Jobs I Can Do As A Burnt-Out Middle-Aged Depressed GenX Slacker
If only I could be paid for staring blankly at the Internet while wondering what the hell I'm doing with the rest of my short time here on this goddamn planet...
I’ve been feeling damn frustrated lately, both at myself and the world. So, nothing new.
I feel burnt out all the time. Yeah, that’s frustrating enough, and all the other symptoms with my depression sure as hell don’t help: anhedonia (a lack of pleasure in doing activities), foggy-mindedness, a lack of motivation, and an overriding fear that Danny DeVito is going to stab me in my sleep (I’m not sure what kind of Latin -phobia tag said specific fear would bear, but it’s real so I’ll thank you not to mock it).
Yes, I’m in therapy. Mostly for the depression, since I haven’t had the guts to bring up my DeVitophobia with my therapist yet. But each day is a small step, right?
Anyways, these problems cause me problems with keeping regular employment. Not to continue to be a gloomy Gus, but my Crohn’s Disease is also a barrier… So when it comes to making a regular income, I keep rolling snake eyes in the Game of Life.
Thank the Cosmic God of Irony that I have a sense of humor about the whole matter, a mental silver lining nestled deeply in my constant depression cloud. With these thoughts in mind, I’ve been working on a list of jobs I think I can handle with a fair amount of competency. There’s not a lot of workplace demand for middle-aged depressed Slackers like me with a broken heart of tarnished gold and a chaotic mind of misfiring neurons but, hey, there’s got to exist at least one job opening out there that’s on my following list:
Jobs I Can Do As A Burnt-Out Middle-Aged Slacker:
1. Guy In Office Building Lobby Who Smiles And Waves At People
"Hey, how ya doin'? Weather's getting nicer, ain't it? No, we don't know each other!"
You know when you’re going to a place of business that’s in an office building, and sometimes when you walk through the lobby a random stranger waiting there smiles and nods at you? Yeah, I could do that. I do that often enough in real life, since many people see me as a non-threatening and approachable guy in public.
It’s true - often when I’m walking outside and minding my own business, random strangers will approach me if they need directions to somewhere, or they wish to know the time, or if I’m interested in their religion and want to dance in their next orgiastic Heathen ceremony, to which I always answer, “Yes”.
(Okay, that last example was a joke, I’ve never been asked to take part in orgies involving Heathens. Pentecostal ones, sure, but not Heathen.)
2. “Can You Watch My Stuff” Guy at the Coffee Shop.
"Sure, I'll make sure no one steals your stuff while you're taking a dump."
Keeping in mind that I’m a guy who looks like someone you can trust - and generally that’s true, unless you’re trying to keep me away from your dessert food items - often when I’m at a coffee shop, a patron will ask me to watch their laptop & stuff at their table while they go to the washroom.
I like it that people I don’t know sense they can trust me - or maybe they see the extra weight I carry around and surmise I wouldn’t make it very far with their valuables. It’s all good, really.
3. Friendly Guy In The Doctor’s Waiting Room Who Commiserates With You About Your Health Problems.
"The constant grinding pain of mortality sure sucks, don't it? My back hurts."
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s whining about my health. Hell, this article is proof positive of such! And what better place to do so than with other poor suffering bastards waiting in a small cramped room in uncomfortable chairs, hoping against hope they’ll see a doctor, any doctor, before they collapse and die in a puddle of their own excrement? God bless our modern health care system!
I’m great at ruefully talking about my health problems and lending a genuinely sympathetic ear to others when they discuss their own. And I believe, if you’re a health professional reading this article, that it’d be a very helpful bonus to your practice having a guy like me in your waiting room to sympathize with your patients and maybe cheer them up with a joke or two about my constant hacking cough that sounds like a Doberman Pinscher trying to sing the German operetta “Die Fledermaus”.
4. Window Display: “Middle-Aged Internet Addict”.
"Why hello there, potential customer! C'mon into the store! Buy something! Want to see my OnlyFans page?"
More a statement on modern society than a window display, really. Just stick a desk and computer with half-decent Internet access behind your store’s front picture window, throw me in there, and you've got an attraction that’ll certainly draw in new customers.
You have no idea how long I can sit in a chair and mindlessly surf the Internet. It’s not healthy, but that’s what will draw people to stand in front of your store and mutter amongst themselves that they don’t like the color of my Vitamin-D deficient skin as I start my 17th hour of making angry and pointless comments on Reddit.
Hell, hook me up to a catheter and throw food at me occasionally, I may never leave my chair. I’ve asked my roommates to help me set up this very scenario, but they always say no and then walk away briskly.
5. Shoulder Massage Office Guy
"Wow, young feller, you sure are tense!"
Most office workers have that one person they trust to grab them a coffee and then give ‘em a quick shoulder rub to make the day less stressful, and I’m that guy. I don’t give a damn about your gender, and since I’ve been psychologically traumatized to the point of psycho-neurotic impotence from a horrible broken marriage, I’ll never make a pass at you… so H.R. be damned and enjoy your damn java and platonic therapeutic massage from me while the boss ain’t looking.
Nice and firm shoulder muscles on you, though. You work out?
6. Weed Smokin’ Television Watchin’ Couch Buddy
Bea Arthur in 'The Golden Girls' will never not be funny! Hey, want a hit of this doob, dude?
Are you currently unemployed, depressed, smoking a lot of weed, and watching too much television while sitting on the sofa all day? Well, you really need someone like me!
I’m that kind of guy that, when you’re down, I try to cheer you up. Combined with my many decades experience of being a slacker, I’ll make your momentary lull in career prospects more bearable!
Do you enjoy occasional humorous comments by a friendly and witty couch buddy about the TV shows you’re watching? Well, if they handed out PhD’s for such a position, I’d be the goddamn Professor Emeritus of the entire planet.
Now I’ll roll us a doobie because it’s almost time for The Simpsons. Want me to order a pizza?
7. Mattress Effectiveness Tester at Furniture Store.
"You see how wonderfully cozy our beds are, potential customer? This bathrobe-wearing slob wandered in off the street and has been sleeping here for three days! You'll buy seven mattresses? Of course you will."
Really, my ultimate goal in life is to be provided a living income for remaining unconscious and horizontal on a comfortable surface for long durations of time. So it helps my depression to know my specific ambition is similar to everyone else's, too.
If you own a furniture store, imagine the customers you’ll get when they notice me sleeping on one of your mattresses? Just tell your potential buyers, “Yeah, this guy laid down to test this mattress and it is so damn comfortable he’s been asleep for seven hours!”. You’ll sell beds and bed accessories by the truckload! You’re welcome.
Rest assured (heh), I don’t snore, so I won’t cause any trouble in that way. I will admit though, sometimes while I sleep I shout out passages from The Book of Revelations in a deep scratchy voice, but that will just lend your professional place of business some spiritual atmosphere.
8. Ghostwriter for passive-aggressive office memos
""Oh, you're gonna love this response from Betty in H.R., Bob ol' pal.
Your co-workers annoy you with memos but you’re too half-arsed to send them a thinly-veiled sarcastic reply to get them off your back for a few minutes until they send another stupid & pointless memo? Hire me and I’ll gleefully send a constant flow of passive-aggressive memos to everyone you don’t like or wish to annoy at your job!
Example:
To: Bob in Accounting
From: SlackerDan
Bob,
In reply to your last memo, RE: “To Everyone In The Office, Please Stop Stealing My Packed Lunch From The Breakroom Refrigerator”, Betty in the Sales division asks if it would kill you to include some dill pickles next time with your sandwich instead of those lame carrot spears.
Best Regards,
SlackerDan
9. Hotel Bathtub Comfort Evaluator
"This is great! That'll be a $250 consultation fee you now owe me, Holiday Inn Corporation."
It’s important that every hotelier’s patrons are completely satisfied with their rooms. So, to every hotel manager out there, listen to me: you need a middle-aged man with constant body aches like me to test out each and every bathtub in your establishment on a constant basis. With hot water and lots of bubbles in the bath, and by candlelight while listening to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” album. With a rubber ducky.
I can do this job for you. I can make this sacrifice.
10. Professional Hidden Workplace Nap Consultant
"You may merely perceive a storage room full of cardboard boxes, but herein I tell you, is The Sweet Land of Happy Dreams... until Tony the annoyed Wal-Mart manager stumbles in."
Need a professional slacker to find the optimal places to take a nap while on the job, safe from being found out by your boss? I’m your consultant. I have decades of experience in finding hidden nooks and crannies to hide and sleep in the professional workplace.
You’re talking to a guy who once curled himself up in a tight ball on top of a hot water heater in a cramped utility closet just to avoid being asked to help a customer. I once crawled under a 2017 Toyota Prius in an outdoor car parking lot during winter to grab forty winks while my very annoyed vape store manager searched for me. At one workplace I made a functioning bed hidden inside an empty refrigerator box I labelled “Christmas Decorations” that lasted me for months of hidden naps until December 11th rolled around and I got fired when my boss discovered me instead of a disassembled artificial pine tree inside it.
“Welp”, as the kids say, that wraps up my self-therapeutic article about the jobs I know I can handle at my current age and semi-lucid state of mind. While my employment goals may not seem very ambitious, give me some credit for maintaining my professional morals - I’d never become a lawyer. I mean, c’mon.
"That last remark is out of line, Mr. SlackerDan! We'll see you in COURT! Oh, wait, you have no money. Never mind."