Chaos, discord, confusion, bureaucracy, aftermath
Work has gotten dull enough again that it is An Issue. The details themselves are kind of dull, but the upshot is that for at least the next year or two, there are likely to be long stretches of time with exactly zero editing to be done. My boss is willing to see me spend my time on other projects, but it's often the case that she doesn't have any projects in mind. Add that to my three hours a day of sitting on my ass in transit and… I do a lot of sitting on my ass.
It's bad for my mental health, too. On days when I sit too much, the suicidal thoughts start to come back, which freaks my shit out really hard.
I am sometimes able to think up projects at work that I'd like to work on, but these tend to be nice-to-have rather than need-to-have stuff, and they tend to come without a natural deadline. This is better for me than being bored, but only slightly. Once it's established that it's okay for me to be sitting reading Facebook (or whatever) for eight hours a day some days, it's hard for me to motivate myself to work hard on Something Else for eight hours when there's no deadline and nobody who needs the Something Else finished. These side projects are also very, very isolating, and often very frustrating too, since there's no institutional support for me doing them. I end up feeling super alienated and stressed out and there's not necessarily much of a reward for doing it and it's just all-around not great.
When I've complained about this to friends, I've gotten a lot of suggestions for ways to fill time. (Bring a book! Do Duolingo! Meditate! Write up your old field data!) But I'm realizing that a lot of those suggestions run into the same problem as I run into when I'm finding my own work projects - they're inessential and deadline-less, and they're highly isolating and alienating. In fact, the nature of doing shit on the job means you have to pretend you're not doing it, which makes them extra-isolating and extra-alienating.
I am slowly finding ways to fill time that work for me. I've changed my commute around so that some days a half hour or so each way is by bike rather than by transit. I've started writing poetry again - and forcing myself to share it with people, which feels like a valid way of connecting with the world and with my feelings, and not just a glorified game of solitaire. I'm trying to go to more optional meetings and trainings and presentations. I write livejournal posts at work sometimes. These are all less alienating than doing nothing, or doing something solitary just for the sake of doing it. But it's still suboptimal, and in the end it might be suboptimal enough - especially combined with the stress of working way out of town and not being able to live near friends - to make me start looking for other work.
It's bad for my mental health, too. On days when I sit too much, the suicidal thoughts start to come back, which freaks my shit out really hard.
I am sometimes able to think up projects at work that I'd like to work on, but these tend to be nice-to-have rather than need-to-have stuff, and they tend to come without a natural deadline. This is better for me than being bored, but only slightly. Once it's established that it's okay for me to be sitting reading Facebook (or whatever) for eight hours a day some days, it's hard for me to motivate myself to work hard on Something Else for eight hours when there's no deadline and nobody who needs the Something Else finished. These side projects are also very, very isolating, and often very frustrating too, since there's no institutional support for me doing them. I end up feeling super alienated and stressed out and there's not necessarily much of a reward for doing it and it's just all-around not great.
When I've complained about this to friends, I've gotten a lot of suggestions for ways to fill time. (Bring a book! Do Duolingo! Meditate! Write up your old field data!) But I'm realizing that a lot of those suggestions run into the same problem as I run into when I'm finding my own work projects - they're inessential and deadline-less, and they're highly isolating and alienating. In fact, the nature of doing shit on the job means you have to pretend you're not doing it, which makes them extra-isolating and extra-alienating.
I am slowly finding ways to fill time that work for me. I've changed my commute around so that some days a half hour or so each way is by bike rather than by transit. I've started writing poetry again - and forcing myself to share it with people, which feels like a valid way of connecting with the world and with my feelings, and not just a glorified game of solitaire. I'm trying to go to more optional meetings and trainings and presentations. I write livejournal posts at work sometimes. These are all less alienating than doing nothing, or doing something solitary just for the sake of doing it. But it's still suboptimal, and in the end it might be suboptimal enough - especially combined with the stress of working way out of town and not being able to live near friends - to make me start looking for other work.