What follows shall be rambling and incoherant, but if I set it free from my
brain, perhaps it shall lessen the amount of pain being inflicted upon my mind.
I hate my job.
It’s not a bad job really. I sit at a computer with internet access. I write
computer software manuals. I try to tell myself that this is better than being a
coal miner. I worked several summers at an auto assembly plant. This job should
be better than that as well. But I’m a fuck up, so the message seems to not be
received.
My job is boring. It’s dull. Tedious. This monotomy is broken up with periods of
extreme stress as a deadline approaches. This stress is multiplied by
frustration when the software product I am trying to document does not work on
my computer.
The current software I am documenting is not in good shape. It’s an extreme
change from its previous 9 versions. The manner in which it works will not suit
the needs of any of our customers. No one will actually deploy this software in
a real world environment. This has been recognized, a bit late, but still it has
been noted. A new version of this software is promised.
However, I am still required to document the current release, even though it
shall never be used. My enthusiasm for this is less than ideal. Still, I try to
tell myself, I get paid the same anyway. But the software doesn’t work well. I
have been struggling with it for months. The subject matter experts that I rely
on have been off trying to stem other crisis. Even when they are available, a
solution to the problems I have been having is rarely found. I have been
reluctant to go to my boss because when he tries to help, it seems to make
things worse. My creating a new plan or attending a status meeting on the
project just takes up more of the little time I have left before deadline.
Perhaps it would if such things brought in more help, but they have never done
so as of yet.
So the problems simply simmer and build until I have to face that I am doomed.
I’ve been negligent in my project management duties. Although I have
communicated many times that the project is behind and in trouble, perhaps I did
not do so enough or with enough of a panic edge in my voice.
I am considering offering my resignation. I don’t know how I’ll pay my bills
without this job, but I don’t know if I can take this much longer. I worry that
several jobless months later I shall wish I had put up with it longer, at least
until I got fired so I could collect unemployment.
I am a very well paid writer. It is highly unlikely that another job will pay me
as well. It also seems inevitable to me that any tech writing job I find will
offer the same sense of boredom and stress, only with less money.
But something has to change. My hands shake. During phone conference calls I
sketch myself being shot, hung, or stabbed.
I have been writing a book that is a roleplaying game set in world War Two. I’d
love to be able to just write such things as a living but so would a million
others. Such a thing working out is not likely. And so I hedge my bets by
working in a job that I feel trapped in. If my dreams fail, I will survive, but
I’m not sure what the point would be.