BubbleStream

I work the midnight shift from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. or some other ungodly hours. I may work the dimly lit warehouse, the brightly lit manufacturing shop floor, the color-balanced print shop, loading trucks, unloading trucks, sorting, boxing, feeding parts into the machine or whatever repetitive task is required to keep the shift work going in Cuautitlan, Kathmandu, Sao Paulo, Dusseldorf, Detroit or wherever. It’s pretty much the same repetitive, soul-numbing work. Or worse, it could be something like telemarketing: cold-calling, 98% rejection, which is hard not to take personally. Mostly to get through the shift I had to build a shell, wear a mask, mentally put on armor, or create a persona, certainly split my inner life from my outer job. It’s called the gap in the soul. It can happen with ANY job, even white-collar jobs and service jobs. It becomes a real problem when the protective sheath gets too hard or fixed and is something you can’t escape from or get out of and you get stuck. It can happen. You can see it sometimes.