Dear God, but I am unhappy. I am stuck (oh, stuck!) in a job that I hate - that I hate mainly because I am expected to do my best for about as much money as the maids in my mother's school make; without any of the benefits e.g. vacations and weekends and the time for music classes spanish classes family friends sleep and the opportunity to take a day off and not be missed.
I am the only person in the office, most of the time. I am secretary and resident computer expert and office gopher and general draftsperson. I am expected to take initiative and learn as much as I possibly can in the time I am here. I am expected to be proactive and aggressive and focussed and determined and ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT-CAREER-ORIENTED.
And all for the princely sum of INR 6000 a month.
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps money isn't the important thing as long as you're learning something. Then again, what am I learning, exactly? That my boss will cheerfully ask me to spend over a day uploading files to a client's server and then ask me to come in on the weekend because I didn't get any work done that day. It doesn't matter what the damage is to your sleep schedule or your health or your life, as long as the work gets done.
I feel as though I'm back at college, travelling two hours by bus each morning with my stomach in a knot with the fear of proving myself inadequate to doing a good job. And for what?
People tell me to quit; let it go; leave now; T, do the things you're really good at.
(like writing, for example? but you see, the writing let me go four months ago, and i was unwilling to let a profession, however unsuited i was to carry it out, go - for the sake of a talent that seemed to have disappeared...)
If I could quit, I would. but I am afraid of repercussions; of the small small world we live in; of what happens to people with bad reputations.
And so I go in to work each day with the hope that things will get better, and that I will learn something new about the world and my work and my self.
But all I learn is that I am lonely, and unhappy, and so very tired of being here.
I am the only person in the office, most of the time. I am secretary and resident computer expert and office gopher and general draftsperson. I am expected to take initiative and learn as much as I possibly can in the time I am here. I am expected to be proactive and aggressive and focussed and determined and ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT-CAREER-ORIENTED.
And all for the princely sum of INR 6000 a month.
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps money isn't the important thing as long as you're learning something. Then again, what am I learning, exactly? That my boss will cheerfully ask me to spend over a day uploading files to a client's server and then ask me to come in on the weekend because I didn't get any work done that day. It doesn't matter what the damage is to your sleep schedule or your health or your life, as long as the work gets done.
I feel as though I'm back at college, travelling two hours by bus each morning with my stomach in a knot with the fear of proving myself inadequate to doing a good job. And for what?
People tell me to quit; let it go; leave now; T, do the things you're really good at.
(like writing, for example? but you see, the writing let me go four months ago, and i was unwilling to let a profession, however unsuited i was to carry it out, go - for the sake of a talent that seemed to have disappeared...)
If I could quit, I would. but I am afraid of repercussions; of the small small world we live in; of what happens to people with bad reputations.
And so I go in to work each day with the hope that things will get better, and that I will learn something new about the world and my work and my self.
But all I learn is that I am lonely, and unhappy, and so very tired of being here.
