[1221] Another Time

I was super tired earlier and felt like I had to write something about my recent experience, but I don’t know that I actually caught what I needed to say.

My mind keeps returning to the idea of how “unfortunate” things are when it comes to my experiences with different work environments. The idea of a career, years spent in service to something, is so foreign to me. The idea that reliable and demonstrable problems can get routinely ignored, lied about, or compounded is as confusing to me as any chronic human condition that doesn’t concern itself with getting better.

Sometimes it can be incredibly easy to criticize from the outside looking in. I’ve been an agent of the State. I know the incredibly biting judgments and assessments of DCS’s behavior and occasionally bizarre takes on our motivation or incentives. It wasn’t until I was working on the inside that I was both able to develop a nuanced appreciation for those who break themselves in service to helping others and maintaining any semblance of order. I could understand the details of what breaks down and why. It always comes back to individuals abusing or negligently exercising their power.

I didn’t have the power to structure the business I just quit. I didn’t have the power to redirect funds to ensure the air conditioning was fixed in the only van they used to transport dozens of people from the houses to their IOP groups. I could say, “Let’s invest in another van, and a second driver” to ensure the timely and safe transportation. I couldn’t designate training days for case managers and counselors to know how to approach their roles in ways that didn’t become overwhelming. I couldn’t set the expectation that sitting in silence and not on phones would be mandatory even if you didn’t care to do yoga.

I was able to identify and state what would feel like “obvious” fixes. This happens everywhere I work. At the YMCA you have elevated behaviors no one on staff is equipped to deal with? Write up and remove those kids. Don’t fire the person who says he’s uncomfortable at the invitation to physically intervene against the special needs kid who is swinging. You have staff targeting families for removal at DCS? Sit them down and call them out for being fucked up and not even trying to investigate and remain impartial. When the cab companies I worked for wanted the lion’s share of my money for each shift and provided zero access to the peak delivery times, I took my money and ran.

I find myself personally often trying to address a different kind of problem related to creating. I now have a step-down house that needs tenants. So, “obviously” I should reach out to other programs and let them know what we’re about. My problem is akin to the ones I had in trying to run a counseling nonprofit. Everyone’s got their own little bubble and method of doing things. Working you in or around it, seemingly by definition, threatens their fiefdom. Thus, the real problem is a schmoozing and politely engaging in a persistent enough way that someone bothers to work  you in.

My job is keeping my partners happy, my tenants happy, staying within my budget, and ensuring I get all of the paperwork correct. There’s a dozen things I’d like to do and ways I’d love to operate eventually, but in the here and now, I need a full house with a reliable enough stream of income that allows me to pay the bills and scale in a reliable way. I’m not rushing out to rent another house or three, like my former employer did, before I brought sense and stability to what’s on hand.

I have little reason to believe that if I can keep working with a reliable set of boundaries and reasonable expectations I won’t get what I want. It doesn’t matter how many times I encounter this breakdown in communication, common sense, or respect for what I bring to a space, at the end of the day it’s me and what I’m bringing. It’s what I’m taking and applying elsewhere. I don’t care if you look at a stupid video game or I again cite the very house I built, with the tools, time, and money, it will be mine. It takes incredibly longer than I ever think it should, but it gets there.

Tomorrow I’m going to research and make a ton of calls to sober living environments and start building a networking spreadsheet. I’m going to look up cameras to buy and install in the house. I’m going to get the contracts in order between the various LLCs and nonprofit. I’m probably going to all or most of this well before 3 PM, and then I’m going to sit around playing games, or music, or watching TV as I wait for the next job I’ve lined up to call me back. Or, I’ll get bored and go door dash somewhere. Or, I’ll sleep. No matter what, what it takes to succeed will remain with me and I have every intention of following the obvious choices to the places I wish to reside.

What kills me is how genuinely hard I tried to not leave in a messy way. I did not intend to quit. I did not intend to stir up drama on my exit. I didn’t intend to create bad blood or look like I was being deceptive and underhanded in how I was operating. But that’s the table I was invited to. That’s the nature of people who lead through means other than competence and accountability. It’s passive aggressive, an interrogation, demands of loyalty, and ambivalence towards you if you don’t just go along with whatever they throw at you. Once again, it’s not about me or us and what we could have created together, it’s about them. I’m forever obligated to account for myself and what I tried and failed to accomplish.

I’m still not back in Jordan Peterson’s corner, but his impact on me still resounds, and probably in ways he never intended. The depth of his exasperated sentiment that anything works or exists at all I felt in my core. His face and tone regularly cross my brain when I reflect on how my work environments operate. How there’s an invitation to be like them, which only looks appetizing on the surface. I don’t want to hide and play pretend. I don't want to censor myself and practice the exact opposite of my moral values. I don’t want to fit in. I don’t just want a paycheck.

If our culture is severely broken, and I believe it is, now is so obviously the time to manage your accidental martyrdom and continue to fight for and set the examples we need. That’s being honest. That’s being accountable. That’s accepting as quickly and as often as it takes how many are not with you nor seem to have a prayer of finding out how to be. It’s unfortunate, the continued choices people make to stay right where they are.