...effective immediately.

Calvin and Hobbes strip 034 © Bill Watterson

Today I made an irrevocable, life-changing decision, one I trumpeted loudly from the rooftops of our fair city.

Oh, alright. It was muttered from my bed.

Under the doona.

And pillow.

But I did do it in tones of low foreboding, so it was important.

“Oh my God, what was it?” I hear absolutely nobody at all cry out in excitement/anguish/horror/anticipation/mild interest, because people, lending credence to said proclamation.

Which was this.

Being human, being a member of Team Homo Sapiens; well, it’s just too much like hard work. In fact, it isn’t just like hard work – it is work. To run as primates of the family Hominidae, the aforementioned homo sapiens (although the sapiens is a misnomer, if you ask me) – is the equivalent of getting up, showering, throwing down an Egg McMuffin, and clocking into the most inane, drivel-driven workplace in the history of drivel-driven workplaces –

– and never clocking out.

Not, that is, until retirement. In other words, the only time you leave mankind/work behind for longer than the standard stuff and sleep is when you pop your clogs, and get a nice restful eternity under the sod.

As such, starting today, (cough, clear throat, unfold paper, rustle it importantly), I have decided to resign from my job at Humanity Pty Ltd. The position of Occasionally Witty, Sharp, Not As Funny As She’d Like To Think, Mildly Talented Observer Of Man’s Frailties, Sporting Pundit and All Round Pessimistic Gloombag (Grade 1A, Subdivision Ironic Intent) is now vacant, pending a hiring freeze lift.

I’m checking out of People, and taking up a new species. Maybe a rabbit. Or a wombat. Ohhh, an axolotl. I’m not sure yet. The point is, we suck, and come Friday afternoon, I am slamming open that office door as soon as the half-arsed farewell drinks finish, my truly horrible framed photo of the human race doing that fake ‘say cheese smile’ grimace thrown to the four winds with a yippity-skip – and it’s goodbye humanity, hello, running on all fours, or possibly fins, scales, or weird axolotl thingies.

Think Dunder-Mifflin writ large across the heavens, and boom – that, to me, sums up the privately held corporation that is humanity as a whole in 2016. A global workplace of misfits, misanthropes, misogynists, and other nasty words starting with ‘m’ which are not fit for public consumption, she closes primly. (No, I did not say Melania. That would be cheap. And she was extremely expensive).

None of us will ever be gainfully employed in another genus, because we are generally vile, contemptible, and in need of a flamethrower and a vat of petroleum whooshka-ed through our genetic makeup to unscramble the inability to listen double strand mutation and the idiot chromosome.

I know there are the brightly burning superstars of the species, but it’s fairly evident their talents are speedily headhunted by a greater being. You know what they say – only the good at what they do die young (at heart). Thus the joy-bringers, the hope-givers, the saviours of our intellect, our capacity for grace and gratitude; they get poached and taken off to angelic heights of fabulosity. There, our upper management’s gentle gifts are far better appreciated, and they can watch and sigh at the teeming rabble left to fend for themselves in the lunchroom of life; squabbling over who left the fridge door open in Antarctica, and what the hell is that disgusting smell – I think it’s corruption, maybe – oh for the love of Mike Pence, who didn’t take the trash out again in the Washington Conference Room?

I’d like to think one day, we will get some change management consultants in. Then, mankind will go through some intense workplace training in compassion, kindness, colour-blindness, literature, and understanding of the art of rugby. Somehow, though, I just know any independent contractors would soon get sucked into the eternal squabble of What China Said About Russia In The Women’s Loo On Monday Before The Staff Meeting, or whatever this week’s passive-aggressive bullshittery is that we dream up as an excuse to destroy another piece of the planet.

So, look out, turtles. Or dolphins. Or wolves. I’m on my way. Get your best game face on, because there’s a new er, bitch in town.

Okay, okay. I know my true nature.

Just remember, I like my chicken lightly pan-fried, in a little bit of olive oil.

Miaow.