Wednesday, July 25, 2007

In which my brain is fried.

A year ago, I was working for The Evil Editor at Corporate Behemoth.

The Evil Editor was a micromanager who responded to all of my work with "Uh, yeah, NO" and several quick, painful strikes of her red pen. Unless she did it herself, it wasn't good enough, and she would argue with anyone who got in her way. She was a bully.

Lo and behold, a year later, I have both my gig and The Evil Editor's gig. She has moved on to greener pastures - pastures where style guides grow on trees and red ink flows like wine. Good for her.

But bully for me. I understand now why she was so uptight. I am completely overwhelmed.

Right now, I'm struggling between "If I just work allll night, I'll be sort of caught up" and "Fuck that shit, I've already worked eight hours today and this is supposed to be the slow time of the year. I'm having a beer, you bitches."

So, there's that. And then there are the freelance projects I've picked up in a vain attempt to put a dent in the debt I owe my parents. Like they care, but still.

And the real trouble with Mr. eHarmony? I mean, besides his being all kind and smart and funny and cute and generally wonderful?

He makes me want to do stuff besides work. I now see the value in having a personal life that's more than paying dues by attending social events so that I can still claim some friends.

I see the value in having a life.

Again, bully for me. But now I have to figure out if I can reconcile my intense job with having the life for which the job is supposed to be the means to the end. And reconciling it so that I'm never, ever thought of as The Evil Editor. That's not how I roll.

I think I need a housekeeper and a personal assistant. I don't ask for much.

1 comment:

CB said...

You have to take the time to have a personal life to be happy at work. You have to be happy at work to actually do a good job. I would take 8 happy productive hours over 16 disgruntled less attention to detail hours any day of the year.

I bet if you actually spent more time creating a fantastic personal life, that your work output would be greater in less hours.