For the moment, lacking internet access, I’m writing these in the text editor and will post them when I have access to the computer that is here.
The last week has been fraught with anger, change, frustration, stress, and in moments, despair. I had thought at times of things that range from running my truck into the highway wall to just getting on the interstate heading west and going as far as I could get to heading back to Florida and taking my chances on the Sangha there to a good many other things that I’ll not mention.
I tell myself this shouldn’t keep happening – that there just isn’t any reason why these odd circumstances and bizarre twists are so constant in my world, my life.
Sometimes, I think it’s me. Something utterly wrong about or with me that somehow brings all this weirdness.
Sometimes, I think it is that I do too much and should be more willing to ‘coast’ the way I see most everyone else do on the job or in life. That bothers me, though. But maybe that really is ‘it’… since it so often seems that my ‘going above and beyond’ is the thing that results in being pushed to go even beyond that and, when I cannot, suddenly, ‘it’s a problem’.
My grandmother used to say, ‘If you hear the same thing from three people, chances are, it’s true.’ In the last week, I’ve had five, different people tell me I shouldn’t work so hard or do so much for others. This, the motivation behind the last few angry entries…. it does anger me. It seems so… contrary to common sense. How the heck does doing more and better, going ‘above and beyond’ result in these things?
It is stupidly consistent. Or I am. Both, I suppose. I keep saying I’m sick and tired of it. I keep saying I’m not going to do it anymore. That I’m going to dumb it all down and just take some secretarial or administrative slot and be little ms. right hand gal… but I keep on not quite managing it.
Perfect example — while I’m waiting to get online and get serious with the job search, I hear of an imaging company that is literally ‘just down the road’ and looking for project managers.
I know for a fact how that will shake out. Just as it always does. But still I sit here and consider it.
Why?
This is the stupidity that is me. Knowing full well that I should just let it go and do what I say I’m going to do, I will still sit here and torment myself with the ‘what if’ and the ‘maybe it could work’ and all the other things that prove so very well that optimism and idealism and hope are far, far from dead here.
Bleh. If I really want this to change, it has to start here, doesn’t it? It starts with me not applying for that job and, instead, spending this time ‘dumbing down’ my resume and looking for office and administrative positions and studiously ignoring technical writing, analysis, and project management jobs.
The relief that is felt when I think about ‘actually doing it’ is rather immense. You’d think that would be enough to keep me on track with it. Maybe this time, it will be. I am truly, truly tired of the instability of technology and the manner in which the industry at large is too willing to sell things that ‘almost work’ so as to make their revenue stream on customization, consulting, and professional services.
I am tired of contracts that promise set frames of time only to suddenly dry up and blow away when someone in a corner office switches priorities. or jobs that lure you in with talk of a career only to close their doors or lay off entire departments with the next managerial hire.
I suppose I was born too late to know what it is to work 20+ years with a company… and since I’m too old for military, such as that doesn’t seem to be on the plan for me. But I’d like to think I could find a company where I could settle in and just… make a living for the rest of my life. Preferably, making someone else look amazing… I swear, I want the biggest question in my day to be ‘Did they make the connecting flight?’
So. A pass on the project manager slot. Quietly and without much fanfare. And now, on to re-writing the resume. I think I’m ready to settle into obscurity for a while. Quite so.