I’m sitting outside of a Starbucks. It feels incredible for a September evening. I never sit outside in Florida. You’d think I have some increased sensitivity to humidity or something, but I think those receptors are dead from overuse.
We were informed today that half of my current team would be reassigned outside of IT within a month. Maybe. Maybe longer. Decisions were made in committee, no one was consulted. It’s been decided, don’t worry about it, it’s out of our hands, I dunno. I’ve stopped asking why, what problem that’s solving, what the strategy is. I’ll just put my nose back in my study and pretend there’s some rationale for why I’m being paid.
At least it’s paying for the coffee…just not this one. It was free. Well whatever, it paid for the other coffees that made this one free. I’m nothing if not a bundle of technicalities.
And who am I kidding, this job has paid for everything. The house, the car, this phone, this watch. The replacement Samsung TV after I threw a controller into the Visio. The two months of physical therapy, $40 a pop, twice a week. Two new computer chairs, anything to help. It’s going to pay for an iPhone 7, a PS4 Pro. I can’t complain about those things, and I don’t want to. But I have to own the other things its given me: an idle wage, a stagnant career, chronic lower back pain, and a depleted desire to care about much more than getting by. It’s added its fair share of strain to my current relationship and played a decently negative role in the last. I’ve given it all of my 20s, between college and career.
I’m not sure what to do when the channels that bring me success and security are the same ones that depress me and put me in a mental place that prevents me from finding any alternatives. I know this job is killing me, and I know plenty would kill for it. It’s both creating and depressing the motivation to find a new job. And now I’m the person that’s given up, despite despising those same people just a few years ago.
The cycle is too familiar at this point. Have a nice shower and breakfast. Arrive at work with a spring in your step, ready to tackle the day. Read a few emails, ignore ignorant requests, and there it is, there’s the meaningless email or IM that breaks through and finds a new way to piss you off. You want to tell someone, have someone validate this flood of overwhelming frustrations, but you remember how compounded it all is, how this new problem is a complication of a thousand other predecessors, and you don’t even bother. Besides, that’s negativity, and spreading that stuff doesn’t do anything but inflict it on someone else. It stays in the office. You notice it’s almost time to go home, but you don’t even remember what you were supposed to care about outside of these problems. Putz around on the net for a bit, see if it comes to you. Get home an hour or so late, eat on the way to feel better or make up some time (it never does). Around 9 or 10, you remember what you should be caring about! But into the shower, into some pajamas, and into bed. Or stay up until 2am to reclaim some dignity and control by sacrificing sleep and rest.
But today, lump in an Apple event (pretty great), a Sony event (pretty bad), and a meeting so far down the line of absurdities this year that you’re not even sure how a normal person would react (pretty depressing). Drive off somewhere, grab some dinner yourself. Ignore the people that care about you, because talking to them at this point just feels like perpetuating a cycle that you want to destroy (love you). Go to Starbucks with your MacBook Air, write a blog article. Take control of your life, be that hipster.
This isn’t very convincing. Welcome to my blog. I feel better now, I think? Starbucks is closing so I guess it doesn’t matter.
There’s a lot more I want to say. Look for some posts soon on the back pain, the job, the project I’m working on, the off ramp I’m driving towards, and some video game reviews. I may have to tuck some of that out of sight. If you want to read it, let me know.
Radicoon Register 