Not that an Exorbitant Raise is Necessary . . . a Small One Would Do

Suddenly, I feel no satisfaction with my job. I’ve been working here since December and at first I was floored to have a position as a copy editor. But then my friend, Hotbaugh (aka Baughtronic, Kiki, CBG, Tofu, Baugh-baugh, Baby Cakes, Hotcakes, HEC, Honey Cakes, et cetera), blabbed her salary to me (I begged her to spill the beans), and now, it’s funny, I feel no job satisfaction. The polls say morale is low at the Nicole headquarters.

I’m reminded of an article I read recently in the New Schmorker about poverty. It was a bunch of crap. The most important thing I remember about it is that if you surround yourself with people in the same economic bracket, you can be happy. But, say your neighbor gets a new boat and you see it, you’ll feel unhappy. They’ve done studies on this. Not that they needed to, you know, because anyone intrinsically knows that it’s difficult to watch others have more than you.

Anyway, it’s the premise of lots of movies, books, and lore about witchcraft in certain Native American societies, and now it’s the premise of this blog entry. The point isn’t that I’m jealous of Hotbaugh’s salary or anything. For hell sakes. I’m really glad for her. She actually deserves more, and the funny thing is, she feels like she should be paid more. I do too. I also think I should be paid more. I mean, my big question is WTF?

Part of the problem is that I’m relatively new to the workforce. I put off entering it for as long as possible. In fact, because it’s so miserable, I might postpone this misery, leave the workforce and go back to school to get a totally useless PhD. What do you think?

Ok, so I’m new to the workforce. It makes sense that I don’t know what kind of salary I SHOULD be making. Plus, maybe Nashville salaries are lower than Salt Lake City salaries. How can I possibly know (the answer to this lame question is research. Of course, but why waste time researching that? The answer won’t lead to job satisfaction. Or will it?)? What gets me is that my mentality is “what I should be making” and not “Sally forth! Carve out your own destiny! Demand the salary you want! Capture the American Dream!” And by carve out my own destiny, I mean shrug off the cubicle life and do something else.

I forgot to mention that part of the desperation I feel about the job is the mindless slaughtering of writing as art. It kills me that people who don’t seem to respect the beauty of language write books. How can that be?! I feel as affronted as Mark Twain was by Fenimore Cooper’s cheap, quick literature.