I had a dream last night with nothing remarkable about it, ultimately.  I’ve worked as a security guard pretty often, and in customer service at walmrat, and more recently in phone-based customer service, and this dream rolled up all the work anxieties in one.  In the dreams I’m ashamed and worried about having lost my current job, the only office job I’ve ever had, and the only work I could possibly do to afford my mortgage.  But I’m also relieved to escape from having a job that is so emotionally and intellectually demanding, to liberate my mind after years of running it ragged.  But I’m also worried about keeping the new job, because nobody told me what I’m supposed to be doing or where I’m supposed to be going.

The environment was a combination of more than one place I’ve done security, rolled together in a sprawling campus.  Everything was more fucked up than it had been in real life, cluttered and disorganized and half destroyed.  There was a wing of one building that was literally missing walls, looked like it had been firebombed, but that the fire was extinguished by that expanding crash foam stuff.  This was probably inspired by the video game Mouthwashing, and by the experience of seeing sloppy unseen elements of construction like insulation foam.  The parking garage was glutted with boxes of unknown merchandise that needed to be sold, but there wasn’t enough staff to sort it and get it to the shelves.  Guys were trying to move it around with forklifts or facilitate people getting in and out, but there was barely enough room to move.

We had post rotations to keep ourselves awake and out of trouble, back when I did security, and I just kept cycling through the whole complex, looking for some random guard to relieve of duty for however long, before someone replaced me in turn.  But it took me forever to find anything, exhausted and unable to think clearly.  I wonder if you can be too tired to think, even in a dream.

The main thing of note in this work anxiety dream was the overload of environmental detail.  And how apparently I think the world is so fucked up and ludicrous under crapitalism that people will literally keep working a day job for the man, even in a disaster zone.

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