The Will to Resist

Dear Haus Morgenrot, I Loved You, You Bastard

There are jobs you work.

There are jobs you tolerate.

There are jobs where you clock in, perform the ancient ritual known as Whatever Keeps Payroll Happy, clock out, and immediately forget the building exists.

And then there was Haus Morgenrot.

God help me.

I loved that stupid place.

Not in the normal way a functioning adult loves gainful employment. I didn't wake up every morning overcome with joy at the prospect of labor. I wasn't standing outside before my shift whispering:

My beloved, I have returned.

No.

Haus Morgenrot was the kind of love usually reserved for condemned buildings, three-legged alley cats, and automobiles whose check-engine lights have achieved permanent residency.

I loved it because it was mine.

And, believe it or not, there was one thing Haus Morgenrot did spectacularly well:

THE HOURS.

Oh, those beautiful fucking hours.

Ten in the morning.

Ten at night.

Six days on.

Two days off.

Repeat until morale improves.

I could work with that.

I liked that.

I knew when I was working. I knew when I was getting paid. I could look at the calendar and know exactly when Haus Morgenrot required possession of my mortal vessel.

The hours were consistent.

Everything surrounding those hours was absolutely fucking not.

The instructions?

Inconsistent.

Expectations?

Inconsistent.

Who was supposed to do what?

Depends.

How was something supposed to be done?

Depends who you asked.

What happens if you follow what Person A told you yesterday and Person B tells you something different today?

Congratulations!

You've unlocked a side quest.

And Haus Morgenrot had side quests.

Jesus Christ, did Haus Morgenrot have side quests.

I signed up to be a Tech Assistant.

Apparently this was interpreted as:

WELCOME, ADVENTURER.

Your primary quest is Tech Assistant.

However, at any moment, a glowing exclamation point may appear above someone's head.

Would you like to accept:

SIDE QUEST #37: SOMETHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG AND YOU ARE NOW INVOLVED

[ACCEPT]

[ACCEPT BUT CONFUSED]

[ASK WHY]

There is no Decline button.

Still—

I showed up.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Twelve-hour shifts.

Six-day runs.

Headcounts.

Wandings.

Movies.

Clients.

Hallways.

Paperwork.

Rules.

Rules explaining other rules.

Rules apparently engaged in active warfare with previously issued rules.

I learned the rhythm of the place.

I learned the people.

I learned which problems were actual problems and which problems were merely Haus Morgenrot waking up in the morning and choosing violence.

I scheduled my life around that building.

Appointments.

Errands.

Job hunting.

Everything had to fit around those beautiful, predictable twelve-hour blocks.

Hell, even when I started looking elsewhere, I still planned around the assumption that after wandering into civilization and asking:

Hello. Does anyone operate normally here?

—I would eventually have to return to Haus Morgenrot.

Because whatever complaints I had—and oh sweet merciful Christ did I have complaints—I kept coming back.

Then came Allegation Number One.

I survived.

Returned to work.

Adjusted.

Became boring.

Then came Allegation Number Two.

I survived.

Returned to work.

Adjusted again.

Became even more boring.

At this point I had achieved a level of workplace boring previously thought impossible by medical science.

I was no longer an employee.

I was beige paint with a name badge.

Show up.

Do the job.

Follow the procedure.

Go home.

Repeat.

Don't become interesting.

Don't become involved.

Don't collect unnecessary side quests.

BE BORING.

And still:

I showed up.

Then September 14 happened.

Suspended.

Again.

Except this time there was no quick return.

There was waiting.

And more waiting.

And more waiting.

Sixteen days of employment purgatory where I technically possessed a job in approximately the same sense that Schrödinger technically possessed a cat.

No hours.

No paycheck.

No resolution.

Just:

Please remain available while Haus Morgenrot determines whether you continue to exist.

And because apparently I am an idiot capable of developing emotional attachment to institutional nonsense, part of me still hoped I was going back.

Maybe nights.

Maybe another assignment.

Maybe one more adjustment.

Maybe we could make this stupid relationship work.

Then, on September 30, the phone rang.

Haus Morgenrot finally dumped me.

And afterward came the letter.

One page.

After months of twelve-hour shifts, six-day stretches, headcounts, clients, incidents, investigations, suspensions, returns, adjustments, headaches, jokes, coworkers, hallway cats, and one French bulldog somehow becoming part of the extended cast—

one page.

And there it was.

The phrase that made me stare at the page:

“Unsatisfactory or careless work.”

...

I'm sorry.

When?

Seriously.

When?

Was it all those days I showed up and worked twelve hours?

Was it when I kept coming back after being suspended?

Was it when I adjusted after the first allegation?

The second?

Was it when I tried to follow procedures inside an environment where the procedures occasionally seemed to reproduce overnight?

Or was my great failure that I eventually stopped enthusiastically accepting every glowing exclamation point floating above somebody's head?

Because if declining unnecessary side quests counts as careless work, then fine.

I plead guilty to preserving my fucking sanity.

The letter doesn't give me an itemized invoice of my alleged carelessness.

It gives me a category.

Unsatisfactory or careless work; failure to comply with applicable guidelines or quality standards.

That's the box.

That's the official ending.

Corporate breakups are wonderfully efficient.

There is no:

It's not you, it's me.

No:

We'll always treasure what we had.

No:

Remember when Rebel showed up and somehow became everybody's problem? Good times.

Just:

Your employment has been terminated.

Here is the applicable policy category.

Best wishes in your future employment endeavors.

FAAAAAAAK.

And here's the stupid part.

I'm going to miss it.

Not the allegations.

Not the suspensions.

Not wondering whether touching the wrong three molecules of somebody's pants would result in another investigation.

Not having my livelihood balanced on whatever fresh absurdity spawned inside the building that week.

I'm going to miss the ordinary stuff.

The people I liked.

The stupid conversations.

The routines.

The familiar hallways.

The clients who made me laugh.

The coworkers who made twelve hours feel slightly less like twelve hours.

The cats wandering around like they were senior management.

The little moments that never appear in an HR file because nobody writes an incident report titled:

EMPLOYEE HAD A PERFECTLY NORMAL DAY AND ACTUALLY ENJOYED HIMSELF.

I'm going to miss knowing exactly where I was supposed to be at 10:00 AM.

I'm going to miss knowing exactly when I was leaving at 10:00 PM.

I'm going to miss those wonderfully consistent hours inside that spectacularly inconsistent job.

Because somewhere between February and September, that ridiculous building became part of my life.

I complained about Haus Morgenrot because I was there enough to earn the right.

I made fun of Haus Morgenrot because sometimes laughing at the nonsense was the only reasonable response to it.

I wrote about Haus Morgenrot because, against all better judgment, it mattered to me.

And that's what makes losing a job weird.

You don't have to believe the place was wonderful to grieve losing it.

Sometimes you can know perfectly well that you and a workplace were badly mismatched and still feel something when the door finally closes.

I gave Haus Morgenrot something valuable.

Time.

A lot of it.

I showed up.

I tried.

I adapted.

I came back after things went sideways.

And when they went sideways again, I came back again.

I didn't love every side quest.

I didn't love every decision.

I didn't love every policy.

I certainly didn't love every surprise.

But apparently I loved the stupid place enough that after everything it put me through, when they finally told me I couldn't come back—

it hurt.

That's probably the funniest part of this whole fucking story.

After everything:

I actually cared.

So that's it.

Haus Morgenrot and I are officially divorced.

She gets the building.

She gets the policies.

She gets the side quests.

She gets the twelve-hour shifts.

She even gets the fucking glowing exclamation points.

I apparently get custody of the stories.

And considering the amount of material that place gave me?

I won the fucking house.

Mr. Jerry's Unsolicited Advice

You are allowed to miss something that wasn't good for you.

A job doesn't have to be wonderful for your time there to have mattered.

You can appreciate what worked and still acknowledge everything that didn't.

You can miss the routine without missing the chaos.

You can miss the people without wanting the institution back.

And you can give a place everything you reasonably had to give without volunteering for every goddamn side quest it generates.

When somebody finally closes the door?

Don't spend the rest of your life standing outside it.

Take what you learned.

Take the people worth remembering.

Take the stories.

Then throw the Deuces.

If it costs me, I'll let it go.

— Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand