Ok, I feel like whinging, so this gets to go behind a locked lj entry instead of on my regular blog where it’s vaguely possible a coworker might read it.
<whiiiiiiiiiine>
If I were going to be all dramatic, I’d say I hated my job. It’s not true, though. I don’t hate my job. I just don’t care very much about it anymore, and that’s not exactly a brilliant attitude to take. Particularly since I’m supposed to be Going Out And Improving Myself For The Sake Of The Job — learning XML, taking photoshop classes, that sort of thing.
Now, there are rewards for doing these things, like bonuses and raises and the occasional pat on the head, and there’s a big fat detrimental side to not doing it — like, they might find somebody who can — but I just don’t care very much. I sort of.. I suppose what I want is to continue in the status quo, without having to learn stuff. *snort* Ah, good, Cate. Way to expand your leetle grey cells.
The reason behind this — at least, I think the reason behind it — is that I have no intention of doing this job forever (anticipated last day: Dec. 31, 2005), and I haven’t got much expectation of having a burning need to know XML when I quit this job. Also, of course, someone has now seen fit to pay me to write, which makes *that* career a little more solid than the dream it’s been, so I want to focus on *that*, instead of on learning XML.
And the status quo is really boring as hell, but *snort* at least it requires no effort. I don’t see the job becoming lots more exciting as more stuff is converted to what we call platform (vs. individual site) level; in fact, it seems somewhat possible that at some point we’ll get so efficient we won’t all be needed anymore. Not terribly likely, but somewhat possible.
Bitch, bitch bitch. I look around once in a while to see if I can find a different job to do, but it keeps coming down to the bottom line of: they pay me a ridiculous amount of money to do really not that much work, and nobody else is going to pay me anything like as much. Since my goal is to pay off our student loan and car loan bills so that I /can/ quit and write full time as of the end of 2005, quitting this job to do something that pays less is outright dumb. Particularly since it’s not that the job’s unbearable, it’s just dull as dog shit.
Yes, right. So the thing to do now is shut up, suck it up, go get my back popped, and then come back and try to get some more work done so I can spend some time next week learning XML.
Blblblt. :)
</whiiiiiiiiiine>
They pay you?
To learn things?
They’ll send you to training?
They can AFFORD to do these things?
I So Hear You, regardless, but at the same time, I gotta tell you, you’ve got it good, baby, at least from the perspective of someone working in tech too. (Oh, and XML is here to stay, however inobvious that is, so don’t write it off too quickly.)
For the time being, writing is a passion. Passions don’t pay the rent/mortgage, sadly. If they did, I’d have quit a few years back and spent all my time working on and running RPGs.
That said, if you’ve got a sitch where you’ve got a spouse who can (and is willing to) support you quitting your job and pursuing your passion — I refer you to this being, more or less, what the case is for Jim at this point (prior to which he worked graveyard doing phone support) — by all means, do it.
I so hear you.
I’ve got a similar sweet job, and all I really want to do is draw fairies and dragons all day. Why do I have to draw boring airplane storage buildings? I don’t want to work on boooooring stuff. I want to do myyyyyy stuff. And then I feel all ungrateful and silly, because they’re paying me rather a lot of money, and they’re very nice and I know better than to complain about it, but… yeah, what you said. :P
They certainly won’t send me to training. I’m supposed to do stuff on my own and be reimbursed if I get it together enough to submit expense reports, which I never do. And part of my on-job-work is supposed to be learning new stuff, so yes, more or less, they pay me to learn new shit. And I know XML’s here to stay; that’s not the problem. The problem isn’t with the technology or the opportunity to learn it. It’s with me being not interested in it.
Right now I’m supporting the spouse so he can pursue *his* passion. Once he’s out and working as a chef someplace, I’ll quit my job and he gets to support me. It’s actually not all that bad. There’s an end in sight to my dumb job and Ted is *so happy* that even if I were inclined to resent the situation, which I’m not, I just *couldn’t*. I’m just whining.
Yeah. :)
I hear ya. But on the bright side of things… they are also many many a mile away and cannot pop their heads into your cubicle and drag you into meetings and other unfun things.
I did a locked rant today as well. And I know another who was seriously hating her job. Maybe it was the full moon of discontent spinning its silver threads down upon us? Hmmm. Yea, I didn’t buy it either. ;) *snugs*