Is your job cramping your style?

I feel like a broken record. I'm even tired of hearing myself THINK the same thoughts. I never get enough sleep (about 7 - 7.5 but I really need 8+), I don't get enough exercise (really, appallingly, almost none), my job is stressful and my back and neck always hurt, and I don't have enough time to blog (my notebook continues to fill up with handwritten half-written blogs that never make it to the computer). Some of this is because I don't have the right workstation. I need to buy a desk but it has eluded me despite throwing hours and hours at the task.

Some of it is the job, and now I need to find a new one which I liken to looking for a new husband in the middle of a divorce, absolutely the last thing I want to do! I just want to lick my wounds for a moment and contemplate my next move without the constant threat of eviction and insurmountable debt hanging around like vultures waiting for me to keel over. An acquaintance at work asked me how the job experience has been and to my surprise, my response was not that positive! Not that sweet or politely political. I mean, I've only been there six months, how could it be that bad? I honestly think I'm just not cut out for the corporate world. All the layers and positioning and egos and bullshit, it's a lot to decipher and I feel too vulnerable and too transparent for it.

But I learned something really valuable tonight at a brand lecture I went to that might explain it. This woman speaking said to make sure to carve out an area of incompetence. People who are too good at everything get volunteered for way to much work, and they drown. The key is to make sure everyone knows that you're really bad at a couple of things. That way, you'll only have to do what you're good at, you'll excel and up the ladder you go!

I could also complain that my apartment is too f'ing cold, I hear sirens blast by 3-5 times a night, and I spend way too much money. Every weekend I'm trying to loosen the knots in my back and neck with drinks, dinners, chocolate, shopping. For the most part, I'm spending everything I have with reckless abandon. And I have company. One recent outing for a desk in the $200 range led me to contemplate a desk at $350, then $500, then $900 before I gave up on the whole thing. Modern life isn't easy and jobs seem to take up way too much of our time and energy. I spoke to three good friends and my brother on the phone over the weekend and we spent most of it talking about work. In the private sector and in non-profits, there are the same problems of greed, incompetency, bad management, lack of leadership and vision, nepotism and politics.

I think the moral of the story is that I have to carve out an area for myself. If I dial down my capabilities at work, I won't have too much to do, I won't be as stressed, I'll have more time to exercise, more energy to blog and won't feel the need to shop as much. Now I just have to think of something to be bad at!