Usually one doesn’t step into the garden itself, true… but I have a feeling the Zen masters never really intended for the garden itself to be enclosed in glass in the middle of cubicle-land. The symbolism is somewhat ironic, actually - it’s as unattainable to us cube-monkeys as the serenity it represents.
My situation is like Purgatory Creek’s. I avoided having to work AT anyone else’s office, but I’ve created a little hell of my own. Worst part is that starting in September, the sun shines directly on to my computer screen and I have to shut up my window. By the time I slink out of my office chair, it’s pitch black outside. I don’t see the sun for about 6 months.
Someday I hope to be more like Athena, but I think she and Mr. Athena get to do more consulting than I do. I’ve gotta be around 9-5 to answer phones and emails but if I was just freelancing I could set freer hours. Sometimes I free myself up but there’s always a nagging feeling to get back to the desk and be available.
On the plus side, I do get to wear jammies all day.
Oh and also on the plus side…while my job can be hellish, I have spent days on-site at a client’s office, and the atmosphere there is SO much worse. Every time I have to go there (not that often), I feel a little better about my job…and a little worse for all you 
Oh, we pretty much have to be around 9-5 as well. We get away with some flexibility, but I have yet to find a client who really doesn’t care if I never answer the phone or respond to emails quickly, not to mention IM. As one of my primary contracts told me: “We don’t care when you actually work, but we want you to talk to us during normal business hours.”
To tell the truth, I really try to be responsive to clients and call/IM/email back within a few minutes. The whole work-at-home thing is still enough of a new idea that some people aren’t comfortable with it, and I find that people get warm fuzzies when they see responses coming in as fast or faster than if I were right there in the office with them. Plus, it helped me justify buying an iPhone so I can respond even faster 
When it comes right down to it, I don’t really like working anything much other than during the normal business day; at night and on weekends, I want to play, just like everyone else. We’ve contemplated picking up and living in, say, Paris, but even with our ultra-flexy jobs I don’t think that would go over well.
Well, as I understand it from our conservative brethren, your unhappiness is a good thing from the viewpoint of the free enterprise system. See, jobs drive people into madness or prolonged depression. If mad, they go out and start new businesses, risking everything with little or no prospect of success. (Happy people would never take such risks.)
Some few succeed, bringing new businesses and new opportunities and keeping the economy going. The majority go broke and turn into winos, bums, telemarketers and such, which doesn’t really help but that’s what social safety nets are for. Except the conservatives are against social safety nets generally. I guess they figure that if you just turn into bums you don’t cost much until you die. A good thing.
If the workers choose not to start new businesses, they tend to go into prolonged depression, it creates a zombie-like state that makes for good workers who will put up with anything and not ask for raises or time off because they have lost the will to live. Keeps costs down for our businesses and ensures a steady supply of reliable if not really motivated workers. (The real function of HR is to humiliate them (I guess that would be “you”) endlessly with meaningless “teamwork” exercises, the “Wal-Mart Wiggle” being considered a classic in the genre.)
So all of this is a good thing. The more human misery there is, the better capitalism functions. It’s the American way!
Damn, who would have known that as a small business owner I was just feeding the system. Sounds about right, though.
Yes.
I keep applying to jobs to work elsewhere, but it just hasn’t happened yet.
I work at home. It is extremely difficult to get myself to pull away from the desk and do much of anything. I am allowed to of course, that’s one of the “perks” of working at home.
But I don’t. I don’t hit the Elliptical as I should, do housework, go for a walk, nothing. Creativity? My god, in good weather I could be out sculpting a bit stone here and there every day. But no. I just sit.
If I had an office and a routine that removed me, I suspect I would enjoy my house more than I do now. It’s only been a year, but a difficult adjustment. I don’t enjoy it much.
Cartooniverse
I teach high school math. I drive 45 minutes to my school, get to work by 7:30, leave at 4:30 or 5 most days, drive home for 45 minutes, and either collapse from the sheer exhaustion of the day or have to do more work. Forget about weekends. Yeah, I get my “Summer” off, but last year it was a day short of 2 months of break, during which I had to spend 2 weeks in training classes.
My newest strategies: leave work at work (Which means I stay later, but there aren’t papers all over my kitchen table - It’s still hard to emotionally leave work at work) and get my resume together so I can quit teaching in June of '09 after finding an awesome new job. A light at the end of the tunnel seems to be the best thing for me.
Yup. Many of us PTers in the colleges apply for the rarely offered FT positions (thousands of applicants and only one or two positions at each campus…how do you like those odds?) and it’s a rare thing even to get an interview.
Don’t get me started. I learned tonight that a certain employee in my office, who has worked part time for the last 6 or 7 years, is being advanced to the same level I am at. Pisses me right the fuck off. Apparently, this was quite controversial among the PTB, and I don’t think they have any idea of the fallout they are going to see. I really, really, really hope that 4 or 5 or 6 people at my level leave. And I hope they have the balls to say this decision is part of the reason why. The bitch is barely present when she is in the office.
I have other stuff going on in my life that makes leaving an nonviable option for me. But if and when the day comes, I’m going to say this didn’t make me at all eager to stay and/or work out an alternative work arrangement.
If I were a total bitch, I’d go to the head of my department and ask about working part time (with a commensurate cut in pay). I’m single and only have myself to support so I actually may give that some consideration. Working only three days a week would be sweet.
I see. By the way, do you get referal bonuses from your company for finding new employees? Just askin’.
I’m a former reference librarian who got “lateralled” into a circulation job. I’ve seen people in comas that were more interesting and dynamic than this job. Not only is there not enough work to keep busy, but my boss won’t let me work on my own projects.
A typical conversation with the circ. manager.
Me: I’m thinking about creating an online circulation manual for the new assistants we hired this year.
Manager: No.
Me: Why not?
Manager: That’s a supervisor’s job.
Me: Great, then why don’t you create the online circulation manual for the new assistants we hired this year?
Manager: No.
Me: Why not?
Manager: We don’t need it. The assistants are doing fine.
Me: No they’re not. We gave them a grand total of 20 minutes of training, and so far they couldn’t screw up more if they set the actual circ desk on fire. It’s not their fault; they just need a bit more training. And an online manual.
Manager: I said no. And what’s that humming sound?
Me: That’s the left side of my brain trying desperately to talk the right side of my brain out of expressing its need for creativity by creating a mural on the side of the building using a purple crayon and my own feces.
What am I doing? Applying to other jobs, library and others, and formulating a plan to go back to school to get a degree in business/accounting, so that I can have a shot at getting a job that actually requires working brain cells and synapses and stuff. And working on my computer skills. And keeping hope alive with a positive attitude. Plus, I don’t think my boss cares if I surf the web on the job as long as I lay off the barnyard porn sites, so I’ve been teaching myself a lot about the government. It’s all about not sitting still. As long as you’re learning, you’re growing, and sooner or later, that learning is going to pay off.
I hope so, anyway.
Linty Fresh your boss sounds like an utter dipshit. Most places reward people for exercising creative initiative that benefits the company - without asking for a pay rise…
I gave you a perfectly workable one. You might not want to do it, but it’s there.
I’ll give you another one: get another job. I was in a horrendous professional situation for the majority of 2007. It was driving me nuts, and I was utterly miserable. Fuck that shit. I got my CV out to dozens of agencies, went for a couple of interviews, and eventually got a new job, that I love.
Another piece of advice: when when you do get a new job, don’t get one in the Isle of Man. Move. If you don’t want to go far, go to eastern Ireland or the northern UK, so you can go home easily. Move to a city. Somewhere you can reinvent yourself and start flexing your social muscles a bit.
I’ve never been to the Isle of Man, but damn that place looks small. Population 80,058 according to Wikipedia. Fuck that! Go somewhere with a million or so people, where you can lose yourself in the melée.
Yeah . . . which is one of the reasons why I’m going to be getting my next degree in business. Tedious? Yes. Begging to be overworked and under-appreciated? Probably. But at least I can use my head and exercise some creativity. I would much rather be used and abused than condescended to and talked at like a six-year-old who’s embarrassing the parents at the Big People’s Table at the family reunion. The way I see it, right now I’m being paid to be treated like an idiot, and I don’t think there’s a paycheck big enough for that.
I’m currently making my way through What Color is Your Parachute, and it’s a good read. I’m also thinking about putting my tender soul into the hands of headhunters. I’ve also signed on to a couple of job search agencies, and well, I’ll see where it takes me.
Also, Lobsang, seriously think about jjimm’s advice about relocating. Moving from the sticks to Boston via the army changed my life more than anything else. As they say in A League of Their Own, “You’ve gotta go where things happen.”
I work in a local government office, and I have no free time at work at all. I am completely overwhelmed by the almost daily increase in tasks fostered on me. The most depressing thing is dealing with the arrogant, pompous, incompetent supervisors who make my job harder by making unbelievably bad decisions. I retire in 4 years, so I have to stick it out. But it is extremely difficult dealing with morons who don’t understand the work they are supervising.