Society’s conventional conceptualizations of heaven and hell are flipped. But first, I’ll talk about meaningless jobs.

My first job was as a dishwasher. The following summer at that pizzaria, (or Bar and Grill if you’re concerned with marketing) I got moved up to pizza chef. Our backup cook that we called when things got overwhelmingly busy made pizzas that looked like he had given up on life. Just clumped all the ingredients together wherever on the pizza like that’s something he was ok with having be what speaks for the ability of his hands. I hated every single moment of working beside that man because it was reekingly insulting to every bit of effort I’d ever put into my job. But then we had to go portion the fries. Tedious, frozen, heavy, long, precise work. The kind of task that you’d hear your manager say in a manner such as, “Now go portion some fries!” I realized I had 2 options: I could continue wallowing in my drawn out hatred of this man, or I could use his presence as the assistance it was supposed to be and engage in small talk to make the time go by faster. I did the latter.

Still hated working beside him on the pizza line, but I maybe hated him a little bit less.

Now as far as parties are concerned, of any variety, the primary concern is, “Who’s going to be there; who’s going to show up, who’s going to make it?” All very stressful stuff. But not as stressful as when the wrong people do or don’t show up.

If you’re stuck somewhere with people in a crisis world, you know with certainty that they’re not going anywhere. Likewise, you don’t have any other place to go. So people can finally properly get to work having fun surviving.