Oh, there's plenty to bitch about. I've been dramatically underpaid for ages (no really, I know everyone thinks they're underpaid, but unless you're working as much as double the hours you get paid for and still bring home significantly less than the national average then shut up), my department lacks the funding for even some simple projects, I have become ostracized by the very people whose happiness and satisfaction I am committed to, and I am still recovering from struggling with a bullying and abusive boss.
But, you know, other than that...
My coworkers are supportive and helpful, my boss is supportive easy to work for, the people I manage are enthusiastic and committed, the work itself is gratifying and substantial, the organization has a mission I believe in, and I don't feel like a soulless sellout punching a clock for a bleary, grey majority of my life.
It isn't quite the job I'd imagined it to be. So many years ago I wondered whether, someday, I could fill this position but dismissed it as a pointless flight of fancy. For me to get it a dear friend would have to vacate it which was beyond imagination; he would always be here because that was right and normal. Over pizza one day he said he wouldn't, that he wanted to retire and would I do the job?
I was ecstatic with this dream come true. When I started I began to learn just how unlike I imagined it the work was. And, with (perhaps foolish) vigor I pursued every angle doggedly and with an idea of how to make thing smoother, better, faster, easier, and more efficient.
It didn't work. Somehow I still don't understand or recognize I alienated my friend who abandoned plans of retirement and spent all his psychic energy on damaging as much of my life as possible. So I struggled and I sank myself into the work. I ignored the nastiness and the aggression as much as I could, or tried to, anyway. It wore away at me, in the end, and severely damaged my health, my sanity, my marriage, and my sense of self... but still I fought. The work was important and it needed to be done, so despite every dig and cruelty I kept on doing it.
Until I couldn't anymore. One day it reached a fever pitch; a shaky truce of sorts was plowed through like a rabid rhino through a butter sculpture of a chandelier. It was enough and I snapped. As committed to the job as I was I realized that if I stayed it was going to kill me.
With unspeakable pain I walked away. I had already lost one friend, and in leaving I lost most of my others. I had tried, probably unsuccessfully, to hide my pain, but I still can't imagine what they'd thought when I left. If they thought of it at all.
For months I ached. I worked at a job I couldn't care less about because it was a job and I hoped I'd be called on to return to the organization I loved soon. I heard about an easily avoidable disaster that threatened to take out the entire organization I worked so hard for and could do nothing but stand by and watch it unfold.
Until I did return. And begin the new battle of repairing what was damaged. Then getting along with the day to day work I'd learned was the true face of the job obscured under the facade of joy.
And now here I am. On the train to work, with a full-day ahead, and the energy to do it renewed. Perhaps my life will start to resemble what I daydreamed it would look like those years ago over pizza and hope.
Or not.
But in the meantime, I will keep working. I'll do my job the absolute best I'm capable of. Because despite it all, I still like my job. I still like what I do, and I'm better at it today than I was even yesterday.
