The Non-Job

Not only do I have a non-blog, but now, as my mom pointed out to me yesterday, I also have a non-job. "Doesn't that just mean you're unemployed?" you ask. Well, no. Being unemployed is much better than working a non-job. While having a non-job is like being unemployed in many many ways (i.e. you're not working and you're not making any money), the key difference is that with the non-job, your non-employer keeps telling you that your non-job will start tomorrow. Two weeks and several more unfulfilled "We're opening tomorrow or the next day at the latest" promises later you are still not working and you are still making no money, but at this point it's too late to find another job, so you sit around hoping that the non-job becomes a job as soon as possible.

It's like when I was waiting in line to get hot dogs at the Phillies game on $1 hot dog day. By the time I realized the line was not moving because they were out of hot dogs, I had already been waiting in line too long to just walk away (10 mins). After all, how long can it take to make a couple hot dogs? (15 mins). And since there were fewer than ten people ahead of me in line, I knew it couldn't take too long after the hot dogs were ready.

This would have been the case had each person in line not been buying a minimum of fifteen hot dogs. But by the time I realized this, I had invested way too much time (30 minutes) to walk away without a hot dog. When I finally made it to the counter (45 minutes) to order my two hot dogs, I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment. Just an absence of failure, which, much like the non-Fenway frank, was not that satisfying.