1. It annoys me how "the current economy" conversation makes me feel like I should be excessively grateful to have a customer service job. Because it's a job, everybody says, and not everybody has one of those! And while I do cling to my weekly paycheck, the eight hours daily that bring it about sometimes make me want to kill myself just a little.

2. Then I wonder if it's really classist of me to dislike customer service so much. Because lots of people do it for a brief period, and lots of people do it forever, and they don't complain, right? Or maybe they do, and nobody listens. Or maybe they devise a system in order to not hate everything every day. Or maybe they get married, and they go home to their spouse and pet the little lambs and look out a window or something. Or maybe other people just have a better attitude, and I am a jerk. But you know what makes you a jerk? Being unhappy and resigning yourself to it.

3. And aside from whether this feeling is or is not more classist than other activities in my daily life, I think maybe I'm just not suited to it, this kind of work. (Like other people are? Well, maybe.) I see coworker R. buzzing by every now and then, and she's always smiling and even when the most annoying customers are thrown at her, she's listening and going "Hmm, good question, let's see!" and swishing by and improvising. I heard she used to be in computer programming or something. Maybe she's "project-oriented." But when somebody asks me for a recommendation, my mind just goes blank. And it doesn't help that I'm not really allowed to leave the desk, so I never see the shelves and sections people are talking about. But maybe the larger problem is that I'm not a person who likes to talk to just anybody, and especially not the everyday volume of people standing at a front desk necessitates. I'd rather shelve quietly by myself. That kind of isolation bothers some people, and I'd love to trade jobs with those exact people.

4. For a period of an hour or two virtually every morning after coming in, I am really mad. Like, grumpy and annoyed and generally fuck-you at every single person in the room. I think this is because I am realizing daily that I have come back to this benighted place! And I get mad about it. Then by 2pm or so I feel fine, and kind of embarrassed that I was so mad before. I know it's an office cliché, but sometimes a cup of coffee makes me feel less hateful toward everybody.

5. This one guy looking for Harry Potter books with his child was super-nice just now. My ire is largely irrational.

6. No, my ire is not irrational. I will not stamp your fucking stamp card, get out of my face. You are not entitled to everything you think you are entitled to.