screaming unto the heavens
It's December 31 and I am logging into LJ. That can only mean two things:
One,
I am here to fill out the Annual Survey for the year I am about to leave behind;
or,
Two,
I am here to make a post because I am, once again, embarrassed to see that there is at least one past Annual Survey still among the ten most recent entries, and I am going to make a sad attempt to post one more entry before the year's end.
Give up?
It is two. Option two. And there are two surveys on the front page again. So here I am, wailing into the abyss. Also it is 2 a.m. Back in my day this was, like, classic LJ update time. But yes, lots of twos, in varying shades of terrible.
The last two entries I wrote were from this current job that I am proud to say I still have, in spite of what all has happened here -- to me, to the company -- in the last seven months. Frankly, I'm surprised I even found the time in August to write anything as lengthy and introspective as that.
The June entry, not too much of a surprise. I was probably still comfortable with fucking around on the job. I was still new, and I had yet to be subjected to my boss's impossible-to-meet standards. That is to say, her standards are high, yes, but they are also inconsistent -- the ""right way"" to do things is always a degree or two away from the way one does it, even if it is done exactly to her previous specifications. For instance, she might say it's a cup and a teaspoon of sugar for a recipe, then tell you the teaspoon doesn't matter, then rip you a new asshole when she can taste the difference.
We don't bake, though. We do cybersecurity. I told this to someone at a club once, and he lowered his voice and said, "like, for the government?" JEEZ, NO. We just make sure little old ladies at nonprofits aren't emailing their Quickbooks passwords to the phishermen of the dark web.
And so at some point, perhaps two or so months in, the realization had sunk in that my training went incredibly poorly and I was not doing anything right. It was a perfect storm of bad training and even worse timing, sure, but the heart of it was that they hadn't formulated a clear picture of what my role (The Dispatcher) should entail. I was learning and accessing things I was not at all qualified to do, and my actual job should have been delegation, planning, organization. Once that was determined to be my real role, I had to start unlearning all the bad habits and replacing them with the practices my boss had somehow expected me to come naturally equipped with even though I'd literally never done anything like this before.
Okay, so I've done task delegation and assisted with office management. But dispatching technicians is a totally different thing, even if it takes a lot of the same mentality. But that doesn't make these waters any less uncharted, honestly.
So by late summer I was literally getting "talked to" every day about my performance. I missed this detail, I missed that, I did not correspond properly with this difficult client, I'm not showing enough sense of urgency, I'm not thinking of things from the client's perspective, blah blah blah. Sure, my boss's observations might be accurate in that subjective way, but what was wholly incorrect was her assumption that I would intrinsically know how to do any of this after a couple months of poor training and a steep-ass learning curve.
I was like a puppy being yelled at for using the wrong paw to "shake" and I did not like it. But I bore down, and I survived, and now I know what it takes to continue to survive.
The money is good, a significantly better earning opportunity than any job I've had in the last dozen years. After years of pushing up and slipping down the well like the proverbial snail, I'm getting a clearer picture of what I'm worth these days. It's more than I have assumed for so long, and with that knowledge I am more confident about tackling my inevitable future job searches.
The job has gotten easier, I admit, but I know it's partly because my boss's mood swings have decreased in the last few weeks (whatever she's doing, she should double down and never stop). The deep stress of working for this company is anticipating these mood swings, coping with her bullshit when she needs to feel in control and proactive (read: when she sweats the small shit). I've had lots of bad bosses, and she's definitely got lots of pluses that those bad bosses don't have, but I have never in my life experienced this particular flavor. This boss is tough to bear, but the job is still so plum after all I've been through.
Like, I get it. It's very . . . hmm . . . parental, y'know? She takes a certain tone of condescension, a tendency to dismiss or gaslight or "remember things differently" that seems particularly familiar to the realm of parent-child relationships. I don't know how else to explain it. In any case, I can ride this wave, sure, but I don't know if it is something I can keep up for the long haul. At least, I might start asking for more money at the one-year mark, because this shit is literally costing me my hair.
Outside of work has been, honestly, very little else. I spend 50 or so hours a week in the above-mentioned stress level, staying on my grind, and when I get home I am exhausted. I have no energy leftover -- heretofore, we refer to energy's range of shades -- physical, emotional, creative.
It's been a terrifying year, bleak and surreal. I've been wondering how to reconcile the fact that what bums me out is no longer simply being too broke to afford both gas and food. I can do that now, I have enough money to get both. But I don't have the energy to use that money for all the adventures and treats and savings that I used to wish I had the extra cash to do. Well, other than eating a lot more takeout.
Which I wouldn't do quite so much if I had the fuckin' energy to cook.
And so here we are.
I know it sounds sour now, but I'm sure the rays of sun will shine through when I finally do the year's survey. I just need to get a little of the weight off my chest.
One,
I am here to fill out the Annual Survey for the year I am about to leave behind;
or,
Two,
I am here to make a post because I am, once again, embarrassed to see that there is at least one past Annual Survey still among the ten most recent entries, and I am going to make a sad attempt to post one more entry before the year's end.
Give up?
It is two. Option two. And there are two surveys on the front page again. So here I am, wailing into the abyss. Also it is 2 a.m. Back in my day this was, like, classic LJ update time. But yes, lots of twos, in varying shades of terrible.
The last two entries I wrote were from this current job that I am proud to say I still have, in spite of what all has happened here -- to me, to the company -- in the last seven months. Frankly, I'm surprised I even found the time in August to write anything as lengthy and introspective as that.
The June entry, not too much of a surprise. I was probably still comfortable with fucking around on the job. I was still new, and I had yet to be subjected to my boss's impossible-to-meet standards. That is to say, her standards are high, yes, but they are also inconsistent -- the ""right way"" to do things is always a degree or two away from the way one does it, even if it is done exactly to her previous specifications. For instance, she might say it's a cup and a teaspoon of sugar for a recipe, then tell you the teaspoon doesn't matter, then rip you a new asshole when she can taste the difference.
We don't bake, though. We do cybersecurity. I told this to someone at a club once, and he lowered his voice and said, "like, for the government?" JEEZ, NO. We just make sure little old ladies at nonprofits aren't emailing their Quickbooks passwords to the phishermen of the dark web.
And so at some point, perhaps two or so months in, the realization had sunk in that my training went incredibly poorly and I was not doing anything right. It was a perfect storm of bad training and even worse timing, sure, but the heart of it was that they hadn't formulated a clear picture of what my role (The Dispatcher) should entail. I was learning and accessing things I was not at all qualified to do, and my actual job should have been delegation, planning, organization. Once that was determined to be my real role, I had to start unlearning all the bad habits and replacing them with the practices my boss had somehow expected me to come naturally equipped with even though I'd literally never done anything like this before.
Okay, so I've done task delegation and assisted with office management. But dispatching technicians is a totally different thing, even if it takes a lot of the same mentality. But that doesn't make these waters any less uncharted, honestly.
So by late summer I was literally getting "talked to" every day about my performance. I missed this detail, I missed that, I did not correspond properly with this difficult client, I'm not showing enough sense of urgency, I'm not thinking of things from the client's perspective, blah blah blah. Sure, my boss's observations might be accurate in that subjective way, but what was wholly incorrect was her assumption that I would intrinsically know how to do any of this after a couple months of poor training and a steep-ass learning curve.
I was like a puppy being yelled at for using the wrong paw to "shake" and I did not like it. But I bore down, and I survived, and now I know what it takes to continue to survive.
The money is good, a significantly better earning opportunity than any job I've had in the last dozen years. After years of pushing up and slipping down the well like the proverbial snail, I'm getting a clearer picture of what I'm worth these days. It's more than I have assumed for so long, and with that knowledge I am more confident about tackling my inevitable future job searches.
The job has gotten easier, I admit, but I know it's partly because my boss's mood swings have decreased in the last few weeks (whatever she's doing, she should double down and never stop). The deep stress of working for this company is anticipating these mood swings, coping with her bullshit when she needs to feel in control and proactive (read: when she sweats the small shit). I've had lots of bad bosses, and she's definitely got lots of pluses that those bad bosses don't have, but I have never in my life experienced this particular flavor. This boss is tough to bear, but the job is still so plum after all I've been through.
Like, I get it. It's very . . . hmm . . . parental, y'know? She takes a certain tone of condescension, a tendency to dismiss or gaslight or "remember things differently" that seems particularly familiar to the realm of parent-child relationships. I don't know how else to explain it. In any case, I can ride this wave, sure, but I don't know if it is something I can keep up for the long haul. At least, I might start asking for more money at the one-year mark, because this shit is literally costing me my hair.
Outside of work has been, honestly, very little else. I spend 50 or so hours a week in the above-mentioned stress level, staying on my grind, and when I get home I am exhausted. I have no energy leftover -- heretofore, we refer to energy's range of shades -- physical, emotional, creative.
It's been a terrifying year, bleak and surreal. I've been wondering how to reconcile the fact that what bums me out is no longer simply being too broke to afford both gas and food. I can do that now, I have enough money to get both. But I don't have the energy to use that money for all the adventures and treats and savings that I used to wish I had the extra cash to do. Well, other than eating a lot more takeout.
Which I wouldn't do quite so much if I had the fuckin' energy to cook.
And so here we are.
I know it sounds sour now, but I'm sure the rays of sun will shine through when I finally do the year's survey. I just need to get a little of the weight off my chest.