupidity that I endure throughout the day.

     First, there's my commute.  I’ve lived in LA for eighteen years trying to make it as a writer to no avail, and I’ve been lucky enough to survive outside sales job after outside sales job to not have to race into an office by 9 a.m. 

     Now, all this has changed.  I’m now “inside sales."  As in – in an office – trapped – with people.  Moody, annoying people. 

     My shoebox office has no windows. There’s no air. There’s a musty odor from the guy they fired before me who must have spilled liquid all over the floor.  I believe there is mold growing under the rug.  I cannot breathe.  It smells.  There’s no air.

     I’ve complained to management and they only remind me to keep the door closed to not disturb the others in the cubicles who aren’t on their phones all day long.

     I can’t stand this place. Let’s start with yesterday when one of the Senior Sales Reps comes into my office. It’s 10:30 in the morning, she closes the door, sits down in a chair two inches away from me, and opens a bag of spicy peanuts.

     Seriously?

     Does she have to eat those here?  Now?

     They stink.  My whole office stinks.

     I’m getting a headache from the mold, the useless crap she’s spewing, and the noxious odor of the nuts.  

     She leaves but returns only seconds later, telling me that she needs to show me something on my PC. 

     She leans over me with her spicy peanut breath and starts typing something using my computer.  I watch as her saliva-ladened fingers are now all over my keyboard and I’m grossed out. 

     Did I even mention there’s no hot water in the restrooms?   

     When she leaves, I open my office door and wipe everything down with disinfectant cloths, and then I spray Lysol everywhere.

     I’m not sure which is more sickening – her, the peanut smell, the mold, or the toxicity of the Lysol. 

     I now feel nauseous.  Is it time for lunch? I look at the clock. 

     Not quite.

     I pick up the phone and call my friend who works at UCSF in the hospital ward.  She's an administrative assistant and hates her job as much as I do.  "Is it over yet?” I ask. 

       “Five more hours,” she replies. “There’s a job opening here in the morgue, I think I want to apply.”

     I’m excited for her. “Dead people! Yes, I would love to work with dead people!  Think of all the peace!  The serenity!”  I encourage her to apply.

     When we hang up, I continue to make cold calls and bother people with zero luck.

     I'm getting crass emails from my boss, "Your sales are low.  How's it going?"  

     "Great!" I reply.  "Working on seven solid leads!"  

      Finally, it’s noon and I que up the time card software on my PC and hit “out,” for lunch. I can’t even begin to describe how demeaning this is.  Am I working in a factory?  Did we revert back to the 1940’s?

     I have a Master’s degree!  And now with the new California laws, I’m an hourly employee.

     How wonderful.   I make less now then the day job I had during grad school.      I remind myself to be lucky I even have a job.  I’m getting older.   Nobody wants me.  I don’t even know if I want me anymore.

     During lunch, I speed walk around the parking lot in circles for exercise and inhale the smog coming from Sepulveda & the 405.

      I realize if I cut my lunch early, I can go home earlier so I trudge back inside.

     As the afternoon meanders by and not one sale, I head out at 5:00:01, exactly on the dot, thanks to the time clock software, and I look forward to my ride home.

     With two hands strapped to the wheel, I head out.

     It’s psychotic warfare.  I'm braking constantly and avoid at least four car collisions from all the idiot, inept drivers who can't drive, and think they own the road as I drive through the blinding sunny, nothingless of LA.

     If you need to cut in front of me – I’ll let you in, but how about a friendly wave?    Don’t just dart in front and act like I don’t see you.

     I get home to my shithole Santa Monica rent controlled apartment an hour later, and the smoke alarms are raging from the crack addict’s apartment who lives across the hall from me.

     He manages a meth lab in there. The police don't seem to care.  I’ve called numerous times but it's futile. 

     I shut my door and lock it, take off my clothes and get into the shower to wash away the day and when I sit on my couch and the fire alarms stop – both of the building and inside my head, and I lie back my head and breathe.

     Alone.

     Peace at least.

     And then I turn on the news…

     When I didn't think things could get worse, Covid happens…

     And then it’s time.

     It’s time to hang it all up and leave LA.

     But as they say, the grass isn’t always greener.

     I move to the East coast; Florida, more specifically, and I have a hard time finding a job, housing, friends, and decent weather.

     I’m by now in my mid-fifties. My body is sore.  Sitting at a desk for the past forty years of my life, I’ve learned I am suffering from arthritis  and I'm in pain.  Bad pain, but surprisingly, not as bad as the pain I endured suffering from all those LA jobs waiting for a non-existent writing career to take off.

     I file for disability and it gets rejected, so I appeal it while incurring massive debt.  I'm winning at the game of life!  

     I also decide to get a German Shepherd.

     And then I end up in Connecticut near my toxic family.

     Was it all worth it?

     I’m still trying to figure that out.

     But I will be dissecting the journey play by play in my next failure of a novel: MEG & I; HOW RESCUING A GERMAN SHEPHERD HEALED MY BROKEN HEART.

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Thanks for reading. Juliana Jones.  Kiss kiss.  Smooch.  Smooch

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