Brother Juniper’s House of Catholic Slackers

I had a really rotten day at work today.  I want to quit. Because the thing is, I don’t really have to work.  I know, it’s awful, but true.  I can live (very simply) off what I have right now for a little while and anyway I don’t think I’m a very good employee.  I’m just not very good at following directions; it’s not in my nature.  (maybe I could get disability for this?:-)

So I called my old friend, Pat, and asked him if he thought it was “character-building” for me to stay at a job I don’t like, because that’s what most people have to do and why should I give myself an exception just because I can?  He said, screw character-building; he gave eleven years of his life to a boss and he’d not do it again.  This, from a man who didn’t get a “real” job ‘til he was 36 and then retired when he was 51 and now lives in a condemned hovel, is three months behind on his rent and wears shoes with holes in them.  In response to the newly started Catholic Worker house down the street, he calls his dive Brother Juniper’s House of Catholic Slackers.

This is my role model.  I want to be like Pat.  Minus the eleven years working for the state prison system, of course.  He spends his time stationed in his lawn chair outside City Hall holding hand-made signs saying things like “Housing rights are human rights!" and "Still no room in the inn?”.  He also drives the HOME (Homeless Outreach Mobile Effort) van twice a week delivering food and clothing to folks living in the woods around the city.  He’s terribly overweight, has bad teeth, is a recovering alcoholic and has a big mouth which is always getting him into trouble.  But he’s my best friend; he makes me laugh.  When I ask him about work being character-building, he tells me “we’re Catholic --it’s the Protestant work ethic!”

Well, what about the benefits of socialization?  I asked.  Don’t you think it’s good for me just to get out and be around non-canine life forms? --no offense, Sadie!  Can one’s social skills atrophy from living like a hermit?

Not likely, he says.  At least not mine.  Even being gone from it for two years I still have a wide circle of friends back home (this is true –did I tell ya I was lucky?).  Any time I want to come back, they’ll still be there, he says (I’ve been gone since I left for Colombia in early 2003).  Maybe it’s good for me to take this time off.  Especially if I’m gonna finish up grad school and have comps and everything next year.  That’s pretty intense.  Colombia was intense. Maybe I should sandwich those two intense years with one where I can kick back, read as many books as I can, watch as many movies as I can and write and write and write about all of it.

He’s right.  I don’t owe this capitalist economy nothin’! Who’m I foolin’ with this Protestant work ethic crap? There’s no denying it: I’m a natural-born Catholic Slacker.

Morning After update:
I'm not going to quit. It's not actually that bad. Most of the time it's pretty nice.  It's just some days it grates on me.  But as soon as I get home I forget about it.  That's the benefit to having a job you can leave at the workplace, as opposed to one you have to carry home with you at the very least in your head.  And if I'm going to travel this spring/summer, I gotta keep it.  oh well.  c'est la vie!