A new poll confirms one of those things everybody knows but nobody talks about: call it a job, a career or a mission, most people hate it at worst and tolerate it at best.
When asked, 99.714% of people agreed they if their job was a person they'd spend all their time trying to figure out how to murder it without being caught. The remaining part of the 1 per cent say they can live with what they do but still buy the Lottery in the hope they won't have to do it any longer.
Not surprisingly, people in jobs that sound really awful, like recycling sorter or Brazilian waxer, struggle to meet the standard of loving what they do.
"Let me see," said undertaker Jim Grimm, "I tend the dead, with services including but not limited to hosing them down with antiseptic before pumping them full of chemicals, I deal with their variously hysterical, violent or just downright stupid survivors, sometimes I deal with their previously unknown mistresses or same sex lovers showing up for a showdown, and then I demonstrate the temerity and lack of character of daring to invoice for all the aforementioned. Oh, yes, I love my job. Just bloody love it."
"Look at me," said sewer inspector Wally Pope. "I am standing next to a flowing brown river of human waste. I always am. The only time I see daylight is when I arrive at work, to descend into a world that is nothing but flowing brown rivers of human waste and the occasional murder victim. Even if legislation allowed for it, if I lit up a fag down here I'd blow half of what's above ground sky high. What do you think I'm going to say?"
Even higher up the food chain, the dream of a dream career collided with the nightmare of reality.
"I became a doctor to heal the sick," said one physician," but, you know, generally the sick are fairly disgusting and whingy creatures. Moan, moan, moan. And even if you could cure 'em there's hardly enough money in the system to deliver the goods. And that's not even touching the hordes of nurses on the hunt for a fucking husband."
"I think we need to keep these findings in context," said renowned career expert and motivational speaker Ima Shyster. "An entire multi-discipline billion pound industry has been built around the idea of finding happiness and fulfilment through work. Bookstores, at least the ones left, have entire sections devoted to the subject, and that's before you count the DVDs and apps and podcasts. There are authors, presenters, wardrobe experts, fitness experts, new idea experts. If the notion takes root that it's going to suck no matter what, you're putting a lot of people out of work. And what of the people out of work? What happens to them without false hope and the perpetual frustration of believing they can't get it right? Society would collapse!"
The poll identified that the only job on earth worth having was CEO, as succeed or fail the occupant is paid ungodly amounts of money.
