High hopes yesterday. Felt like I was back in the work force, waiting for the train. Anne Welles in the beginning of the "Valley of The Dolls." I don't know what I thought I'd be doing. Sitting at a big oak desk in the sixties answering calls and filing my nails, looking fabulous and being taken out to lunch.
The job was to transcribe, by hand, educational and employment histories (printed out from websites) of lawyers from various law firms. Then these transcriptions were to be used to headhunt. While I read the histories of these lawyers, many who were much younger than I was, I was sometimes depressed, but often just intrigued. Some had pictures, confident looking young men and women, just graduated from law school- ready for a big sexy lawyerly well-dressed world. Futures bright as shiny dimes.
My hand hurt. My back hurt. I remedied this by resting my hand on a big law book as I wrote.
I tried to get into some sort of rhythm, system. Write down what firm they were currently working for, which states they were admitted to practice law, their graduation dates, any honors received, any extra languages they spoke, employment histories. Then, staple the printout from the web to the cover sheet (on which I transcribed their information) and move on to the next one. A stack of printouts the size of two phone books.
They let me listen to my iPod. This was very nice. Even so, the door was closed three times so I could not hear whatever it was I was not supposed to hear. I was reminded twice that this information I was working with and the job I was doing was confidential. One time I was told that the reason the door was closed was because they were firing an employee. An employee I was introduced to minutes earlier.
I can't describe it and am not looking for any sympathy for this 'disorder' I have. Anxiety I guess. I decide that yes, yes, I must go. I will need to leave now. Go. Go. Leave. Goodbye.
Downstairs for a cigarette, talking to my mom on my cell.
"I think I'm going to just call my temp agency and tell them that 'this job isn't for me and I'm sorry I committed for a week and I hope I haven't created a problem by canceling at such short notice."
She says that's ridiculous and that I need to lighten up and it's not for life- it's for food and money until I go back to school, and where do I think I'm getting my money from? She is correct on all points.
I can't explain to her how much it hurts. Wanting to cry, I am short with a goodbye to her. Go up to my office and take a klonopin. "Just sit here. Stay here. It is money. You need money. It. Is. Not. The. End. Of. The. World." Tell that too my nervous system.
Finished out the day. Got home, went to bed.
Woke up feeling ok. Got on the train and it all comes back. Text messaged Kara.
Me:
"All right, well I'll try this again. Butitellya-- i dont like it one bit"
"I got a mental illness here"
Kara:
"Hang in there, Madonna WOULD do it"
Sat back down at my desk, began transcribing. A monk in khakis with coffee stains.
Ok for a little while.
Then I decide, sure of myself and calm, that I will take a cigarette break and leave. I take my building pass out of my pocket and place it on the faux wood desk (so I wont have to come back to drop it off). Make sure to have my phone and my iPod in my jacket. I tell the receptionist that I'm going out to have a cigarette (nice that they even let me have cigarette breaks at all). Go down the elevator, on to the street, on to the train and come home. Semi-psychotic in simplicity, vanishing forever on a smoke break.
I call the temporary agency and leave a message explaining what I should have explained the day before. They call me back and leave a message asking me to call them back. Why even bother. I left my job on a smoke break, are we going to find a way to make this workable? I call him back, explaining what happened. He listens to my explanation and is short with a goodbye. More or less what I expected.
The problem wasn't the job. It was more or less like any job. The problem was me. I don't think I am incapable of being a productive person. I just have some sort of thing that makes me feel like I need to ESCAPE. NOW. I knew when I got there that this would happen and I shouldn't and couldn't be there. Not there, not right now, for one reason or another.
"Maybe try again tomorrow." -Alica Nash, A Beautiful Mind
Hmm, what to do, what to do? I hope your inside outs come to an understanding of what to do.. I never quite understood your anxiety until this post.. interesting and well, you do need money to survive, what to do?
ReplyDeleteI feel very much the same way. Very Often.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when I was temping. I'd get very claustrophobic(not the right term exactly) and feel trapped by *something* not the work, not the people, but a bigger, unspoken thing. And then I'd do everything in my power to leave early. I never took a sick day, I never left w.o being allowed to- but as a temp job, I found ways to complete every possible job they had for me that day, and in turn let me out early.
Which was very counter-productive, because i was getting paid for less hours than I would have if I had stretched out the work.
I still feel like that currently at my full-time job sometimes- but we're mandated to be here from 8:30-5:30- so it takes a lot of effort sometimes.
Once you find a job you love...you know what i would say.
ReplyDeletewow, that sounds like me...I didn't know others felt the same way...that need to escape...i feel lonely at work...i feel like i'd rather be dead than work...i can volunteer, but being employed is different, not sure why.
ReplyDeleteOMG.... Anonymous above you seem identical to me, and yet I feel so alone that I was the only person in the world with these emotions! I am scared whitless when it comes to commiting myself to the term 'work/employment'. I can quite happily do jobs for friends and family and even volunteer my services but I alway need an escape route if necessary. With work it feels that I must stick to a strict routine for what would seem the rest of my life and that really really is frightening. I have been unemployed for some time now, always finding ways to escape but now the net is drawing in and I feel trapped and isolated beyond dispair............
ReplyDelete