Despite the business being obscenely profitable, our office is overcrowded, we are underpaid, and our work almost certainly supports fracking, heart disease, and the blatant exploitation of the poor. In recent months, it has occurred to me that this makes what I do, at best, completely void of meaning and, at worst, totally amoral. In short, my life has no meaning… but, have you tried the new toaster?
Now, if you’re thinking, “a toaster is not a good enough reason to continuing living such a futile existence,” then you’ve never experienced the way a piece of golden brown, bread, gently rising from an evenly-heated, cooking chamber, can lift one’s battered spirits from even the darkest pits of despair. To the truly downtrodden, those warm tendrils of steam feel like an approximation of love… $600 worth of bread-making love.
It’s been a true epiphany realizing that it’s not working 16-hour days and coming in on weekends that leaves me with an empty feeling inside, it’s a lack of toasted carbohydrates! All of my true suffering has been at the hands of obsolete toasting technology, and the benevolence of upper management has now delivered me from that false breakfast prophet. Thanks to the fine specimen of modern, kitchen convenience we received today, all of my former problems have been solved.
Other corporate sweatshops, I beseech you. Cast aside your shoddy, spring-loaded toasting devices, for there is a machine that will smoothly lower thy employees’ bread at the press of a button. It will change them. I used to think I should get paid overtime, but then I realized this thing has over ten different settings! Sure, I still lay awake at night thinking about how I make money for people who actively oppose climate change legislation, but who can sleep when you’re this excited about making an English muffin in the morning?
Before the boon of the new toaster, I was actually considering finding a new, less soul-crushing job, but the heavenly aroma of warm bread is all I needed to forget the marked absence of hope that permeates my work environment. Don’t worry, It’s not your fault if you haven’t seen the light yet–those glowing, orange, strips of light that fill my heart with joy.
My suggestion is to stop searching for meaning in your work. The meaning of life is golden brown and waiting for you to butter it. Each morning, I witness a breakfast miracle, and with it comes new hope and new light. And light is exactly what I need right now, because office services just moved my desk into a storage closet… but whatever, because have you seen the new toaster?