Did'ja Miss Me?

So it has been a while.

It feels strange to have been away from here for so long. I had actually gotten so good about regularly checking in, it feels not quite right to have stayed away so long, while at the same time it feels just to the left of odd to be back.

Sort of a twin homecoming of sorts.

I have resolved to go back to work tomorrow. I had made some waves about not making my way back till this coming Monday, which would still be one day short of three weeks of leisure. But sitting it out till then is just not sitting well, with me or with anyone else. Not that work is harassing me to be back. Far from it. And maybe that is part of the problem. I fear going back in anxiety of my inevitable dimissal. However, if I don't go back then I am inevitably dismissed anyway.

Odd.

Paradox: Fair is foul, Foul is fair -

The absolute and paralyzing terror of losing a job that I unquestionably hate. Been that way for four years. Never changes.
Guess it is just another manifestation of the complete lack of clarity I have with regard to my life.

A friend of mine was just oh-so tactfully asked to leave their firm. They oh-so generously allowed a two month severance - standard for a "performancing out" - but then conditioned it on his sticking around (also standard, a gentlemans agreement to allow you to look for a job while retaining the trappings of your old job - copier, fax, postage, e-mail address) AND KEEPING UP HIS BILLABLES!!!

Hey - you just fired me, and you still want me to meet my hours - hey fuck you!

But I am getting a little off-track here. My first gut reaction when he told me was absolute joy. I was so, so pleased for him because he hated his job and he needed to get out and I knew he would never do it on his own. Never.

Why?

Because he's not a quitter. None of us Type-A's are. We don't quit. We bite our upper lip and we see them through. We later reflect on how the pain and the misery made us a better person for it. Protestant ethic for Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Haute Couture devotees alike. Problem is, while this approach has served us well to this point, through school, volunteer work, internships and the like, it doesn't work now. Why? Plain and simple answer is, because there is no longer any natural end.

Hate college? No matter what you do, it ends after four years (or five if you are at a big public school).

Hate your starter job after school? You can gracefully leave it for grad school - not shocking, not offensive - it is in fact expected and applauded as a step up. There is even a time line for that too - 2 to 3 years out of college.

Hate grad school? It ends on its timetable too. However, here is the rub... you have now invested all of your natural outs. The graduation dates have now come and gone. Natural absolution no longer exists. Multiple grad degrees, short of great courage and some outstanding reason (and/or scholarship) scream "lack of commitment to my life" to everyone. Accumulating the entire alphabet worth of titles after your name really impresses no one of any real significance. Ultimately they always just spell out "Compensating." Truly.

So now you are in this job that was predestined by your grad school of choice. You have a mountain of debt. You hate your job. And, well, you are stuck. It is an unending staring contest between you and the corporate man. It continues indefinitely till one of you blinks. For the Type-A's, try as they might, it goes against their very nature to blink first. So there they sit, physically deteriorating, bleary eyed, staring hopelessly into the eye of the evil empire. They should blink. They should get up. They should walk away. They don't.

Let me have a nervous break down. Will get carried out of here against my will. But at least I didn't quit.

Fire me. Shatter my ego. But at least I didn't quit.

Is it machismo? Is it trying to prove something to the world? Is the pursuit of the gold star so ingrained that one would risk life, limb and sanity to pursue it from a source one does not like let alone respect?

A little bit of each of these things, I am sure. But mostly, it is fear.

Fear of the unkown. Fear of where the next paycheck will come from. Fear of moving to another job and also hating it. Or worse, hating it more than you hated the first one.

Pick a job you hate, one which you spent six figures and three years to get, and which you were supposed to love and have consciously agreed to. You were not forced into a corner. All of this was conscious decision, conscious choice.

You chose this. You chose this. It rings through your ears like the insufferable moaning of a puragtory-bound ghost who you just can't shake. You chose this. You chose this.

You chose wrong.

That is what it means.

You chose wrong.

You chose really wrong.

And so there you sit. Paralyzed. Head in hands - Wondering how you can ever trust yourself ever again.

And that is why you don't move. You are crushed under the weight of the oppression of your own inertia. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, it's true.

We hate being lawyers. But we are lawyers for a reason. We dot i's. We cross t's. We worry the be'jeezus out of every detail. We are overly concerned with office supplies. We are Type A. We like to make predictions. We are always looking back to the past to divine the present. Like reading tea leaves it is uncertain and usually futile, and yet we persist. We like order, stability, even if our jobs have none of these things. There is stability in the ever-present specter of work. We like rules. We are risk averse.

To be happy. To have the job, the lives, we want, there has to be risk undertaken. We understand that, we just have trouble undertaking it.

So we wait.

For the corporate man to blink and show us the door.