Adulting

This being an adult thing is the pits. The absolute pits and if there were a way to resign from the adult world, I would gladly put in my two weeks and just, you know, live off the grid for awhile (if it didn't arise crippling anxiety in my chest, which it does naturally).

Lyle, my only real friend at work, left the company a few months ago to move in with his girlfriend and work in Brooklyn. To be honest his leaving has not bothered me that much in the grand scheme of things. Despite our office friendship, he was disliked by everyone in the office (which initially drew me to him) but he also we a terrible employee and honestly was going to be fired pretty soon.

I must reiterate that I adore him as a nerdy, interesting, thoughtful companion... but he was not at all a good or attentive employee.  He was socially awkward and had a very condescending and curt way of speaking to everyone. When he wasn't talking down to people, he was boosting about his life; mainly his girlfriend who he met on the interwebs. Most of our lunch hour consisted of him talking about her, in a way that i know all to well, like she wasn't a real person but an idea of a person. If it weren't for the pictures of her he wanted to share or the text messages he wanted me to look at, I honestly would have thought he made her up to make himself look more interesting and fulfilled.

He meant well though, personally and professionally,  and when he wasn't boosting or educating everyone on everything, he was the one person who made work bearable, even if it was a marginal bearable-ness. Especially during lunch, as he was the only person I was "allowed" to eat with. And now that he is gone my displeasure with this place continues to grow like an ache on an old bruise. 

I hate sounding ungrateful about my job and working because despite my complaints I am more than grateful for finally making money and struggling less. Around the same time this year I was poorer than I've ever been, seriously depressed and stressed out about the Ashat and his Ashat ways. On top of that my landlord decided to up and sell her house giving me less than a months notice to find a new place to live. I felt like everything was crumbling around me. My life resembled a house of cards tumbling down, all at once, as if I'd leaned in to close.

So trust me, ungrateful I am not, but it doesn't mean I don't wonder from time to time if I am doing this "adulting" thing right because i am so unfulfilled by things. A lot of it is work related (the other is relationship related, which i'll try to open up more about) because I do not feel like anyone respects me here or what I do but I am expected to excel at my job because I do it well.

Because despite everything...I freaking excel at my job. There is no doubt about that. Apparently we are given raises every 3 months and my boss pulled me into his office a few weeks over to go over my work performance and to let me know if I was getting this 3 month raise.

My boss sort of terrifies me. He is this slight older man with a limp and a soft voice who started this company 5 years ago. His wife, two sons and nephew are all employed here and you can tell the failure or success of his company rest on all of us. Because I was hired as Patricia's (still a bitch) replacement the first couple of weeks were hard because he kept comparing us. I'd get something wrong and he would throw a mini tantrum "i don't understand why this is so difficult" despite the fact that I was practically learning things by myself because Patricia (still a bitch) was a terrible teacher.

After a few weeks, I think I earned my boss's confidence that I could bring something to the job that Patricia (still a bitch) couldn't..likability with clients, and he backed off and let me do my job sans looming and criticizing.

He seemed to agree, non-verbally, that I was far exceeding his expectations by giving me a raise at the end of the summer. It was a small but significant encouragement which I readily accepted. But just last week I was due for my second performance review and this time I was called into his office so we could go over stuff. He started off by telling me I was definitely going to get a raise and that he thought I was doing a really good job. I was kind of taken aback because my boss doesn't talk to me but rather at me. It can be a little annoying and patronizing. Though Patricia (still a bitch) and I have pretty much discontinued speaking to one another at work and our job responsibilities are vastly different, I get this sense from my boss that he thinks I am still not as great as Patricia (still a bitch).

So despite telling me about my additional raise, I thought his reasoning for wanting to talk in person was for him to compare me to Patricia(still a bitch). And there is no one in the world I'd want to be compared to less at the moment. Instead my boss wanted to go over my 'reliability' a word i am still very confused about. I am a pretty reliable person. I mean, I think I am. I did take off some days this summer to accommodate my moms visit and i did call out once to get my hair did---I mean because I was sick. I have only been late once, because my bus was stuck in traffic.

While I do believe I am a reliable employee, I will admit that I have taken a few liberties from time to time because I do not always feel appreciated here.A major issue, one that Patricia (still a bitch) has initiated more than once, is that when something goes wrong I am blamed. One of the last straws for me with Patricia (still a bitch) was back in July. We were supposed to translate a clients website into another language but this was missed during production. While I am not a part of the production team, Patrica(still a bitch) starts getting at me about failing to catch this small detail. In front of everyone she starts lamenting in her Aunt Sue Ellen, big shoulder, ugly green blazer, how I should have caught this mistake because I enter in the contracts that specifies if a client wants their site translated in another language. This, despite the fact that I enter contracts with products only once, am not building the site (she built the site and had full knowledge that it needed to be translated) and am also not the one who sends out the request for the material to be translated.

But she kept going on about it, as if to make a point that she was better at my job. That if i paid more attention, this would not have fallen through the cracks. And of course once she started in on me, everyone who was at real fault came at me as well...like a pack of wolves. I was defiant and annoyed and snippet at the whole ordeal. I realized quickly  that she was a dick, an irredeemable dick that I would never talk to her again. I also realized that no one takes what i do here seriously because i just answer the phones, and interact with clients everyday. Even outside of that scenario I often feel talked down to or worse not part of this company.

And I know this has more to do with the fact that I am the one who forwards calls and emails from clients who wish to complain. I am the gatekeeper to bad news which easily in some way makes me a person people don't wish to hear from.

Because of this my level of giving a damn has quickly diminished. I still do my work and do it well, but i recognize that this too is just the waiting place between being able to support myself and finding a career. It's just that simple.

My boss however has other plans. After he tells me he wants to go over my reliability he states that I have become a huge asset to the company. Not only that but that he thinks that if I am committed enough I can have a really good and long career here...FOREVER.

Okay, he didn't say forever but he was implying it  And as this implication was being presented before me, I must admit that I was filled with dread. Dread. I'm at an awesome place in my life where I really don't know what I want to do, who i want to be, or even where I see myself in a few years but as sure as hell know what I don't like, what i won't put up with and who i ain't. And honestly I have no intention of making a career for myself here and I am mortified at the thought of this being a peak for me career wise. If this was it. 

Of course, I didn't say any of this to my boss. I like my paychecks and being able to afford things for once. But I know deep down where I think thoughts that do not make it's way to the surface often, I cannot envision a future where I am sitting at this cubicle, taking calls from clients who treat me with more respect than my employees. I can't. I won't. 

But I recognize that knowing what I do not want from this place only means that I need or will need a plan b. I will at some point have to figure out what the hell I want to do or can endure which make me sort of anxious cause I know how long it took me just to get to this place.