Those Old Alarm Clock Blues

I wrote this a few weeks before I got my layoff notice. I still think it is appropriate.
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There goes the alarm clock again: Same time, another day. It goes off the same time every day, except Saturdays and Sundays – unless I forget to turn it off. Still, there it goes. Insomnia has kept me awake most of the night so I’ve really been laying here anticipating it.

Most of the anticipation is dread: Dread about the commute; dread about parking; dread about walking into my cubicle yet again; dread about seeing my boss; dread because it is my life and I’m not very happy with it right now.

I’ve been entering the same parking lot, office building and cubicle for 11 years now.

My pay is OK and I have a lot of friends in the workplace. I’m going to turn 61 soon and don’t see my life going anywhere. All the days just seem to melt into one another.

They say life expectancy is increasing – can’t remember exactly how much but it appears I may have 20, 30, hell maybe even 40 more years ahead of me. It might be good news to some but it fills me with that old familiar dread.

I hear people talk about retirement. I try to imagine retirement and I just can’t see it. Frankly, I expect to have to continue working until the day I die. It is not a comforting thought. Sometimes I play the Lotto, dreaming about what I would do with those millions. If I won I suspect I still might get bored with life.

I slap the snooze button on the alarm. Still, I know it is going to go off again and I’m going to have to finally roll out of bed, take my morning shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, have my morning coffee, walk out the front door, get into my car, start the engine and head off to the dreaded job.

It is a good job, really. I get paid a decent salary for helping people who have computer problems. The people who call me are generally nice enough but always in a panic because something isn’t happening the way they expect. Most of the time the issue they have is something little. Sometimes it is bigger than I can handle so the issue gets escalated to another tech.

I don’t aspire to be that other tech. In fact, I don’t know what I really want to do anymore.

The company is now the object of a takeover by a much bigger company so I may have to figure things out soon. Like everyone else around me, I wonder if I’ll still have a job after the takeover. Even if I still have my job I’m not sure I want to work for the bigger company. Things are going to change and I’m not sure they will be for the good of my company’s current employees.

It is another thing to dread.

There goes the alarm again. So it’s time.