job thoughts
Jul. 6th, 2024 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
virgomoon 2025 thoughts
under the cut is the original post but i'm updating it with this little note to say i did go to that festival and i was mistaken in who they were kicking out, but most of the other relevant details are still true, especially wrt my discomfort with the areas within which my job operates. also had a big blowout recently w the boss, etc, anyway. the aim is to resign by the end of this year. so much stupid shit that i don't even know how to handle.
tw/ cancer, death, job stress
Recently had something like a reality check because of how distorted perspective can be when you're focusing only on your feelings, I guess. I spend so much time thinking how stressed I am by my job and how much some things annoy me that I didn't realise that this can go both ways. Both can annoy one another! I know I can be an inconvenience in some ways because instead of adding to my organisation I am constantly just working off of the bare bones that I have been given, and that I do not "foresee my requirements" etcetera. I mean that's a load of bull honestly but anyway. EVERYONE ON THE MOON IS ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL except me. (This is a reference to a rad collection of stories, please check out).
So a budget cut happened recently for a project we were part of last year and will be part of again this year - it's an international arts festival that happens in Goa in December and has a lot of stuff going on for it. It's a huge deal and I was lucky to be part of it last year at all, that too as a facilitator - but my real life was insanely bad at the time. My grandmother - my last grandparent and the loveliest of them all - was suffering through stage 4 cancer, there were 8-10 people living in my three bedroom flat, and this job expected me to handle anything that was thrown at me. A lot was thrown at me. I think I did well taking it all in my stride.
Anyway due to the budget cut they sent a reply back to the festival saying we will have to reduce our team that travels to Goa this year - and I know the one receiving the kick will be me. I have objective reasons that I cannot spell out because it will be unethical to do so, but basically there are two artists who have actual experience in music and theatre and puppetry and I am just regular ol me!!!!! I do not practice any form of art! My sporadic writing skills aren't going to land me a spot in SAF.
This has been a revelation. Of course I wasn't too pissed, but I will admit I was somewhat pissed when I saw that email and the implicit entailment. I would love to go to SAF and see all the art, but HELLO I have been planning my ENTIRE year based off of YOUR schedule. Would you at least have the temerity to tell me that you do not want to send me? I really have been saying no to other jobs and other gigs and to travel plans and whatnot. And then the mere idea that they will tell me "yes, please don't worry about travel in December, it's all over now."
Recently what with my aunt's death too - and it's a more tragic death than my grandma's because my aunt was disabled, and she was dependent entirely on my grandma, and she died 5 months 17 days after my grandma - I really have stopped giving a fuck about this job, and it might show. I couldn't care less if they point it out - I think I have had a lot thrown at me in a short while, and I really do think that people go through even worse or whatever and they survive, and I am not complaining about not surviving, because I am good at survival. I guess I am just bemused by the entire enterprise of passion and work and fine arts and labour.
While it is strange to think I will be sidelined because I do not have enough skills for what they require (they have a project in Australia coming up in which my colleague, a much more talented, part-time worker, and also the boss's daughter! is going to) it just moreover really underlines how new and bumbling I am at this.
One has to think! "Does that really matter? It's just a job! They're a nepotistic family! I am full-time because they need my labour! They can't have all perfect applicants so they make do with the one applicant who wanted to do the stupid work." The answer to that is if it was a job that I had chosen and prepared myself for instead of something I was thrown into (i was initially librarian then I became an all rounder programming all-star) i would have been trying way harder to work on multiple many things.
Instead of how every time my boss has to be like "HELLO you have to be charismatic and talkative HELLO where is my update on this HELLO why don't you have your workshops planned already" she would be treating me as an equal and involving me in planning decisions and keep me on par with them. There is a nexus of money and snobbery at play here as well but I won't go into that.
I'm constantly catching up in my job... And that's like, not bad typically, but also I don't want to be a programming assistant associate whatever. It is rotten and difficult getting a job in this world so I am lucky to have one at all and even luckier that it lets me WFH and that it is so flexible with its timing and it affords me so much travel and it really sounds like I am whining all the time, but believe me it's very hard having a real conversation with rich people even if they want to be real with you (which they will be) they won't have reality thrown back at them. I do not pity them or hate them I just am bemused and tired constantly. It dawned on me recently that no amount of structural benefits actually work if the people you're working with just do things when convenient for them, and then bitch about you when you aren't up to their mark. In an informal workspace this is even worse. I realise I have to set my own rules and boundaries etcetera but those too are constantly transgressed based on their convenience. So!
Anyway I want to work with TEXTS... recently for text based labour I received a lot of positive reinforcement (my short story, an editing gig I applied for but will let go of, etcetera) and it's like I can see all the ways in which these people should criticise me but they didn't because they wanted to focus on the positive and I feel a little thunderstruck by it. I know HR praising you while recruiting you or when trying to have you not quit is normal for some people, but I was flabbergasted by how hard this person tried to recruit me and liked what I gave her. This is a crucial experience too, because it underlined how when you know what you are doing and how you have to do it is clearly mentioned, expectations are set, I can perform just as normal as anyone else, instead of batting in the wild.
As long as I am in the fine arts world I am an outsider, and uncomfortable. When I am with texts I am comfortable. So the answer is clear, isn't it? Anyway I'll give my resignation letter in later this year and I'm practicing writing more seriously now and I am looking at stuff I want to do and holding out for it and I really need to reply to Emily from WWAC and let her know that life has been a bitch to me and I am so sorry and would she still consider my draft.
It's incredible how much I can experience while in the fine arts world, but the illusory bubble nature of it is really depressing. My pay will never increase. I will be invited to free lunch in embassies and cultural institutes and whatnot and see so much art my mind will boggle and be close to a kind of glamour I won't be close to otherwise, but my pay will never increase, I will never have much worth unless I do a fine arts course and start practicing some form of art that increases my value, and I will always be just this average person unless I have fascinating out of the world experiences. A huge factor in why I was hired earlier was because I went off to the border of this country up in one of the highest points in India all alone to work in the culture industry - yes, a librarian, but a form of culture industry intersecting with pedagogy nonetheless. I was "cool" and I was there. I recently met this wonderful guy from Chennai who said the only reason he does his job - same as mine - is because it lets him meet all these wonderful people he's always wanted to be around. And that's so real - I've met so many wonderful people. The difference arrives when it has to be monetised or capitalised upon, when I have to convert a nice person to a "contact", and I am stupendously bad at that.
I think that's really important. As more realisations about discipline and time management and neurodivergence settle in it's so important to remember and know what I can and cannot do. I'll keep trying to be my best for these people as long as is possible but it's important for me to not get bummed out when they do an UNO-reverse "well you're not worth much as a non-artist." All they need is my time and my energy. All I need from them for now is money, and maybe a recommendation letter at the end of it. They do not positively reinforce me because their language is so distorted - because they're family, because it's nepotism, because it'll always be them and then there will be me. It's fine. If thought about another way my language is distorted for them - because it's not cohering for them.
I feel like a person is measured when you see how they treat the people who work for them - my boss treats everyone the same but she will never yell at someone her equal. She yelled herself hoarse at my senior - someone who'd worked with the organisation for the past 5 years - and she quickly left after that. It's not a mean yelling and I would like to believe she can yell at anyone who doesn't do their job well. But it's yelling. It's nasty and demeaning. She starts saying things baldly and badly. It took me seven months to stop being terrified of her.
I really am lucky to have a job at all being who I am. At the same time I will not let that be the end of me. I have a tendency to let things just take over my life - a crush, a relationship - with a friend or a lover or a lover-like friend, an object, a text. A job. I really have to work against that now, and work with it, and work, labour, be better and know better.
under the cut is the original post but i'm updating it with this little note to say i did go to that festival and i was mistaken in who they were kicking out, but most of the other relevant details are still true, especially wrt my discomfort with the areas within which my job operates. also had a big blowout recently w the boss, etc, anyway. the aim is to resign by the end of this year. so much stupid shit that i don't even know how to handle.
tw/ cancer, death, job stress
Recently had something like a reality check because of how distorted perspective can be when you're focusing only on your feelings, I guess. I spend so much time thinking how stressed I am by my job and how much some things annoy me that I didn't realise that this can go both ways. Both can annoy one another! I know I can be an inconvenience in some ways because instead of adding to my organisation I am constantly just working off of the bare bones that I have been given, and that I do not "foresee my requirements" etcetera. I mean that's a load of bull honestly but anyway. EVERYONE ON THE MOON IS ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL except me. (This is a reference to a rad collection of stories, please check out).
So a budget cut happened recently for a project we were part of last year and will be part of again this year - it's an international arts festival that happens in Goa in December and has a lot of stuff going on for it. It's a huge deal and I was lucky to be part of it last year at all, that too as a facilitator - but my real life was insanely bad at the time. My grandmother - my last grandparent and the loveliest of them all - was suffering through stage 4 cancer, there were 8-10 people living in my three bedroom flat, and this job expected me to handle anything that was thrown at me. A lot was thrown at me. I think I did well taking it all in my stride.
Anyway due to the budget cut they sent a reply back to the festival saying we will have to reduce our team that travels to Goa this year - and I know the one receiving the kick will be me. I have objective reasons that I cannot spell out because it will be unethical to do so, but basically there are two artists who have actual experience in music and theatre and puppetry and I am just regular ol me!!!!! I do not practice any form of art! My sporadic writing skills aren't going to land me a spot in SAF.
This has been a revelation. Of course I wasn't too pissed, but I will admit I was somewhat pissed when I saw that email and the implicit entailment. I would love to go to SAF and see all the art, but HELLO I have been planning my ENTIRE year based off of YOUR schedule. Would you at least have the temerity to tell me that you do not want to send me? I really have been saying no to other jobs and other gigs and to travel plans and whatnot. And then the mere idea that they will tell me "yes, please don't worry about travel in December, it's all over now."
Recently what with my aunt's death too - and it's a more tragic death than my grandma's because my aunt was disabled, and she was dependent entirely on my grandma, and she died 5 months 17 days after my grandma - I really have stopped giving a fuck about this job, and it might show. I couldn't care less if they point it out - I think I have had a lot thrown at me in a short while, and I really do think that people go through even worse or whatever and they survive, and I am not complaining about not surviving, because I am good at survival. I guess I am just bemused by the entire enterprise of passion and work and fine arts and labour.
While it is strange to think I will be sidelined because I do not have enough skills for what they require (they have a project in Australia coming up in which my colleague, a much more talented, part-time worker, and also the boss's daughter! is going to) it just moreover really underlines how new and bumbling I am at this.
One has to think! "Does that really matter? It's just a job! They're a nepotistic family! I am full-time because they need my labour! They can't have all perfect applicants so they make do with the one applicant who wanted to do the stupid work." The answer to that is if it was a job that I had chosen and prepared myself for instead of something I was thrown into (i was initially librarian then I became an all rounder programming all-star) i would have been trying way harder to work on multiple many things.
Instead of how every time my boss has to be like "HELLO you have to be charismatic and talkative HELLO where is my update on this HELLO why don't you have your workshops planned already" she would be treating me as an equal and involving me in planning decisions and keep me on par with them. There is a nexus of money and snobbery at play here as well but I won't go into that.
I'm constantly catching up in my job... And that's like, not bad typically, but also I don't want to be a programming assistant associate whatever. It is rotten and difficult getting a job in this world so I am lucky to have one at all and even luckier that it lets me WFH and that it is so flexible with its timing and it affords me so much travel and it really sounds like I am whining all the time, but believe me it's very hard having a real conversation with rich people even if they want to be real with you (which they will be) they won't have reality thrown back at them. I do not pity them or hate them I just am bemused and tired constantly. It dawned on me recently that no amount of structural benefits actually work if the people you're working with just do things when convenient for them, and then bitch about you when you aren't up to their mark. In an informal workspace this is even worse. I realise I have to set my own rules and boundaries etcetera but those too are constantly transgressed based on their convenience. So!
Anyway I want to work with TEXTS... recently for text based labour I received a lot of positive reinforcement (my short story, an editing gig I applied for but will let go of, etcetera) and it's like I can see all the ways in which these people should criticise me but they didn't because they wanted to focus on the positive and I feel a little thunderstruck by it. I know HR praising you while recruiting you or when trying to have you not quit is normal for some people, but I was flabbergasted by how hard this person tried to recruit me and liked what I gave her. This is a crucial experience too, because it underlined how when you know what you are doing and how you have to do it is clearly mentioned, expectations are set, I can perform just as normal as anyone else, instead of batting in the wild.
As long as I am in the fine arts world I am an outsider, and uncomfortable. When I am with texts I am comfortable. So the answer is clear, isn't it? Anyway I'll give my resignation letter in later this year and I'm practicing writing more seriously now and I am looking at stuff I want to do and holding out for it and I really need to reply to Emily from WWAC and let her know that life has been a bitch to me and I am so sorry and would she still consider my draft.
It's incredible how much I can experience while in the fine arts world, but the illusory bubble nature of it is really depressing. My pay will never increase. I will be invited to free lunch in embassies and cultural institutes and whatnot and see so much art my mind will boggle and be close to a kind of glamour I won't be close to otherwise, but my pay will never increase, I will never have much worth unless I do a fine arts course and start practicing some form of art that increases my value, and I will always be just this average person unless I have fascinating out of the world experiences. A huge factor in why I was hired earlier was because I went off to the border of this country up in one of the highest points in India all alone to work in the culture industry - yes, a librarian, but a form of culture industry intersecting with pedagogy nonetheless. I was "cool" and I was there. I recently met this wonderful guy from Chennai who said the only reason he does his job - same as mine - is because it lets him meet all these wonderful people he's always wanted to be around. And that's so real - I've met so many wonderful people. The difference arrives when it has to be monetised or capitalised upon, when I have to convert a nice person to a "contact", and I am stupendously bad at that.
I think that's really important. As more realisations about discipline and time management and neurodivergence settle in it's so important to remember and know what I can and cannot do. I'll keep trying to be my best for these people as long as is possible but it's important for me to not get bummed out when they do an UNO-reverse "well you're not worth much as a non-artist." All they need is my time and my energy. All I need from them for now is money, and maybe a recommendation letter at the end of it. They do not positively reinforce me because their language is so distorted - because they're family, because it's nepotism, because it'll always be them and then there will be me. It's fine. If thought about another way my language is distorted for them - because it's not cohering for them.
I feel like a person is measured when you see how they treat the people who work for them - my boss treats everyone the same but she will never yell at someone her equal. She yelled herself hoarse at my senior - someone who'd worked with the organisation for the past 5 years - and she quickly left after that. It's not a mean yelling and I would like to believe she can yell at anyone who doesn't do their job well. But it's yelling. It's nasty and demeaning. She starts saying things baldly and badly. It took me seven months to stop being terrified of her.
I really am lucky to have a job at all being who I am. At the same time I will not let that be the end of me. I have a tendency to let things just take over my life - a crush, a relationship - with a friend or a lover or a lover-like friend, an object, a text. A job. I really have to work against that now, and work with it, and work, labour, be better and know better.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-07 04:21 am (UTC)