The Eternal Shift

And the importance of succumbing to it

There is a nobility in working the endless shift, the eternal shift. Being face to face with humans; the good and the bad, the strange ones and the creeps, the winners and the losers, the foreign and the fighters and the victims and the tramps and the rich that act as if they are poor, and the poor that act as though they are rich, yes, there is a nobility in working the eternal shift.

There is a duty to be served and stories to be found and voices to be heard. There is an honesty to it and a sense of survival, working from rota to rota, hour to hour, pay day to pay day, certainty to uncertainty, always a ‘bottom end’ job to be filled. There is always something to be done, and time does not long itself out if the task at hand is done well: do this, do that, serve that table, make this drink, refill the fridge, take this food, move there, stay here, serve the family outside, give them blankets, do, do, do, do, do. Stand still for a moment and you might miss something. Look lost and you will be found.

Succumb to the demands of the people, take the weight of the hours on your shoulders and carry that son’bitch to the sunset.

And one must experience it at least once in their life. Some may even wish to experience it forever. There are no problems or issues that one night’s sleep cannot fix, or one drink or one act of passion or kindness, or one sunrise or one smile or one release.

Nobody is fooled in this life. There is no misplacement as to who you are or where you stand in this corner of the universe. There is no false sense of pride or worth, only in serving the people and doing it well and with dignity and purpose. There is no illusion of wealth (there is none), just an honest living, enough to survive, enough to pass onto the next, and a kind of empathy that gives value in living. Yes, there is a nobility in working the eternal shift, and I hereby sentence myself to life.

All rise.