Saturday, September 23, 2006

No rest for the weary.

I've been moving away from posting here for some time as, in addition to my feeling that this venture has gotten pretty stale over the past year or so, life been awfully trying lately.

This spring, due to a few too many life crises, I ended up having to take a leave of absence from work. After a few months dedicated to quiet and to taking care of myself, last week, I found myself back in the same unhealthy work situation. Though I'm coping much better than before, am still very drained due to the loss of quiet at home. (What timing to start ripping the bathroom apart the same day I returned to the office.)

If I can survive the next week or two (hopefully not more than that), perhaps I won't feel like I have the world on my shoulders. Perhaps I'll feel more like writing. Perhaps not. We'll see.
Posted by at

3 comments:

Simon Kenton said...

I got a new boss, the kind who cannot say anything pleasant. It's almost unmaliced - it just spills out of her. I gave myself all the reasons for keeping the job, at least until she could fire me, and they were good, persuasive reasons.

I quit.

Maybe this was dumb - by all conventional standards I should have stuck out another 7 years, to the earliest possible real retirement point. But it doesn't feel dumb, it feels wonderful. Don't quite know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Don't much care at the moment; I'm reading, doing projects, coaching a very talented woman high-power shooter, doing some volunteering, farting around on the internet, investing. One of my favorite ex-bosses has gone off to see if she can set up a farm in rural Oregon. Another is simultaneously 'pursuing my twin passions for learning languages and dark handsome men' by going to Spain to an immersion school.

Miss, I've had a number of periods in the past where by hanging in there I was degrading myself and training an abusive boss that this kind of contemptuous behavior is effective and free of any negative consequences; and it feels great to have bailed. For once I did something for my self-respect, and something to train a very unpleasant person in what's not acceptable.

My consumption of lottery tickets peaked in the pre-quit days. I also noticed that my face was getting less and less merry, more and more strained, uglier and uglier. (So were a number of my colleagues, and for some of them it was a lot more of a tragedy than for me.)

I'm not discounting the iron laws of the dismal science. But if you quit, things may not be bad, and could be wonderful.

Strength to your arm....

9/23/06, 10:49 PM
Sissy Willis said...

Your commenter Simon Kenton makes a lot of sense. As with terrorists of all stripes -- whether Islamist fascists, former presidents who poke Chris Wallace in the face or spoiled children -- appeasement only encourages unacceptable behavior.

9/25/06, 4:24 PM
Be said...

Simon and Sissy - I kept it together for as long as I did to get the five - year payoff (vesting in the company's 403b). It really was worth it for that, as now I have some wherewithal.

My original thought a week before returning was to not come back at all, to just do temporary work until I decided what on earth I wanted to do for 'serious' work. A good friend mentioned that burning bridges probably wasn't a good thing, and I think she's absolutely right. So - I manage here for whatever time I have left (not long, trust me) and, after hours, I engage myself in something I've not really done before: sketch out a future.

There's a lot of work to be done there, as so much has changed over the past six months or so. Overwhelming sometimes, but not hopeless.

9/26/06, 12:17 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)