justira | [Make-Your-Own Meme] The Job

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[Make-Your-Own Meme] The Job

Hey it's a post from that ridiculous/amazing/this is the worst idea/this is the best idea Make-Your-Own Meme "blog every day of November" thing! Original post/list of topics. Feel free to add more: LJ | DW — anon and openID welcome!

thebaconfat: I am interested in hearing about your job and what you like and don't like about it! (here)

My job! I work as a web designer/developer as a contractor for the U.S. government. This means I'm not an actual government employee, but but exclusively on government stuff (if you want me to get into the whole "contractor vs. fed" thing, haha, that is enough for a separate question and also it's both boring and wanky). The actual work I do is designing and then coding interfaces for web applications. It's about as exciting as it sounds!

Don't get me wrong — I do enjoy the work. But I gotta say I am pretty tired of the job.

The work itself is very neat. I consider myself pretty good at it (those of you who were in this year's round of

ff_exchange, I did the front end of the website — everything but the signup form was pretty plain, but I WAS rather proud of the form). My work has nothing whatsoever to do with my degree (linguistics) or with my education at all, really — the only programming class I ever took was C++ in 9th grade. I've been making websites since I was... 12 years old, I think? Maybe 10-12, somewhere in that range. That was pretty early in internet terms, so I've watched the technology grow up around me. I'm a big advocate of web standards and accessibility and I do have fun figuring out how to get exactly what I want with the available tools/languages.

However, two problems! For one, my attention span is abysmally short. I'm not talking about my day-to-day, per-task attention span (though that's pretty bad, too) — I mean my attention span for LIFE. It's about two years long: that is the longest period of time I can do any one thing (school, a particular job) without becoming pretty restless and miserable.

I've been at this job since 2003-2004.

The other thing is that the job is sucking more and more.

So the deal is that I've been working at the same place since my last year of high school (and by the way I have worked every vacation I've had since I don't even remember). I got the job through nepotism or networking, take your pick (networking still feels like a dirty word to me): my boss is a family friend. My contract has changed hands several times, but I myself haven't gone anywhere because that's where my boss likes me. My boss, G, is EXCELLENT. He is a really amazing boss; he worked his way up rather than being appointed, and he views his primary duty as insulating us, the people who actually get the work done, from all the nonsense going on at the bureaucratic level. He passes on what needs doing and then doesn't let anyone bother us (including himself) unless it's, you know, actually important. He keeps meetings to a minimum in both frequency and time, keeps his nose out of our work, kicks us in the pants when we need it, and even pitches in if he runs out of managerial duties.

So that's G. I worked under him all through college. Then the economy crashed. I was graduating and thinking about staying in Portland, trying to find work there for a year or two to take a breather, and then head on to law school. Then my boss called me and made me an offer with an absurd salary for at least two years of work (he knew my law school plans). I really had to think about it: the job was already wearing on me; I'd been at it for years and I didn't really like the environment. It was by no means bad, though, and considering the economy... I said yes.

So I came back, and discovered that bargains and compromises had been made to get me that salary.

I now no longer actually work for G. Officially, I'm on a shared-resource team, team P — except the team consists entirely of analysts (whatever the hell THEY do; no one has ever managed to explain it to my or G's satisfaction). This means that none of Team P's— anythings have a single thing to do with me or my work. There's another web designer on the team, B, who I helped hire but don't really like and don't respect much in terms of skill. (If you ask why I hired her: she was the best they sent us. I did not select the candidate pool, I just helped pick from the finalists.) The manager, T, is the opposite of G: he likes weekly meetings, is a fussy busybody, and is a very weak leader. He is my on-paper boss, though, and technically I answer to him and get assigned out to whoever needs my work inside the branch.

In practice, G is still my real boss. Part of the bargain is that he gets 75% of my time, always, and most of the time I just work exclusively for him anyway. However, I STILL have to attend the P Team meeting and deal with all their politics. And, I reiterate: I AM NOT AN ANALYST. When actual stuff DOES come up at these meetings (and 99.9% of it is stuff that could have been emailed around instead), it DOESN'T APPLY TO ME because I am NOT AN ANALYST. The rare things that really are branch-wide, I hear from G anyway. The meetings, by the way, take place even if there's no agenda (I ASKED) and devolve EVERY TIME into talk of snotty-nosed relatives and/or pets (I am not kidding about the snot; this was an actual plot point in someone's story). For a grumpy productivity-sensitive asocialite like me, this is utter hell.

I also just... really dislike a lot of the people on the P Team. Maybe analysts tend to be of a personality type incompatible with mine, or something, but I know one major thing is that everyone there feels like a careerist. My real team is all programmers plus a QA person, and with them, it feels like they're there to do WORK, not to do a job. The feeling is very different.

SO I actually still work for G but have to waste loads of my time attending P Team meetings and dealing with P Team stuff even though NONE OF IT APPLIES TO ME. It. Is. So. Dumb. Your tax dollars at work, U.S. folks.

In addition to that stupidity, there is J, my cubicle neighbour. J has no indoor voice and is on the phone at least 70% of each day. About half of that is work-related, ALL of which is calling various help desks because he is clueless and/or has not heard of google. Many of his help-desk issues are not difficult to solve on one's own, which I know because I can HEAR them. The other half of the calls are personal. Often REALLY personal. I get to hear all about his problems, personal, medical, emotional, psychological— everything. All in his loud, loud voice. He also eats very loudly, which is a personal sound-squick of mine, AND he eats many times a day. There's nothing wrong with that (I prefer to eat several smaller meals and/or graze all day, myself), but it does mean I get to listen to his chewing all day instead of just at lunch.

Incidentally, he's on the P Team and I had to work with him extensively for a while. During this time, I learned that J is one of those people who thinks the world and/or people owe him things. For example, people OWE it to him to be his friend. If you are not his friend, he gets all passive-aggressive and catty.

I am not his friend.

On a more technical job-dislike note, we work in the ASP.NET framework, which is not my friend. I hate it.

But for all that, it's not a bad job. It's slowly transitioning into being mentally/emotionally unhealthy, but it's honestly pretty cushy. I make enough to support my somewhat extensive household, and I like my REAL team and boss. My real team is far from perfect (and I have some awesome conflicts there, including someone who can't respect my personal space AND someone who is terribly ageist!), but I largely respect them and their abilities. We work well together.

The work itself is, like I said, pretty interesting, though for me it gets REALLY stale working on the same projects for years and years. Honestly the biggest pain is the attention span thing. If I weren't tired of the job on an absolute scale, I could shrug off the annoyances.

So it's a mixed bag. I'm lucky to have it, and I know it; I'm grateful. But honestly? If a different job came along, paying significantly less but of a decent type of work? I would take it in a heartbeat.

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Are you going to ever go back to school you think?

I really want to. Law school is still the plan, but law school is also expensive and takes getting into. I still really want to go, but at this point it's coming down to timing.

Even if law school doesn't happen soon, I still really really want to go back to SOME school. I love being in school and taking classes, and at this point my brain is DESPERATE for something interesting to do. I've been considering taking some local classes just to have something to take, but (a) money and (b) don't have a car, which would make getting to and from class harder =\

I really miss the mental engagement of school, though. I don't get that from my job at ALL; the work I do is often challenging but never NEW, you know? It doesn't expand the way I think or give me new perspectives or... anything, really. I make an effort to be learning new things all the time just as a matter of course for my life, but even so, being in a classroom is way different from learning on your own, and I do miss the active interaction with professors and students.

Basically if I don't get back to school soon I will... not be doing very well emotionally/mentally =|

I know this feeling 100% and then some. I adore learning and school and I probably will always work and go to school in some aspect. Just take classes because I want to

I haven't held the same job, attended the same school, or lived in the same place for more than two years since junior high. I am amazed and a little confused by people who can hold still for years without going stir-crazy.

I'm ready for more school myself, but I need a more permanent job (I'm on a temp contract that's already been extended a year longer than intended and expires for real in June) and preferably tuition remission before I walk the path of the second master's degree.

DUDE YEAH I just CANNOT understand people who settle down like that: HOW DO THEY NOT EXPLODE D=

I know for some people it is exactly what they want, but not for me! I cannot handle. I mean. Okay. I am 24 years old and I have lived in... 20 different residences in 10 different cities. I have been conditioned to NOT BE STATIONARY.

One of my fellow librarians has been here working in the same department since the 60s. Boggles. My. Mind. I'm 28 and am on what my hasty finger-count has determined is city #11 and residence #14, and I'll have to move somewhere exciting and new by summer. When I hit 20, I will have a tumbleweed-themed party!

I bet those wacky settling people don't have closets full of collapsed boxes that could be deployed for speedy packing and moving AT ANY MOMENT.

Okay so whenever I mention how much I've moved around I am ALWAYS asked if my family was military (answer: nope!). MY TURN! If you care to share, how came you by such an itinerant history?

I TOTALLY APPROVE of the idea of a tumbleweed party! I apparently missed the one I SHOULD have had with my last move, which would have been a double hit, 20 residences and 10 cities! I SHOULD JUST HAVE A PARTY SOMETIME WHILE I'M HERE.

um, yeah, we totally have oodles of collapsed boxes sitting ready at all times >.> We have this moving thing DOWN. we have moved an entire household all the way across the US several times. We can pack up and clean the apartment in less than two days. DON'T MESS WITH US.

Also non-military here! I grew up with parental job dissatisfaction, followed by parental divorce and remarriage, and then my own running off to an adulthood of not being able to stay put. I would have been able to add another residence to my tally, but I opted not to move houses in rural Japan because I was unwilling to give up broadband Internet to live on the side of town with flush toilets. I HAVE PRIORITIES.

I encourage your party plan! Just pretend you've totally been planning it since your last move. :D

For my last move, I had 18 days to find and rent an apartment, hire reasonably priced movers who would let me ride in their van (a non-driver trying to get across a state with abysmal public transportation--I AM TALKING ABOUT YOU, OHIO--is always an adventure), pack, and clean. This is my current record, because usually I have slightly more advance notice.

... yeah I would have taken the internet over the toilets too >.>

(You lived in Japan! do tell!)

I uhhhh grew up with a family fleeing the Soviet Union? And then a lot of moving around and gradually upwards out of "refugee poorboat" status. And then I moved to a new apartment every year of college (one year I moved each semester!). Haha >.>

Which, actually! All our best moving adventures are from that period, because my partner and I had to find most of those apartments from ACROSS THE COUNTRY with, um, not much of a window? Because you see, every summer we went back here so I could work! And no one wanted to sign a lease three months in advance or even like ONE MONTH IN ADVANCE; everyone wanted residents NOW NOW NOW. Plus! Plus? There's this one real estate company that owns like 90% of the apartments in Portland, and they only allow two pets whereas at that point we had three cats!

SO every summer it would be cross-country apartment hunting season! Then I would stay here to work as late as possible for maximum monies and then we would drive across the country in four days or less, rent a U-Haul, clear the old apartment in two days, move into the new one in one, give back the truck and OH LOOK CLASS STARTS THE NEXT DAY.

Meanwhile we have actually RENEWED OUR LEASE for the current apartment? WTF!

I taught with the JET Programme on the northernmost point of the main island (they have a monument to this effect and everything), which is so remote that the trains give up before reaching it. I ate the most delicious seafood of my life, my accent and slang have been forever weirded to the point that no one can guess what part(s) of the US I'm from, and I still get all giddy when Oma unexpectedly shows up in media (thank you, Yakitate Japan). Also I sort of spied on a visiting pop star once with the ladies in my office.

Fleeing the Soviet Union is a much better story than "bored psychologist wants career change." How old were you when the fleeing started?

That is some hardcore long-distance apartment wrangling! You and the partner could write the definitive text on "HERE IS HOW YOU MOVE GO GO GO." (Also this is good to know about Portland apartments, because Portland is the list of cities where I'd like to land a job. My one cat = okay!)

That sounds SUPER INTERESTING oh gosh! I am so glad you had an awesome opportunity like that!

Soviet Union: Haha, well, the fleeing started before I was born, I think, but it took a while to actually effect, you know? Because the target country was the US, and uh, USSR -> US was kind of a tricky proposition at that point, even for brain-sexy Soviet scientists. But we were lucky; my grandpa is actually a very well-known astrophysicist and had the privilege of travelling outside the USSR (as a kind of national asset, you know?), so he could help my family make contacts and such. My mom got out first and went to establish a base for us; it's actually a really classic story: she arrived in the US with $40 in her pocket, which was all her famous astrophysicist father could get her.

(I actually have very vivid memories of her departure, even though I was only 2-3 years old. We were living in Soviet Tajikistan at the time, and I got up one morning and all bleary-eyed asked where mom was. And surprise, SHE'S IN AMERICA. I got REALLY QUITE UPSET. My parents tell me, now, that they HAD explained the situation/plan to me in advance, but I apparently ignored that/forgot because I was a toddler. haha.)

My dad followed a year or two later, and I was given over to my grandparents, who lived in Denmark at the time (where the astrophysics happen!), except during my tenure with them my grandpa went on a lecture tour through Europe. So I got toted around Europe for about half a year and lived in Denmark for the rest until my parents were ready for me in the US. I finally arrived there when I was 5.5-6 years old — in early 1992 I think.

And dude yes Portland is AWESOME. I hope you do manage to experience it and yes, your one cat should be fine! There ARE complexes that ban pets entirely, but the majority will allow two. Go for it! (Also, a lot of people live in Vancouver, WA (where housing is cheaper), right across the border, but work and shop in Portland, where there's no sales tax. For us it was too far from school, but it worked for a lot of folks! Or such was the situation when I was there; it might merit checking out if the chance ever comes up for you!)

Japan was a really fantastic time! I should go through my journal from then and post some of the highlights.

Your family's story is all kinds of amazing, wow! (And aww, poor confused toddler!you. At least you got to see a lot of Europe.) In early 1992, I'm pretty sure I was whining about moving from Michigan to Texas.

And apparently the public transit in Vancouver hooks up with Portland's, even! I have lived in so many places with shitty public transportation (if it's a US state that sucks for non-drivers, I have lived there, and not driven), so this brings a happy tear to my eye.

OMG!! You lived in Aomori!
I lived in Misawa! in Nanbu!!
(I was military, but all of my friends were Aomori JETs)

Sorry for hijacking this thread 6 months after it was written. m_m I had to have some Aomori flail.

Aomori flail is TOTALLY WORTH hijacking a six-month-old thread :D Let me FLAIL BACK, because I used to go to Misawa for the movie theater! Excellent times. One of my JET friends also had a contact on the military base, which he used to get us packets of taco seasoning.

So for me, Misawa = movies + taco seasonings! This is not the strangest set of connotations I've ever had for a city.

Did you ever get up around rural Shimokita? I always considered gorgeous areas like Yagen and Hotokegaura my reward for living beyond even the reach of railroads.

I went only ONCE to Shimokita because one of my friends was a JET there (I can't remember which city). Were you the only JET in Oma? And what time period was it exactly? My friend who lived in Shimokita and was a JET was named Travis Harper.

I had another friend who lived in Tsugaru, so I trekked out to visit her once too! THE STORY OF MY AOMORI TRAVELS. But mostly I stuck around Misawa/Hachinohe/Towada, which was like, you know. The big city XDD My friends all loved coming to visit me in Misawa because they could get on the base and buy stuff like chips and queso. I loved Hachinohe because of the Jusco. The Jusco was awesome.

I lived in Tokyo before I moved to Misawa and it was like LIFECHANGING coming up from Tokyo to...total inaka. I still remember when a big supermarket - the first supermarket in the town - opened in Misawa, about 3 months after I moved there. I drove over just out of curiosity and there were awestruck people in the parking lot taking photos of it with their phone. That was really when I realized that I was in a whole other world. XD

FLAIL FLAIL FLAIL, I do know Travis! He started right after I left (I was there 2003-2005), so I was his contact while he was preparing to move, and we've stayed in touch. SMALL WORLD. But yep, I was the only one in Oma while I was there.

I loved Hachinohe for the train station, because I'd made the four-hour bus and train journey down, it was Shinkansen time. I never got to experience the Jusco, alas, because I never visited any part of Hachinohe that didn't have trains going through it.

Ha ha, I remember doing my JET orientation in a swanky hotel in Tokyo and running all over Shinjuku in a state of unadulterated "WHEEE!" Then... inaka. :P My house was on the side of town that got DSL but didn't have flush toilets, so I refused to move into a nicer apartment when my supervisor wanted me to, because there was no DSL there. I have priorities.

The JET in nearby Sai told me that he woke up to the sound of explosions his first week there and found his elderly neighbor setting off bottle rockets in her garden. When he asked why, she said it was to scare off the monkeys. Inaka: it's kind of awesome.

Aha!! So he was in Oma. I was in Misawa 2005-2006. Inaka IS awesome. I loved waking up in the morning and seeing fields all around my house and driving down tiny roads that looked one way with one lane! But were actually two way!! WITH FOUR LANES!! I got really good at dodging trucks.

I remember Travis used to complain about the bus journey from Shimokita too. He had a bike but no car. It was awesome when my friend and I came to visit him and he showed us around, and then we found our way to Mutsu in my car and we got TOTALLY LOST looking for a sushi place and had to ask for directions at a conbini, where the lady behind the counter thought we were totally insane because the sushi place we were looking for was like, a street away.

And to think I used to drive in Tokyo hahahahaha

ALSO did you know that they've just completed the shinkansen line to Aomori-shi SO YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO GO TO HACHINOHE TO TAKE THE SHINKANSEN

....though I suppose it's no longer applicable XD

I keep wanting to go back to Aomori in the summer for Nebuta. I never got to see Nebuta when I was there.

I remember being surprised by all the mirrors on posts along the mountain roads outside Oma until I realized that there was no other way to tell what was going on on those sharp curves. I didn't have a car, either, and I actually ended up stuck in Oma for a few weeks when there was a landslide on the road the bus used.

Oh man, I wish they'd finished that line while I was still there! The supervisor who made work difficult for me also retired right after I left, so clearly Aomori was waiting to deploy some awesome until I wasn't there anymore. If they ever build that impossible dream-bridge from Oma to Hokkaido, I will... I dunno, just explode or something.

I always missed Nebuta, too! One year I did get to see the floats being made, but then I was away for the event itself. ;_; I figure it's an excuse to travel back someday, at least.

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[Make-Your-Own Meme] The Job

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