Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 9.0 // Critical Darling, Commercial Flop

Last night I had a dream that I got my old job back. It wasn't a fun place to work anymore. My coworkers all hated me for some reason. The ceilings were much lower and more oppressive than I remembered. I sat with my back to the aisle, where I sat before I was promoted the last time. I clocked in at eight, worked all day with my headphones on, and clocked out at five, not speaking a word to anyone and trying to ignore every one's dirty looks. Last night, this went on for weeks. Everyday was the same. The weather outside was in constantly thunderstorm-like, grey and dark and dusky. My superiors yelled at me constantly and tore me down. I was miserable, and I felt trapped.

However, there was another emotion making a play: relief. Misery or none, I had a steady paycheck again, so I knew I would now be making rent on time and eating on a regular basis. And in this dream, this paycheck was worth my self respect and my freedom.

In real life, I got a few calls from recruiters last week. I don't know what happened, but I seem to be something of a hot commodity suddenly, or at least a lukewarm one. The problem is everything involves permanent positions and relocation and worst of all: going back to work in a cube, with a manager, and all the Office Space like trappings. There would also be a steady paycheck involved.

I have to admit, it's tempting. Quite recently it feels like my priorities have shifted from finding happiness in this life to just plain surviving. Every day it seems like there is a new crisis; I feel like I'm spending all my time catching up with the rest of the world and putting out fires. There is a part of me that wants to go back to working for someone else; I like the idea that there is security there. But you are never secure when you are working for someone else, because you are taking your fate out of your own hands.

I know where my heart is, and I'll tell you why: when I woke this morning, the relief that I hadn't gotten my old job back completely outweighed the relief I felt when I thought I had. I'm broke, and I'm stressed out, but I'm free, and in control of my own future. Even though things are bad now, I have a really good feeling about what's to come.

When I was a kid, I loved October for the sophisticated reason that my birthday was in the middle of the month, and just when I was coming down from the presents and cake, two weeks later came the sugar-coma-inducing, best-holiday-EVER, Halloween.

Over the years, however, October lost its charm with me. Birthday celebrations in offices were pathetic disappointments compared to elementary school birthday parties, where instead of distributing cupcakes with sprinkles to all of your eager classmates, you get to eat cake at a staff meeting on a random day of the month co-celebrating your birthday with three other schlubby Libras.

(Wood at Sweet Juniper)

Back when I worked in an office, all of the birthdays for a month would be celebrated with a single cake, and everyone born in that month would have to discuss the type of cake to get over a long, slightly jokey email chain. I rarely ate the office birthday cakes, even when I had skipped lunch, because white sheet cake or ice cream cake or cookie cake are all rather unexciting, and I was usually caught up in actual work.

The man who would eventually become my manager shared my birthday month. All I wanted was to get carrot cake, a cake that was exciting enough to eat, and each year this man vetoed my humble suggestion, so we'd have to get another boring sheet cake that I would not eat. I understand that my lack of carrot cake was more or less in the spirit or compromise, but in the context of all the other crap I had to put up with, it usually just felt like he was pulling rank, that I had to compromise even when he didn't, ever.

I know I sound bitter, and that's mostly because I am. I will never get back the time of my life that I spent fighting these petty corporate office politics. My only regret is that I didn't leave sooner.

I had a strange dream last night where my old supervisor called me up and asked me (more like begged me) to come back to work for him. I only had to come in 20 hours a week and I could do it around my own schedule, even though my hourly rate had not changed. This new schedule basically gave me the freedom I needed to run my own business. The dream was hyperreal, insofar as when I woke up I had a pretty hard time sorting out if it had actually happened.

In the dream I went through a whole working week, but I never seemed to get any work done. My new-ish job seemed to involve lounging at my desk a lot with my feet up, bellowing orders at the others in my office, and laughing in a menacing, threatening and non-friendly way.

In essence, I think I was in management.

My dear, dear friends; CB insisting that I go see Beck with him, and that it's his treat; fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; quality time with Zach at the beginning of happy hour; getting plenty of sleep; owning up to the fact that I was horribly unhappy at my old job, and even though I have no money now, I somehow still feel like the luckiest girl in the world

You may notice that there is new look around here. There was a need to simplify.

As for the rest of life, the past few weeks there have been highs and lows and seemingly not much in between.

I will say that I am no longer at my corporate dayjob, and have decided to freelance full time. This is simultaneously the most exciting and the most terrifying thing I have ever done. However, I have noticed that I am excited to “go to work” every day. There are new challenges everyday. And not knowing where the next check is coming from is causing me to work my ass off. And I love it.

A House Christmas Eve Tradition. Read More »

My sister, the rock star, is in the red and black today. Read it and revel in her awesomeness.

Things have been mostly good, even if there has been almost nothing to write about. Work, school, work, school, the routine only sometimes punctuated with sleep, hanging out in bars, or watching The Sopranos on DVD. I am the busiest I have ever been, with three fifths of my weekdays beginning at 8 in the morning and ending at 8 in the evening. I feel myself aging at a rate much more rapid than just a couple of years ago, burning the candle at both ends, as it were. But rather than shrink back from the challenge I find myself stepping up, charging at the obstacle that can, at times, seem like a brick wall. (Going full speed all the time causes many periods of accidental and unplanned unconsciousness, a factor that sunk me last week, academia-wise.)

Sometimes I wonder if I've taken on too much, gotten in over my head, a thought hastened by the naysayers (I shall not name names) who insist I can't keep up this speed for 3 to 4 more years, who grimace and give me looks and tones that say what the hell have you done? I smile sweetly I say that I'm certain that I can handle it, and privately I regard the whole situation as a trial by fire or a rite of passage, ultimately a pathway to some semblance of self-respect.

I also try to constantly remind myself that I could be working much, much harder with the payoff being much, much less.

In the meantime, I (usually) have weekends as a reprieve from all the madness. This weekend I saw a lot of people and consumed a whole lot of whiskey. Friday night found me drinking with my co-workers, which, besides yielding many free drinks also ended with me walking home with two roses purchased for me (from the “rose lady” that most Athenians are familiar with) by two of the aforementioned co-workers.

Saturday night I went to Sarah's show at DT's. A coworker of Sarah's was sitting with my parents, and just before introducing himself (Chris, a lovely doctoral student who was pleasantly fresh with me throughout the evening) gave up his own seat for me. As we shook hands, leaning in to hear names over the music, he looked at me agape and exclaimed, “You smell—You smell AWESOME.” I grinned and blushed like a schoolgirl. That was possibly the highlight of my interactions that evening, excepting my phone conversation with HGB, which is always a pleasure all it's own.

coffee breaks with my crack headed coworkers; watching Freaks and Geeks on DVD (sometimes just to stare at James Franco); the feeling of using my brain (use it or lose it, folks); Fall Out Boy; Creed punk'd!; foolish Friday nights; feeling awake when I have to wake up at the crack of dawn

Yesterday, in celebration of former-roommate-Melissa's birthday, we sat on her and former-roommate-Emily's living room floor (there is no couch there yet), eating chocolate cake, listening to vintage polka music on vinyl. The air conditioning was broken, it was 85 degrees, and for long spans of time no one talked. It was like a avant guarde European short film made to illustrate the futility of life. But it was definitely the most relaxed party I've been to in a long time.

...

One of the interesting things about living downtown is the fact that laundry day involves going to into the bars that share your building, asking bartenders to change dollars for quarters.

...

Work is not great right now. I myself follow the “don't get dooced” rule, so I won't say much other that I've become very disillusioned with the entire ordeal.

...

The new apartment still rules.

...

It is so surreal to me that while it was not my intention for it to be so, a post to my website somehow passes for a real apology. It doesn't feel real.

...

Classes start again for me on Friday. I was seriously motivated about a month ago, but lately I feel like I'm slipping. I can't organize my thoughts, I can't seem to move on certain things. I feel frozen, locked in place, or maybe even held down by some physic weight.

Of course, this is every August, like clockwork. And hopefully, like clockwork, it'll pass.

I just wish I could remember to watch for it, before I lose what little control I seem to exercise over my own wild psychosis.

The first step is to stop being such a drama queen. Stop feeding it. Stop looking for sympathy, stop trying to be so tragic. It's not romantic, it's sad and desperate.

So stop.

I used to spend a lot of my meetings watching Neil draw things like this:

I love those guys.

Also, they are both way more attractive than this.