(How to succeed at failing to succeed)

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When Earthlings finally come up with a “Most Overrated Thing Ever” award, work will win. In fact, I’m ready to not do it anymore, just as soon as I figure out how to kick a few persistent personal habits, like wearing clothes. And eating.

(I could just stop eating, of course, but that usually leads to being dead, after which you have to vote in North Carolina.)

Until then, I’m stuck with work. We all have to do some, so let’s talk about how to get some, because a professional economist said it keeps getting harder to find some. (We know the economist is a pro because he kept pushing his glasses back up on his nose.) In fact, according to one report published by a leading economic firm (Bob’s Leading Economic Firm, LLC), there are over 90 million Americans looking for work, but there are only eleven jobs available (and five of those are North Carolina poll watchers).

Okay. Technically, there are more than eleven jobs out there. (There are fifteen.) But they’re not exactly the fairyland careers you dreamed of as a child. These are not “plum” positions. For example, I saw a plea from a publisher seeking contributions for a new anthology of “quality porn.” I’m not sure exactly which discerning criteria are used to elevate pedestrian trash into quality trash; when it comes to porn, all I really know is this:

• It always contains characters who, no matter where they are at the time, think it’s way too hot for all these clothes.
• Weird residential zoning rules require it to live hidden in a sock drawer, instead of displayed in a bookcase.
• Somewhere in each chapter, the author has to include the word “turgid.”

Maybe, I thought, quality porn means classic. Timeless. Elevated, transcendent human meta-narratives, with the occasional swarthy Congressional page lobbed in to create tension. So I contacted the Quality Porn publisher and submitted a few candidate stories of my own:

• Of Inhuman Bondage
• Oliver’s Twist
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles Pledges a Sorority
• Oedipus and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
• Antony & Cleopatra & Ted & Alice
• Bleak Cat House

If I hear back from them, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, here are some other “Help Wanted” employment ads you might have seen recently, if I hadn’t made them up:

• Wanted: Drivers to test-drive various Toyota models that have been rushed through a stupid federally-mandated recall, where repairs were completed by bitter Union laborers who just got back from smoking a joi … uh, that is, who just got back from their lunch break. Ideal candidates will be unmarried risk-takers who, for whatever motives, have very little reason to continue living.
• Non-bony athlete needed to receive practice bites during the off-season. High pain threshold a plus. Good medical plan for the right candidate. Please contact “Cuspid” Suarez c/o the Uruguay Soccer Federation.
• Disturbed, narcissistic former Congressman seeks smart-phone assistant for taking anatomically-correct selfies. Ideal candidate will not think the name “Wiener” is a hilariously ironic coincidence.
• Hollywood director seeking scriptwriter for upcoming action-packed blockbuster, combining two of the most worn-out franchises in movie sequel history. Send writing samples to Transformers Die Hard XXVII: Would You Please Die Already And Take Some of These Decepticons With You
• Distracted nation seeks adult statesman with cogent foreign policy. Please forward golf handicap, all birth certificates, and any unsealed college transcripts to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

As you can see, there’s work to be had, if you’re a hard worker and don’t mind minor inconveniences, like tetanus, or doing hard time. But these days, dedication and hard work come with another catch-22: if you work hard in America, you risk becoming <gasp> successful, which is the last thing you want to be in America…or at least, the last thing you want to admit. See, when you become a success, suddenly your internal body chemistry changes and you morph into a soulless, fanged racist who trips old people in the rain and makes house pets eat generic dry food from bags. In other words, by slipping up and letting yourself become successful, you have now become part of…

…the One Percent.

And once you’re a One Percenter, you will be endlessly reviled by the mainstream media, and by posturing charlatans like that struggling, “flat broke” common laborer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the poorest person you’ll ever meet that pulls down $250,000 per speech, owns multiple homes, and has a net worth of $21.5 million.

And as the media condemn you and your sick, twisted, work-hard-and-make-something-out-of-yourself pathology, they’ll do it with a condescending sneer, which is impressive, because it’s hard to write words that sneer.

So be ready for it. They will hound you. They will snort and they will sniff.

Unless you’re filthy poor. Like Hillary.