I like my job, but it doesn’t keep me very busy. Therefore, I am often bored. I have been getting some projects lately that help, but am not to the point where I really enjoy going to work.

It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming!

I can feel it.

I’ve been brought up in a family where working is the norm, it is unacceptable not to work. I always thought that no-one enjoys the job that they are in…
My mother dislikes her job, my father is exhausted by his job, and my brother takes the shortcuts in life and is in a dead end job.

I never thought I’d find work that i truly enjoy, until now.
I’m currently on placement as part of my University course, I’m working as a Scrub Practitioner in Theatre, and i actually love it.

For once, I look forward to work…
-I have a purpose.

And now I have a plan. It turns out I am to shy for more intimate writing (as was my previous plan) but I am now into writing screenplays and aerobics. I want Pilates next, and perhaps in only january I will be able to leave my cubicle!

good things:)

So my boss has a pet project, his ex-boyfriend, a man in his 40s who has spent time in jail, can’t hold down a job, etc., etc. My boss S has taken on this man G as his personal project, even though they haven’t been together for many years.

When G had nowhere to live and no job, S took him in and let him sleep on his couch (for years now). For a while, G’s new bf lived there too. (Now he’s in jail for robbing banks though.) When S bought a new car, he gave his old one to G. When G kept losing his job because he couldn’t show up to work on time, S paid him to “maintain the building”. Eventually he got a title, “Operations Manager”, and a regular job helping out in the office part time. He got to work whenever he wanted, wear whatever he wanted, bring whomever he wanted into the office… well, you get the drift. Whatever policies there are, G is exempt.

I won’t bore you with the details but G has moved up the food chain. Now he has a position of some responsibility. Things are going down the toilet at a rapid rate… but there’s no point in saying anything to S, nothing’s ever done about it. Policies are applied randomly here and there, but G is untouchable. He’s unprofessional and terrible at the job, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I and my colleague have to work extra hard catching and fixing his mistakes and taking over responsibilities he can’t handle, but if we complain, we are the ones who are bad at our jobs and can’t handle workloads we clearly should be able to handle.

Now I find out that G has given a student some potentially bad immigration advice. This could reflect badly on us in so many ways. It could be really serious. It could also result in the student getting in trouble with immigration, maybe even losing his visa which he needs for his job as a pilot. This mistake may be repeated with several of this student’s friends.

Now I have talked to G about this and he swears that the last Registrar told him what to do. (She no longer works here because she had a breakdown… Hmmmmm…) It’s not my job to know anything about immigration but I’ve been around the block and I feel like this is not right. Part of me wants to see this come back to us. I want to see G cause serious problems for the company so he will have to be removed. But I don’t want these students to have negative consequences because of it, maybe even losing their livelihood, because we told them something that wasn’t true.

I’m not sure how G dealt with the situation – either he generated a false letter, a lie, or he generated a letter that could cause the student significant problems if he ever produced it at the border.

On one hand, it’s none of my business. On the other hand, it’s wrong of me not to interfere.

I’m just tired of getting in trouble for trying to do things right here. For trying to give quality and ethical service, like we used to.

Fiction? Oh, this isn’t fiction. I wish it was. This story is true. Like so many other unbelievable stories from my workplace. I just need out.

_{And I miss Joey right now. Joey, you gave me such good advice before, I wish you were here to at least listen and say you understand that I am unable to be effective because S is bad at his job. JOEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY come back!}

I’m so happy to have C to hang out with at the end of the day. Last night, though, I noticed I was getting irritated and he was only trying to help. But the truth is that I just don’t want to hear ideas for how I can make my job better. That may be dumb, but thinking of ways to improve my situation just make me feel more stressed out. It’s all I can do just to keep my equilibrium and feel OK there. I don’t have energy to try to solve problems or make things better. I just want to leave.

has hired the former GM of the company on a temp contract to develop a new program for us. Weird. Her status here is kind of ambiguous. She hired my boss when he started, many years ago, and built the company here, established many of the policies and procedures, etc. Officially, she’s on temp contract but I’ve noticed her asking a lot of perceptive questions and she seems to be onto a lot of the poor business decisions going on here, as well as maybe some of the morality issues. I’ve heard her nagging my boss about some of the projects he’s behind on. I’m not sure what she will do if she figures out some of the really inappropriate stuff going on; is she loyal to my boss because of their previous relationship, or would she blow the whistle and make a power move to take over?!

Today, she made a really perceptive comment and gave me a compliment about an aspect of my job I’m really passionate about. My boss has never given me positive feedback about this, one of my strengths. Little by little, the joy has gone out of my work. She brought a little bit of it back today. So easily.

I long to be managed, to be led, to be directed. This just makes me realize for real that my boss is not good at his job, and that I am not a bad employee but just poorly led.

Boy was I right about getting laid off, must have been my thoughts calling out to the universe because three days after my last post I was laid off…and was sooooooo happy about it. I got a decent severage package and went to Central America for 4 months. Not exactly working, but definitely doing what I love: TRAVEL!

At the end of it I found a job at a B&B in upstate New York actually doing work I love, which turned out to be quite domestic, but still made me happy everyday I worked there. However, I knew it wasn’t for long-term and returned to Dallas in July. So far I’ve been working on the startings of my own business for about two months now and things are finally showing some possibility.

It’s been 9 months since that last post and I have to say I’m very happy with the way things have turned out. If I hadn’t been laid off I wouldn’t have had these amazing experiences and life lessons, and I wouldn’t be facing my fears and trying to achieve my dream of owning my own business. Blessing in disguise.

Last Friday’s crisis – and my discussions of it both here and with others in my life – have helped me re-establish my confidence. I remain committed to finding out what it is I want to do next, to making a clear plan to get out of here and sticking to it. It is my job to lead this team until the day I leave. It is not my job to make everyone happy and it is not my job to be everyone’s friend. I need to do my job to the best of my ability, to find what it is I enjoy about being here every day, and to move forward with my plans to find something more fulfilling.

TGIF anyway. :D