I don't know how it happens, but whenever I get a job, I usually find myself in a cubicle making lots of calls to people I don't know and leaving voice mails for potential sales opportunities. I don't particularly find it easy or fun, but for over 9 years on and off, this is what I end up doing as work. Mind you, it does pay the bills and, again, it is one of the only ways to make enough money for a family when you don't have any special talents or a degree of some sort. Still, it is amazing the limits that I put upon myself time and time again. Yes, I sit in traffic an average of 80 minutes a day. Yes, I sit on my butt all day and have gained a ton of weight and have now what you call the secretary butt. Yes, I wait for someone to tell me what tasks need to be done and then, like a good cube worker, efficiently finish the task. I find that most days I am asking myself, just like Michael Byrne from Talking Heads, "Well, how did I get here?".
I am a somewhat educated woman with a good head on her shoulders and a very good (an ever improving) work ethic. What ever happened to my imagination? It is still the best way to play with my kids. Weather we are Care Bears in Care a Lot or Pirates in a flying ship, we always play pretend at home. What does it say of me, as a mother even, to encourage my kids and say you can do just about anything you want to do, yet here I am slogging away, gaining weight and searching for meaning in my work.
I could blame my plain as mayonnaise on white bread upbringing. I could blame years of public schooling that sucked the creativity and life out of me. I could blame a society that encourages "cube working" from the rich on down. "You can't be a dancer, that doesn't make any money.Never mind the competition. You need money." So here I sit in my gray cube.
Still, even if I wanted to do something else, I wouldn't know where to begin. I can't even tell you what exactly I would want to do, never mind what I do well. People seem to have these passions about things. Baking, fixing things, helping people, writing.
When I think about it, the only thing I am at all passionate about it to do God's work and to do it whole heartedly. Whatever the Universe decides that it is. Perhaps that is what I am doing. But it sure gets boring!
4 comments:
Working in a cubicle does not sound very fun and yet I admire your perseverance in doing the job. Someone needs to do that job and it appears to be you for the moment. Your cosy cottage looks lovely and well cared for and filled with 5 children and a husband, that must be something.
When I was little and my parents wanted me to be educated and go to college I just stared and said ' all I want to do is be a mother' Mothers get bad press sometimes and are not always appreciated and I can see from your blog posts that you wholeheartedly have committed to that role.I will visit you again Stacey and think of you when I make bread.
You are not alone in your "gray cube" duldrums. I have been working in the same field for over 10 years now, even have bachelor's and master's degrees in that field and yet I still don't really know what I want to do when I grow up. I figure someday I'll figure it out!
Know a man who works at home with a growing family. His only form of advertising is to put an ad in the nearest large city's yellow pages and then farm out internet work to online helpers in Russia, etc. I imagine if you really know what you're doing, you can sit in the middle of several job sites, passing around work on commission.
You're apparently moderating your blog, so this good idea won't reach everyone automatically.
Someone trying to help who was apparently blocked (accidentally)
post here at your own risk of being read oh anonymous
Post a Comment