I’m having a realization in this moment. It’s literally becoming physically hard to move myself in service to things I genuinely don’t want to do. I just wrote a whole piece about my sense of practicality and how it manifests with regard to my decisions. Any remotely functioning adult makes dozens of “I genuinely don’t want to do this” kinds of decisions every day. What’s the nature of this wall in particular that I’m coming up against?
For the past several days I’ve been trying to persuade myself to apply to jobs. But I don’t want a job. I have an in-person interview scheduled for the day before Christmas Eve for a job it seems I’m likely to get. It will require driving an hour to work each day. It won’t pay enough. I will likely see the holes and cracks and reasons I can’t work there after a few weeks, like I’ve done with 95% of the 25 jobs I’ve had over the last 20 years. When I first started working, you went in a building, filled out a paper, and someone almost immediately hired you after seeing you could dress yourself and speak like a person. Now, it feels like pissing in the wind submitting applications to almost-certainly-dead or fake websites optimized to extract buzzwords from an incoherent and inflated resume.
That, fundamentally, is a giant waste of time. I know most jobs, most of the time, people get because someone vouches for you. I know people who get insanely high-paying jobs they are in no way qualified for because of who they know. I don’t know those people to get me that kind of job. I know social workers. This job I’m likely to get, my supervisor from my last job we both left recommended me for. I was asked during my interview what it’s like to supervise me. I refrained from telling them to turn around and ask her.
But, more to the point, I’ve been attempting to trend into more and more free time. I think time is the most valuable thing. I think even when I feel like I’m “wasting” time, I feel better about the option to than playing pretend that I’m doing something better or more productive than I’d otherwise be. I don’t dignify work for its own sake. I’m in social work. I don’t have a savior complex that’s enriched by the very fact of my presence and guidance in your life. I want to do whatever it is I want to do in any given moment. And every moment that passes that threatens or explicitly attacks that, I’m finding a growing impediment in overcoming.
I’m a partner in a sober-living house. We have plans to grow. I don’t know that anyone has manifested what it would take to practically do so, nor do I trust my partners to volunteer more effort or of themselves than they currently do. If and when the house is full, all 8 beds taken, I would stand to make $1,100 a month. I live in a way that allows me to pay the bills on that amount. The house needs 3 more people. Every person is a volatile universe unto themselves. Right now we have 5 consistent, good-tempered, paying-in-advance people. I can’t live off that amount, but how much do I want to gamble?
Doesn’t my “job” immediately arise from this description? Find 3 more cool/appropriate people. If you’re a social worker, or have worked in addiction, or counseling, or just know anything about people, that’s a fucking massive and impossible task. It’s insane we’ve had 5 last in as stable a way for as long as they have. Every new person added to the mix is a mini miracle. We just had a rockstar who demonstrated everything we could want in a tenant for months relapse and blow a hole in things. There are no guarantees.
As well, I’m a counselor. I could and do work remotely. Where those jobs exist, neither I, nor Google, nor AI can discover them. The last company I worked for, in spite of conducting 15 groups for almost a year and a half completely remotely, insisted I come to the office an hour and a half away 2 days a week. They promised otherwise, and I won unemployment on the back of their lies. I have one client who yells at me to charge for counseling because she loves our conversations. She wore me down and I say her paying what she thinks is fair allows me to work for others who can’t afford it.
I want to protect and keep the trend going. I’ve slowly etched out more and more freedom for myself each year, so when I find myself in front of a soulless company application page for a job I absolutely don’t want, I just stop and stare. I’m stuck, but not the kind of stuck that’s my usual existential brand. I’m physically just checked the fuck out. Fuck them, fuck their bullshit inhuman expectations and low wages. Fuck learning some arbitrary way they do things. Fuck the whole game. The impending disrespect for my time and experience. The dance of hiring. This job I’m supposed to get is my 3rd fucking part of the interview. Screen, then talk to manager, then talk to would-be supervisor in person, then spin in a circle 3 times and recite the company directive and then you get on double secret probation for 6 months or some shit I don’t know.
There’s so much dipshittery on full display across so many areas of life that need serious thinkers, leaders, and people who are genuinely invested and understanding about the nature of the problems. I’m here trying to “get by” when I know what I’m worth, demonstrate it constantly, and am offered this endless slog. This insult. This waste. I think so much about the career people in positions of government who get summarily fired because the stupid is just rooted. Imagine becoming a doctor or general and getting written off by an alcoholic TV personality? What prayer do I have as some random Indiana asshole getting passed around an industry that was shit and ridiculed before it was cool to do it everywhere all the time?
I’ll do things with a “real job” consistent paycheck. Even a shit paycheck is better than none at all or the scraps of aggregate door dashing. I already have a tentative list of next year’s concerts and comedy shows to hit. There’s $1,000 waiting to be spent on the first 25 because Ticketmaster is another example of a horrific out-of-control monopoly. Just playing things conservatively, I could still pay off debt in 6 months if I chose to prioritize that. I know I prefer to be out in the world interacting with people than sitting at home all the time. The idea is to get a remote job that allows me to engage in those human interactions on my terms.
And I still have 5 acres that I can’t even generate conversations about how to turn it into something profitable. You hear statistics all the time about how lonely people are, how expensive things are, how people are giving up ever owning a home. None of those mother fuckers ask me how they can live super cheap out here. Haven’t for going on 10 years now. I know all the excuses. A parent’s basement is more comfortable than here. McDonald’s around the corner is more convenient. I’ve rented to people who’ve improperly stored vehicles and it taught me even allowing people into your space needs a level of intention and planning you can’t instinctively get right. Also, they won’t communicate well.
I feel so fucking stupid. I’m so fucking stupid searching and applying and creating spreadsheets and trying to efficiently type in my information in the worst designed web pages on the planet. Just read the fucking PDF resume! Just call me and see if I sound like a psycho. I’ve passed a dozen background checks and been routinely entrusted with children, and am in no way affiliated with the Boy Scouts or Catholic Church. I can do whatever it is you need me to do around here, but you probably won’t want to pay me what I’m worth and you probably will resent when I do it better than you.
I’ve already won the lottery and I feel like I don’t know how to spend the winnings. I don’t know how to make the money work for me. I don’t know what dot to connect to the next. I don’t know that I even believe that there are people who recognize and respect what I bring. The ones that do went immediately into creating this sober living house with me! So why the fuck isn’t there something I can double-down on there? I’ve made the outreach calls. Referrals coming in? Sorta. I’ve looked for property that we might expand into. Can we afford it? Not really. Not yet. Have we fixed everything there is to fix at the first house? It depends on if the goal is to just have a place people reside in or have it resemble what we wanted regarding therapy and programming. That’s where I don’t expect my partners will be as keen to work for mostly-free as I’ve been.
I’m just ranting at this point. I get so angry at myself even clicking through these stupid job boards. It’s a bigger waste of time than paying any attention to the Law & Order, NCIS, and CSI episodes I deliberately have in the background as something that’s not going to compel me away from trying to accomplish the miserable task. I don’t need much more to still be pretty fucking broke, but stable. 3 people. My client actually figuring out the pay portal and completing the transaction. Another passable house with 6 beds and less than $1,300 mortgage or rent. I’m only getting a job to “have something more to do.” Hopefully feel a little easier regarding my overall finances. I’ve anchored to what a part-time remote counseling job could really provide me, and so I’m disgusted with myself that I haven’t been able to dig one up.
Fuuuuuuuuuck. FUUUUUUCK. My life is too good to be in this stupid of a fucking place. FUCK ME SIDEWAYS. I’m fucking annoyed.
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