Unwork
Not only do I not “go to work” or “dress for work,” I don’t have a job, at least not by most people’s definition of a job.
I realized recently I don’t work anymore. Haven’t in quite a while. Well, it’s rare when I do. Work, of course, like many things is a matter of definition. But by most people’s definition, I don’t work.
First off, I don’t have to ‘go to work,’ in the normal sense of things. My commute is about six paces from wherever I am in the house to the spare bedroom which serves as my office. So, by most people’s definition I don’t commute to work. Nor do I dress for work.
My uniform for work is identical to what I wear on the weekend and holidays, which are for the most part just like my week days. I have a black pair of athletic pants, half of a warm-up suit, and a selection of brightly colored sweat shirts, a few confiscated from my wife. After all, in the wilds of nature, it’s the males who wear the bright colors. And that’s my uniform. Oh, I do have a couple other pairs of warm-up pants, but the black ones are lined with cotton, warm and soft in the winter, soft and cool in the summer. They are my favorite and besides, black rarely shows dirt. I do wash them — on special occasions. Oh, and this past Christmas I added a pair of moccasin slippers to my business wardrobe. I have them on now, and I must confess, find them so comfortable that I’ve worn them to church once or twice.
So, not only do I not “go to work” or “dress for work,” I don’t have a job, at least not by most people’s definition of a job. If you ask most people nowadays about their job, it’s that nasty place where they have to dress a certain way and then get in their car and drive, usually through heavy traffic with other jobbers, being sure to get their at their ‘start time,’ then spend the day doing something they detest with people they’d just as soon not hang around.
Nope, I don’t have a job. I don’t have any particular time I need to slip into my warm-up pants and sweat shirt, no particular time that I have to walk the six paces to my spare bedroom. Fact is, I’m usually drawn there by about 9 am, but then, if I stayed up late the night before, I could find myself opening the door around 10, or if, as is often the case, I’m into something really exciting, I may be found in my spare bedroom as early as 8. It’s not unusual for me to wake up during the night, and wander in. After all it is a bedroom, just without a bed.
Once I’m in my spare room, I don’t do any work, by most people’s definition. After all, work is that stuff you have to do despite how much you despise doing it in order to ‘make a living,’ which usually equates to receiving a regular paycheck each week or every other week. I don’t do any of that. Whatever it is that I do in my spare bedroom, (or for that matter, in my regular bedroom where I am now with my laptop computer), I love to do. In fact, if I didn’t love doing it so much, most people would say that I do it so much that they’d describe me as a ‘workaholic’. Except, as I said, I don’t hate what I do in my spare bedroom. I love it.
I also don’t receive a weekly or bimonthly paycheck. Oh, it’s not that I don’t get paid for what I do — sometimes. It’s just not that my pay days aren’t limited to Fridays. Which makes going to my mailbox a lot more interesting than it is for most people. Imagine opening your mailbox never knowing whether there might be money waiting for you inside. And never knowing how much or how little there is. Exciting stuff for sure. Too exciting, I guess, for most people. But then, as you can probably tell, I’m not like most people. I don’t work anymore.
