Waiting for the Rain to End

The Fourth of July passed away uneventfully here at the Random Household. It was a blustery day, with rain and lots of tornado watches in the area, so we weren't in the mood to try to see fireworks. I spent the day mostly sleeping and reading, while Mr. Random went out running and watched the Twilight Zone marathon on TV. Excitement abounded at the homestead!

I took Thursday and Friday off because I needed some space from my work. The Random Non-profit has always been dysfunctional, but now that Mr. Random is no longer working there with me, I feel the dysfunction ever more keenly. It was easier to have to sit through meetings discussing the same thing over and over when I had someone to share the pain with and put it all into perspective. Nowadays, I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. I am hankering for something new, something different, something else.

I am going to try to be able to work from home more often this summer, which should help a little. Just sitting in my office can be stifling sometimes, with the constant interruptions and barrages of random information that only serve to make me more agitated and unhappy. In theory, I should be able to divorce myself from the political machinations of the office and just focus on my job, but the frustrating thing is that I can’t – all of these stupid meetings ARE a part of my job and dealing with our lack of purpose is part of what we are supposed to be doing. It just really sucks that we haven’t solved fundamental problems yet – once those are solved everything will fall into place, but since we can’t get out collective acts together, we seem to be locked into a death spiral of inaction, rushed deadlines and perpetual confusion. Mission? What IS our mission? We are not sure. If we cannot define it for ourselves, how are we supposed to help others?

The place where Mr. Random works now is very structured – a well-oiled machine – which is what you would expect a daily journalistic enterprise to be. I will from now call it the Random Publication. It is a small daily which is part of a larger media empire. They have money, and the Random Publication is a profit center for the larger company. Every day, Mr. Random comes home in awe of the resources they have available. He also rubs it in that they get bagels, pastries, fruit, juice and coffee brought in every morning for the staff, along with afternoon snacks. What? You mean treat your employees like you actually like them? What a concept!

I am home now, trying to figure out what next steps to take. I am still waiting to hear about an opportunity that I applied for earlier – if I get it, my schedule will change drastically and Mr. Random will have to figure out how to make things work so that we have enough money to pay the mortgage while still leaving me with enough time and energy to keep my sanity. I do hope I get it . . . the short term pain will yield very big benefits in the end . . .

So I am frustrated and exhausted, but full of hope. At least, I’m clinging to hope that I will only have to put up with the Random Non-profit’s BS for only a few more months before some changes happen. The only problem is figuring out how to survive that period without throwing myself in front of a bus out of angst and anger . . .