There are some jobs that I don't understand why people have them. I can appreciate that sometimes it's a worst case scenario, a fallback job off a fallback off a fallback job. I get that, I get that certain horror stories of careers aren't necessarily the profession that these people went to school for. That being said, I can't imagine certain people doing a job for more than a day and thinking: "I'm really looking forward to waking up every day for the next 40 years and doing this." I added one to my list yesterday, when I had to spend a full day off helping several families on my Mom's side move. A lot of house switching, and house emptying, with people going to so many different places I'm not going to confuse you with the specifics. Needless to say, this is the reason the word "clusterfuck" was invented, and this is the reason why I can't imagine anyone would open a business where ALL YOU DO is help other people move.
It all started in the classic way, with me discovering that my assistance was needed, "For at the MOST, three hours." But that's the classic time period that any parent would give. Really, if three hours pass and you're still working, what the parent expects you to do is to forget that that statement was ever made at all. Their estimate was off, the job is continuing, and parents do not make mistakes, so any reference of the three hour promise will be met by confused looks, rolling eyes and a request to help them carry a king size mattress down a flight of stairs.
It doesn't help that one particular family in this series of moving is the messiest of any family I have ever seen. Those houses you see on talk shows, where certain people want an intervention because of the sloppy way their friends are living their lives? My aunt and uncle's house is in the inspiration for this. It's a disaster. They hired a cleaning crew last week, and the woman went in to inspect the house and nearly had a coronary. She had never seen a messier house. Last year, when I initially helped them move furniture during a move, I discovered some loose change throughout the house as I cleaned up. I made almost $30. Not a joke. I walked out of that house with my pants jingling so much I sounded like a piggy bank.
So when you have to move a house worth of crap into a truck, move a lifetime's supply of furniture into another truck, rearrange another house to fit mattresses and chairs through doors that they weren't meant to fit into, you start to wonder something. Are houses necessary? Are BEDS necessary? How much do you REALLY need couches, or chairs, or kitchen tables? Really, not at all. I find the whole thing now to be just a disgusting display of materialism. It's almost as if we're taunting these houses by tossing these interchangeable objects from one location to the other, stressing and breaking backs and sweats just so we can remind each other of all the sweet JUNK you've accumulated over the years. I will never help anyone move ever again. And I will never move ever again, because I don't want to put anyone through that kind of pain. I gotta go tell my parents about how I'm staying. I'll be right back.
They took it really well.
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