ROCKIN ON YOUR DIME

It was the summer before my senior year of college. It was a couple
weeks into the break, most kids had already got an internship or
whatever. I was still looking for a job at that point, and wasn't too
hopeful for getting one.I came across a job posting at the local Social Security Office
looking for clerical help.

I went in for an interview and got the job.

aka

Tax payer money was spent on helping me kill time during the summer.

It was your usual run ofthe mill cleric/gopher type stuff. Sort/distribute/send out mail.
And of course the random "project" theyd give. Now, the beauty of
these projects was that they were basically things that other people
just didnt know how to go about doing and just assumed it would take
forever to get done. But if you sat and thought about it for a couple
minutes youd realize itd take a couple hours at most. You never let
them know that of course. The key was to try to evenly distribute so
that it appeared that you had a steady flow of work to do. But I'm sure all
of you know how that works.
Id do maybe 30 minutes of real "work" during the day besides the
typical clerical stuff. The rest was looking like i was still doing
it.

Somehow, I managed to score a corner cubicle with a window looking
out. Along with internet access. 1 hr lunch breaks somtimes turned
into 2 hr trips to the mall. Whatever it was..people just didnt seem
to notice and or care. It also helped me afford a gameboy advance,
which I'd end up playing in the stairwell (my boss would walk by me all the time)
If i was really hard up on things to do, I'd just go to the front office and
see people come in and complain about why their government isn't working for them.

What made the situation all the more interesting was that I was
considered a federal employee. i got all their benefits, all the
federal holidays paid off, even the same protections! if i were to be
attacked for whatever reason, itd be considered a federal offense. for
jumping the mail guy.

They were under the impression that I would stay through the school year, but of
course I ended up quitting september. I'd already made a decent amount of money,
had something else to slap onto the resume, and I was just plain tired of it.

So next time you're waiting in line complaining about why something is taking so long..
you might have an idea why..