Times

Sometimes I just have to say to myself "Self, you are having a shitty time right now. Things are bad, you feel like ass, and you've lost all your patience. This is how things are right now, and not how they will always be."

Aside from the whole "busy" thing (two business trips in the past week, and two classes at CCSF right now), there are a lot of unhappy things. Notably, James still isn't ready to go for a ride with me to get that hot chocolate I promised him, and I still have to come to work every day at this horrid place.

I tried the straightforward channels, and now I have to get more creative about the job thing. It's going to reach a head next week, when my boss finds out that the rest of the department is quitting. Which just leaves me here. I do not want to be here, and have not wanted to be here for a long time. But I'm not as flexible as the other two (one is just going home to Indonesia and has no need for a job anyway, and the other is open to moving to LA, New York, or even Shanghai, which looks like the likely place he'll land. Were I open to moving, I wouldn't have a problem either) But I won't leave the Bay Area. But I *really* need out of this job. I won't go into why, but to say that this is a dead end job with people I really don't respect (can't respect, knowing and seeing what I do) and I need to go where I'm challenged and have room to grow. Besides, I'm so bored here. Same thing over and over? Ugh. No sign of ever having a change? Ugh.

Sadly, there are very few places for me to go in this industry. Levi's, GAP, Gymboree are three of the big ones in The City that I'm looking at (but good luck getting your resume in front of an actual person!) and two other places I'm most interested in are Mountain Hardwear (in Richmond) and The North Face (in San Leandro) These two companies would be perfect for me. Really. Remember all the stuff I did when I was in school? Remember how it always had to have functions and complicated parts? Remember how I was the only one there who could pull off such technical stuff? Well, oops, that doesn't mean anything. HR people screen out everyone who doesn't have 5 years experience doing exactly the same thing they are hiring for. Feh. I would be a perfect fit, but how to convince them? How to find someone to convince?

Outside of that, I also have some wish to get out of this industry. I always thought I should be a project manager instead. But what that actually means seems a little screwy, from reading job listings. Need to contact some people and find out what they do, how they got there, how they think I may or may not fit in and get in.

Mostly I just want to work somewhere where I'm learning and helping and growing, and not surrounded by idiots. That is a really tall order in the fashion industry in the Bay Area. I want out. Or, I want into North Face or Mountain Hardwear. Confusing? Well, OK, maybe I don't really know what I want. But I know what I don't want. I'm really clear about that.



I won't be able to be happy until I get out of this job.
Besides that? James is in San Francisco, but when I went to see him, it was way too crowded, and I hate putting up with other people's bullshit.
I want to see James, not really to see anyone else. Honestly, I've just never been very personable, so I have to be asked like ten times if something is wrong or I'm angry. No, I'm not, I just have hit the bottom of my tolerance for other people. I put up with a lot of personality bullshit when we were doing the events to raise money recently, and I had two rude emails from one of you, got yelled at and hung up on by another one, on the same fucking day. Did anyone ever apologize? No. Did I ever call you out on it? No. I powered through the task at hand. But now, I have no taste left for working with this group. It will take some time for me to come back to it, and then it will be different. I know this is important, but so is my sanity. I have other things going on in my life. I'm tired of making nice to you.

Since I was out a lot in the past week (Milwaukee and Las Vegas, both for work) I'm a little behind on my classes. But for the record, I'm taking my third semester of Conversational Mandarin (which I feel behind in, since many of the other students are already pretty fluent) and my first internet/html class. That one is an online class, hopefully one I'll have more success in than the Chinese Characters online class I dropped this summer.

I have to say this has been a challenging few months. This year is shaping up to be a big downer, on a grand scale. Not good times. But they can't always be. There are the ups, and the downs, but mostly I have it pretty damn good. I have the most wonderful man in the world waiting patiently for me to come down from my stress. Somehow he knows I have to keep pushing. It's not like I have to take classes in my "free" time. But I hate the idea of sitting still, of stopping learning. I don't want to stay where I am, at this job, getting older and staler. I have to keep expanding my education and skills. He knows this. He knows I have to keep going to meetings about James and doing fundraisers. He knows I have to do this even though the politics and personalities drive me up the wall. He pretends to listen when I come home and download all of this. Paul even understands my deep connection to my family, spending time with my dad, and mowing my grandparents' lawn in the boiling sun.

So as bad as times get, and they have been on a downswing, I still have it better than most. I still have so much, and so much to look forward to, in better times.

but if you're trying to deal with me now, you might find me less pleasant. Unless you can help me find a cool new job. Then I'll be your best friend, and bake you brownies.