How did I get here?

I went back to work today. It was really kind of a downer. There were good points, and bad ones, but most of the feelings I experienced today were negative.

I work for a very large food-service provider, which in turn is contracted by a very large corporation. What I do is, well, glorified cafeteria work. And I really am not all that fond of it. There are some perks. It's a Monday thru Friday gig, I have health insurance and paid holidays, and the pay is decent. Yet every day, a little piece of me dies. I have sold my soul to the devil.

I lack the ability to explain how depressed I was, clipping through traffic on westbound I-70, at 5:30 this morning. As I approached my exit, I started fantasizing about just skipping the ramp and continuing to drive. First I envisioned myself in San Francisco, selling quesadillas in the park. Next I considered sitting in a lawn chair on the beach down in Baja, cooking raw fish over a small fire, and feeding the carcasses to stray dogs. This was a pleasing vision which kept me happy for 90 seconds. If I didn't have a woman at home waiting for me to return in the afternoon, I swear I'd have kept on driving.

But I didn't. I exited, went to work, and performed well. I usually do.

While cooking breakfast to-order for the white-collar masses, a series of thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks. Why the hell am I here? How did this happen? Why is a competent kitchen professional with a culinary degree serving Philly-cheese steaks and eggs over-easy to these bitter assholes? Why won't a third of my co-workers stop pissing and moaning, and playing their passive aggressive back-stabbing games? Why don't I just go on a rampage with a ten inch chef's knife and a pan of screaming hot clarified butter?!

As these thoughts consumed me, I continued to smile and nod, and wish people good morning, and ask how their weekends went, and smiled and said positive things to my chef bosses and assorted corporate masters. "If these people knew what I am thinking right now", I said to myself, "not one of them would be standing here requesting an omelet. Much less an EGG-WHITE omelet." And suddenly I laughed out loud. A few people looked at me strange, and I felt strange, and that made me happy again. At least for a bit.

But I realized today, finally and definitively, that the pros do not outweigh the cons with this gig. At least for me. I hate corporate America. I hate waking up at 5am. I hate face-to-face customer service. I miss my old semi-maniacal boss who would scream in my face during the rush and then send me a bourbon and coke moments later. I miss the sheer madness of Friday night dinner service. I'd prefer to work all evening, drink with the other cooks at night, and sleep until Noon.

I'm 30 years old. I know I'm not a kid anymore. But I'm not some old guy lifer type who wants to work some 9 to 5 and watch my life pass by. I still have a tiny bit of fire left in me, and I'll be damned if I watch it burn out while I slug through the days in corporate purgatory.

My hook is officially in the water, and the clock has now been wound. Tick tock, tick tock....