Career angst

Fuck. I'm stuck doing a job at which I'm not good, with people who piss me off a whole lot pretty frequently, with a schedule that sucks donkey balls. I'm on call for everything I want to do. I can't go to Columbus, OH on a weekend night to see OTEP because I'm fucking on call. Vacations around holidays are NEVER an option. Hell, by the time I even know when I will be allowed to take my vacation (I'll know maybe next month if I'm lucky), I've stopped even giving a fuck whether I take it or not. What's the fucking point? I just have to go back to that shit.

There was hope. I tried for another position. I just found out today that I did not get it. The person who did has specific experience that I couldn't get without doing a job like it. Fuck. That old vicious circle. My manager did try to convey to me how well thought of and valued I am, and I appreciate that, but all my mind hears is "You're not good enough." Terrible? Yeah. I hope you don't think like I do, because it hurts. I feel like just a fucking grunt most of the time. Well, I don't have to worry now, so I might as well do some weird shit to my hair.

Now there's another vicious circle involved, one that I hadn't yet encountered. I didn't "sell myself" very effectively in the interview. Uh, that's not part of my personality. I'm not like that! I'm not gonna go in there and brag about myself, because then I'd think I sounded like a pompous-ass douchebag. I suppose I'll have to act my ass off next time. I can do that, but I thought I was supposed to be myself. Confidence is not natural to me. When I start to feel confident, bad shit happens that destroys all confidence. If I start to feel confident, the acronym "BOHICA" comes to mind. (BOHICA = Bend Over Here It Comes Again, for those who don't know.)

GAH. Fuck this shit, I'm going to therapy. For one thing, I need to learn how to keep assholes from getting to me. That's one problem. Assholes have convinced me I'm not that good at what I do, because I'm not as good as they are at the work, and it gets to me even though I know they're just assholes being assholes and asserting their need for superiority.

That may address part of the problem. Maybe I'll learn how to fake confidence too. Actually having confidence? Eh, I'm once bitten twice shy. Confidence, to me, equals BOHICA.

None of that will help me handle another summer, and another winter, and probably more summers and winters. It won't help me endure the parts of the work that I hate. It won't help me until there's another open position. Who knows when the fuck that will happen?

I would try for another position that pays less, but the hell of it is, I can't take a pay cut any time soon. I have student loans, truck loan, mortgage. I'm enslaved to the corporate machine! I'm independent but it's got a hell of a price. Independence is awesome, but is it worth it? Maybe I could figure out a way to pay off most of the shit I owe so I COULD take a pay cut for a while. Money or sanity?

I've been thinking a lot lately about art. To quote Otep, art saves. Sometimes music is the only thing forming that elusive link between sanity and me. Now, I can't make music. I'm not a visual artist. My medium, if I had one, would be words. (Maybe I should look more into acting for fun, because I'd like to play the role of a total fire-breathing bitch right now...it'd be SO cathartic. Maybe then I could learn to act like a person who has confidence and apply my own skills and knowledge to that character during an interview. Whatever works, right?)

I need to start writing more, I think. If I don't do something, this work that I do is going to finish the job of killing my soul. Melodramatic? Maybe. You try doing stuff you don't feel like you're good at and most of which you don't like in the first place, and driving several hours a day all over the place sharing the road with a bunch of fucking rude idiots. Tell me if, after a few years of it, you don't start feeling like a soulless fucking grunt with marionette strings controlling her every move...tell me if you don't then shout along with the first line of Slipknot's "Psychosocial" - "I did my time and I want out..."

Some people are satisfied with this kind of work, but those aren't the kind of people who feel compelled to write. Those aren't the kind of people who feel compelled to carry a camera everywhere they go. Those aren't the kind of people who can't stand to listen to much besides their iPods and NPR. They're not the kind of people who would love to be able to dress normally and NOT have disgusting steel-toed boot feet. (That's saying a lot for a hardcore feminist chick who likes weird hair colors and has tattoos and stretched ear piercings...)

I don't hate a lot of this work because I'm a woman, or even because I'm a minority liberal in the field. I hate a lot of this work because it just doesn't interest me. It doesn't appeal to me. Books appeal to me. Music, mostly metal, appeals to me. Independent films and plays appeal to me. Cult horror films appeal to me. Cartoons appeal to me. Comedy appeals to me. Are you seeing a pattern here?

I'm different than most of the people I work with. I don't work on cars or anything else like that. I do tend to work on computers. I'll do plumbing work, but not electrical.

I'd rather do something artistic. The extent of that in my world now is writing, but I'd rather do a little hack stuff than nothing at all.

I reiterate, I need to write more. Who cares if it's good? It may never be good. Regardless, it serves a purpose. It channels my feelings through something besides tear ducts and fists.