Proud to be a Grump

A few years ago I had a sergeant that dubbed me and my squadmate the Cantankerous Duo. I was pretty proud of this designation, as was my buddy. The sergeant who gave us the title didn’t dislike us, and wasn’t angry about it; he usually greeted us with a chuckle, “Well well, look who it is. What’s the matter? You look like you woke up in Afghanistan or something.” There was a recognition that while we didn’t always enjoy it, we did our jobs and we did them well. There was never any sense that Specialist Noaccuser and her bearish teammate were anything less than capable of completing and even supervising the task at hand. NCOs regularly came to us for difficult assignments or babysitting-the-new kids-and-troublemakers duty, because they knew we’d respond, “Wow, Sarr’nt, that sounds positively horrible. ...Yeah, I’ll do it. Whatever.” While the term “highly motivated” existed in Army-speak since long before I joined, it used to be an action-based descriptor. You were highly motivated if you volunteered to jump out of airplanes or go out on patrol in the worst part of the deployment zone. Acknowledging that such an assignment was dangerous and unpleasant was ok and didn’t make you any less “highly motivated.”

After that sergeant left the unit, though, a new breed of NCO came in. These people had the idea that just doing your job wasn’t good enough; you had to like it. Otherwise, to make mention of any hardship or less than ideal condition, even in a joking manner, was a sign of a Negative Attitude. Negative Attitudes acquired one Negative Counselings, which were monthly performance appraisals that involved wordy accounts of ones shortcomings, peppered with commentary that indicated a deep “disappointment” from the bosses. They may as well have just put my name on the top and stamped a big frowny face in the middle.

Admittedly, my grumbling nature had taken on a deeper level of bitchiness. There was very little joy to be had in facing a year-long deployment to Iraq beyond the end of my contract (because there weren't enough people in the army), while unable to be promoted (because, even though there weren't enough people in the army, there were too many in my job specialty), and yet placed as a squad leader without the increase in pay and rank commiserate with the extra responsibilities of the position. I mean, really, was I supposed to be happy about that?

Since I’ve started looking at the civilian job listings recently, I'm beginning to see where they’d picked up on this. Every damn job requires its employees to be “Highly motivated! Positive and excited to be part of the company!” Now tell me, what the fuck is there to get excited about in a minimum wage job with no benefits and no hope of advancement? “YIPPEE!! I HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE AND WILL FOREVER LIVE IN SHITTY STUDIO APARTMENTS OR CRAMMED INTO A HOUSESHARE WITH SEVEN OTHER PEOPLE AND NO HEAT!!!! I LOVE THIS JOB!” Does the coffee taste any better when poured into a cup by someone who is smiling? Is the floor shinier when mopped by someone who is whistling while she works? Seriously?

Some might argue, “But no one wants to work with some negative ninny, always moping about.” No, no one wants to work in a shit job. *Some* people don’t want to be reminded of this reality. Some other people, say, the people who run the business, just might benefit from keeping their workers employed on less than stellar wages. If the employees don’t complain about it, then they have no reason to raise those wages.

Now I’m starting to sound like a communist, but you get my point. Work by its very nature isn’t a pleasurable experience. There’s no need to make it worse by requiring people to act like they’re enjoying it.