Normally I subject my readership to my internal thoughts about external events. Today I'll subject you to internal thoughts about internal thoughts.
It wasn't that long ago I chuckled to myself at Freddie deBoer for quitting his blog. In a funk, he complained, and needed a break.
I enjoyed reading Freddie, though a bloody liberal and not ashamed of it, he wrote like I would write, and his criticisms and witicisms made me smile and think. But Freddie wrote some things that made some people mad and got a lot of flak. And so he quit, for a while. Which is a shame, because if loudmouth bullies can silence a voice, we live in an awful world.
Lately, my job (don't think for a minute that this backwoods blog of mine supports me, I'm forced to work a regular job) has been wearing on me. The economy has made the senior management at my company make tough decisions, and they've shown. When I was hired, I was considered sort of a "wonder boy," so much so that people at work teased me about it.
But the work we do has felt the heat of the construction industry, and I've had to adapt and take on some less interesting projects to keep my nose clean until things look up. Believe me, a combination of the construction industry collapsing and the banking credit industry pulling back (more aggressively than the Great Depression, I might add) has rocked the MEP engineering business pretty hard. We mostly do domestic work at my compnay, but other companies than ours who have a larger international market have been hit much harder. Here in America, as bad as things are, we're comparatively doing pretty well.
So I am listing back and forth in this internal conflict: grateful to be at a job, but malcontent because the projects I am doing are really crappy and don't stretch my abilities. At some point, during my younger days, I had great, ambitious, naive plans to change the world. The part of me that had those plans is crying out from within me each and every day and I won't lie; I'm suffering. And every day I feel like that voice within me is a little bit softer.
Now I know I run the risk of sounding whiny and emo, and we all have our problems (why should you read about mine?), but this is my blog and I am sure there are readers who can relate. Freddie knew he would sound like a wimp when he said "I need a break from this" and I couldn't relate at the time because I was so inspired by my own writing, by my own fledgling development of this blog and my thoughts on many things. But it's amazing how things can change in four months.
It's just that I got a master's degree in biomechanical engineering, wrote and defended an expansive and over-long thesis, ran my own research lab, have published articles in major science magazines, given lectures to peers at large bioengineering conferences in San Diego and Vale, and I didn't think once during all that time that I'd be near-depressed in a cube farm two years later. Part of the reason I cling to this blog is because my brain is suffering from workplace underutilization.
I am not ungrateful to my bosses, there have been layoffs and I have fortunately not been included. But the work I am doing does not challenge me and I am the type that thrives upon difficulty (and rots without it). I like the phrase "I dare you to tell me something is impossible."
I see it in myself, in my list of hobbies, in my actions, and in my behavior at work. I get excited when I think about any topic to blog, but let's be honest: if you've seen my blog topics the last two weeks, they haven't been amazing. I get excited when I can do something...anything...not at work. Rather than working at a frenetic pace, I've gone to keeping one eye on the clock, excited to leave work and go home and play with my daughter (a happy, cherubic light in my dim world).
Anyway, this all makes me think about the harsh realities of others. One of my defense mechanisms is to write off my own suffering and think about those that have it worse. "Can you imagine," I think to myself, "how must it feel to stand in the unemployment line? How many proud, tall men have been cowed by that fate? Can you imagine not knowing how you'd feed your kids? Can you imagine losing your car, losing your home, losing the shirt off your back, because you couldn't find work?" I think about Jurgis Rudkus, working in the fertilizer factory, shoveling cattle feces for fourteen hours straight, grateful to have a job, and I wonder why I'm such a whiny little prig. And then that little voice within me squeaks "because you were meant for more."
_
It wasn't that long ago I chuckled to myself at Freddie deBoer for quitting his blog. In a funk, he complained, and needed a break.
I enjoyed reading Freddie, though a bloody liberal and not ashamed of it, he wrote like I would write, and his criticisms and witicisms made me smile and think. But Freddie wrote some things that made some people mad and got a lot of flak. And so he quit, for a while. Which is a shame, because if loudmouth bullies can silence a voice, we live in an awful world.
Lately, my job (don't think for a minute that this backwoods blog of mine supports me, I'm forced to work a regular job) has been wearing on me. The economy has made the senior management at my company make tough decisions, and they've shown. When I was hired, I was considered sort of a "wonder boy," so much so that people at work teased me about it.
But the work we do has felt the heat of the construction industry, and I've had to adapt and take on some less interesting projects to keep my nose clean until things look up. Believe me, a combination of the construction industry collapsing and the banking credit industry pulling back (more aggressively than the Great Depression, I might add) has rocked the MEP engineering business pretty hard. We mostly do domestic work at my compnay, but other companies than ours who have a larger international market have been hit much harder. Here in America, as bad as things are, we're comparatively doing pretty well.
So I am listing back and forth in this internal conflict: grateful to be at a job, but malcontent because the projects I am doing are really crappy and don't stretch my abilities. At some point, during my younger days, I had great, ambitious, naive plans to change the world. The part of me that had those plans is crying out from within me each and every day and I won't lie; I'm suffering. And every day I feel like that voice within me is a little bit softer.
Now I know I run the risk of sounding whiny and emo, and we all have our problems (why should you read about mine?), but this is my blog and I am sure there are readers who can relate. Freddie knew he would sound like a wimp when he said "I need a break from this" and I couldn't relate at the time because I was so inspired by my own writing, by my own fledgling development of this blog and my thoughts on many things. But it's amazing how things can change in four months.
It's just that I got a master's degree in biomechanical engineering, wrote and defended an expansive and over-long thesis, ran my own research lab, have published articles in major science magazines, given lectures to peers at large bioengineering conferences in San Diego and Vale, and I didn't think once during all that time that I'd be near-depressed in a cube farm two years later. Part of the reason I cling to this blog is because my brain is suffering from workplace underutilization.
I am not ungrateful to my bosses, there have been layoffs and I have fortunately not been included. But the work I am doing does not challenge me and I am the type that thrives upon difficulty (and rots without it). I like the phrase "I dare you to tell me something is impossible."
I see it in myself, in my list of hobbies, in my actions, and in my behavior at work. I get excited when I think about any topic to blog, but let's be honest: if you've seen my blog topics the last two weeks, they haven't been amazing. I get excited when I can do something...anything...not at work. Rather than working at a frenetic pace, I've gone to keeping one eye on the clock, excited to leave work and go home and play with my daughter (a happy, cherubic light in my dim world).
Anyway, this all makes me think about the harsh realities of others. One of my defense mechanisms is to write off my own suffering and think about those that have it worse. "Can you imagine," I think to myself, "how must it feel to stand in the unemployment line? How many proud, tall men have been cowed by that fate? Can you imagine not knowing how you'd feed your kids? Can you imagine losing your car, losing your home, losing the shirt off your back, because you couldn't find work?" I think about Jurgis Rudkus, working in the fertilizer factory, shoveling cattle feces for fourteen hours straight, grateful to have a job, and I wonder why I'm such a whiny little prig. And then that little voice within me squeaks "because you were meant for more."
_
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