I haven't been keeping up with this as much as I'd like (and I would like to, don't get me wrong, I have found this process to be at least mildly therapeutic), but work shifts have been a bit more intense lately, and that has been incredibly frustrating it and of itself. So I'm trying to maybe get into the habit of doing this at home as well, so here I am, at my little collapsible desk at home, typing out some thoughts I've been having this week.
The job is mostly fine, really. I know that is probably mostly true, or at least true enough to be comparable to your standard job. Nobody wants to work, we know we're doing it largely for no reason, the wage disparity existing in this country has never been wider and more transparent, and we're all frustrated and angry and tired at how hard we have to fight just to exist. So I know it's really not worse than any other job. I have had worse jobs in the past. Hell, this job is better than the one I had directly before it, so technically I'm still up.
But I find it so hard to just exist in this work environment. Management is clueless at best, negligent and harmful at worst, the hours suck, the clientele sucks, and I have often been placed into situations I don't feel comfortable in (nothing scandalous, mind you, I have no patience for outright abuse, no matter how low my self-esteem may have plummeted in the past couple of years), especially in terms of my mental health struggles. Putting aside everything else, working alone a couple nights this week was really stressful. The brass at work do not understand why, though, viewing the job solely through the lens of "How many check-ins does the hotel have and how many rooms are sold" and not how much stuff there actually is to handle, the stressful guest encounters, the lines that form, and they especially do not understand why this would be a problem for someone with mental health struggles. Not that anyone should particularly expect them to understand that: the world is not made for those who struggle, but for those who thrive easily, often due to basic social and genetic lottery (or privilege, which would probably be the most concise way to put it).
The stress of those nights, and the high anxiety that came with it, made me ask myself some questions that I often ask myself but never seem to follow through on.
Most of you reading this have probably known me awhile now, and probably generally remember that I have worked in hotels for the past 22 years (with a few lapses and detours), and probably also remember that I have hated it for twenty of those years.
I have never been good with people, at least not especially, I don't do well with conflict, and the only responsibility I like to accept is one I am specifically compensated for (and share with others, or at least am supported in). The policed structure of customer service has never been one that ever really worked for me, and yet I got stuck in this clown show, constantly forced to return to it every single time I find myself once again backed into a corner by any multitude of reasons (sometimes circumstances of my own making, and I am willing to accept that fact, and sometimes just bad luck, probably a 50/50 split, taking into account over a decade of the slow decay of my mental and emotional health and self esteem), and I keep asking myself why I keep doing it, or why I accept it. I could have gotten this job and kept looking, but I allowed myself to accept that "this is what I do," becoming comfortable in my own discomfort and believing that "this time, it'll be different."
They say the definition of insanity is...well, I'm not finishing that sentence, it's a cliche and you know it anyway, but there it is. I do keep making the same decisions. Always out of need at first, but then I stop there. Need generally fulfilled, no need to keep pushing. Just keep your head down, you got this, right?
I don't.
As I become more and more aware of my general decline (and I think I found a way to get meds, I have to research further, but there seems to be some pretty decent systems that don't really require much more than my insurance (or low enough co-pays if I don't have that insurance), and that looks promising), I realize how much the work is doing to accelerate it.
I wish I knew exactly what else to do, but it is far past time to get out of the hotel biz and find something else, even if it involves less pay or whatever, just for the sake of my own mental health. I am considering (probably 85% convinced) cutting back to part time, at least for a time, as to limit my exposure to a toxic environment, and give me more room to myself, but that does involve some concessions I have to be sure I want to make. I also am going to bring an application to the movie theater nearby, but I'm not sure they need help and, even if they do, it probably is just minimum wage work, but I might feel happier? I liked the theater job I had before, and could probably enjoy doing it even if it doesn't pay as well. But we'll see. The hours of operation are a bit of a challenge, and I do want to try to time it in such a way that I may run into a hiring manager (I fear just leaving the application will result in it being disregarded: they likely would just assume I want to be manager, and if they don't need one...) and do some talking, because I actually am good at that kind of talking.
No matter what, I really don't feel like I will get any better continuing this line of work. It makes me mean, it makes me tired, it makes me hate myself. My work performance has already begun to suffer in the past couple weeks and I fear the more I let myself slowly not care whatsoever, the closer I am to being fired, and that I most certainly cannot afford. But the weight of it all on me, trying to push through my own mental health struggles for the sake of a paycheck, it is absolutely killing me. It has gotten to the point that I sometimes day dream about an injury or a heart attack, just so I don't have to go anymore. And when "being at home with a truly debilitating permanent injury" becomes a cozy alterative to the life you have...I think one has to start considering a change.
But it cannot be a lateral one. Not again. Right now I can sort of afford a pay cut, so maybe I should take that opportunity while I still can and see if I can get better. Maybe, with some meds, some rest, some hard work on myself, I can be good at employment again. There are days where I am desperate to believe there's a reason I live in a single room, eating all my meals out of a microwave, in an apartment filled with people I can't stand, in a city I kinda mostly hate, and maybe that is the meaning I need it to have. I have said many times over the past couple years that I need to retreat in order to move forward, but I felt too ashamed to actually do that. I always want to feel normal and productive and never want to admit that maybe I do suck at adulting, that maybe I do need to keep things simple, and the idea that I need to be great or even good at things is just the pressure of the expectations placed on me in my life. The shame and guilt I feel over being a minimum wage employee, that people would see me as a loser because I don't make enough money, don't have the great job and the great house and the great cause. Maybe it's time I realize that nobody but me cares about that. I certainly don't judge other people's vocations.
Maybe I need to get over myself, accept that maybe I'm not the usual successful adult I want to think I am, and deal with myself on a more rational level. There is no shame in being average. In fact, greatness seems to come at a cost that I no longer particularly feel comfortable paying anymore. So...perhaps it is time to finally make my peace at the small, simple life. Be the starving artist I was probably always meant to be.
Just as long as I don't smell like french fry oil. Shit is gross.
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