Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-12-30

Work rant (or, why I felt all right during a covid infection)

I guess I have some things lingering thanks to the ‘rona. I am definitely glad it hadn’t (or had not yet) gotten worse). All I can do is be patient.

I figured out that I was in a good mood while I was sick, and it was because I wasn’t working. Oh, one thing I loved about the lockdowns was this spaciousness that filled me from not having to armor/ defend myself at work or deal with the feuds that my previous unit had with others. I felt something very similar. I don't really have to actively defend myself anymore, but armor, yes. I acknowledge (along with other peers in my field) that it has a perfectly legit function.

We’ve had a new boss at work and one of my colleagues mockingly called them Dolly Parton, someone who exudes possibilities in a tap dance while parts of the world fall apart bit by bit. I had to laugh because someone else in the building also referred to New Boss in a similar term on that same day.

NB has promised the bigger bosses some pretty big things. They had to since our last boss really demolished the building’s reputation and it’s NB’s job to— reanimate it. Apparently, NB also had some interesting words for some colleagues of ours and the difficult one we worked with who totally thought they were All That and a bag of chips; NB made it clear they expect more out of them and also the rest of us. It’s really something considering how poorly staffed and funded we’ve been, and that everyone was already demoralized.

There’s rumors floating around that we’re gonna be taken over by another organization and they are highly plausible. New Boss’s higher expectations also align with that because the other organization is much higher caliber than ours. So, can you see why I’m so relieved to be sick and not in my building?

I’d leave, but all I’d be doing is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. My field’s been in quite the quandry for quite some time.

Speaking of rearranging deck chairs, all the voluntary leadership positions in my building were vacant at the end of the year. The person who was supposed to lead us will be on maternity leave for most of next year and no one wanted to touch it. I was asked and had convincing reasons to say no (I handled a few messy scenarios fairly OK during the covid and extended my service term because we were so understaffed, people were super-grateful, and I was able to put out another fire or 2).

Well hell, to appear to be a team player, I volunteered for a post that I thought would be the lightest load. I now shake my head. I have a strong feeling I’m going to get handed something hot, steaming, and with a whiff of dung like I did for the last awful project I had to do. Why? I’ve proven I can usually handle those things. I’m starting to see that all of that has taken a bit of toll in terms of how I feel about my job and profession. I need to believe that I can somehow not get worked up over work. That will be a big miracle.

Hah, and I read about young women who are dropping the working girl/ feminist role and reverting back to being traditional 50s housewives. So in lieu of work dysfunction and toxicity, they just want to exchange ‘work’ with ‘spouse’ and more submissiveness? Problem solved!

downwind | upstream