Twenty-eight

I want to quit my job. I'm tired. It's exhausting, stressful, and no longer worth it.

1.       I work insane hours because there's too much work and I'm so not in the fucking mood to be efficient about handling it all, which makes me slower.

2.       The clients are demanding shits who don't know what they want but want everything yesterday. Of course, when I do meet their insane deadlines they have the audacity to demand more and show no appreciation whatsoever.

3.       I'm burnt out and don't have the capacity to be creative to write great copy anymore. My job has made me hate writing. I don't want to write, period.

4.       I struggle to get out of bed in the morning because I don't want to face my CEO (with her fucking progress reports and guilt-inducing questions) or my deadlines or my coworkers (who always need stuff from me).

5.       I have neither a social life nor the will to socialize because of my insane hours and mental crippling.

6.       I feel like I haven't lived because I'm always either at the office or working from home, or vegetating in bed to recover from the workweek.

7.       I can't seem to find anyone qualified to hire and help with the workload, and so I'm doomed to forever deal with the same shitty situation.

8.       Apparently if I worked elsewhere I'd be getting paid more (though money at this point isn’t the issue).

9.       I'm starting to do a crap job at everything and it's killing me. I used to take so much pride in doing a job well. It's what helped me reach so far despite my lack of a university degree. It's what made my reputation. I'm about to lose it all because I can't bring myself to meet client deadlines or deliver on their expectations, or just even meet my own standards.

10.   I'm lying to cover my ass and I hate myself for it, because what kind of a functioning adult has to lie to make up for needless negligence?

I really, really want to quit, but I also want to travel to Spain in October and I need the money to do that, so I won't quit now. I'll quit in January 2015 once I've managed to save up after spending everything in Spain. Until then, it's slow death.  

Twenty-six

At work, I often come across some pretty shitty copy written by businessmen whose mother tongue is not English and whose appreciation for the rules of grammar is as negligible as their choppy grasp of the language. That being said, I have never had the misfortune of editing copy that is so warped, so senseless, so weak it practically crumbles under its own weight, as I have over the past few days while helping a friend proofread his LGBT e-magazine's articles.

Why? Why do you write if you clearly can't string a single coherent sentence together? I get so frustrated working on pieces like this. It takes time out of my life that I'd rather be spending reading slash, gaming, being chewed and shredded by the Flatmate, taking out the trash, vegetating in bed, ANYTHING. Just not this. Not this.

But here I am, editing article after article of utter crap. There are good pieces in there, of course. Many of which I've enjoyed reading. But it's those handful of pointless quagmires that are making life miserable at the moment. I've tried recommending scrapping them, but apparently "they're important".

Sure. Whatever. FML.  
 

Twenty-two

Summary of recent events:

• I got promoted to acting manager with no salary raise until the end of the year
• I got pissed off when I discovered that the previous manager – who was utterly incompetent and a complete bitch – got the position by being unsurprisingly bitchy AND had a significantly higher salary, one that she didn't deserve for the crap work she delivered
• I updated my CV and started secretly looking for work elsewhere in an act of true passive aggressiveness
• I cooled off and stopped the job search, but decided to start working under the table editing CVs to make extra income. My first client is a hot older Dutchman, I'll be meeting him soon
• I got asked out by a client on a date; I told him I'd be willing to give dating a go after we've gotten to know each other better as friends. He proceeded to bombard me with sickeningly cute whatsapp messages and needy phone calls at random times of the day. I freaked out and cut off contact. I need to call him and let him know it's not going to work out. Procrastination and avoidance commence
• I took my mom to a Julio Iglesias concert and enjoyed a lovely summer evening of mother-daughter bonding to a backdrop of mermaid-like backup singers and a charming old fox crooning songs I'm not interested in, in a language I don’t understand
• I went broke after renewing my car insurance, car license and driving license. Decided to embrace frugal living. Bought a handful of plain hairbands for over 7 euros last night after going out for overpriced milkshakes and French fries with a new coworker at an upscale café
• Lost my Blackberry, and my work phone's battery is almost dead and I don't have a charger for it. I suspect that someone might be coming into my apartment when I'm not around and either taking things or leaving trash, but then again it might be my paranoia after an American friend of mine told me the CIA used to go into his home when he wasn't around and leave signs as warnings  

Twenty

Today a client sent an email to a senior coworker complaining that the profile I'd written them was "very weak". First time for everything. But then, I'm not surprised given how I'd been really sloppy with these guys. And I can't bring myself to care. The first sign of disaster. I've also been letting other deadlines and tasks slide; not a smart move if I don't want to ruin the trust and reputation I've made for myself, but I seriously, seriously can't bring myself to care. There's no panic, no anxiety, no gut-wrenching urge to "fix it" and control the damage. What does that mean?

I need a vacation. A long, preferably permanent, paid vacation. So sick and tired of working.

The only highlight is that the flat mate is still with me because she's too fugly and psychotic to be loved by anyone else. As my 5-year-old niece put it the other day: "She's a nice cat, but she's like a killer or something." I think she was just minding my feelings with the "nice" bit.

Twelve

My department's Director said that I'll be promoted to Acting Manager at the end of this month. The catch? My salary won't change, because – and I quote – my "salary is already very close to a manager's starting salary" and technically I'm only going to be an 'Acting' Manager – i.e. in training. I thought I'd been training this past year for it. I guess I haven't been trained enough.

When my promotion was proposed to our CEO, her response was, "Can Q manage the company in Senior Management's absence?" That's the standard they're looking for, and that’s the level I need to reach, apparently.

Alright, fair enough. I also need to work on my assertiveness, leadership skills (also assertiveness related), and time management. All good points. At the end of the year we'll see how far I've progressed and they'll move me up to Manager, and with it comes the salary raise.

The thing is, they also want me to get my university degree. So I mentioned the proposal I'm working on to suggest they "partially" (I wimped out at the last second and threw in that word) sponsor my education. They want me to send them the proposal. Which means that I have to finish it soon. Umph.

On a separate note, I think I've caught my flat mate's cold. If it's not that, then I've caught whatever she's been spraying me with these past two days. Taking her to see vet tonight.   

Seven

One of the things I regret is dropping out of university. I hate saying it, "dropping out", like I'm a failure, but that's what happened. I enrolled for two years, got great marks that first one, failed most of the second one, and then it got so bad that my parents said it straight to my face: If you hate it so much, just leave.

I think that was the first time they'd seen me cry since I was a kid.

But that's not what this post is about. Like I said, I'd always regretted not getting my undergraduate degree. So now I'm seriously considering asking my company to sponsor my higher education. I've found an excellent university in the US that offers a fantastic online undergraduate degree in my line of work. The catch is it's pretty expensive. Almost double what regular universities cost here. I'm a bit intimidated to bring it up to my senior management. Are they going to think I'm insane for even mentioning it? USD 38,400 for the whole degree without counting the cost of books, increasing annual tuition fees and whatever hidden costs there are.

And if they agree to do it, will that make me their slave for life? I don't want to be shackled to a company for the next 5+ years, no matter how great they are. I like having options, even if I never pursue them.

I'm going to sit with my manager tomorrow and see what she thinks. Fucking money.