The Lawsons did Dallas!

A job?? Ohhhh, a job!!

June 14, 2007

It's been a very, very long time since either of us has had a legitimate, paying job. And if you really want to get picky about it, neither one of us has ever had a good job--no health insurance benefits, no vacation time, and I genuinely have no idea what a 401k is. Jared's last job, as the lead dog food stacker at a pet shop, ended about two-and-a-half years ago when he started chiropractic school. My last job, as the whipping girl at a chiropractic office, ended a few weeks before we had James. Trust me, our resumes are awesome.

It's been so long in fact, that the very concept of a job has become rather mysterious to us. For the past several years we've survived off of student loans, various gift cards and bartering. We have a surpirsingly large number of friends who are in similar situations, so we trade stuff with them all the time. We'll be like, "Hey, we'll trade you two pounds of government cheese for that 0% credit card application," or "I'll give you six pirated CDs for that underwire bra that you're wearing." You'd be surprised how well it works. We've gotten very, very comfortable with it.

So my good friend is a dentist, and she needs some help with her bookkeeping. She thought I might be interested. When she brought it up, I was all:

"So you're telling me that if I keep your books, you'll trade me money for it? Gosh...that sounds like a really good deal!"

She was like, "Um....yeah. It's a job, Amy."

And I replied, "Oh right...a job. I didn't realize that people were still doing that sort of thing these days."

She ignored that comment and said, "In a month or two, we'll be able to offer health insurance, too."

I replied, in all seriousness, "Ok...sounds good. I'm going to opt to take the health insurance instead of the money."

She was silent for a moment. And then, in the most loving way possible, she called me a dumb-ass.

You know, I'm not the one giving people money and health insurance just to do a little bit of work. I can think of ten people, right of the top of my head, who would do the very same job in exchange for a used toaster oven and a pleather sofa. So really, when you think about it that way, who's the dummy now?

And I'll tell ya what...when Jared and I open our own practice, we're paying our employees with free rides in the Blazer and pizza coupons. I see no problem with that.