all paragraphs in this post start with I work

BLEH

by theogeo

I am burned out.

I am sick of working nights and weekends.

I never see my friends. I don’t even think they notice anymore.

I am sick of a job where I just sit on my ass and stare at a computer screen and deliver page proofs to people like some kind of copy boy.

I have grown tired of some people’s refusal to recognize me as having earned the creative freedoms I feel I’ve earned.

I am pissed at myself for deciding that my love of journalism/visual editing should trump my more practical concerns about a sustainable career that wouldn’t be gutted by short-sighted corporate overlords who only care about fattening the bottom line AKA eventually making my job redundant.

I think I am overworked and underpaid.

I figure I don’t do anything about it because I am lucky to just be employed.

I am terrified of making a radical leap but I wonder if it’s the right thing to do, given the prevailing attitudes about people with my job description, and what my corporate overlords have in store for me in the next year or two.

I am being cryptic for obvious and obviously annoying reasons.

I am positive that blogging about these things is a really bad idea but I figure I have nothing to lose.

I want nothing but the best for my employer (and therefore my community) but I feel completely hamstrung by outside forces.

8 thoughts on “BLEH”

  3. Re: all that corporate overlord stuff…I know the feeling, my dear. As someone who got out then struggled for *quite* a while afterward, I still say I don’t regret leaving. I left my heart on our sinking ship, but eventually I had to plop my fat ass into a lifeboat and sail away.

  4. I felt the exact same for a long time. I was a copy writer/editor and after a while I felt like I was reading, writing and editing the same thing over and over. And worse, I realized that I would be doing just that forever if I stayed and hadn’t had a raise in way too long. Recently, I finally parted ways and the prospect of something new and exciting that I love has been wonderful. The best thing my fiance said to me was, “Do this now. Get it right. Otherwise there will be an age that you don’t have a choice anymore.” Good point. Good luck.

  5. Aw, I hate that you are going through this. I tell you what though. When I had to make the jump to doing something else – and had to do it out of necessity because there was really no other choice – it was scary as hell and was the first time I’d had to make any similar decision like that in over 20 years, and the very first time I had the choice to do what I did. Scary scary and I won’t say it’s not still sometimes scary, but I come from a long line on my father’s side of folks who were always their own boss and think I maybe inherited that and it seems to suit me, even if it’s still scary sometimes. I found out I was not only good at something I didn’t even know I was any good at, but actually better than just good. I’ll be kinda glad when it gets to the (I hope) phase where it’s not scary at all anymore but I wouldn’t trade it now, I’m good at it and I love it. And I think you just never know for sure until you try, whatever you’re considering. I wish you the best in any case and hang in there for now.

  6. I left Da Biz on Bastille Day 1999, my darling girl. It was hell for a while, but it was also better than the living death journo-ism had become. I’ve since been caught in the corporate cogs and spit out on the street, too. Literally. But I have learned from every bit of it, and I have savored a whole lot of it, and I have survived. And notwithstanding the horror that are my postings and tweets and comments, I am damn good at what I do, too.

    There are many many many many routes to your own life, as one as gifted and wise as you well knows, and the one you’re on now is a good one from which to learn many, many useful things. Also, all these people who have posted have told you very true. You will map your way.

    But: there’s always the Powerball. And our own paper. As M.E., I would have only one 30-minute planning meeting a day. And one 45-minute weekly planning meeting. The rest of the time, we’d all just PUT OUT A FANTASTIC PAPER (and website). With nice little high-school kids to be copyboys/girls, like God intended. And then we’d all go home and do our lives.

    Sending you comfort and joy. You rule.

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