work because I like to, not because I have to

ACK! I had the WORST day evar, at least so far in the nine years of my employ. I came home feeling so utterly disrespected and worthless. What kind of self-image must I have to take this kind of abuse? Not every day is this demeaning but there are enough of them to make the experience seem just part of the job.

It’ll sound stupid to mention it in this context but at least I have a job, right? And I’m making a pretty decent wage, far more than minimum wage, and I have benefits. But honestly, is any of that really worth the lack of self-respect that goes along with this gig? It’s very likely that I’m just reacting to a particularly bad day (in the context of many, many bad days), that I’m presenting a false paradox but, jeepers, it sure SEEMS like a valid understanding of the situation.

There are certainly “work-ish” things I ENJOY doing. I stayed up til 2:00 the other night coding a website for a buddy and it was actually fun. I was seeing double and had something like 4 hours of sleep but that didn’t seem like a “job.” That’s fun. Maybe that’s the key.

I had a nap this afternoon, the perfect activity for a Sunday afternoon if you ask me, but it was interrupted by not one but TWO work-related nightmares. Very specific nightmares. Very clear. Very unpleasant. I have to ask “where the heck did they come from?” These are not things that have happened recently but probably speak to a general layer of stress I have. I’m taking on a lot more responsibility soon. There should be some fun aspects to this new range of responsibility but a lot of undefined duties too. I only really HAVE to stick it out for another year before I’ve put in my 10 years. I hope I can survive that long.

I’m sketching out a work mosaic for “what comes after.” I don’t enjoy doing the same thing for an 8-hour stretch and consequently, I resent this current job. I’ve got a plan of doing a couple smaller simultaneous projects, none of them “full-time” even though the number of hours that I’m busy will likely be more than the standard 40 hours/week. In fact, I’m estimating roughly 48 – 60 hours / week but spread out over all seven days and not condensed into monolithic chunks. I’m figuring out how much of my total income will need to be generated by each of the endeavors by percentage of the whole week. Then I can also calculate a rough figure of hour much “per hour” I have to net from each activity. This all is pretty basic stuff, I guess but it feels incredibly liberating to me.

It wouldn’t hurt to work on the work-related gratitude list again…

I’m just finishing up another application for a different job. Trouble is, I’ve applied to this place before (a long time ago) and when I didn’t get the position I was nearly broken hearted. I hate to sound like such a wimp but the job would have been so great, so close to my deepest interests, so close to what I consider the reason I’m here on the planet. I am scared of rejection—again, I’m a wimp.

I’ve sent out over a half dozen applications recently and responses have ranged from no response to notification that the position wouldn’t be filled to… did I mention no response already?

I realize that I have shifted my entries about this goal nearly 180 degrees. Instead of formulating ways to imagine how I can survive at this marginally tolerable situation until I get that glorious desiderata, a pension, I have just begun to gripe and whine. Though I will maintain hope that the application bears fruit, I will also try a “gratitude journal” specifically about this job.

—I am grateful for health care benefits for my family, that covers the medications I take daily, for the teeth cleaning that I’ll have next week, for all the surgeries and treatments that my darling daughter has had to endure, the glasses that my son and wife wear… We would be deeply impoverished by several of the health situations that have happened to us over the years without health insurance to cover it. I will take advantage of this health care more, in fact, and I’ll schedule a physical this week. By putting this off, I am committing slow suicide.

—I am grateful for the contact with young people, with the freshness of their ideas (despite the arrogance of their manner!) with their engagement in kinds of culture I likely wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

I had my letter of resignation written, printed, signed and ready to hand in last Wednesday. Then I decided to send myself home with a “mental health” day instead. Clearly something has to change. Part of my being (“brain?” “soul?” ...?) is skidding at this job. I have nearly constant chest pains except on weekends. I am corroding from the inside out with resentment which I believe is causing true damage to my character. That is, I’m not certain that it’s a virtue anymore to ignore the problems and hold on to the paycheck at all costs. I get some (unpaid) time off over the holidays so I really need to re-consider this whole “work” thing.

Seems that the sustenance of one’s life should be the sole purpose of one’s life.

I have started, once again, to really hate my job.

So now, to cope, I am working with the idea now to treat my job like a game, in particular, a survival horror game like “Resident Evil.” I think I got the idea because I frequently dream of zombies attacking me in my work situation. Go figure.

There are three types of action corresponding to three types of role:

1) Hero/Martyr, who does more than the job requires, and risks burn-out. Burnout means that I myself become a zombie. (The only tangible compensation for extraordinary service in this particular job is that more work is piled on.) Heroic activities include: working through lunch, not logging or billing overtime, not logging miles driven, going out of my way to find new projects…

2) Survivor, who does everything that is required, gets the job done, keeps his head down, takes care of bidniz… The tactic is to rely on the natural joys of a job adequately done to buoy my morale and to keep me going the 2.5 years I need before I can realistically quit. Survivor activities include: working a full 8 hours; taking a full lunch (and no fair cheating by nibbling a sandwich while checking e-mail;) dutifully entering job tickets for every task completed; submitting mileage reports for compensation…

3) Loser, who slacks off, hunts and pecks through tasks to find the ones to perform, does the easy jobs first, gripes, etc. This jerk is in someways already a zombie because his morale is so low. Another trouble about behaving like a loser is that low morale is a self-generating spiral. He risks, of course, being fired, though again at this particular job, it would take extraordinary service on a manager’s part to fire him due to incompetence—we are laid off exclusively based on our date of hire. So yup, we’ve got some folks who are old as dirt and dumb as a door post and they, I am certain, will NEVER be fired.

Did I mention that since the last round of layoffs, which cut our ranks by 25%, there is FAR more work to be done than we actually can accomplish? (At least not by using the same techniques we used to use. Back when I was behaving more like a “hero,” I’d elaborate on some of the plans that I see for better, more efficient techniques. But ABSOLUTELY NO response ever came for these suggestions.) So the idea is to treat the job like that room in Resident Evil where you’ve only got 4 bullets and there are 7 zombie-dogs: you don’t try to kill ALL the dogs, just enough to get you over to the door on the other side of the room.

That door is 2 and a half years away.

I now have to log EVERYTHING I do at work. Plug in an ethernet cable-fill out a job ticket. Send an email-fill out a job ticket.

There are rumors that very soon we’ll have to punch in and out on a time-clock. Amusing.

My job responsibilities have changed slightly for the better which means less driving probably. I even hope to be able to walk to work one day a week.

Maybe what I should try next is to come up with one of those lists of 43 things about why I like my job. I could post them at my desk to remind myself.

I am GRATEFUL to have a job at all

—I think. I know I’m grateful to have a reliable quantity of money coming in. At this point, if I am to be 100% honest, I think I’d rather not have a “job.” An occupation is something you do to occupy your time, perhaps even through coercion as in a political occupation. I want a calling, a vocation…

But I am straying from the whole gratitude vibe I’m trying to lay down.

I am GRATEFUL for my salary. The salary that comes with my current job is certainly adequate for my needs as long as I don’t compare it to other people’s. NOTE: COMPARISONS ARE RARELY VALID, USUALLY MAKE ME ANGRY and SERVE NO PRODUCTIVE PURPOSE. I’m able to save a bit for retirement and have a little fun now.

I am GRATEFUL for my insurance. It pays for medicine and doctor’s visits for myself and my whole family and we have certainly used a fair bit of its coverage. Insurance makes me feel safer, less worried about health.

—It’s impossible for me to stop here though without noting that for all I know I could be making even more money doing something I enjoy. Or that even if I made LESS money, I might not have to spend so much money on useless things to compensate for my general life-dissatisfaction. I could just edit out this negative observations but I think at this point that would be just repressing them, not actually resolving them.

For me what I’m attempting with this goal is to re-orient my perspective on my work so that I regard it not as a matter of compulsion but rather as a cosmic, spiritual opportunity. Something like that. Y’know, corny, new-age-y.

This past year has been one of the worst years of my professional life—demeaning work, worsening working conditions, stress-inducing confusion from management, no end in sight… This condition ate away at my soul, to use slightly poetic language. I am bitter and resentful; I feel isolated and morally entitled and superior to those I work with. Just the thought of going in to work makes me angry and depressed.

I planned to quit but upon more sober reflection, I realized that it would be smartest to hold on to this position for another couple years while transitioning into something else. But I need to transition MYSELF as well.

I am not 100% certain where this goal will lead but I am hoping for more patience with the idiots I work with, that I will feel an over abundance of patience, a swelling, nearly painful over abundance of patience that must be given away whenever possible; plus a reverence for every encounter, being aware for how I can grow through the interaction; gratitude not just for the fact that I HAVE a job but that I have one that pays a living wage, allows me to live in a fairly wonderful town, gives me opportunities to play with cool technology…

This is going to be HARD.