Parking Spot

 This has been a relatively shitty week AND other people have been parking in my usual parking spot. Coincidence?

...

Yes. Absolutely. It's a coincidence.

But it feels like these things should be connected.

Thank goodness for a long weekend and a "Weird" Al concert at the end of next week.

Companionable Coworkers

I've spent way too much time in fast food places over the past week and I noticed something, something that I should have remembered.

Today, both of the places I went to were empty inside, except for me. Plenty of people in the drive-thru, though. And I could hear the teasing and mockery and genuine comradity (pardon the spelling). That sense of a team that functions well together and like working together.

I found myself missing that.

At my "grown-up" job, we may use teamwork, but we don't work as a team together. Everyone does their part and we hope all the parts fit together in the end.

Maybe that's why so many people there seem so desparet to connect to others.

Working Report

I just learned that on July 1 I get promoted. This will likely be the last promotion I ever receive. Everything after this level involves supervising/managing. I don't want to do either of those things

Halfway through September, I will have worked for The State for 10 years. 3652 days.

The best I can say about it is that the pay has been more that I've ever been paid, but lower than I'd like and the pay has been steady.

Four or so weeks ago I went to this mini conference thing for the local community college. It was a lunch with the business teachers and local schools and businesses. I was there as a representative for the prison I work at and spent most of the time shouting that people, not just the youth, need to be taught how to fill out an application properly (a waitress who writes "I waited on tables" does not actually tell me what she did) and have fuckin' manners on the phone (no, I am not here to take your abuse and I'm not going to fill out the application for you nor will I take the exam for you).

This year also included instructors from the computer science-ish type classes. This way we could also talk technology and the programs that student's will be using once they enter the industry of, hopefully, their choice. One of the instructors was a teacher I had nearly 15 years ago. I took three classes from her all based around graphic design. I did two classes on Adobe Illustrator and one for InDesign. (The second semester of InDesign was with a different teacher.)

I spoke with her before the lunch and the talk began. Mostly, we talked about her classes. She's still doing the Illustrator and InDesign, but she's also teaching Photoshop (which she taught way back when, but I wasn't interested in taking), an computer aided animation, not Flash, and 3D modeling in Maya. All of it excited me. We did get around to talking about me. She seemed... well... disappointed with where I was in my life.

I was, too.

Ever since that day, going to work and staying at work has been very hard for me to do.

I have spent much time looking at the classes she offers, but most are during the day now. Way back when she was only a part time teacher and her classes all took place in the evening. But how do I justify to my boss and then her boss, the Warden, missing six hours of work each week? Especially for classes that would do nothing for promotional purposes? How do I make those hours up without wanting to poke my eyes out? Should I use 90 hours (more than two work weeks worth of time) of vacation time over a semester to take a class? I don't know!

Not since I was little did I really know what I wanted to do as an adult. For a time, I thought I could be a professional story teller, or at least a semi-professional. That idea was squashed out of me in college. The closest I came to finding something that really interested me was the graphic design. I moved from Cowtown to Cowcity to continue design courses. It was just starting in Cowtown, but Cowcity had a real curriculum and was building a 3D modeling/animation curriculum at that time. Eventually, I didn't get enough hours working at a coffee shop and couldn't afford to live there anymore. (You can actually read about this time on this blog by clicking through 2004 and 2005 through September or October. Crazy.) I ended up back in Cowtown, where I didn't have to pay rent, and looked for a job that would actually pay me money and I wouldn't have to live with my parents or a roommate. That's how I ended up with the State in September 2005. In 3 1/2 months I will have finished my tenth year with the state. Fuck.

Most of the ten years have been okay. Just a job. Stuff I do for money. Unfortunately, I've never done a lot outside of the job stuff because of the depression thing. So, I just worked at work that was work that didn't make me more miserable. Work I didn't hate. Work I still don't hate. The problem is that I was reminded about something that I liked that could have lead somewhere, or not. Like I wrote, it's been hard to go to work and then stay there for the full day.

And along with all that it's been really easy to want to quit, give up, and go away.

My Brain

It's not at its best, my brain. It's been fuzzy. Tired.

The brain doctor didn't increase the dosage when I saw him a couple of weeks ago. He said what I'm at is the max. I decided, and he concurred, to continue on the way I am, for a while. The only other choice would have been a new drug and after six month (I think it was that long) of trying to find something that didn't hurt me while it helped me I need a break to just settle down.

Not to say that I'm doing well, though. I'm just existing. If I didn't have a job to go to five days a week, I wouldn't leave the house. At least I'd leave as rarely as possible.

At work, I've had a couple of major screw-ups that could lead to some future problems, although I doubt it. I've also made lots of minor ones. Most I've caught before the next step and no one knows about them. Some went on but came back to me to correct. Rarely have they gone past that state, but if they keep going, they're gone.

I'd like to quit my job. Not because I dislike it, but more because I'm "meh" about it. The great manager has moved on, for at least a year, but I expect she'll fit in the position permanently. The current acting manager is a good guy, but we only have him for a couple more months and then who knows. The biggest problem is I can't see this job leading anywhere that I'd like to end up. Even as I look out across the virtual 160,000 square miles of the state for a different job I see nothing that I want to do. I don't want to arrange contracts or spend my day in meetings or arranging travel plans or track expenditures or write reports or work with the public. That's all that I see available to me.

When I look out at other places, away from the public sector, I get lost in not knowing what I can do. There are a lot of things that I can't do or haven't learned to do and most of the time when I see a job that I might like I think I can't do it. When I see things that I can do and would like to do, I have no experience and would have to start at the bottom.

One of the best things about working for the state is knowing that every 12 months I'll get a step raise until I hit the top of the pay scale as long as I have performed my duties well. I don't beg to get that little bit more. I don't have to dance around convincing some asshole that what I do is valuable and that I do it well like people do in the private world. That kind of thing is especially hard because I don't believe it myself. Never have.

Sometimes I think I'd know what I'd like to do for a living. It would require a lot of work, though. A lot of time and learning to do things that I can actually do. Worst of all it doesn't really pay enough for a person to live. And then there's all the rest "social" "media" bullshit that you have to do just to stay "connected" with "people."

When I Grow Up

I went to the brain doctor on Monday without any good news and the bad news was old news.

After a year of seeing him I've finally made him understand that more people in my life isn't the way to increase my happiness for the long term. In short visits I can, and often do, feel better spending time with people I know well and like and trust. Once those visits hit a certain point, I start getting uncomfortable and feeling icky. Long term is never good.

The thing is, he said, that for people with my level of depression having them go out with people and visiting friends and family all the time would be his first suggestion. For most people it works and he's pretty much been pushing this idea on me for a year. Monday, he didn't.

Instead of focusing on a social life he switched gears to my work life. It started with how I feel about my current job, which is okay. I don't LOVE or really like my job, but I don't dislike or HATE it, either. It just is. The people are nice enough and seem to be here more to work than make others look like fools. My boss is great and trusts me. The actual work is mostly mind-numbing and repetitive, but sometimes there're things that require real brain power. The pay's okay. It's not going to buy me the house and land I'd like, but I can rent comfortably and not worry about shopping or going to plays or visiting people to the North or to the South. It's not a bad job, but if offered full pay I'd rather not come each day.

He then asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up and the honest answer I gave him is I don't know. Everything I've said in the past -- engineer, lawyer, writer, WWE Superstar, astronaut-fireman-president, etc. -- aren't wrong answers, but they were answers to get people to stop asking me about the future. I told him that there isn't one job I can think of that I wouldn't be happy to retire from or forced to stop doing because of some horrible physical problem. I look at my parents as they approach retirement and I can see them missing things.

My dad loves working with the students at the community college. He loves helping them put together an education plan to help guide them through their years at the school. I think he'll be glad to leave the daily grind of his job when he retires, but I think he'll miss the students. I've told him that he's going to go back and help out a few times a year and it won't be about the money, but the time he gets to spend helping people.

My mom, on the other hand, won't miss her job at all. She won't miss the kids or the teachers or the administration. When she retires she plans on doing her art and selling it and her art is the thing she will miss if she can't do it. Hell, I've seen it for years. Because of the high stress levels at school she doesn't art off and it makes her sad. On those few weekends when she does art off she's rejuvenated, at least in the moment. When she gets to the point that she can art off most of the week and then she gets to a point where she can't art off anymore she'll be crushed.

I don't have anything like that. Yeah, if I have my eyes pecked out by a canary I'll miss reading, but there are still books and tapes (anachronistic) and television to listen to for stories.

What do I like doing besides read? he asked. I like to cook and bake, I said. So the brain doctor tried to come up with something I could do in that area, as if I hadn't thought about it before. I'd go nuts working a line, just flipping burgers or putting on the condiments or taking orders. So many people to deal with. At my own place it would be even harder because I'd have to depend on and trust other people. There's no way I could do everything. If I wanted to be in the back and never come out then I'd need people to wait and take orders and handle the cash and do the books and I don't have it in me to trust **anyone** that much. The only way I could see me being happy is if I had a window and I could make whatever I wanted to make and sell it and when the food is gone it's gone, too bad for the next person.

He suggested getting into publishing. To which I replied that I'd have to move to a big city, a place I don't want to be, and start at the bottom and push to make quotas and harass people who are running late. Then he tried to suggest doing something with publishing online and I explained that most online publishing are vanity presses and not real publishers.

He then asked what I'd really like to do. I said I'd like to be paid to lay on a couch all day reading. I'd like to be an eccentric billionaire, I said. He asked if that would make me happy and I said that I don't know, but I'd feel safe. We bounced around on this for a while, discussing things that I like to do and how to feel safe in my life. Nothing was resolved. And in the end he told me to keep thinking about what I like to do so that I can find a job that will make me happy. I said okay, but I don't believe anything'll happen.

Never Promised

When I was younger, like nearly 1/4th my current age, I was told that I should learn how to type because it was a useful skill. As time went on I kept being told by teachers and other authoritative adults that I should learn how to time. I didn't really care until someone said that when I started working I would only be typing and I'd never have to hand write something ever again.

Being the niave and trusting person I was, especially toward authoritative figures, I took learning how to type to heart and as a promise.

I don't really hate my handwriting, but I don't like it much either. It's chunky and inconssistant. Lines waver even when there are lines to write on. It just doesn't look good.

The problem is, the authoritative adult didn't make a promise and my chunky, inconsistant handwriting shows up all over the place at work.

Another reason life is unfair.

Vomit Free Since 12/16/13

I am feeling very blargh right now.

Two Tuesdays ago, a cold caught me. That Wednesday, I stayed away from work because along with blowing snot out my nose, the membrane back there kept puncturing and my nose would bleed. I hate doing the bloody nose thing at work.

I'm fortunate that the cold never turned into a bad cough, but the thing is still with me, sapping what little energy my rotundness produces.

On Sunday night, sometime after midnight, I woke up to a bellyache. I told myself over and over that I would not throw up. My body said that if I wasn't going to head to the bathroom it would make me thin that the other side needed some relieving, too. I sat down and farted then got sick. I was holding the garbage can on my lap.

There wasn't much in me because I only at breakfast that morning and some cheese (harvarti) and crackers for dinner. Of course that didn't stop my body from waking me up twice more to heave up bile and water. Monday I didn't go to work or see my brain doctor or do much of anything.

This morning, I woke up, still with a bellyache, and went to work because I hadn't been sick for 18 hours and I felt well enough.

Which is kind of funny because that's one of my answers when people ask me how much I like my new job. "Well enough," I say.

One of the best things about this job is that I don't loathe going there. It's just work. The people are decent. I have a great boss and she has a nice number two. The work I do can be challenging, but is never so hard that I want to scream. This job, though, isn't something I care about.

I will never be passionate about posting jobs vacancies online, or collecting and reviewing applications, or logging the movement of hiring paperwork into an overstuffed binder. Never. I wish I were so that I would wake up excited to go to work. I wish I were driven to push myself up through the ranks. I wish I had a goal.

Once, I think, I mentioned that when I was in high school some of my friends had an assignment to show off/explain their bliss. I thought about the assignment for a long time, even though it wasn't my assignment, and came up blank. I still think about that assignment. I still come up blank.

Before the Giving of Thanks

Dear Blog Readers,

I am going back to work in Cowtown the Monday before American Thanksgiving. This means I will probably be moving in with my parents for a while. A much shorter while, this time, I hope.

My mother and I drove around looking at houses yesterday. Some were rentals, most are for sale.

The most significant factor in where I'll end up is the snow line. I feel mostly safe driving myself, but I hate most of the drivers out there. (I mean who thinks it's smart to stop while driving uphill in an inch of slush covered in two inches of snow?)

Also, there's the whole me just being me factor and sort of, kind of freaking out about nothing and everything over the job, over living with the parents, over the crappy neighbors that don't yet exist.

Yeah. Just wanted to share. Aren't I great?

Work Misery

The bad thing is that the more often I feel okay to good the more I realize just how miserable my job makes me.

Not Me

There is a job in a place that would be lovely to live. It has been posted for two months. I asked about it today and learned that there were interviews last week and I was not part of them. I an only a little disappointed, but not utterly destroyed. At least I have something to say to the brain doctor.

Fighting Fires From Space

I am very bored.




Most of the work I have piled on my desk depends on other people doing things so that I can do things to complete the work that's on my desk. And it is a pain.



So, I sit here and do nothing. That's not quite true. I did download Emma to my computer and read the first twenty pages. The text is such a slog when I'm not in the right mood. The way characters speak is so unpleasant. Everyone uses five words when one would do. I'm also bugged by the way Austen bounces between calling her protagonist Emma and Miss Woodhouse. It took me way too long to figure out who Miss Woodhouse is.



The thing is... If I was in the right mood I would enjoy the pompous way in which the book is written. I've read this book before. I greatly enjoyed Jane Eyre when I read that. I hated the characters more that the writing style of Wuthering Heights. And Great Expectations is just sad. When I'm in the right mood the way the thing is written isn't as much the focus as the characters and plot.



I'm really tired, though. I got to work and started to yawn soon after my butt hit the seat and I've been yawning ever since then.



I go to see the brain doctor tomorrow. I think he's going to take me off this medication and put me on another one. I think that because I'm approaching week six on meds and not much has changed since week three. I do feel better than I did when I started this stuff, there are moments when the weight on my shoulders are lessened and I think to myself that I feel okay, like there could be a better way to feel, but okay is pretty damned nice. But this happens maybe once a day for a minute, if I'm lucky, but it hasn't gotten anywhere beyond that. I still spend a lot of time thinking about how nice it would be to not be.



Part of me doesn't want to switch because then it's a new waiting game for six more weeks. Yuck. But if I don't switch I'll stay this way or go back to how I was forever and the whole point is to not feel like that/this anymore. I'm supposed to feel more "normal," whatever that is.



Ultimately, though, it'll be up to the brain doctor. For all I know he'll want to wait another six weeks to see if this'll work out for me.



To go back to those moments when I've felt okay, I mean really okay, recently I have to wonder if that is how most people feel most of the time. If it is then I truly envy most people.



The brain doctor keeps telling me that I'm a bright guy, but I just haven't had any breaks. Now while I know I'm fairly smart, I'm not sure about the breaks. When I finally told my parents about the brain doctor this weekend and I mentioned the breaks thing my mother said that maybe he means like how hard it is for me to get a job somewhere but when I get there they love the work that I do but then it's just as hard to move on to somewhere else when it comes time to move. I'm not sure that's what he means though.



Not that breaks would necessarily matter. Part of feeling this way for so long is that I really don't know what I want to be other than fairly comfortable. The last thing I remember really wanting to be was a fire fighter/astronaut/president all at the same time. (Yes, I would lead the USA from my orbiting fire fighting super satellite. Where else would I do it?) For a time I wanted to make movies, but that was briefly during a horrible year and went away. Telling stories has always interested me, but how often does that keep a person comfortable. Still, I need something that's not this. This is not good. It’s soul sucking and often mind numbing.



Maybe my outlook will be different if my brain starts acting "normal" and I'm "normal." Maybe I'll want a somebody so much that I'll try. Maybe I'll know what I want to do with my life and make a change. Maybe I'll stop being a coward and just pick-up and go. Maybe I'll start to like being around groups of people and living within a short distance of thousands won't make my heart flutter. Maybe I just won't care.



Maybe.

Working

Work has been really, really hard since my visit on Monday. Harder than it's been since I started. And I'm not talking about the actual work I do, rather work itself.

I haven't ever liked where I am working right now, but recently has been worse. I find my patients running short. I have an almost constant stomach ache. When I drive away from work my foot is like lead and I drive much faster than I think I should (though slower than some of the driver think I should). I'm also constantly very tired. I think the tiredness is more mental than physical. Either way I'm tired and concentration is hard.

I don't want to go back tomorrow, but I will because I won't be SICK-sick, just remain brain sick.

You Know Somethings Wrong…

I feel so guilty for leaving work on time. There's a lot of work to do, but so often my brain feels like goop hours before the end of the day. Plus I spend the whole day constantly working, always busy, but nothing ever seems to get accomplished. Nothing is ever finished. Even when the hiring is finished.

Today I started looking for a mental health professional. Haven't made an appointment,yet, but by the end of the week I will.

Also, I've started looking for a new job. I have got to get out of prisons.

Today,

It is so fucking hard to get out and go to work. But I really should. Fuck.

Small Mistake

Taking a day off in the middle of the week was a bad idea. I really don't want to go back tomorrow.

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

I'm not one for hope. I want everything to turn out well, but I don't really believe that things will turn out well. I'm a pessimist.

I've been trying to get a promotion to an analyst for a long time. Five years now. I interview. I'm told they'll make the decision in two weeks. After four weeks I hear that I didn't get the job or I never hear anything at all.

So, when someone who used to work with me -- someone who knows how hard I work, someone who knows I can learn how to do anything, someone who knows me -- became the head of the personnel department, I let hope in.

She told me that there were going to be several analyst positions coming open in personnel early on. The day before the positions were opened for applications, she called me to tell me to get my application in. After I turned the application in, she e-mailed me to tell me that she got it, but that interviews wouldn't be for a while because she had to get approval to unfreeze the positions.

Great, I thought, at least one of the positions was going to be mine.

Now, there's a bit more to this story. Since so many people are getting laid off, or potentially laid off, they are getting letters to help encourage personnel departments to interview them. And, although I should have gotten one in this most recent round, I fell through the cracks and am once again without a letter.

I know that I have been over looked for at three interviews, two of which were at my current level, because I didn't have a letter. One of the jobs I would have been perfect for because it's what I did while I was in the nursing department.

Still, I had hope. That former co-worker was looking out for me.

Until today.

Today she wrote to me and asked me if I had one of those letters. She can only interview people who have those letters.

I cannot be interviewed.

FUCK!

And so, I continue to be stuck where I am. Never to be promoted. Never to see my pay increase. Never to get anywhere near my abilities in my work.

If I thought I was at all a useful human being I'd probably quit my job. Too bad I'm not useful. Too bad past experience has shown me that I can't be hired anywhere.

Too bad...

Hourly Comic Day 2013

How I spent my yesterday:

On How To Be Brave

To the best of my knowledge, there are three place a one, such as myself, can work for this State, but not actually work in The State. Houston, Chicago, and New York are where these jobs are located.

Four or five months ago, I did a phone interview to work in Houston. A week after that I was offered a face-to-face interview for the position. I didn't take the interview. I was interested, but at the time I had done a couple of interviews for promotion that I thought went well, so I turned down the second interview. At the time I was right. The position I interviewed for was the same position I'm in now. I would have been doing more receptionist work rather than clerical or analyst work and there was no room for promotion at this job unless I wanted to go back to school and learn some skills that I don't want to have. (Although I know I could learn them and then use them fairly well.) There was no money for moving and there was no pay increase.

Four weeks ago a position came available in the New York office. Again, not a promotion. But in New York. The office is in Manhattan. No moving expenses, but the pay goes up at least $350. And it's in New York City, which is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen.

Yes, I hate living in cities. I hate the idea of large cities, but I wouldn't have to live in the city. There are buses and subways and trains and plenty of places in all directions where the population density is at a more reasonable level for my sanity. For a week after the job was posted online I looked up rents in the city and its Burroughs. I looked at Long Island and New Jersey. I looked upstate thinking that it would be wonderful to be able to say I lived in New Rochelle. I found places with potential. Places I think I could live.

But...

I hadn't sent the application. Sure, there were two weeks to get it out, but I hadn't sent it. Not because it's not a promotion. I've basically given up on that dream because there's no chance of a promotion for me where I am and the dozen or so interviews I've gone out on for a promotion have done nothing for me. I figure the best way for me to get a promotion is to get somewhere at my level and show them that I am so much more than just a file clerk or a receptionist. Out in New York I would have been at the same level with no real chance for promotion, but I'd be in New York City where so many things that I like are made or come from. Where there are more plays going on each week than I could afford to see in a year. Museums, publishing houses, food from around the world, music everywhere all the time if you look for it. Just the place for an aspiring hipster to be.

Three weeks ago, on Monday, I got out of my car and started to walk across the parking lot thinking about how I have to get the application out that afternoon and suddenly I knew that I wasn't going to send that application off, ever. I stopped and stood in the middle of the lot because even though I knew that I wasn't going to send the application in, I didn't know why. I had to figure out why. I stood there and thought about it.

I'd be living in a city, a gigantic city, where I didn't know, really know, a single person, 3000 miles away from those I do know. Now that wouldn't be a big deal because I've lived in cities where I don't know anyone and been okay, but it's always been in this state. Always close enough to people I know that if something went terribly wrong they'd be close enough that they could help.

The normal argument would be that I'd meet people and make friends. The problem is that, when it comes to me, it won't happen. I don't know how to make friends.

Okay, so logically I know how to make friends. You meet people who share your interest. You get to know each other and enjoy spending time together. Eventually you start hanging out talking about nothing, maybe sharing a meal or going to see a band at a bar or maybe looking at some art. You call or text or e-mail to set up one of these things and you go and you laugh and fun is had. Friends. My problem is I don't know how to go anywhere after the "meet people" stage.

Seriously, I don't know how to do or what to do anything after I meet people. I go to things where people share my interests and sometimes, rarely, I even talk with people I don't know. And then the talking stops. I don't know how to continue after there's a pause because I don't believe that the person I've been speaking with actually wants to speak with me. Crazy, I know, because we were just speaking and 95% of the time I'm not the person who initiates the conversation. Still, I have a hard time imagining. There's also the fear of becoming one of those people who become too much.

If you've ever been to a comic shop you know the kind of guy, and it's always been a guy to me, I'm going try to describe. It's the guy who knows you're interested in comics so you must be interested in the comics he's interested in and he will, if he can, corner you among the long boxes and tell you everything about what he likes and why the stuff your looking at is either brilliant or crap. If you're lucky enough to not get cornered he'll follow you around the shop. When you tell him that you don't like the Punisher because you don't think he's a hero the guy doesn't stop talking about the Punisher because the Punisher is who he wants to talk about. There are only two ways to shake the guy: one, pawn him off on someone else, someone else who was hopefully stupid enough to comment about the Punisher while the guy was blathering on. Or, two, pay for your comics and leave the store.

I try really hard to not be this guy because I know that he's in me. I can feel it every time someone at work talks about a TV show or movie that I like. I can go on and on about the story and the directorial choices and the writing and the acting because I like this stuff and I want to have a conversation about these things. Example: The Hunger Games movie came out and one of the women in my office saw it and liked it and we started to have a very surface-y conversation about it, but then I said despite all the violence I liked how the director would pull the camera away from the actual blood-and-guts moments leaving it to the audience to imagine how horrific the act is. There was a huge pause because this woman doesn't think of movies in the same way I do (just like I don't think of horses in the same way she does) and our conversation was essentially dead. I could have gone on. I wanted to go on. I didn't go on, though, because I don't want to be that kind of guy. He's in there. I know that because he's come out on occasion, fortunately it's mostly been with family and they just either put up with it or get into a conversation with me. I fear turning off potential kindred spirits by doing it, though.

To get back to the point, I wouldn't have anyone in New York. I wouldn't meet anyone in New York. Five years of not making any friends in North Bay proved that. And the vast majority of the time I'm fine with it. Being 3000 miles away from anyone I could depend on in a crisis, even if they have three hour drive, wouldn't work. I'm not going to change. I don't really want to change. I'm afraid that I can't change.

When I realized that, I could walk again. That afternoon I posted to Facebook: "I can state this with certainty: I am a coward." because being brave isn't doing the things other people are afraid to do, but pushing through your fear and trying to do the things you're afraid to do.

It Begins, Again

This morning, at work, I realized that I finished my seventh year working for The State yesterday. Today began my eighth year.

I am glad to say that I did not cry, though I felt like it for a while.