This Is Why We Do It, Baby

Well. A few days ago I was ruminating on (is that the right preposition? should I use "over"? does "ruminating" even take a preposition? sigh...) my work "personality" and what that might mean for my future. Today I've had two people come to me and remind me (all unknowing) why I do the work I do.

This was good. My job goes in cycles, and some seasons are much more intense than others. A coworker puts it this way: "My work gives me a lot of free time. I just can't predict with much accuracy when it will be." This is one of the reasons I like my job. This is also a reason my job is difficult. Lately I've also been thinking about all the failures and unpleasant aspects of my job, and needed a reminder about why my work is good, useful, meaningful, etc. I just couldn't muster it myself.

Today a woman came to me and went on for twenty minutes about how one conversation we had months ago has changed her whole perspective. Later I had a long conversation with someone who's going through some hard times. I'd spent some time trying to work with this person before, but eventually decided that I wasn't helpful. But now, I guess, I must have helped after all, because we seem to have made a connection.

I really needed this, because the intense periods of my work require total commitment, or the job is impossible. These two people were answers to prayer. I am generally cautious about calling things "answers to prayer", but I've been praying for days that I would be reminded, somehow, of why I got into this and what I like about it. I think I've got it now.

Thank God.

Temporary Insanity

Friends of my blog: I haven't abandoned it. It's just been a crazy week around here. The next week will be crazy, too, and then things will settle out, and I'll be more regular about writing. I will try to do some posting this week, though.

I'll be back shortly!

What Color is My Parachute?

I've been thinking about a job change. Not because I'm dissatisfied with my current job; far from it. I like it a lot, and am looking forward to another year here. But in looking beyond this next year, I don't know if I'll want to stay a third year, and if I do, it will certainly be my last, barring some major change.

I've been trying to figure out what I might want to do after this work, but everything I've thought of so far doesn't sound like a good long-term plan. Then I got to thinking tonight: Maybe, when it comes to work, I'm not a long-term plan kind of girl.

I've actually known this for a while. But, looking back, I see that my job tolerance generally has a three-year arc.

Year 1: The job I've chosen is complex, requiring not only many different administrative and communication skills, but lots of work with people. (This is true of every job I've had since I graduated college.) The learning curve is steep; I'm super-busy the first year, and everyone who knows me is amazed that anyone could be happy in such a demanding job. Also, friends tell me that they think I will learn a lot, which I do.

Year 2: I feel good. I know the work, I have plans for improvements, I sail through with ease. Coasting, really. Still happy in the work.

Year 3: I am bored. It has become old hat, no longer a challenge--and my job performance starts to slip. It's too easy and it's stale, and I start looking for something else.

The last two jobs I had, I stayed a little longer than three years (the one for financial reasons and the other because I knew I was going to grad school shortly and it was pointless to start something new). But somewhere between the second and third year, restlessness set in.

It's sad, really. From age 9 to about 20 my whole life was consumed with the idea of becoming an actress. I read countless books, analyzed films and plays, majored in theatre, and did as many roles as I could. That was my lifelong dream--until I realized, somewhere in my junior year of college, that I didn't want to pay the dues required to even possibly make it as an actress. I wanted a steady paycheck and a house and a bourgeois life. Then I hit on the happy idea of becoming a professor. My interests were wide-ranging, though, and I thought I might be interested in being an English or history professor rather than theatre. Indecisive to the last, I finally ended up getting a Master's in English, and teaching college for three years...only to get fed up with the politics and narrowness of academia. In short, I was too bored to stick with it; thank God I wasn't halfway through a PhD program before I figured it out.

Cut to the present. My current job is much more bohemian than bourgeois, and while it has the same general characteristics as my other work, it's not anything I ever saw myself doing. The problem is, I know it has a shelf life. I'll either burn out or wear out, whichever happens first. And what then?

Tonight was one of those existential dramas where I thought, "Am I a pathetic, shallow person, with no fixity of purpose? How can I possibly get bored after only three years in one job? And why can't I figure out work I could settle into, for the long term?"

I have this discussion with myself on a regular basis. Once in a while I'm in a good mood, and I say, "Well, that's just the sort of person you are: a job-hopper. Get used to it. And it doesn't mean you're shallow or inconstant; it just means you have a wide range of interests and you can't be tied down to any one thing for too long."

It's hard to accept that painful truth. Painful, because in all other areas of my life, I am a committer. (Yes, I realize that' s probably not a word.) I am committed to family, to friends (most of whom I've been extremely close to for years), to ideals, and to interests (reading, writing, fashion, and the arts have been part of my identity since childhood). I'm always adding new things, but the old ones stay.

I don't know how to be a bohemian, a fly-by-night, a rolling stone that gathers no moss. I see it as a character flaw--which it doesn't necessarily have to be. Maybe it signals underused creativity. Maybe my short attention span can be put to good use.

Or maybe it doesn't have some deeper meaning. Maybe it's just the way I am, and I should get used to it.

In Praise of the Gin and Tonic

Ah, the gin and tonic! My favorite drink. I'm what might be termed a "light" drinker, as opposed to a non-drinker, but I'm hardly an alcohol connoisseur. I like a glass of wine, but I never drink more than two, and I generally have only a few drinks a month. And yet I love this festive mix of serious hard alcohol, tonic water, and (absolutely necessary) limes.

I also add lime juice to mine, because the first one I ever had was made that way. I've tried to find out if that makes it a different drink, but no dice. However, I can drink it without the lime juice, so I guess that counts.

For me, I like minimal gin and maximum tonic; a gin headache is no joke, and I HATE the boozy taste of a 1:1 ratio. Cheap date: I only drink one. Still, I'm picky: I like Tanqueray gin and Schweppes tonic water. I could go with other gin, but the quality of the tonic makes a big difference, and woe to him who tries to give me DIET tonic. Ugh.

Being the over-punctuator that I am, I always want to write it with hyphens: gin-and-tonic. I don't know if that's correct in any capacity. But I have a hard time saying "G-and-T", not because I have a problem with other people saying it, but because I feel too precious and cutesy when it comes out of my mouth: "Let's have drinky-poos! Make mine a g-and-t." Or else the phrase assumes a casual familiarity with alcohol that I simply do not have, as if to say "I've drunk so many cocktails in my time that I can't even be bothered to use the whole name; too damn much effort. Mix me one, will you darling?"

Gin and tonic is, of course, quintessentially a summer drink, though I'll drink it in any season. It brings to mind sitting on a porch or in a lawn chair. But most of all it makes me think of the 1920s: Jeeves and Wooster, The Great Gatsby, cricket games or lawn tennis or croquet, with women in white summer dresses and men in linen suits and everyone wearing hats.

That's a lot of connotation for one drink to carry. But I never tasted a gin-and-tonic that wasn't up to it.