I'm constantly having dreams about being on a job but not knowing what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Is this what compels me to get a job in real life? Am I trying to exorcise those dreams out of my head? Some of the dreams I have are about being back at the offices at The Ohio State University. In varying degrees, I know what I'm doing there or I'm confident about what I'm doing there even if I'm not sure what it is I'm doing there. Sometimes I dream that I'm working in the president's office but I'm sure that's because Bill and I are avid fans of West Wing. Ah, maybe that's it. I'm too exhausted working in my dreams that I don't have the energy or gumption or wherewithall to get one in daylight. I've been working all night in my head.

Well, anyway, what this all is leading up to is that I consigned with the temp agency to take on another job. Before I could even be on the job long enough to bitch and complain about it, I was off it. Then I had a three day attack of weariness and aches in all my joints. I told Bill that it must have been because I had a near job experience. And what IS that all about? This reaction I get after I come out of the bowels of a job I nearly had to keep? Should I really follow Bill's advice and stop trying to get a job? I'm not sure if he means that or is just joking but it makes a lot of sense. Deep down I know I don't want to be integrated into an office again, being another cog in the machinery of shuffling papers. I want to do something meaningful, something interesting, something purposeful, something exciting. Is there such a job out there? Working in the West Wing? Man, those people don't seem to have a life, though.

This latest near job experience was supposed to involve mainly data entry and some walking up and down aisles to locate merchandise in an automotive warehouse. I get there and am taken back to the warehouse where it is stifling hot even on that cooler fall morning and there are mostly men standing around waiting to be shown what to do. By the time I limp to the back of the warehouse, all the other people have been taken into groups. I'm standing there alone. Finally, a lady sitting at a desk with a list of names in front of her tells me that she's not sure where the man in charge wants to put me. That was my opportunity to ask about the scope of the job since I had pretty much gotten the scope sized up during my time standing there.

"My agency told me this was supposed to be mainly data entry and some walking the aisles," I told her.

"No, it's quite the opposite of that. It's mostly walking and bending and lifting. Possibly some data entry but very little," she answered me.

"Oh, dear, then maybe I'm in the wrong place but they did tell me to report to Robert," the guy who was the man in charge there. "I don't know why they did that. The agency should have on my file that I have bad knees and can't do a lot of standing."

"Well, this job means standing eight hours a day." Then she ventured this bit of information, "I do know that they are recruiting people up front in the office for data entry. Maybe you should go up there."

"Sounds good to me," I replied and headed back up to the front.

When I got to the office and met someone named Alice, I explained the same thing to her. She said that they were recruiting people for data entry so I was very welcome to stay there and get started on the training. They got me a cubicle and a chair and a sheet of paper with instructions on it, and Alice sat down with me and jumped right in on showing me the database and how to maneuver all the information in it following the computer printout she handed me.

Everything was going swimmingly along. I was even thinking that I thought I could handle this. No detailed office details, just this computer printout sheet, the database, and me. Now and then Alice would jump up and say, "I'll be back." I kept hearing more and more people arriving around me. Two hours and forty-five minutes into being there, Alice shows up and hands me a xeroxed timecard and tells me to write my hours down on it, then report back to the agency. Huh, was my first reaction. I had to ask her pointedly if this meant I was done for the day and the job. Yep, she said and waved her hand over the cubicle to where some other people were. She said that they had enough workers for the job.

I didn't pump her for details. I got it figured out on my own. I was an extra there, not someone who had been originally assigned to work in the office. I was supposed to be out in the warehouse. Evidently all the tempers showed up that they had called for. It wouldn't be fair to ask any of them to go home. Still, it felt weird to be shuffled off so abruptly. But once I realized that I was going to be able to go home, I nearly flew out the door trying not to grin too broadly. I had some misgivings, no one likes to be ejected like that, but I felt quite relieved that I wasn't going to have to be getting up at 6:00 a.m. to get there at 7:00 a.m. anymore, or up at 5:00 a.m. to be there at 6:00 a.m. on Saturdays, either. This was going to be a six day a week job till they got their inventory done in a month.

Whew. Like I said a near job experience. And my body felt it for three days afterwards. I slept badly the night before the job. Couldn't sleep at first, plus I had a restless leg thing going for an hour, so I finally gave in and got up and sewed on Bill's jester costume (for my older son's wedding at the end of October) for an hour. Felt hung over enough to try to sleep again and did get to sleep but kept waking up. Any restless night I have, Bill has, too.