The office: Chatter about your job

I'll be okay.

My daughter asked where I'd been all day. I was trying to explain without upsetting her. She's a very keen swimmer. So that's good.

I'm drunk.

I need to go to bed.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Ugh, not much better. Yesterday I got cornered by press while I was still a bit shaken up and they've quoted me in the paper today.

I stuck to my usual press manner that I learned at the coastguard- no opinions, no personal details, nothing controversial, just bare facts- but now I'm panicking that this is going to cost me my job.

Unlikely, mate. Give the press absolutely nothing, and they'd start digging at anybody else they can collar. Which would make nobody happy. Give them the dope with nothing extra attached, they go away nodding at standard procedure. *shrugs*

Any boss will see that, I'm sure. Means they don't have to get hauled in front of fuzzy microphones, rather.

They phoned me at home when I was trying to spend time with my own kids. I have no idea how they got my number. Everyone in the village knows I'm a fireman- they see me at work often enough- but who knew I was there or how to get hold of me?

It's the press: it's their job to work these things out. Also, sounds as if they got nothing at the scene, so started digging. Somebody effed up, and it weren't you.

You did the right thing, considering. Because they'd just have hounded everybody else on their list if you had done a clam impression. :/

Just got confirmation of something I was hoping wasn't true; the family were people I knew. I didn't get close enough on the day to be sure.

This is shaping up to be a pretty rough weekend.

Jones: Yeah the press are pretty good at weadling information out of people.

I am sorry to hear you knew the folks. Hang in there man.

Names obviously changed.

Wikipedia: Joe T. Politician's father Joe, was a civic official and local official. Joe Allan was...

Me: Ah, respectable politician whose career was in the 30s, respectable politician who was born in the 30s, our subject is a Junior! Joe T, and Joe A. I'll search for Joe A. Politician!

Google: No useful results.

Me: Okay, Joe Politician Sr.

Google: Even less helpful results.

Me: ... Is Allan the guy's last name? "Joe Allan civic officeholder"

Google: Three helpful results on the first page.

Me: DX

So I guess I can talk about being tangentially involved in this debacle now.

My involvement is I did some Craigslist scouting for a location just before my initial internship ended and I did some post-post-production stuff in the office last year in preparation for distribution.

I just went to the cast and crew screening for the big miniseries production I was a 127th wheel on for two months last fall. I didn't think I was going to get a credit because I didn't have a job title, nobody actually asked me to be there in an official capacity, and I wasn't on payroll, but I'm on the first page of Special Thanks!

So...my brother-in-law is joining my station.

This should be entertaining.

Um. If in doubt, be Switzerland. Play lots of card games.

It's going to get all soap opera-y, isn't it? It's going to go from Trumpton to Chicago Fire overnight, I can just tell.

Jones: Should I start writing the script and cast you guys now or later?

I've been feeling like it's time to start searching for my next job. I've really been feeling burnout setting in. Although I have a college degree in computers, I currently work as a mail clerk for the Internal Revenue Service. My main job is to open the incoming mail and sort it according to what department it goes to. It's sort of like the mail-sorting minigame from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but less colorful.

I've been doing this job 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the past 8 years, and it's been getting harder and harder to get up in the morning to go to work, and also harder for me to stay awake when I'm there. When I first started, the hour between when my alarm goes off (5:00 AM) and when the bus I have to catch arrives at the nearest bus stop was plenty of time to get ready for work. Now I usually spend about the first half-hour of that time just summoning up the willpower to get out of bed, and I now miss that bus more often than not. Thankfully, the one after that still gets me there close enough to on-time to not get me any grief over it, I just don't have time to eat breakfast before I have to start working (I now do that on my first break).

I've also found myself struggling not to fall asleep on the job more often than I'd like. It's not something I do on purpose, but sometimes I just find my body and mind giving out on me. When that happens, I usually only manage to remain just lucid enough to understand my predicament, but not enough for my body to listen when I try to get myself back to work. It's like a car engine refusing to start on a cold winter morning. And this morning I overheard my manager say something to a co-worker that this hasn't gone unnoticed, though he hasn't mentioned it to me directly. I'm not really afraid of getting fired for it, though. While it is an issue that needs to be addressed, people here have gotten away with far worse things, with some notoriously disruptive co-workers somehow reaching retirement. I've mentioned a few examples of their behavior in earlier posts in the thread. And speaking of co-workers, I never really felt like I fit in there socially, either. While they aren't actively hostile to me (not even the aforementioned notoriously disruptive ones), my co-workers and I barely speak to each other.

And finally, the tipping point for wondering if now's the time to move on is a political one, so in the interest of not starting a Flame War, I'll be brief about it (and put my "my opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my co-workers or agency as a whole" disclaimer here just in case); the possibility of having Donald Trump as the next US president (and therefore, the top of my chain of command) utterly disgusts me. I'm not sure my conscience could handle working for someone like him.

On the other hand, this is my job I'm talking about here, so I don't want to be rash about this, and I want to make sure I have a new job ready before leaving my old one. There are a few times when I've been called upon to help compile reports on our volume numbers (and do something somewhat relevant to my degree), but those moments are few and far between. Still, that could be some actual experience to put on my resume along with the degree when I apply for my next job. It still wouldn't be my dream job (that would be a fiction writer of some kind), but at least it would be one where my skills are relevant and acknowledged. So, what should I do?

edited 31st Aug '16 7:13:04 PM by Lightblade

Honestly it sounds like you either need a new position, more variation in your job, or just simply a new place to work. Corporate Mail handling might be a bit more interesting and with the increase in use of digital equipment it could help you do a bit of what you know plus what you trained for. Shop around and see what you can find.

edited 31st Aug '16 8:01:59 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I had to back out of a role due to unintentional racism in a company which supposedly strives for social equality.

It was very stressful, explaining to a white man at least twice my age that an Asian woman romantically massaging her white lover was going to be a visual reference to sex trafficking no matter how innocent the context.

But it's early enough that we can recast, and I'm not getting paid that much anyway, so that's fine. 30 bucks saved on transportation, six hours not spent on the train or biking, and I uphold my moral principles.

(I'm going to be very poor.)

Tuefel: Go for it, man. We're desperately short of good TV about firefighting over here. The last thing we had was The Smoke. It was...not good.

Light: What you've got there sounds like catastrophic boredom. You need a new job, pronto. You know when you see caged animals rocking backward and forward and pulling their hair out? That's where you're heading.

Also, on your politics, that's why I love the monarchy; most of my life I've technically worked for a nice old lady with a fancy hat, regardless of who is prime minister.

edited 1st Sep '16 4:46:55 AM by InverurieJones

The US had a few shows about fire fighting and a few good movies.

Security Guards get Paul Blart.

edited 1st Sep '16 12:25:05 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I'm making my wife sit through series 3 of Chicago Fire as we speak. I'm going to check out Rescue Me next.

Yeah, security get kinda screwed over in that regard.

Is there were we complain about work? Cause my warehouse is all wet and leaking and the roads are flooded and I'm miserable

Garcon: One of said spaces yes. What do you do to earn your bread and butter?

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. Maid is what I tell people. I work at a vacation realty place on an island. Sometimes I clean houses. Sometimes I go door to door talking to tenants. Sometimes I'm the boss' secretary for the day.

Jack of all trades then. I wear part of that hat here as well.

So what has you down with work? Mine is being at work and we had a very small earth quake today. It was so minor I can see how Californians get so blaze' about them.

edited 3rd Sep '16 6:26:29 AM by TuefelHundenIV