Collective Incidents

It is 7:18 on a cool early September summer morning with birds singing and dew...on the car. I turn on the wipers and rear window defogger to dispel the condensation on the front and rear windows of my small green 2003 Honda Civic. I then get out and squeegee the side windows. I get back in and turned on the radio to hear some…Mozart and meditatively thought, “Aah, this is going to be a good relaxing day.”

I put the car in reverse to slowly back out of the driveway. I look in both directions to see…no one coming. I then continue to slowly back out…when I simultaneously hear a blaring horn and suddenly saw a large black SUV traveling at 70 miles an hour in a 25 barreling down on me. I frantically put the car in forward and pulled back into the driveway as the perp, not slowing, zoomed past bowing his or her horn. I then reached over and turned off the radio. I again backed out of the driveway, this time without incident.

I drove the several blocks to the expressway entrance, also without incident. With the exception of a major intersection, most of this distance to I-70 West is usually not very crowded. The fun continues with getting on I-70.

Yesterday morning, there was an accident on the on-ramp because someone was hit while trying to enter the highway. Today this same scenario nearly occurred with me which helped to further color my day. Someone in a white Cadillac did not want me to get on because he sped up and cut me off. I ended up in the berm. I tried to get back on and several people were upset bowing their horns because I was where I was.

As I finally got on, I noticed the traffic suddenly slowing and then stopping. According to the radio, which I switched back on to hear what was going on, several miles up ahead there was an accident that had the expressway shut down. This means that there were injuries and possible a fatality. I sat there for over an hour and was late for work.

Everyday there seems to be two or three significant accidents on the highways that surround my town.

I arrived at work to find my boss, that I see once a month, waiting in my cube with a scowl on his fact. He blared, “You are usually the first here. I thought you liked coming in earlier. Now, you-know, you’ll have to stay late tonight to make up the time.” He then went on to say, “This thing you gave me does not jive…”

To briefly explain:

• He seldom if-ever gets into the office before 9:00am. I normally arrived at 7:50am.
• He has never been to my cube.
• He never gives me assignments.

The day before, he asked me in an email for some information. I gave it to him. He then realized the information I gave to him was a lot more complicated than he had anticipated. He then came to my cube and asked if I could do this thing…in 5 minutes. I responded, "It will take a lot longer, about an hour or so to do." He then said, "Ah, never mind" and then said, “I guess you don’t know how to access the information. I just want something simple, just something thrown together.” He then left. Later in the day he asked me in an email to finish what he had started. And an hour before I left, I sent to him what I thought he wanted. But, the email indicator said he had left for the day. Today he is back in my cube saying it does not work perfectly, and I needed to spend the time necessary to make it work properly.

Each of these incidents alone does not seem like it is very much to get upset over. It is this daily increasing collection of them that is causing considerable stress.

Along with belligerent bosses who think it's an employer's job market, there are drivers who feel their only hope in life for self worth is to harass the other drivers which causes accidents.

Even though cars are being built better to protect the occupants from fatality, there are still over 40,000 people being killed each year from car accidents.

Also, US productivity continues to fall.

With that said, I still feel very discouraged and tired. I am not sure what to do. My wife suggests that I quit working and she go to work. Little does she realize, her pay would only be about $9 an hour. Her foreign teaching credentials are worth nothing here in the USA. She also suggests we move to her country of Taiwan and teach English.

She suggests these things not because I complain, rather because she sees in my face and my eyes that I am not happy. I never tell her about my day and how difficult it is. I think it is the combination of her being in the car and seeing the craziness of the other drivers and my distress and tiredness especially when I come home from work and flop into bed.

In all of this and according to everyone I dare mention this to, “It is my…f_king fault!” Though theoretically, this may have some semblance of being true, I just don’t think I can take all of the blame. I believe everyone is having similar problems, a lot of people worse off than me. They don’t have sympathetic spouses. It’s just that, like me, everyone grins and bears their own situation of feeling helpless to do anything about it.

So, what the hell is wrong?

I feel this...despair when I turn on the TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper or browse Internet.  I see, hear and read of a bleak future slated for the US. I hear about all manufacturing which is leaving or has left the US.  I am told the earth is growing warmer because of people like me.  I see prices for everything is or has gone up while my salary remains the same…for over ten years.  I read commentaries saying we will have to learn to do with less, much less.

Then I decide not to view, read or listen any more. 

I go weeks not seeing, hearing, or reading the news. But then I listen to people around me being superficial and I can easily discern the agony in their voices. I see their anger on the roads, hear their disgruntlement in their stores, feel their tiredness in the workplace through their false pretentiousness of professionalism, and I try to shut myself off from them...simply because I want to be happy.

I live in a town where 60% of the people are clinically obese, where many people spend an average of 3 hours a day in front of the TV, where most radio stations are a barrage of loud obnoxious commercials, where the average suburbanite spends an average of three to four hours a day behind the wheel driving over 25,000 miles a year taking their kids to… 

Is it from all of this that I must learn to be happy and coexist amicably in this society?  Or do I become a F___ING snob or a recluse trying to hide from it all?

…I write this, not to complain, even though I am hurting; I just want to see if…any of this is true for anyone else out there.

Again I say, each thing in itself is not cause for alarm. It is the collection of all of them that makes me sick; that builds a desire within me to try and find some path out of this. I doubt I can fix the obese, crazy, superficial, TV watching soccer moms, so do I need to find another more sedate functional place to be?

Jim V September 2005