Disappointed

[Julie]

 

Some time ago there was a Danish movie Adam's apples. It was about a priest, who was very happy and despite all bad things surrounding him, kept optimistic. He was radiating health, telling, how good his son was in soccer and at school and from time to time became a bit sentimental and sad, remembering his dead wifte (who had died accidentally because of choking). Then one of the characters discovers that the priest is terminally ill, his son is mentally and physically impaired and his wife has committed suicide because of this. The priest also knew this but pretended not to know. The character tells this to the priest many times and the priest gets back to reality and falls into depression.

 

There was also a Czech movie, which title I don't remember. It showed a few happy couples. In all the couples the wives were betraying their husbands. So, two couples broke and lived unhappy lives, children suffered, their joint ventures collapsed and so on. In one couple the husband decided to stay with his wife although he knew, the children were not his. And they lived happily ever after.

 

Why this ramble? Today was the first time I cried at work, after four years. I survived without day-dreaming for 5 weeks and can't get back to it. I'm looking at life realistically now. And I'm not sure, if this is a good job for me, if these people are the ones I was looking for and so on. I just realized that I'm not doing magic, I'm just doing some forecasting and some budgets optimization. I saw that I'm the only person so excited about budgets optimization and for all others it's not a mind game, it's just work. I just realized that my boss is unpredictable and undisciplined. She just forgot about the conference call and I had to lead it on her (silent alignment) behalf. I just realized that my department head is not even half as smart as I thought. I had a complicated puzzle to solve, got lost and asked him for help. He was staring at the excels and saying all the time "I don't get it", "I will take it home to solve". Please. The smartest man for me doesn't get it. And then he left home and said, he will think this in the evening and I realized, he still doesn't have the answer. And I was leaving the office, crying like an idiot. The worst thing is that I can't even blame them because they were part of my imagination.

 

I don't know. I'm lost now. I should quit but I don't know what else to do. Another job will be just a job, no magic. I thought it was magic, partially reality, partially my imagination. I believed in this career bullshit that a perfect job is the one you like + the one you good at + the one well paid. It seemed the right choice.

 

One thing is still unexplained. How didn't they notice that I was not only living but also working in fairy tale world? People at work knew about my day-dreaming but thought it didn't apply to working hours. Why living in a fairy tale was so much appreciated and called "integrity", "purpose", "values", led to promotion, rating in top (single digit %) and salary classifying the one among top (double digit, below twenty %) earners?

 

Is our whole company (c'mon tens thousands of people around the world) living in a fairy tale?

[Delorean Jones]

"Everyday imagined things are out, soaring and changing worlds, while the truth sits unnoticed and ignored"

 

You have a wonderfully useful imagination! As opposed to taking a spoonful of sugar with your medicine, reality has become this magical place you're happy to be a part of. Don't give that up for anything! I do ask you to share this reality with others though. Tried writing at all?

 

I do think dreamers like you deserve better. What would your dream Job be?

 

[Julie]

I can't say I get upset with my job frequently, it was actually the first time. Yesterday I did a "research" (and yeah typical Polish whining) among the people I know, also at my working place, and it seems that those who are happy with their jobs really see it through a prism of dreaming and those who are unhappy treat it as 9 to 5 (or 7 to 9, if work in consulting :)). This is so strange, I don't want to belong to second group as they willingly cut 1/3rd of their lives and instead of being more or less happy, go to work like to prison, count time before going home and complain all the time.

And yesterday I was thrown into day-dreaming world at work again and now I'm a crazy genius, explaining the patterns of the market dynamics universe. What makes it weird is that now there are two people. What is especially strange is that I took into day-dreaming world the most realistic person I know. I'm coming with resignation in my head and instead of hello I hear from our department head "I went through this and this seems to be impossible to solve. Well, with standard approach but... maybe, we should change the assumptions". Then with ther frequency of a few hours the guy was coming at my desk and checking different approaches and false numbers (whatever he calls it), staring at nowhere and telling "affecting one thing, we affect another one, impossible to solve", "I don't have time to do it... but no we should find the pattern, it would explain everything". Then "The Beautiful Mind" movie reached the apogeum and he started calling people at his desk, showing the approach "I'm not talking to you as mathematician but as a businessman". Those who were called were nodding, those who were not called were laughting. Then he started explaining to himself that this thing is stupid, he should come back to normal dep head responsibilities... and solve it later.

Weird, weird, I'm in a crazy place. I want to stay there.