For the love of life

I hate conflict in the workplace, I seriously do. In fact, one time, my immediate supervisor and I were having an argument about the feature list of some minor project, and in the middle, I just threw my hands up in the air and said, "I'm tired of talking about this; I'll just implement everything you want." It's just not worth the energy to keep arguing.

Fact is, I spent a lot less effort doing the extra features than I would have if I had continued arguing. There's two things that go into that: I'm pretty good at what I do; and, I'm a wimp.

But my point is, I try to keep the level of tension between me and my work mates at a minimum (unlike, say, Frank, who's evil), and I do try to avoid any sort of conflict. I'm a pretty agreeable work mate, or at least I'd like to think.

I guess it's just a testament to the toxic levels at the office that I've been blowing my top and being really pissed off at a couple of meetings last week. I knew it was pretty unusual because a couple of people pointed it out to me, but I only realized how deeply it affected me when I actually had a dream the other night where I challenged this other person from the office to a fight in the middle of a meeting.

It's terrible, I know; at least, I haven't started spitting out nihilistic lines just yet.

How much can you know about yourself, you've never been in a fight? I don't want to die without any scars.

Slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

Well, at least not yet aloud. That, and the fact that I actually won the fight in my dream.

But seriously, I wish I were above all of it, that I could just not let it affect me, because I just think it's all so... useless. And I try, I certainly do, and I succeed, most of the time.

At least, on my better days.

I guess I just haven't been having too many good days lately.


On Friday night, a bunch of work mates and I went to a bar nearby, to drown our sorrows and whine some more.

It was probably because of the beer, but I related to them how I kind of looked at my job as the fun girl with no long-term potential. You're having a great time, lots of fun, but you know it wouldn't last because you'd be eventually leave for something (or someone) with more stability.

The funny thing is, they were all able to relate to what I was telling them (perhaps it was the alcohol for them, too). And then we spent a significant amount of the evening coming up with similar analogies between work and relationships. I don't remember most of them, but I seem to recall weird stuff coming up in the discussion, like dirty old man, pero kuripot and cheating on your gay lover with a rich sugar daddy. Perhaps Fay and Darwin could fill you in on the rest of the details.

Thinking about it, this is the sort of thing you get when you gather people who are not only intensely passionate about what they do, but are also creative and crazy enough to come up with all that crazy shit. I love it. Kahit walang long-term potential :p

Ah, at lahat pala kami, sa table na yun, single. Kaya siguro nai-relate na yung trabaho sa mga relationship.

Tsk, tsk, ang hirap talaga pag walang lovelife. Hehehehe.

- posted by jaemark @ 10/10/2005 03:13:00 AM