August 12th, 2018, or “The Prodigal Professional Returns”

What I’m “Doing”:  Mentally preparing for another week of mindless corporate monotony.

What I’m Actually Doing:  Trying to figure out how, almost 5 months into the Shiny New Job That Was Going To Fix Everything, I’m sitting on my same porch fielding the exact same kind of anxiety my old job used to produce.

Here’s a rundown of how the last few months have gone, since my last update:

FEBRUARY: This job is awful and it’s never going to end and I don’t think I can handle forty more years of this bullshit.

MARCH: This job interview is going well and OMG this job offer is going well and OMG this Shiny New Job is Definitely Going to Fix Everything.

APRIL: This Shiny New Job is hard but it’s Definitely (still) Going to Fix Everything.

MAY: This Shiny New Job is hard and nothing is fixed YET but it’s Definitely (still) Going To Fix Everything.

JUNE: This Shiny New Job is hard and nothing is fixed YET but it’s (probably) Definitely (still) Going To Fix Everything.

JULY: This Job isn’t quite as shiny and it’s obviously not as new and nothing is fixed YET but it’s (probably) Definitely (still) Going To Fix (almost) Everything

We’re now at AUGUST and nothing is fixed (YET??) and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Shiny New Job isn’t going to fix everything, and once again I do not think I can handle forty more years of this bullshit.

And so here I am, the prodigal professional returned to grovel at the feet of the passion project that brought me sanity in previously similar positions at previously, less shiny places of employment.

And so, without further adieu, as I’ve come to terms with the young professional equivalent of yet another Mid Career Crisis:

What I’ve Been Reading: When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy is the antithesis of the kind of escapist literature you’d generally expect a person trying to escape her life to find comfort in. And don’t get me wrong—the book itself is not comforting, or comfortable. The author plays with words and scenarios and feelings with the intent of causing visceral discomfort. Reading this book is fast paced and all-consuming. Most of the action takes place over four months that feel much longer, with the writing manufacturing a kind of panicked and claustrophobic boredom that is difficult to shake, even once the book is closed. But there is a medicine in the perspective the novel lends, and the depth of character the author evokes without ever providing her players specific names. This book sucked me in and squeezed me dry, and reading gave the experience of heavy emotional labor of an intricate, heart-wrenching drama with the cadence of an easy summer thriller-slash-romance that kept me up much later than intended. It made me forget about life for the short hours it engrossed me, and for that I am thankful.

Thing I’m Currently Thinking About: In this week’s Ask Polly post, Heather Havrilesky explains that the advice seeker’s issues lie, among other places, in “an illusion created by years of you treating your value as conditional (you must be charming and successful to have value)” and I have not been able to stop thinking about that. Because, at surface, isn’t all value conditional? Isn’t my value conditional upon my niceness and my intelligence and my meekness and my trueness and, of course, my success? Isn’t my value conditional upon all of the qualities I’ve spent years listening to people insist that I have? What if I am valuable beyond my ability to perform for a company, or for my friends, or for my parents, or for my boyfriend? What if this website’s success isn’t measured on monetary value (nonexistent) but rather the joy it brings me to be writing again? If I am valuable beyond my ability to perform for others, my life instantly becomes much easier and less stressful. Not EASY, or necessarily UNstressful, but definitely less problematic in general. But can it possibly be that simple?

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  If I can define my worth beyond conditional value, I can do the things I love even when others might not judge them Worthy or Successful. I can write for this website nobody reads without feeling crippling shame for trying this thing that feels like failure before I’ve even started. I can keep looking for jobs that don’t fall into the domain of the traditional 9-to-5 without feeling like I’m letting everyone down. I can own my PhD application as a successful effort in expanding my comfort zone, rather than a failed attempt to be something I’m incapable of. I can be unhappy in my current position without it being a poor reflection on my parents, or my upbringing, or my education.

Where I sit at this moment, on the other side of an otherwise very nice weekend, makes me incredibly unhappy in ways I don’t understand. But if I can define my worth outside of the value I believe I bring other people, maybe I won’t be this incredibly unhappy indefinitely. Maybe my unhappiness is a signal of the things I need to change.

Which means there are things I can change. So I’ll change them.

Yours in honest and uncharacteristic vulnerability, with a promise to return to our regularly scheduled acerbically witty program in the near future,

-E

February 21, 2018, or “Using a Machete to Cut Through Red Tape”

What I’m “Doing”:  Sitting at my computer and dutifully doing the things I’m paid to dutifully do.

What I’m Actually Doing:  Appreciating the time abundance that comes as the flip-side of my mind numbingly boring job.

What I’ve Been Reading: “Eligible” by Curtis Sittenfeld, a surprisingly witty take on the otherwise exhausted archetypes presented in Pride and Prejudice.  I thought I’d hate it, because how many different versions of Elizabeth-Bennet-Has-A-Cell-Phone does one world need??   And yet, this one is not bad.  I should’ve known Curtis Sittenfeld, whose “Prep” rocked my world as a late middle school student, would be able to breath some new life into the material.  While this is no “Prep,” or “American Wife,” it’s still far more entertaining than the average “entertaining” read, and I’m enjoying it immensely.

Currently Thinking About: How I have defined happiness in the past, and how I want to define it in the future.  I’m tryna decipher what’s actually important to me, and what my goals are, and how I can make moves towards a real chance at achieving them, and letting go of the fear that’s holding me back, etc etc etc.  Taking more yoga, pretending like THIS is the time I’m actually going to start meditating, made a smoothie for breakfast.  The real life changing kinds of things, you know?  But this time I MEAN it.

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  Still mostly everything.  I’m recently 26, and 26 feels way less old than I anticipated.  The sun is still bright, my weekends are still long.  My hangovers are getting worse but like, I acknowledge that I probably shouldn’t be drinking much anymore anyways.  I’m still dreading waking up in the morning, but my work days are less stressful.  I don’t love everything about my life but it feels like I’m starting to love more about it than I used to, and it feels…nice.  I’m interviewing for a part time job to capitalize on some of my free time, I’m really starting to get my outdoor balcony space together.  I’m changing my name from kitty to Karen, I’m trading my MG for a white Chrysler Le Baron…

Ending with the positive observation that this is two posts in the same month, and psyched about it.

E

Photo by Anna Vander Stel on Unsplash

February 8, 2018 or “The One Where I Learn to Roll With the Punches”

What I’m “Doing”:  Order processing, email answering, and general analysis of business-like happenings.

What I’m Actually Doing:  Working from home while I wait for the Safelight Glass guy to come replace the car window some asshole smashed two nights ago. And yet, at the same time, I’ve had a phenomenal couple of days.

What the What: I’ve stumbled across Jess Lively’s The Lively Show podcast and it’s really changed the way I view myself and interact with the world in a good way. Girlfriend knows how to make things flow.

What I’ve Been Reading: “Eat Up” by Ruby Tandoh, a beautifully written and starkly honest take on the collective modern neuroses surrounding food. It’s one part cookbook, one part love letter, one part industry smashing/self-love inspiring self-help guide. Ruby looks honestly at the ways we view food, and the ways we view ourselves, and the ways we fit into society, and takes note of every small intersection of these three things that exist in our universe. It’s lovely and slow paced and kind and I never want it to end.

Currently Thinking About: Keeping myself in alignment, whatever that means to any one person at any one time, and also obsessing over my porch space. I’ve decided that I need to make use of the wonderful southern callifornia weather by making an outdoor oasis all my own in our otherwise unused balcony space. Couch is on the way, and I’ve got plans for a coffee table, an area rug, and a whole lot of plants. I want a place to read and write and meditate and just feel connected.

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  Literally everything. It finally feels like all of the parts of my life are coming together, and nothing has actually changed. It’s just the way that I feel about everything that’s changed. My job is the same, my relationship is the same, my apartment and my city and my friends and my parents and my MBA and my career trajectory are literally all the exact same and yet everything feels lighter and more positive and more possible. And I want to keep these vibes going as long as I can.

Signing off with a reminder to myself that I’m meant to do this more consistently than once a month, but also with forgiveness that I haven’t been. Hoping I’ll feel called to write more frequently in the coming days.

With love,

E

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

January 12th, or “Contemplating the Future, but, Like, Positively This Time?”

What I’m “Doing”:  Business Analysis.

What I’m Actually Doing:  Finally getting positive feedback on the thousands of job applications I’ve sent out into the universe.  It may have taken a month, and caused an actual mountain of deeply internalized self-doubt, but after weeks of radio silence I’ve started getting low key phone interviews here and there for jobs I wouldn’t hate and don’t involve 100% commission based multi-level marketing schemes and friends, I am here for it.

What I’ve Been Reading: “The Lesser Bohemians” by Eimear McBride, a beautifully written novel that explores and explains the experience of being a young girl in a new place and coming to terms with the world.  It took me a second to vibe with the structure of her prose, but once I tapped into it, the writing has the feel of an organic internal monologue.  I’ve been describing the book to friends as a James Joyce novel if James Joyce was a woman writing about coming into being as a younger woman, rather than a man writing about coming into being as a younger man.  Joyce, but with a feminine power, and significantly less pretension.  Joyce, but with a heart and soul I connect to deeply.

Currently Thinking About: How much of my recent deep-dive into self-improvement is helpful and how much of it is simply exacerbating and re-directing my anxieties into equally as problematic forms.  Thanks much to The New Yorker for that particular addition to my list of rotating back-of-mind fixations.

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  It’s one of those weeks where my near future looks brighter than it does bleak, and that’s a win for me.  I’ve got an upcoming weekend trip on the books, no horribly pressing and terrifyingly looming work thing in my very near future, and a couple of positive job leads starting next week.  It’s a beautiful post-rain Friday morning and everything feels clean and new and fresh again, and I’m rolling with it.

Leaving with a promise to myself, shouted into this empty void, to get better at writing more consistently, because I LIKE IT and ITS GOOD FOR ME and whatever.

-E

Photo by Bryan Minear on Unsplash

December 19th, 2017 or “Time Is a Construct and Anyways I’ve Been Busy Ok?”

What I’m “Doing”:  Business Analysis?

What I’m Actually Doing:  Applying to jobs that I’m wildly overqualified for as I wait for admissions decisions from the doctoral programs I’m wildly underqualified for bc being 25 is fun and nothing makes sense and life is an adventure and clichés like these help me to internally manufacture the illusion of maintaining control.

What I’ve Been Reading: “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng which is artful and heartbreaking and compelling as heck with it’s respective stances on motherhood, daugtherhood, friendships, love, charity and art.  Also, it’s not a business book bc I’m FINALLY FINISHED MY MBA which has been decidedly anticlimactic but yay for having my weekends back, I guess.

Currently Thinking About: The Future.  My future, and our future, collectively, and the different iterations of future that have existed in the minds of so many others and will continue to be constructed in the minds of so many more and wondering if everyone thinks about this, and if so how they ever get anything else done, and if not what does that mean for me as a person, and

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  I have time for writing again.  I have time for feeling again.  This thing I thought I would never be able to complete has been completed, and maybe that means I’m more qualified for life and jobs and schools and finding a way to be long-term happy than I think I am.

And with that, a gentle sign off.  Goodbye for now but not forever, faceless audience that I know from hurtfully accurate wordpress analytics does not actually exist.

-E

Photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash

June 29th, 2017 or “The Day I Realized It’s Been Two Months Since Our Last Update”

What I’m “Doing”:  tbh it’s one of those days where I’m not even faking particularly well.

What I’m Doing:  staring blankly at a calendar trying to figure out how I can be standing so close to the summer midpoint while my heart is telling me it’s still only may.

Mood:  in addition to mourning the loss of my summer to class weekends and work stress, Lorde’s new album has me mourning a poignant and heartbreaking loss of love I’ve never actually experienced.

Currently Thinking About: Band Aid, an indie rom com that introduced me to the phenomenal Zoe Lister-Jones, who wrote, produced, and directed and STARRED IN the film.  I stumbled into a showing on Tuesday night when I felt compelled to solo theater hop (it happens), and I have not been able to stop thinking about it.  I’m a sucker for a witty, articulate, achingly painful but still generally warmhearted fight scene, and this movie is essentially different shades of that for an hour and a half.  Well-written, well-acted, well-conceived, the whole thing delivers.  I left the theater sobbing and re-evaluating my opinions on human nature and the pros and cons of cohabitation even more than usual, which is saying something.  Also, the ending contains the most earnest and least condescending parental advice monologue that I’ve maybe ever seen.

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  this may feel like the slowest week I’ve ever experienced with very little exaggeration involved, but it’s almost the weekend and next week’s a bit of a wash with the holiday so I may be in internal crises mode but at least I can be in internal crises mode at the beach, or in the pool, rather than at my desk.  It’s all about context, people.

still gotta make it through today and tomorrow, though.

may the world continue to cultivate at least vaguely positive vibes and more feminist movie ensembles.

-E

April 28th, 2017 or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Existential Crisis”

What I’m “Doing”:  creating Standard Operating Procedures for our new warehouse in Arizona.

What I’m Actually Doing: following the Fyre Festival coverage and getting an embarrassing amount of entertainment from watching these people’s weekends unravel on such a massive scale.  Schadenfreude is real and there’s no way that shits good for my karma.

Why I’ve Been MIA: I’ve spent the last week or two deciding to get my doctorate after my MBA, and then deciding not to get my doctorate after my MBA, and then deciding to only apply to one school in Texas, and then deciding to apply to all schools in every state, and then deciding I should probably talk to someone who actually knows how any of this works.  So, I’ve done/am doing that.  Still considering.  But considering v v v v v strongly.  Y’all can just call me Dr. E.

Why “WE’VE” Been MIA: We do have like lives + jobs + stuff.  And like, it’s hard.

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  this has been the longest week I’ve ever experienced from a metaphysical time standpoint.  Like rationally, it’s been the same number of days/hours/minutes/seconds between last Sunday and today as is usually the case of a 5 day work week.  But it feeeeeeeels like it’s been years.  And it makes my current proximity to the weekend (metaphysically + otherwise) feel good.  Like SO good.   Like stop googling the Northwestern professor who wrote/(contributed to??) a paper titled “Death is Unexpectedly Positive” and instead take a minute to think about enjoying some good weather and a little bit of free time, starting in about three hours.  THAT good.

But first, a couple more SOPs and a good old fashioned pre-weekend (prequend?) yoga class.

Peace, yo.

E

April 12 2017, or “The Most Average Wednesday Ever Recorded in Human History”

What I’m “Doing”:  attempting to manage a massive scale warehouse discrepancy currently occurring in a massively inconvenient time zone (looking @ you, Australia.  17 hours ahead, ARE WE KIDDING).

What I’m Actually Doing: some of that, but also a lot of not that as well.  There are so many French bulldog puppies on the internet and all of them are more fun than NSW stock levels.

Thing I Learned Today:  my behavioral business psychology professor told us that significant raises have been shown to improve employee morale and productivity for no more than a couple of weeks on average.  Today I’ve learned from experience that for less-than-significant raises, the morale and productivity boost is negligible, and lasts no more than a couple of hours.

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About (because statistically speaking, I guess it was bound to happen eventually):  there are a ton of perspective jobs that look fun + exciting in the city I want to move when I graduate.  It’s (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay) too soon to look seriously, but it’s comforting to know that there’s potential relief on the horizon.  The grass is always greener in the other cubicle farm.  Particularly when said cubicle farm sits in the middle of a hip, non-coastal (!!) city with significantly lower rent prices (read: anywhere west of the Mississippi that isn’t Southern California).

Yours in hesitant optimism,

E

April 7 or “The Conclusion of Billy Joel Week”

Billy Joel Week: A week R just dedicated to Billy Joel

What Why: I started this week as an “Uptown Girl”, as I had to go up to the Big Apple for work. Every time you take the subway you choose between Uptown and Downtown , and every time I chose Uptown I heard “Uptown girl…she’s been living in her uptown world…I bet she’s never had a backstreet guy…”

And then it switched to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” because if you ask anyone, anywhere, the world seemed to burn this week and we just sat here like omg what the hell do we do now. Not even going to get into it, but just know “it was always burnin since the world’s been turnin” has never been more real.

And with the conclusion this week, I bring myself to “Piano Man” because you can guarantee I’m going to a bar tonight to “forget about life for awhile”.

Side Note: Was I trying to be punny? The longer you know me, the more you know how I can take random words and associate them with a song, so I guarantee that all three of those songs were stuck in my head this week. But the punny part is a happy coincidence.

It’s still Rock and Roll to Me,

R 

 

 

April 4th, 2017, or “Things are Definitely Fine.”

What I’m Doing:  work has been actual Work lately which has been equal parts hassle and drag.

Mood:  discovered yesterday that my next class weekend is a week sooner than I thought (it’s this weekend, not next weekend) which is good for my confidence in myself as an adult who can remember things and also for my general mood and by good I mean this is my actual nightmare but like it’s fine.

Currently Reading:  A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle because I wasn’t confused enough about my perception of the world and it seemed like a good time to complicate it further.

As a result, all interactions (human and situational) are now followed up with the voice in my head asking itself DO I FEEL THIS OR IS IT MY EGO on repeat until my brain turns to mush so like neat.

Ditto for all things related to how I self-identify.  My therapist, as a result, is v confused.  Same, girl.

Current Irrational Fear I’m Cultivating:  am worried that this new-agey bullshit is going to become a permanent phase.  But I’m also worried that I’ll be stuck in this job forever and that I’ll never find any kind of fulfillment and that the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I wake up on weekdays is a thing everyone feels and nobody talks about and…

Thing I’m Feeling Positive About:  So many cute puppy videos exist in the world and one of them is this one.

And with that, it’s time to get back to work.

Peace, and puppies, and the hope that nihilistic oblivion avoids your general state of self for yet another day,

-E

28 of March 2017 or “Is it Friday or Tuesday”

Spoiler: It’s Tuesday. But R woke up this morning thinking it was Friday, so all is not grand.

What am I doing/What am I actually doing: R has been unfortunately having to do actual work this week (whatttt???) mainly because if she doesn’t someone will take note and she may no longer have a job that she can blog about sometimes doing.

How is the day going so far: It thunder-stormed on my entire commute into the office this morning. Including lightening as I’m standing outside at my bus stop. Does that tell you how my week is going? In my 4ish years of being in the corporate world, it has never thunder-stormed on me as I’m waiting for the bus. I almost didn’t know what to do. Do I stand outside and accept my potential fate?? Do I run back home and crawl back into bed?? Sadly I chose the former. Gladly I made it to the office in one piece.

What else happened today: I somehow managed to get myself involved in a great struggle as to whether the department needs standing desks or not. There will be an ergonomics test which means people are gonna come and evaluate us to see if we need them or not. Guess whose up for the test first? I thought my method worked just fine thank you.

PEACE N BLESSINS N COFFEE

R

 

 

24 March 2017 or “Is There Such Thing As Being Too California for California”

What I’m “Doing”:  coordinating a massive overhaul of inventory levels in our 3PL warehouses.

What I’m Actually Doing: spending money I don’t necessarily need to spend on organic, natural hippy/woo-woo skincare and sunscreen products (shout-out to Badger Face Beauty Supply and Mother Dirt)

Mood:  FIRST FREE (class-less) WEEKEND IN WEEKS AND I’M PUMPED.

Playlist:  panic cord—Gabrielle Aplin bc it’s sweet and sad and soulful.

Thing I Learned Today:  in addition to food chemicals being bad for my body and skincare chemicals being bad for my body and shampoo chemicals being bad for my body apparently the fluoride “they” put in drinking water is ALSO bad for my body and Vice UK has a whole deep-dive into the conspiracy if you’re as into that shit as I am.  Side note, 10/10 times I’m always going to read anything even vaguely mainstream that uses the word ‘sheeple’

San Diego is still sunny + beautiful and today I’m finally feeling the same.  A couple $$ lighter in the bank account, insurmountably lighter in the soul (YO @R, CHLL.  I CAN FEEL THAT EYE ROLL FROM HERE)

I’ve got a mini road trip that ends in meeting a friend’s new puppy planned for tomorrow, beach day planned for Sunday, and just three hours standing between me and my perfect socal weekend.  I’M YOUNG AND I’M FREE AND THE WORLD IS MY (organic, grassfed??, raised-without-cruelty) OYSTER.

And with that, it’s time to get back to work.

The light in me sees and recognizes the general lack of giving a fuck in you,

-E