Catching Up, Part 1

Before we get to the present, a couple of events have happened in the 3.5 years since I disappeared that you should know about.

Work went from bad to worse, to worse than that, to ok, to worse, to fine but weird, to sometimes good, to mostly good.

Because of that, I ran out of fucks to give. I practiced my old Zen non-attachment on my career, which disengaged me but also made it infinitely less painful. Disrespected in a way that has actual impact on me? What else is new, I’ve lost count. Cut out of projects despite being more qualified than anyone else? Just like last time. Huge pay cut? As long as I still have health insurance. Nice new boss fired in major scandal for things I’m pretty sure she didn’t do? Awful, but doesn’t really affect me. A further pay cut? I don’t care if I work here, really, I mean it.

But I do still work there. I love my actual work so much… when the bullshit doesn’t get in the way. The bullshit was getting in the way almost constantly for a couple of years, but now it almost never does (though I still watch my back with almost everyone). The proportion of lovable work to pay-the-bills work has decreased, but I am tremendous at both. I have gotten a little better at making time to work on things that benefit me long-term; I have a long way to go to prioritizing it the way that I should, but getting there.

tl;dr I hate my job, I love my work.