Operation Achieve Anything: Day Two-Hundred-Ninety-Seven, Dateline 10-24-2018
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“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. ”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number two-hundred-ninety-seven of Operation Achieve Anything. Yesterday gave me a quick scare when I was notified out of the blue that I was being released from my current job. Just as predicted, there was no warning, just, you’re no longer on this project, like the last long-term gig that I did through this company. Thankfully, unlike last time when they just dropped me and left me with nothing but random, one-off task, where I was lucky to get enough work a month to live, this time they instantly offered me a role in another department within the same project.
Don’t get me wrong, as I keep saying, I have absolutely zero issues with the actual work that I do. For the most part, I’ve always liked working for the actual company since I started working for them several years ago. The pay is fine, and the work isn’t too demanding, allowing me as much extra time as I have to work on my own projects and this blog. My only issues have ever been with the communication, where we’re treated more like cogs, with lots of automated responses and high expectations to figure anything out on your own, especially with the last group that I was involved with.
I’m hoping this new position will a reset that I need, since it also would me I’d be pretty safe from having to find something new for six months to a year. I still have to do all the qualifying work that I should pass, but this job is so important to me that it makes me super nervous to be in this limbo state while waiting it out. This practice of working part-time from home is almost equivalent to work-full time out in the field. Since I don’t need any extra money for a car or any other form of transportation, it saves me a significant expense. Then factor in all the money I save from meals from never forgetting to pack a lunch, those two savings alone are almost enough to make up the difference.
The biggest saving for me is the saving of my soul since I’m just not cut out for the corporate world. I’ve never felt more depressed than when I worked in buildings full of cubes. That is until I went back to working in retail after a brief creative career working in film, which is a transition that I would not recommend. Getting paid to help make movies was the closest I’ve ever come to living my dreams, but my lack of confidence from being self-taught made it hard for me to keep selling myself to project, as I climb the ranks into more demanding jobs. Then when I jumped from the indie scene and joined the union the work instantly started to dry up. This was when the only job I could find was as a drug store assistant manager which led to the mid-life meltdown that sent me home.
Again, the actual work at the drug store was fine, but I couldn’t handle the corporate reindeer games designed to rip off the customers, while we claimed to be a caring store. This led to the turning point where being my own boss went from a want to a need and why I need to work from home until I can figure it out. Right now, is extra rough because I feel like I’m on the cusp of figuring out how to make just enough money through building more websites and blogs to at least replace this part-time income, but my lack of investment money or guidance, it’s still going to take some time.
This sort of plays into yesterday’s assignment where I was supposed to explore the quote about joy being the best make-up, in that, what I just wrote is what it would take to bring any joy back into my life. I do see how people liked me much more when I was a giggling collection of the neurotic coping mechanism, with most people liking my smile, I refused to use fake it until you make it logic anymore, and will face all the misery head-on. I do feel like there is potential for me to be much happier again, but that will never happen as the result of a life stealing job. I find this to fit the task at hand because the lesson also had aspects of the “If you love what you do, you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” adage which is what I mean when I say that I don’t want to work. I would prefer to live.
Today’s assignment is another dumb repeat that should have and already has been covered enough by this point since now the book wants me to start thinking about training to obtain the level of excellence within your work. Again, this is a book about achieving an established goal, so I don’t see why, close to three hundred days into this challenge training and practice wouldn’t have been covered in week number one. What’s worse, it was actually covered a couple time when the book kept recycling assignments that deal with continuing to learn outside of school, and again when months later it recycled that task only with lessons about always learning throughout life.
I guess this could be useful to others since the logic does actually make since my issue is that we’re now reaching the end of the book and still stuck in the repetitive circles that has me not seeing the point of this book. Oh well, I’ll delve more into this when I check in tomorrow with another update. Until then, it’s now time for me to sign off by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.
Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
The Wicker Breaker
P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.
