For Your Gain

Corporate executives aren't the only ones out seeking a gain. The people parking in loading zones. Those who go out of turn at a stop sign. Leaving the recycling bins at the curb all week. People will do things for their gain. It doesn't always have to hurt to take from others and it still will be wrong.

Who is that person?

After 3 sixty hour weeks and one fifty hour week, I am at home sick. Getting to watch the rain blow against the windows is a great way to spend a fall day. I briefly looked at my work email, to see the scrabbling about because I am out. Even in my sick stupor, I feel more like myself than I do most of the time. There is a not very pretty side of my personality which leads at work. That part consumes "me" and my ability to enjoy life. Sadly, as the illness goes away, I will slip back into being that person, as I go back to work.

Privilege

It doesn't matter how privileged or smart you are. You still have to deal with average people every day. You may have gone to a top school and be really smart, but about 98% of the people you interact with in work and life didn't and aren't. And sadly, that privilege doesn't seem like such a leg up.

My First Marriage

I recently finished "Private Life" by Jane Smiley. Written in a bit of a distant voice, and thus one doesn't really connect with the characters, except that from the main character, Margaret, I began to see that I was stuck in a marriage from the days of old. Mind you, I wear no ring and I go home to an empty bed, but I am still in one of those marriages that existed before people got the idea of marrying for love. I am married to my work. I provide for it my labor and my duty, it provides me food and a place to live. We chat blandly over supper (or should say he chats to me), I smile, nod, and act interested. He is probably attaining more joy out of all this than I. And yet, everytime I get in my mind to leave, I fall into the same pit. "Really, is it that bad?""Why can't you just make yourself happy in this, like the women before you have?" I still wake up and make the eggs just like he likes them. Will one day I believe enough in myself, smash the eggs on the floor, grab my packed bag, and flee out the back door?

Rats and Nervous Breakdowns

I think I now perhaps understand what it was like for women of the old days who had nervous breakdowns. Mind you, I probably endure more daily stress than they did. But after waking up a couple nights ago with a rodent sitting on me and laying partially awake the rest of the night with the lights on, I have been reduced to a distracted, nervous ninny. Yesterday, I could only think of the trauma. Today, I cannot concentrate and have a heavy depressed feeling inside, like a yawn that won't come out. I have little hunger, though ate a bbq sandwich today to try to cheer myself up. I bet the nervous breakdowns were caused by some sudden stress mixed with a changing of hormone levels. When combined just right, you have a woman who should go off to the sanitarium.

Open letter to users of consultants

I do a form of consulting. Some days it is a wretched existence. So to all users of consultants, I issue this letter:

To those who use consultants:
Each day, you have a list of things to get done, people asking you to do more things, people you have to get back to, etc. You can feel pulled in many directions and fall behind at times. Now, imagine this multiplied by 3 to 10 times. That is what us consultants deal with. Many days, we can hardly keep up and deal with what you are giving us, let alone the other clients demanding the same. Your company pays good money for us because we have an expertise in something and more likely than not, that does not include the ability to do more than one job at once. We have no magical powers, though, we may be slightly crazy or have some bizarre overconfidence to endure the onslaught of work and what you clients subject us to. Just because you pay for us does not give you the right to be mean to us. I bet there are some escorts with comparable bill rates that get treated better. They see 100% (before taxes) of their fees. We (those actually doing the work for you) only see about 15 percent of our billable rate (less if we actually charged you our full billing rate).

I am not asking for sympathy for I was dumb/crazy enough to pick this career. However, I just ask you to not beat, yell at, or have unrealistic expectations for your whore.

-Your consultant

Wobble

When you spin a top, as it slows down, it begins to wobble. That is how I feel now. As I move forward, the forces that had once kept me whirring straight ahead are falling away. I look ahead and yearningly see another time when I will spin strongly; look back sadly to think upon the time before. And here I am, wobbling.