the place I call work

I think about work and I have this nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's not what I do, it's who I work with.
I've been getting into these ill-informed political debates with a guy at work (let's call him Ben) and he has over 10 years on me in being interested in politics, so he has his points of view rehearsed and is more settled in his viewpoints than I am. I've been so spoiled by Santa Cruz that I find myself unable to defend my viewpoints because in college people would agree with me half-sentence since practically everyone was of the same mind. No so in corporate America. I feel so naive for thinking that there might be diversity of opinion at my office. How wrong I was. I don't know this for a fact, but pretty much everyone is conservative. I was in the middle of a saying something about health care in America to the earlier mentioned guy, as another two walk by and one of them makes a joke about how full of college zeal and passion I am, or something to that extent. Ben, I suspect, has positive feelings towards me. He thinks I'm decently intelligent, well read (that's not as true as I'd like it to be), yet naive and unrealistic. He now knows that I have a mild attraction to women, from which he probably figures that I'm adventurous and would be good in bed. All these things compile a positive and simultaneously condescending attitude towards me. In that moment, all those feelings get the best of him and he makes an attempt to boost my waning self-confidence,

"There go two bald guys... you know what Churchill said? He said..."
"Yeah, yeah... if you're not conservative when you're old, you don't have a brain..."

I've been in a weird state of mind all day today. Actually all of the past 2 months or so. I was watching CSPAN and it seems that the Democrats and the Republicans get together in their camps and preach to the choir. First I watched about 5 Democrats talk at each other about the budget and how they had to "cut some programs" to make others happen, meaning not provide any money for Iraq at all which is completely unrealistic. Then I watched about 4 Republicans in a room talk at each other about how evil the immigration reform bill is, making a sad face and stressing the word "minority" whenever talking about Congress in general. Oh and let's not forget the inspiring stories of their mothers and fathers who came to this country legally and all the hardships they had to endure. Anyways, the point is, I hate the environment at my job. And they all think they're doing such noble work too, that's what sickening.

The NPR West office is in Culver City. I applied to volunteer there and they contacted me today. It's too bad that they only have spots during weekdays right now, but I guess I'm on their list for after-hours and weekends. On extreme days I think I'd rather be scrubbing their floors than processing another six figure mutual fund purchase for a client at Waddell & Reed. Yes, that was a sentence full of college zeal and passion. Now go fuck yourself.