06.04.2020

I came very close to walking out mid shift yesterday. Not for any particular event, but because the soul crushing tedium and hopelessness of my position got too much. Horror and ennui, boredom and fear, made worse by the fact I can’t see any way out.

This job was only meant to keep me going while I retrained, and I had some freelance writing gigs to keep me going. So there was a plan, and I was earning ok, and working non stop. It was tough, but short term and worth it. Once I got the qualification I was working towards, I was going to teach English as a foreign language, because I thought that would give me the flexibility and earning potential to do a bit of creative work on the side and maybe do a degree. I never had a chance before, thanks again to ADHD.

I’d been working in ad agencies and for production companies for about ten years, but I hated the industry and was struggling to get work I think because of Brexit, and my own issues to do with ADHD that became too big to ignore, which is how I got diagnosed. So I was making changes, doing the course, got a McJob. I was working towards something so it wasn’t so bad. Now all that has disappeared.

I don’t mean disrespect to anyone who does this kind of work, but it’s not nice. It’s a really shit job. It’s badly paid, cold, uncomfortable, people don’t respect you, dangerous – even without a global pandemic on. I could take all that, but yesterday, folding up pizza boxes in a cramped basement I realised this was all I had. All I was likely to get. So I was fed up. In no mood for bullshit.

At first this seems like a good way to deal with it. It’s liberating to no longer feel tied in to this hierarchy of economic servitude. If a customer is being a dick, I just tell them to fuck off now. Customers complain that the pizza’s late, I just say do you want it or not? Or if they complain to me I just shrug and walk off. I’m not paid enough to give a good impression of the business, it’s out of my control anyway and if you are enough of a prick to complain about a late pizza in the middle of an unprecedented global pandemic, I have no time for you. In fact, I’ve decided if they keep paying me minimum wage, I’m putting in minimum effort. I’m driving everywhere at 20, and not doing any of the little bits of work that make the place run smoothly.

Driving at 20 is actually for my own safety too. Now there are way fewer cars on the road, the ones that remain are much more complacent. They don’t look, neither do pedestrians. The general rule on a motorbike is to ride defensively by assuming every car driver is trying to kill you, they’re negligent at the best of times. Some dickhead did a U turn right in front of me yesterday, which is incredibly dangerous for bikes. I really shouted at him, which isn't like me, but I think the stress is building.

I’m constantly worrying if I should even be out, and since they’re not furloughing us, I would actually be relieved if they fired me.

Yesterday, I was a good two hours late, not intentionally, ADHD again, I find rotas very confusing, especially if they change week to week, and can’t remember anything, nevertheless I didn’t rush in. I walked the dog first. I’m not stressing.

When I got in I saw a couple of orders on the line, but no tickets so I assumed the were nothing to do with me, not my job to find out either. The phones were ringing off the hook, but it’s not my job to answer the phone, so I ignored it and went down to the basement to fold up pizza boxes instead.

Turns out the orders were for me, but the chef didn’t know how to switch the system that printed the tickets on, so the orders were a good hour and a half late. The first guy was pouty with me, complained about no one answering the phone, I just shrugged like a 90s slacker movie anti-hero.

Next one said she ordered something else, she wasn’t an arsehole about it so I let her have the drinks free and said they’d sort out a refund. Third one, up near Tuffnell Park, didn’t answer the door, or his phone.

An hour or so later he called me. I’d just seen a CATS ambulance pull up outside someone’s house. You know the ones that always go to Great Ormond Street Hospital, they have a picture of a cat on the side. CATS stands for Children’s Acute Transport Service. This one said children’s intensive care unit on the back. I stopped counting the ambulances after that. So I wasn’t in the mood to put up with some brat complaining about a late pizza. He was going on and on, so I said, “what, do you have somewhere you needed to be?” he kept complaining saying his daughters were waiting in the garden for their pizza or something, so I said, “listen, I really don’t care” and hung up, he rang back asking how he could get a refund. I just said I don’t know. I texted him after that apologising and explained I was under a lot of stress and would sort a refund. It's not his fault and didn't deserve me being a dick to him. Told the boss at the end of the shift he needed a refund, he just said “fuck him.”

On the subject of ambulances, I’ve seen some higgledy piggledy home made garden shed jobs. A lot from private firms, and some that just seem to be old transit vans with NHS hastily written on the side and a siren screwed on top.

So, I was about to say I’d had enough. In fact, I nearly didn’t go home on the scooter, even though they said I could, because I wasn’t sure if I would go in today, or if I’d call in sick or just quit. There’s no way you can keep up the 2-meter separation we’re supposed to, and I know that dumb kid who had a gun has been “linking his mates” as usual, like nothing’s going on. So I’m taking a risk, for what, slightly better tips?

I’m still unsure about going in this evening. I’ve applied for a load more jobs this morning but I can’t think who’s hiring apart from supermarkets and the NHS. I’ve done both, even applied as an ambulance driver. I’m very squeamish, but very good in a crises, and I’d much rather do something with a proper contract, that actually meant something.

Everywhere I go there’s signs saying stay at home. We just got the government letter this morning saying the same. And now Boris Johnson is in hospital. It’s all a bit mad.

I think the best thing for me might be to call in sick. Take the three weeks statutory pay while I look for another job, and stop putting myself and others at risk for a bunch of fucking yuppies.