I am the golden center of life in the Sorting Department. The shambling masses of humanity crowd around me, with their weary, glassy eyes, their health problems, their unplanned children. I am young and vibrant and as of yet unspoiled by the repetitious tedium in which we are all submerged. Some of them notice this contrast, and these are the ones that look at me with suspicious, smoke-yellowed eyes.
They sensed before I did that I don't belong here.

I am the prettiest faerie in the magical land of putting envelopes in bins. The lifers pay this little mind.
5 Years of Proud Service.
The lifers are the ones with pins and company hats. They've seen pretty faeries like me flit their way through the company before.
10 Years of Proud Service.
The lifers have seen college students flit in for a summer job, watched people with potential for something better get sucked in by the steady paycheck. The lifers' pictures are in a case. Some of the pictures are smiling. Some of the smiles are thin masks over reluctant acceptance.
20 Years of Proud Service.
The lifers know my prettiness won't last. The lifers are waiting paitiently for me to flit away to a future, or for me to get my faerie-wings entangled in the bi-weekly paychecks and the dental plan so they can watch me fade and wither into one of the sorting-gnomes around me.
30 Years of Proud Service.
The lifers frighten me. I'm only here because I need the money, I tell myself. The lifers grin ominously. Something else will work out, I tell myself, and then I can quit.
50 Years of Proud Service.
The lifers know what I'm telling myself, because the lifers have heard it before, from their own lips.
1001 Years of Proud Service.
Time flies when each day is set aside as a temporary solution. Each week is a procrastination from finding something better. Each year is a year you didn't better yourself.
2 Days of Fearful, Condescending Servitude.

Beside me stands a man at least 20 years my elder. We're training in together. We learn how to sort, putting things into other things. Sometimes he puts things into the wrong things. He makes excuses for mediocrity. He cracks jokes about his slip-ups. I try to console him. We're the new guys. It's only natural that we mess a few things up. We'll get the hang of it. I think he's noticed my inaccurate use of the word we.
Meanwhile I receive praise for adequately learning a task that a monkey could be taught to do, and I should know. Ooo-OO! OOP! OOP! AAAAA! AAH! AAH-AAAAHH!