(no subject)
I am coming up on my one year anniversary with my job. And my husband. But mostly my job, as I feel that I'm more married to my job than anything else in my life. To me, this says nothing about my marriage and everything about my job.
I live in a convention center. I have a locker filled with seconds of my favorite shampoo, soap, and hair dryer. I grocery shop for my office refrigerator, as I often eat three meals here. Two at my desk, one in the break room. I sleep here more than I'd like to admit. Yes, I curl up on a couch in a storage room, but if I didn't make it home until 1am, and I'm back in building at 4am, I'm sleeping on that dirty thing with my radio an inch from my face, ready to appear chipper for a client on the other end. I work out here. I run laps around the exhibit halls. I climb stairs in the performance hall. I watch television. I read books. I listen to music. I do this at my desk, after hours, only after I have worked at least eight hours. But it's hard to ignore the phone calls, emails, and personal deadlines. Revise, revise, revise. I really try to work ONLY eight hours. On average it's ten-twelve. I don't mind the work. But after two of four, or seven, or ten, eighteen hour days in a row, I'd like to be home.
When I'm home I put my arms around my husband. I sleep. I wake up. I make coffee. I go to work. When I have a day off, two things can happen:
1) I do everything that could ever be done. Laundry, cleaning, exercise, cooking. I sometimes even see friends I haven't seen in months.
Seeing friends is dangerous because everyone wants to drink and I am de-stressing. I don't drink often and I don't do it well. My tolerance is low. LOW. I don't have enough time off to spend it sick in bed with a massive hangover from two beers. I also don't have time to feel like a drunk idiot. I work too hard to feel like a idiot. De-stress drinking with zero tolerance is not fun. I try to keep this to a minimum. There aren't very many people who understand what I do. Or care to listen. Which, honestly, I get it. No one wants to hear me talk about the shitty marathon event I had that crushed my soul. I'm bad at the whole friend thing really. I'm finding that I'm closer with people who have equally monumental things in their lives that take them away from socializing, too. Like babies. I'm closest with my co-workers. It's the EC sorority.
2) I sit and do nothing all day. This generally happens under a blanket, surrounded by two cats, and with tea. I don't often have time off on weekends, so husband is generally away at school or work or hockey. Sometimes I watch television or read, but mostly I just work from my phone. I'm trying to stop doing this.
I have this feeling that if I don't check my email or respond to a client or co-worker that everyone will hate me and I will get a bad review or a client won't come back to the convention center and I am directly responsible for 4,000 tourists spending a week in Las Vegas instead of Grand Rapids, Michigan, thus being directly responsible for losing that income to the Grand Rapids economy. Mostly, I just like my clients to like me. I'm an only child and I'm sick. But really. If I do the best job I can do, groups come back. Right now, I have 6,000 patrons in the building for four days. They eat downtown, they stay in our hotels, the shop in our stores. If my client doesn't care for me, how likely is it that they will come back and spend that money here?
I don't even know if I like my job. I can't slow down enough to even think about it. I've applied for two jobs in the last year. One I was recommended to apply for in my first three months here. Looking back, I'm very lucky that I didn't get that job. I was not nearly ready. They made a good choice not hiring me. The second was recently. I kind of thought I had it. I started thinking about what my life would be like without the convention center. I could actually picture my husband awake in my everyday life. I could see his voice leaving his face and not my speaker phone. I could see the way the new job would change my life for the better. It was a step up professionally and personally. This was another lucky miss, I think. I wasn't very upset when the news came through that I didn't get the job.
Now I can't tell if I love or if I absolutely fucking hate my job. This last year was a work year. It sure as hell didn't feel like my first year of marriage. I miss my husband and I sleep next to him every night. He truly is my best friend. I could not do what I do without him. I am so proud of him. He is an incredibly smart man. Just because someone isn't talking, doesn't mean they aren't thinking. I didn't anticipate how hard it would be to spend so much time at my desk and away from home. The job alone is stressful enough, and I'm beginning to wonder if I can watch my second year of marriage pass the same way the first has. Not because I'm worried about the relationship. I'm worried about missing my life. Do I put work experience over life experience? I keep saying that I'll do this for another year, then really start applying else where. By then husband will be out of school. But I'm burning out. Something has to change. I feel like if I don't turn into some seriously spiritual "heal yourself" type person (or develop a serious dependence on speed), I'm not going to last. I'm having trouble taking care of myself.
I live in a convention center. I have a locker filled with seconds of my favorite shampoo, soap, and hair dryer. I grocery shop for my office refrigerator, as I often eat three meals here. Two at my desk, one in the break room. I sleep here more than I'd like to admit. Yes, I curl up on a couch in a storage room, but if I didn't make it home until 1am, and I'm back in building at 4am, I'm sleeping on that dirty thing with my radio an inch from my face, ready to appear chipper for a client on the other end. I work out here. I run laps around the exhibit halls. I climb stairs in the performance hall. I watch television. I read books. I listen to music. I do this at my desk, after hours, only after I have worked at least eight hours. But it's hard to ignore the phone calls, emails, and personal deadlines. Revise, revise, revise. I really try to work ONLY eight hours. On average it's ten-twelve. I don't mind the work. But after two of four, or seven, or ten, eighteen hour days in a row, I'd like to be home.
When I'm home I put my arms around my husband. I sleep. I wake up. I make coffee. I go to work. When I have a day off, two things can happen:
1) I do everything that could ever be done. Laundry, cleaning, exercise, cooking. I sometimes even see friends I haven't seen in months.
Seeing friends is dangerous because everyone wants to drink and I am de-stressing. I don't drink often and I don't do it well. My tolerance is low. LOW. I don't have enough time off to spend it sick in bed with a massive hangover from two beers. I also don't have time to feel like a drunk idiot. I work too hard to feel like a idiot. De-stress drinking with zero tolerance is not fun. I try to keep this to a minimum. There aren't very many people who understand what I do. Or care to listen. Which, honestly, I get it. No one wants to hear me talk about the shitty marathon event I had that crushed my soul. I'm bad at the whole friend thing really. I'm finding that I'm closer with people who have equally monumental things in their lives that take them away from socializing, too. Like babies. I'm closest with my co-workers. It's the EC sorority.
2) I sit and do nothing all day. This generally happens under a blanket, surrounded by two cats, and with tea. I don't often have time off on weekends, so husband is generally away at school or work or hockey. Sometimes I watch television or read, but mostly I just work from my phone. I'm trying to stop doing this.
I have this feeling that if I don't check my email or respond to a client or co-worker that everyone will hate me and I will get a bad review or a client won't come back to the convention center and I am directly responsible for 4,000 tourists spending a week in Las Vegas instead of Grand Rapids, Michigan, thus being directly responsible for losing that income to the Grand Rapids economy. Mostly, I just like my clients to like me. I'm an only child and I'm sick. But really. If I do the best job I can do, groups come back. Right now, I have 6,000 patrons in the building for four days. They eat downtown, they stay in our hotels, the shop in our stores. If my client doesn't care for me, how likely is it that they will come back and spend that money here?
I don't even know if I like my job. I can't slow down enough to even think about it. I've applied for two jobs in the last year. One I was recommended to apply for in my first three months here. Looking back, I'm very lucky that I didn't get that job. I was not nearly ready. They made a good choice not hiring me. The second was recently. I kind of thought I had it. I started thinking about what my life would be like without the convention center. I could actually picture my husband awake in my everyday life. I could see his voice leaving his face and not my speaker phone. I could see the way the new job would change my life for the better. It was a step up professionally and personally. This was another lucky miss, I think. I wasn't very upset when the news came through that I didn't get the job.
Now I can't tell if I love or if I absolutely fucking hate my job. This last year was a work year. It sure as hell didn't feel like my first year of marriage. I miss my husband and I sleep next to him every night. He truly is my best friend. I could not do what I do without him. I am so proud of him. He is an incredibly smart man. Just because someone isn't talking, doesn't mean they aren't thinking. I didn't anticipate how hard it would be to spend so much time at my desk and away from home. The job alone is stressful enough, and I'm beginning to wonder if I can watch my second year of marriage pass the same way the first has. Not because I'm worried about the relationship. I'm worried about missing my life. Do I put work experience over life experience? I keep saying that I'll do this for another year, then really start applying else where. By then husband will be out of school. But I'm burning out. Something has to change. I feel like if I don't turn into some seriously spiritual "heal yourself" type person (or develop a serious dependence on speed), I'm not going to last. I'm having trouble taking care of myself.