Hmmm. All I do anymore is work, work, work. I work at night until I can't stay awake any longer, I fall asleep, I get up and do it again. You'd think with all that work I do I'd be almost done, but every week there's something sort of new that's really just the same thing as the week before with a slightly different twist and new deadline. I must be very inefficient.
Oh, well maybe all this work is making me wealthy? Nope, still struggling to pay the bills and have enough left over to buy food. So what's the point? I don't know. Actually, I think there are a handful of people making a whole lot of money on all the hours I work. Too bad I'm not one of them.
The kids seem to accept our lives as they are. I feel loved and respected. Perhaps more than I deserve. Or maybe not. I try. They're staying on top of their homework, practicing the piano regularly, still making messes all over the house, just as they should. Abbey just ran her 5k for Girls on the Run, and now both kids are playing basketball on Saturday mornings. Abbey reads more books each week than I can count. Quinn does math problems for fun. Neither cleans the bathroom. I just work. And Cindy keeps track of it all and makes sure everyone is where they need to be when they need to be and has finished whatever assignment was supposed to be finished. Who's gonna rake all those freakin' leaves this year? Will they really kill the grass? Who needs grass - just something else to neglect.
Live to work or work to live? How about just work to work and work some more? How about if I ever pay off the debt incurred to get my PhD I'm going to quit my job and find something reasonable to do with my life. Five years. Ten years? What a waste. In five years I'm getting a new bike. A winter bike. Or maybe just a winter coat. It's cold in Michigan this time of year.
Good night.
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I think what you need is your own space on the refrigerator door, so Cindy can post your good work next to Abbey's and Quinn's. E posted my physical exam results, including the colonoscopy, on the fridge. Say, colonoscopy. There's something you have to look forward to one day.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, maybe the reason you have so much work at work is that your really are good at what you do, so they just keep giving you more. If you keep accepting it, and doing it well, they keep raising the bar. Sometimes you have to say "no", even to your boss.
Yes. Rather than my boss, I think it's our client whose expectations need to be tempered. Actually, what we really need is to hire more good scientists in our office to help reduce our work load. Everyone in my office is feeling overworked, but we're kind a bunch of psychotic weirdos working for a terrible company. Not surprisingly, we can't seem to hire anyone.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I shouldn't post my unfiltered thoughts on our blog at the end of a few long days.
Never underestimate the cathartic value of ranting. I used to complain only about the clients and contractors, taking some solace in the harmony that generally existed among my coworkers. Then the pressure got to some of them last week and things got pretty weird. Psychotic is probably a good description. Multiple Personality Disorder might be another.
ReplyDeleteDavid was watching a video on Maya Lin, the architect who designed the Vietnam War Memorial in DC. She's now more of a sculptor than architect, doing these beautiful earth-form-type projects, but she made a statement that she felt that making architecture was like writing a novel. I told David that for me architecture was more like writing a phone book.
I fantasize of living in a tiny adobe house in Marfa, TX, in the Big Bend country, and making pies to sell and going out into the desert in my free time to look at birds and lizards. I seriously doubt that one could make a living selling pies in Marfa, but it's appealing just the same.
I never would have thought architecture would be like writing a phone book, but I think I can imagine how it might. I'm a biologist, but I never leave my office. I work with numbers, spreadsheets, and documents, and almost never set foot outside. Maybe "biologist" is the wrong term. I'm an ecological risk assessor. There, that sounds more like something one might do from behind a computer screen.
ReplyDeleteWe've been thinking about a small organic farm. I guess Jill and John have quite a bit of experience with a large organic farm. At least, I think it's large. It sounds it's a lot of work, too.
It's good to know I'm not the only one who struggles with the reality of existence.
Hey, wasn't this some good work you did a while back?
ReplyDeleteSpawning salmon return to creek after decades