The Negative Voice
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2001-08-19 - 5:01 a.m.

Bloody Sick of This Pager

Guess what woke me up today?

If you guessed "your pager," give yourself a gold star.

After that, the day settled into being fairly decent. Had a meal (breakfast for me, dinner for them) with my parents, ran into Chimera and El Dwino whilst shopping, came home and vegged for the evening.

Despite all that, I feel a mental malaise coming on. Perhaps it's an "all work and no play" issue. Mostly, though, I think it's the growing realization that I'm not currently mentally tough enough to deal with my job.

I can definitely handle the requirements of the job. Respond to pages, check. Provide a certain level of expert UNIX help, check. Do political crap, check. Kick people in the butt when they need it, check plus. The problem is that in the management climate of the company right now, there's no upside to any of that.

For two weeks I've been busting my ass to handle different pager issues and force some progress in the issues that beset me. The best I can hope to get out of it all is a continued paycheck. I'm not going to get an "attaboy". My chances for promotion will not be notably improved. Hell, there's a decent chance my boss will use this as a chance to play Monday afternoon quarterback and describe all the ways he would have done this better.

I have the classical American work ethic. I can work weird hours, I can talk smack about the company, but ultimately I can't bring myself to neglect my job. That just Isn't Done. And thus, I set myself up for one of the standard fundamental causes of unhappiness and depression: I love it far more than it well ever love me back.

Right now is a bad time to look for a new job, though, both personally and economically. All I can do is look for a new equilibrium and sweat out another six to nine months. Also, I need to make sure I don't turn destructive in all this. Wednesday night I caught myself being nostalgic for the way I dated before I got serious about Julie. Breaking up with a girl I wasn't serious about used to be good for a few weeks of emotional uplift. I need to find a new way of expressing that desire to cut people out of my life. Ideally it should be a way that doesn't involve going to jail.

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