I wrote this long and excruciating post last night about having a bad case of the Mondays and failed to post it because it felt more purgative than like something I should make available for a hypothetical (read:imagined) audience to read. What it did make me realize after venting a godawful amount of venom is that I’ve let the burnout progress too far and I now dread every work day because I can’t succeed. The most I can realistically hope for is to put out most of the fires by the end of the day and, if I’m super lucky, have time to eat lunch.
Obviously this isn’t a sustainable job for me any more and although there are still a few jobs that aren’t paying grossly below pre-pandemic market I still feel a bit stuck after accepting this position (for less money and less responsibility — only one of those two is still true now) and approaching chew my leg off to escape this trap levels of needing to get the fuck out. I’ve walked away from more rewarding (both financially and in terms of what I was working on and learning) positions in the past mostly due to feeling restless. I’m fixating on retroactive regret about that and it doesn’t feel like things are going to improve any time soon.
I don’t take job hunting very seriously and I never have. The process is so drawn out and awful that I barely like to think about it before an actual interview takes place. I think this particularly awful situation and the impending recession that is going to bump salaries down yet again has galvanized me a bit more to actually, you know, try a little bit harder. Typically I don’t have difficulty with the human interaction parts of interviewing. Despite being a pretty introverted person I’m also a social pragmatist that can usually make the best of undesirable social interactions. I feel like I need to put a little more effort in but I’m also having an inordinately rough time caring very much. I recognize the need or the expectation but I can’t summon enough genuine interest in the process to pass for someone invested. That’s sort of the golden litmus for burnout; utterly lacking the energy to fake enthusiasm or the will to tell the lies I know are required for positive outcomes. It isn’t making me happy with either my current situation or my own outlook on the world.
