its hard to get out of the habit of judging yourself. it becomes this knee jerk reaction. its present even before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
you're constantly worrying if your words will offend someone. you dont want anyone to take your shit the wrong way. then you end up writing a very boring scene and getting upset about it.
i remember collabing with someone on a story. the idea was that the main character attends university, gets stuck working a semester group project with a guy he already hates, and eventually they fall for each other.
the problem was my writing partner just. could not deal with conflict at all. she loved the IDEA of it, the premise was solid. she loved the idea of writing a reconciliation and them making up and realizing they were more alike than different.
but when we got to writing it. It went like this.
Guy A stomped over to Bs desk and hefted his backpack down. slamming it so hard it shook the desk. says something like, " ugh, cant believe im stuck with you." B glares back at him. "feeling's mutual" he grumbles.
her: we shouldnt do that
me: why not?
her: well it just feels too mean.
me: well ya because theyre an asshole?
her: cant we at least tone it down? we can do more later, for now they should just say hi and we can build to the argument later. that way readers dont get put off
me: ooohkay
so we threw that out the window. i proceed to write stuff with her suggesting things in the background like "have him introduce the group project!"
guy A comes over to B. he says Hello. B says Hi back. A says so what are we doing with the project? B says Im not sure, what do you wanna do?
it proceeds to write like. extremely bland. they just discuss the project. they say goodbye and leave.
her: im not sure whats wrong..
me: i find it boring
her: ...yeah. its boring. we should rewrite it!
me: okay...so you want me to rewrite it?
this happened like. 50 times. im not even joking, thats how many chapters we had. we reached ~90k words before i quit the collaboration.
i get that my writing partner was just. not experienced. neither am i frankly. neither of us are professionals.
but as soon as the conversation turned to shit like. Oh we should sell it. it felt like all she cared about was making sure not to offend. i told her if it sold it sold, if it didnt, it didnt. i didn't really care. i just liked the story.
Honestly just. it really really is better to write for yourself. and only you. if your readers get offended that A is acting like a jackass, then maybe theyre not your target audience.
another life lesson. dont collaborate with people who dont match your energy. don't collaborate with people who are had looking to extract value rather than have fun.
(I'm not even opposed to selling a book, but i am not interested in writing TO sell. it sucks but it is what it is. )
Filling out forms at the dentist or optometrist or other -ists is weird because they'll ask for your primary care physician but it's like.
I don't have one. I feel weird even asking for one. even if i did, I certainly would never have the audacity to give you their phone number.
And honestly like. I know there are people who have a PCP. This is a thing that exists or it wouldn't be important enough to be on these forms. There are people who manage chronic conditions with the help of their PCP and people who actually see a dr regularly instead of just ignoring problems until they go away.
But it always felt like a thing that was for other people. I can't imagine having a dr who knows me and cares and gives me their phone number.
I've changed healthcare providers constantly due to job changes so even if i went through the work of finding a pcp, it might just be pointless if i get laid off tomorrow.
everytime i have gone to the dr ive been talked down to or minimized and i honestly just. give up.
I don't even go for an annual checkup anymore because last time that happened I got charged a shit ton of money despite it just being a physical?
i kept getting charges even a year later. it took so much digging into my credit card statements and receipts to figure out what was going on and that they were just charging me again and again and finally i had to send a letter explaining I wasn't paying it again and it looked like a system error on their part. the whole exp was exhausting. yes it was a one-off but it was extraordinarily stressful.
I sometimes feel weird about this because it seems like everyone else has a normal relationship with medical stuff and i dont. i just ignore things and i solve stuff on my own. webmd is my doctor. google is my doctor. and if all else fails i just lie in bed, drink water, and hope things just resolve.
been growing these for. a couple weeks now. and honestly i dont think they actually are wildflowers as the letter purported them to be. i think they just sent me weeds. unless theres something i need to do for the flowers to happen. this is miracle gro soil and theyre watered in indirect sunlight. so. idk
polishing the resumé and staring at the first sentences of my cover letter and thinking : oof, how on earth did i do this before?
i want to take my destiny into my own hands.
which is a pretty dramatic statement about applying to jobs but it's better than the alternative (which is waiting to be laid off just because work told me i havent "tokenmaxxed" enough).
lol. my CFO specifically sent a message singling out the people who came in to work over the holiday weekend to thank them and praised them for going above and beyond. With strong hints that this will be the new normal going forward but he's soo grateful for them despite the challenges.
I remember when they used to have work life balance. when holidays were just that: holidays. and weekends weren't an expectation.
performance review today after receiving the doc yesterday that ruined my day and made me go into an anxiety spiral and waste about an hour looking at jobs in my area and becoming more hopeless about the job situation.
My cat has lost a pound and the vet gave the usual advice of just try to encourage her to eat which like. sigh. her blood work comes in wed so we shall see.
didn't sleep well. tired. stressed. writing in my journal about the things i hate about my job.
So after 3.5 years of good performance, my boss has downgraded me to "developing" performance. Why? Because of my reluctance to use AI.
Up until this year I've had solid performance. the only thing that changed has been the push for AI.
In fact, everyone is working faster. We used to take a week to close, now we take 3 days. half the time.
I used to take 2 hours on some Journal entries, now they're down to 30m to an hour.
The only times when they do take longer are caused by errors that are out of my control, like the raw data being incorrect because - surprise - someone implemented an AI solution before testing it and it spit out the wrong data.
But this is being used against me now as a metric that my times are inconsistent and that I'm not fast enough. Because I had to work overtime to investigate and fix the errors that AI caused in the first place.
Another metric being used against me is that my ai metric usage isnt good enough. Apparently my ai usage is "too low" for my director, who gets a usage report of how often we prompt the ai. im not meeting their standards of "use chatGPT once per day, ideally more"
And that's being used against me now. I'm not a team player, because I write my emails by myself. I'm not "utilizing the company resources enough" Seriously?
Genuinely like. I've been trying To be efficient and not use AI. I have automated the things I can, writing some powerqueries by hand because screw AI. I had to fix a SQL query by myself because someone gave me an AI slop code that was just flat wrong. I'm not trained on SQL, none of the data engineers would reply to me to help me, so I did it by myself without AI help because I wanted to understand it. Now it runs fine.
And believe me I've tried to document everything i can, everything I've been doing right. I caught my director's mistake on a journal entry he forgot to update and i documented it clearly and booked a revision and fixed it and communicated it to the appropriate people. without shifting blame on him.
It's just. A special type of dystopian hell, dude, working a desk job.
I don't expect to make my 4th year here honestly. this is honestly hilarious because i was just about to ask for a week off to recharge because ive been so burnt out this fucking quarter? and now i feel like asking for it is wrong, so i dont know if i should or if i should just grit my teeth and work harder. Yes, yes "its just a job" but like its my livelihood its income its necessary to feed my cat. My cat needs food even if she also wants treats. I just want to be able to feed my cat and put a roof over her head without worry
I honestly might just put off my drs appointment. they said id need 21 days to recover from a treatment and um. I honestly dont know if i should even do it because itll cost like $1k. maybe i just shouldnt??. I feel bad whining about that cause I have been saving for it but. Now im worried ill need that money. I know i will get unemployment but i also just got a rent increase this month so. not that unemployment even pays for rent, it literally just helps offset like half of it.
i have no idea what the fuck went wrong this quarter or what i could do differently that doesnt deeply go against my ethics. im like 90% sure my director is out to get me because of lack of ai usage. he's also constantly haranguing me in our meetings about it. I just hate him.
i hate this dystopian hell. i hate this job but need the money. I need a job to live. And the job market is so difficult right now. I honestly just know I'm going to be laid off.
just. fuck. I tried for a long time to stop saying this, for years since i was a teenager. but honestly, right now, I feel it.
I miss her so much. I wish we could have had more time. I expected her to be around for our wedding.
I don’t mind seeing reminders that she was there. My partner finds it difficult to put her stuff away, but I know it will just be going to another cat, and I think that’s good for her. On her last vet visit, she helped me convince a dad to buy a cat for his daughter who really wanted one. He didn’t know how much cats would cost, so I told him to adopt one if he didn’t mind the breed. So I think Callie lives on by helping other cats, and she would have wanted that as a shelter cat herself.
It hurts though, the reminders that she is gone. She used to greet us by the door and I guess she was trained to let out her excitement by scratching at her post. So she would say hi and then do a happy scratch when someone came in the door.
I miss taking naps with her. When I was in a lot of pain she would comfort me. Once she laid her head on my cheek when I was crying. Her purring always calmed me, and it was loud! She was like a lawn mower.
I had a breakdown the other day and it kinda helped to just scream for a while. It wasn’t pleasant, and I’m sure it scared my partner. But I felt better afterwards. I just wish I had more time to grieve instead of having to go to school during all of this. I’m done pretending I’m okay for the sake of others comfort though, and I’ll keep that in mind for future losses.
If you lost a loved pet, or a loved one, or you have complicated grief, just know you’re allowed to not be okay. What I have learned from psychology is that everyone grieves differently and it’s all normal, but everyone feels guilt about what they need to grieve. “Am I doing it right? Is this normal? Is this too harsh? Am I over it too quick or slow?” Unless grief turns into depression, you’re okay. You’re doing it right. Don’t worry about being strong for others.
