How do you know when you’ve worked at a job too long? Well, here’s my guess:

1) At work, you burp and fart out loud, as if you’re at home.

2) You can nap on your 45-minute drive to work because your car knows the way.

3) Customers actually say to you, “Wow, you STILL work here?”

Oh yes friends, these fateful words were uttered to me twice in the last month. I shit you not. Here’s a recipe for ya:

1 frustrated, angsty, under stimulated 30 year old

+

1 tedious, mind-numbing job with the douche bags that make up the general public

+

2 Wow, you STILL work heres

=

D I S A S T E R.

Every day I go to work I have to give myself a, “Get your shit together. You can do this,” sort of a talk, as my throat falls into my heart, my heart collapses into my stomach and my stomach seeps into my bowels. My whole body is sinking. I desperately gasp for air. My lungs are compressed by the weight of the impending 8 hours. My brain clamors for something, anything to make me feel better:

“Don’t be a spoiled brat, at least you live in a first world country.” Nope, that doesn’t work.

“Get a grip, if working a stupid job is the worst of your problems, well then, you got it made.” Hmm, still not working, and now I feel guilty.

“At least you’re not in prison.” To which the other side of my brain retorts: “Well at least in prison I wouldn’t have a miserable job.”

If you’re not sure why I’m still bartending, please read this, and when you’re finished with it, please remind me why I’m still bartending. But those are murky waters and today I just want to know when to say, “I quit” without being a quitter.

It’s pretty complicated, naturally. What would life be without complication? Before this job, I was a job-bouncer. I’d work a gig, at most, a year, and then I’d quit. I’d bounce around for a few months, house-sitting, freelance writing, whatever I could find that didn’t put a choke chain on me and when I got good and broke, I’d find another job, milk it for what is was worth and then quit. Peace out suckas.

And then came my current establishment, where I have been for 3.5 years. Eesh. Part of the reason is that I got accustom to making grown-up money. That was a first for me. “Now wait a darn minute, I can afford to buy a beverage besides water? How fancy!” I also really love my co-workers. And it’s one of the few decent bartending gigs in L.A. where I don’t have to wear a titty shirt. Huge plus.

But a pretty good indication that I need to move on is that my surliness level has grown exponentially in the last year. A girl came in on Friday night and since she looked like she should be studying for her geometry test instead of at a bar, we carded her. After her pleads of, “Oh I don’t have my I.D., but I’m 30, I swear.” I was about to say to her:

“Well, sweetie pie, if you don’t have your I.D. the only other way to determine your age is to make like a Sequoia and let my manager count the rings around your vagina.”

Before I got it out, I was interrupted by some douche ordering a mojito, so my much more tactful co-bartender stepped in, but you see my point.

A month ago a lady complained that her mashed celery root was instead mashed potatoes (without tasting it, of course) and she couldn’t have mashed potatoes or else her fucking head would fall off. I assured her it was mashed celery root. She continued to argue that it looked liked mashed potatoes and mashed potatoes give her facial warts or the clap or some other ridiculous shit. So, to prove her wrong, I picked up her fork and took a bite out of her goddamn mashed celery root.

Chew, chew, swallow, swallow. And with a smile, “Nope, that’s celery root. I’m positive,” and gave her her fork back. 

These are just two of the many times when my inappropriateness level is to the extreme. I’ve tried to leave my job in the past hoping that the shake-up would zen my ass out. I even got another job and worked both places for a while. But the new place sucked beyond mention (and I had to wear a titty shirt) so I left after a couple of months.

Last summer I again got the itch to leave my current job. But then there was the Writers’ strike and everyone was out of work and L.A. slid into a bog of despair. No work, no one eating out, no auditions, no bueno. So for the past year, the number one reason I’m too scared to quit my job is the economy. BLAH.

The economy: the ultimate cockblock. L.A. took it in the nuts with the Writers’ strike, which shortly preceded the economy turning into such a dick. I’m so sick of hearing about the economy and its asshole ways. It’s been totally successful in turning me into a sissy, too afraid to shake shit up in my life, yet so miserably bored.

I remind myself ad nauseam that my job is just a means to an end. It allows me space to pursue my bigger dreams (yada yada yada). And I know that it’s not this particular job that I dislike (really, really, really dislike). It’s this type of work that makes my head want to explode, as well as every other job option out there that would allow me to pursue my dream. And yes, I’ve tried them all. Trust me.

But I’m really starting to wonder, what is the equation to happiness? If my job makes me 50% less happy, but pursuing my dream makes me 75% happier, does that mean I’m 25% happy? Or 75% miserable?

I suppose what it comes down to is, how long can you put up with the means, before you get the end? Or, how do you figure out how to make the means just as pleasurable as what you think the end will be? I can’t see my cut-off point, but I know that the means are getting much, much more mean. Oh hell, maybe I just need a vacation.