I have a solution

I am just raging today, probably because I did not get enough sleep last night.  But as we have covered many times, my job is boring and makes my back hurt. I want to be a full-time student again.  I cannot help but be a whiny complainer, but I just cannot understand how people are expected to spend 8 hours a day like this for 30 frigging years.  I'm sorry, but no.  It's not even close to healthy.  I'm supposed to improve my eating habits, my exercise, my attitude- how can I do that under fluorescent lights, staring at a computer screen, and with a half hour to eat?  I'm supposed to spend 7 1/2 hours a day in a chair.  There are people who can do this, but I'm not one of them.  I need change, I need challenge, I need fresh air, I need to move.

Again, school.  At different times throughout the week, I would hike across campus with a pack on my back.  Here I can squeeze in a couple mini walks around maybe one building before I have to run back inside lest I be late getting back on the phone.  I'm supposed to be conveying a better image of the VA, but I hardly think they are the only employer guilty of this nonsense.  I'm reading these books for the apprentice class and realizing part of the HUGE problem here is a complete lack of morale.  It makes me miss the military because for all the bullshit, it was a family, and we always had fun- even when we had to do something pointless or dreary.  I was on a duty with G and several others once, clearing brush from the fenceline at Edwards all damn day.  But G, as our ranking airman, decided that we needed to cool off on the way back and we all ran into a shallow mud pond (remnants of El Nino) and slid across.  It was like a Slip 'n Slide covered in chocolate milk.  I don't remember how hot it was out there in the middle of the Mojave Desert in my BDUs, I don't remember much of the work, I just remember the cool, slick feeling of the mud.  We were COVERED in mud and it dried green.  G called someone on the radio to come out to pick up our truck since we were too muddy to drive it and we walked back up to the shop.  Most of our flight came out back to see just how muddy we were.  We walked up all abreast like in a movie, and completely light green.  G looked like the Hulk.  They turned the hose on us and we had fun chasing people around in our muddy uniforms.  Someone cut apart a trash bag for me to sit on and gave me a ride home.  I remember lots of sweaty, dirty, miserable jobs, but not so much the work as the fun we had.  People joked constantly and really supported each other, with the rare exception of someone who absolutely insisted on being a loner.  Even the assholes were welcome.

Somebody needs to bring a hose in here.