underworked and burning out
January 13, 2002 02:28 PM

I woke up yesterday to minor crisis.

Maybe I should have just ignored it.

Anyway, the online portion of the weekend turned into firm convictions that I'm tired of diaryland. And that I am not a team player, unless I'm leading the team or have well-defined roles to start from. I have to be a team player all week (okay, most people do); maybe voluntarily putting myself in team playery situations on the off time isn't a good idea either.

I spent the week, by the way, volunteering myself for extra work. But in a good way. Even following the 80% rule (in large corporations, the most you will ever work is 80% of the time), I'm still not at my workload limit. Big huge corporations equal loose work ethic. I also realized something about my boss that made me more relaxed. Her goal is to remain as invisible and underutilized as possible. So now I understand that my lack of work never had anything to do with me, and I can volunteer myself for enough to keep me busy. I've stopped burning out and come to adhere to the Moonlighting philosophy of No Work And Pay. And the thing is (don't tell anyone), I rather like this job now.

So. I may end up half-quitting this design project (because of its tie to diaryland, primarily, and also because the other kids apparently don't like me) and instead putting more into the zine. To which I'm not nearly attentive enough, particularly considering how much it wants more serious submissions, maybe a more polished look, and just. You know, attention. And, I hope, this other political project. [By the way, if you're liberal, you really want to join Progressive Secretary. I'm just saying.]

And then. There's rehearsal. New show. Research I need to do before Tuesday evening (something to do in off time at work, hurrah). We're working on Charles Mee's Agamemmnon with the idea that some things are too serious not to laugh at. It's an anti-war play. It feels like cabaret, real cabaret, political thought cloaked in entertainment. Basically, it's Brecht. Ish.

I stopped looking for a new job. Back in mid-December. I had been looking, sending out at least five resumes or phone calls every week, for eight months. Depressing. But now the main concern is we don't want to live here. Not that I could lose my job at any second. So I passed the responsibility for getting us out of town to the boy, to find a grad school and just move us there. Instead of moving, finding a school, maybe moving again, him going to school, then likely moving once more. We may not blow this pop stand for another year, but blow it we shall. And recently I'm okay with not bailing right this second.

In other words. I'm burning out on the things I've been doing. But it's under control. I haven't dealt with the burn out, I'm just escaping it. But escape is fine. It's a solution. Like the man said in the Janeane Garofalo movie that tragically (considering some quite good Pogues and other Irish tunes) lacks a soundtrack, sometimes the easy way out is the right way out. It applies to nearly everything at present.

But then, that's a sentence you can interpret nearly any way you desire.