From: bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles)
Subject: Need Support re Job
Reply-To: wi.5488@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
Organization: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration / Boulder Labs
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 16:18:11 GMT


===============================================================================

I am posting this for someone who wishes to be anonymous.

	DO NOT REPLY TO THE ADDRESS ABOVE!!

Post and/or send replies to: wi.5488@wizvax.methuen.ma.us

...............................................................................



I feel I need to post this anonymously because my most urgent issue, my
greatest shame, relates to the workplace, and too many people in my workplace
are potential readers of net news.

I've tried to write something like this a few times, but I run in to a
problem: either the feelings and the sense of despair are so intense that I
can't write anything coherent or long enough to make any sense; or I'm so
detached that while the facts may be there, the heart isn't---which leads to
the risk that there will be little to resonate with, little for anyone to
really respond to.  I'm toward the latter extreme at the moment, but I'll
try to write something anyway.

I hate my job.

That sounds common enough; if only that were all there were to it.

My job is a "good" job: it pays well, I'm given great flexibility,
resources; my management is tolerant and wants to be supportive; my
coworkers are all reasonable people (if not people I am close to).  But I'm
not at all interested in what I'm doing, or supposed to be doing.  I can't
and don't do my job, and I'm too afraid to make a change.

I've been here several years, after training in school for quite a few years
to get into this position.  But my career has been going awry for a decade.
In school I was deeply ambivalent about where I was headed, and I had a very
hard time finishing up, though ultimately I did.  On the job, I tried for a
while, but found that partly because I didn't care about the ultimate goals
of the organization, most of the projects I started failed (by my
standards).  I tried over and over to work and to get things done, but
successes have been infrequent.  And my working has been minimal: more often
than not I have only come to work a few hours a week and often I haven't
done any real work while I've been here.  It's like a phobia: I get so
anxious and unhappy about the whole thing that I avoid coming to work, I
feel compelled to leave early, I avoid working when I am at work.  I feel
ashamed of this, but powerless to to what I "should" be doing.  This
situation has gone on for an amazingly long time; I thought they should have
been threatening to fire me after my first year, but it has only come to
that point recently---even now I've got a few months yet to try to sort
things out.

Just a bit more background: I *have* been trying to do something about this.
I've been in therapy more often than not for fifteen years (no, not
analysis, but progress has been extremely incremental, something I'm not
proud of at all---in fact, I'm kind of ashamed of it, but I *have* made
progress).  Mainly for depression (and my depression is largely gone most of
the time, except in the context of work), but also nominally to deal with my
work issues (though generally little has happened on that front).  I've also
been in therapy groups.  (Again, little has happened with respect to work
issues.  My fault, in retrospect---I've let my fear prevent me from really
engaging these issues most of the time, though therapists, etc., seemed to
collude with me in this evasion.  Despite all that, I really do want, and
have wanted, to do something about all this---I've just been too afraid.)
Recently, I've tried some twelve step groups (though no addictive substances
or addicted partners are involved); this seems to have some potential, but
the local groups are pretty focussed on alcohol etc., and while groups in a
nearby major city are much more open, the commute is big enough that it's
tough to get to meetings there very often.  I've also gone to a career
planning workshop recently...

As to what I think I need now: I'm trying to both do my job (a bit more
anyway) and do the work of finding something I'll like (and do) better (I'm
terrified there is nothing I would like, that I just hate work, I'm lazy,
and I'll never be able to work).  But I'm often overwhelmed, depressed, and
just too anxious to go ahead (albeit a little less of late).  When that
happens, I could use some support (talking things out, encouragement,
insight, love) to keep me going.  (In the language of 12-step programs, I
need to be able to make "Program calls".)  So far I've got about 1-1/2
people I can talk to when things get bad, but more often than not I can't
reach them.  So, this post is one more attempt to forge some connections,
and maybe find some (ongoing?) support (or at least support for the
moment, which it now strikes me is more realistic)..

I read this message, and think it is boring, tedious, juiceless,
ill-focussed, maybe off the mark, not good enough---I'm not doing it right.
I'm afraid people won't like the me presented here; I don't like this me
very much.  I'm tempted to postpone to a day when I can write something in a
completely different style, with more affect and intense emotion.  But
whether you see it or not, there is great pain behind all this.  I do need
what I'm asking for, and I'm doing the best I can.

Forgive me, and bless you all.


Call me
"Abelard"


PS. You should be able to send anonymous E-mail to me at the alias:

	wi.5488@wizvax.methuen.ma.us

(This might be a bit slow---a test message I sent to myself via this route
took many hours to come back---and I cannot initiate anonymous
correspondence through this service, but I can reply.  The service is
anonymous in both directions, unless you include explicit identifying
information in the body of the text.)

...............................................................................

Subject: Interlude

The next day, I go to my therapist.  We spend a session doing something
that is a distant cousin of guided imagery, picturing me taking one little
bit of my work and calmly doing what needs to be done.  Afterwards, I go
back to my office and... nothing.  I don't work.  Can't seem to work.
Crushing disappointment.

I am like a deer in the headlights, frozen, waiting the oncoming car.

...............................................................................


Subject: Continuing impasse


A week or so has passed since I composed the first message above.  In the
interim, I've been placed on formal probation at work: in the next six
months I need to keep rigidly defined hours (like the rest of the universe)
or it'll be docked from vacation time, and I need to complete a number of
specific projects as a minimum, or I'll be terminated.  Alternatively, I'm
allowed to spend my time looking for another job.

In some ways I was looking forward to this.  I've felt stuck, unable
to make any changes on my own.  Maybe some external pressure would do
something...

So far I've been able to adhere to working hours.  I was terrified that
I wouldn't even be able to do that much, what with insomnia making it hard
to get enough sleep beforehand and anxiety tending to drive me out of the
building early.  That hasn't happened, but neither has work.

Though part of me is hopeful that I'll work, wants to work, a powerful,
implacable voice inside me just says "NO".  And so I while my time away
doing anything but my work. (Perhaps something has gone awry so that
when I *do* work I either seldom succeed by my standards or get no
satisfaction when I do succeed -- and I have gotten so little emotional
reward so many times that I can't face the prospect again?)

The voice of reason says, "Well, if you really hate this work, why don't
you quit and find something else to do?  A voice says, "Well, you could
quit (and survive for a while on your savings), but then what?"  "Figure
out what you want to do." "I can't seem to figure it out now, so I'm not
at all sure I could figure it out if I quit -- I'd probably be just as
lost but in a worse situation."  "Well, try to figure out what you want
to do while you're still here."  But I can't, and I am ashamed, and I
am afraid.  A voice says "NO, you can't quit -- it's too dangerous."

Part of me says "You're caught in a deadlock, you can't move either
direction, so accept that and make the best of where you are while the
process unfolds."  And that's what I've been doing, trying to do.
But this also is not much of a solution.  It doesn't tell me what
to do afterward, it means that I will let some bad things happen to
me, it means that I am and will be acting unfairly toward my employer.
Doing things that damage my professional future, will make it harder
to find decent work in the future. I am filled with fear and self-hatred.

There are a lot of problems people have where you can say "It's not your
fault."  I can't say that here and believe it; yet I can't seem to do
anything that move off my current path.


	..........

	Do what needs to be done--
	I can't
		I can't tell what to do
		I can't do most of the things I guess might make a difference
	Then accept your powerlessness--
	I can't
		I hate the shame of my ill action,
		I hate the fear of what might happen
	I can't  I can't
			I can't
			    I can't
			I can't

		Circular introspection
		accomplishes little

	..........


		Step, step,
		a bit of this,
		a bit of that,
		Trying in little ways,,
		chipping little bits,
		will the boulder ever roll---
			and will I be crushed in its path?


	..........

"Abelard"
wi.5488@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
Newsgroups: alt.support.cancer