One day at a time.

 Yeah. So....this was basically my day today:

Let me back things up just a bit: that sweet data entry job I had was only for a one-year contract (plus a six-month extension that I agreed to without hesitation). Then the largest mound of shit hit the largest-ever fan. I foolishly assumed that, because of the pandemic, the terms of the contract wouldn't matter and I'd get to stay as long as I desired.

My last day was September 14th.

Since then, I've been bouncing around unmoored and looking for a new job. I applied for a handful of positions in the fields of office, banking and data entry. (I'm too old and too impatient to deal with customers, narrowing my job search considerably.)

As I get home yesterday, I receive a call from the staffing service that hooked me up with the data entry job. It's for a job at a packing supply company. Hemming and hawing were my main reactions to this news, mainly because I would have to start the next day. 

An eight-hour, five days a week job is not something to take lightly in this current society, especially as most people have neither a pot to piss in nor the window to throw it out of. Besides, the facility was a mere 10-minute drive from my home and if I didn't like the one day I worked there, I could walk away no harm, no foul.

I parked my car and went into where I believed the entrance to be. I rang the service doorbell and introduced myself. No answer. The start time of 7:30am comes and goes. Not a good way to make a first impression.

A gentleman comes along and tells me that I'm at the wrong entryway. He directs me to the other side of the property where I need to go. Oh, and he's not wearing a mask. This is a disturbing harbinger of events.

I get inside and introduce myself to my supervisor, a very nice lady. I put my raincoat into one of the lockers - #13. Another harbinger.

She directs me to my work station where I and six other people will be assembling boxes for a candy company. Putting boxes together? Who's up for some cake?

Two of my fellow workers had mustaches that they seemed to be airing out. The one female co-worker had a nose ring. I should not have been able to know these things, but I did.

Now, you'd think that this would have been enough, but this was merely one aspect of misery. Being overweight, my legs are pressured enough, but this brought back bad memories of my customer service job in that I was on my feet all damn day.

"Surely, you'd have time to sit on your break." Oh, we'll get to that later.

The boxes are made up of various parts. One of my co-workers doesn't think I'm moving fast enough, so he adjusts the parts, supposedly to make the work go faster, but his mask is slipping down his face. Does he really think I need his hands all over the shit I'm working with?

I forgot to mention that there were four tables to work at, so two people were at a table, working side by side with barely enough room between them for the Holy Spirit.

Break time rolls around. Mine is not the only unit working in this facility. If I had to hazard a guess, there were roughly 15 people total spread around. Break time is the same for all of them. There's a corner of the work floor reserved for down time with about four booths. Shoddy mask wearing, no social distancing, cramped break room. Jesus H. Christ, it's like the last seven months never happened!

While assembling boxes, one has to be careful not to put them together too fast, lest you risk the heartache of paper cuts, something that I - of course - learned the hard way. Not knowing where the first-aid kit was (and being too nervous to ask), I was forced to MacGyver a bandage out of paper towels and masking tape.

Another couple hours go by. I'm screaming inside. These people are talking and carrying on, their masks slipping down their faces. I really feel I should say something, but too many psychopaths who either wear their masks improperly or just plain go without have turned decent human beings into statistics. As I would later verbalize, it's nice to have a paycheck, but I'd much rather be alive to enjoy said paycheck.

12:00pm. Lunch. No cafeteria, so people are forced to brown bag it. I grab some cookies from the vending machine and retreat outdoors to sit in my car. I scream more than I'd like as I settle into the front seat. I wolf down the cookies and mess around on my phone, deciding right then and there that there's no fucking way I'm suffering this routine a second time.

Back to the grind. The work continues. I'm so tired. At least, they had a temperature kiosk, so they weren't completely unaware of the world outside.

I'd often think of myself as Frank Grimes in a world full of Homer Simpsons. Never was that more true than today.

2:00ish. Last break. I send a strongly worded e-mail detailing that if this job had come along at any other point in my life, I probably would work here as long as I could (and, let me tell you, I could've really used in in the fall of 2014), but given the current health crisis and the incompetence of my co-workers, this job will be a very, very temporary one.

The candy boxes are complete. The rest of the time is taken removing 24 packs of soda from a pallet, placing them in boxes and stacking them for packaging. 

Once again, people were all up in each other's shit, including mine. Ultimately, the job was done, though one of my co-workers had to leave early. He had a headache. So, people were letting their masks slip off their faces all goddamn day and someone ends up with a headache. We might need Sherlock Holmes to crack this mystery.

At the end of the shift, I'm forced to tell my supervisor that I will not be continuing on with the company. Under other circumstances, sure, but 2020 makes fools of us all.

I grab my coat from the locker. It's covered in rust or dust or something. I get to the parking lot. Raining cats and dogs. I fight my way to getting my coat on. My hat which was in the sleeve was now on the ground.

If I still possessed to ability to cry outside of sad moments in animated movies, I would've been bawling the moment I shut my car door.

The only thing keeping me from freaking out about the job situation is that I still have some money squirreled away. Let me tell you: if I wasn't so worried about being dragged into court for not paying my bills, I would never bother with a job for as long as I live.

And let me also say this: if you think leaving a job for not wanting to contract a horribly debilitating disease is petty, then it would be in your best interest to address me as 'Richard Petty, Sir'!