I’ve been at my current job for almost two years, and there are still days when I think exactly like this. Even more than two years since being summarily dismissed from the Job-That-Wasn’t, I still, as I confessed earlier this week, have nightmares about it. I still have my moments when I forget that my bosses and co-workers are NOT like the people at the job-that-wasn’t. Earlier this week, I was on the verge of panicking, and was fully cognizant of the fact that there was no reason to panic, but for some reason my brain still anticipates the reaction I would have received at that awful place.

I know I’ve talked about it 1000 times in this space (but it’s my space, and I’ll repeat myself if I want to) but I still don’t know that I will be able to properly convey how much this job has truly been among the things that saved my life since I came back to Jersey in shame two years ago. July 17, 2008, actually. That was the date I knew I was coming back, and that I was coming back for awhile.  Six weeks later I was very lucky to start this job. This job made me feel capable of something again, even when it was just putting together a bunch of meeting materials. The lack of questions I was asked is why March 18, 2009 and everything after were not nearly as horrible as they could have been.

This job saved my life.

Joe’s been in California, apartment hunting, so I haven’t been harassing him with my usual rounds of cover letters and questions. He emailed last night to agree to feed my cat next week (even though the cat is a racist) and I can’t wait to tell him about My Plan. I would not even be capable of thinking about making this plan if it were not for Joe being my sounding board and support system. He said recently, that he never would have imagined the weird friendship we’ve developed, where we hang out and talk endlessly about careers and existential crises (mostly mine) and dating. I’m sure there’s a sector of the population who would call it fate that I ran into him one morning at the bus stop in O-town, almost three years ago now. That, and several other bus rides, is how he came to be the person who drove me to work the week I was stuck and who reads constant drafts of my schizo cover letters.

Joe has saved my life.

Joe is also the reason that Brent and I talk now, constantly exchange emails. We’ll never be the same as we used to, but we shouldn’t. He was still there at my one year in March, because he understood why it was such a big deal. They all did.

My old friends have saved my life.

I had actual work to do this morning; a change of pace, as summer here has been dead. Last summer, I exchanged countless emails and was distracted by dozens of gchats with people from Message-Board-of-Note. David, I hardly think of as being from there anymore, such a good friend he was to me when I really needed it. I still have the text message he sent me after that awful, awful seven days that started with the ride to Chicago and ended with my in the hospital: “You have yourself to get better for you jackass. What else would you need?”

David has saved my life.

The rest, some who I’ve met, some who I haven’t, made me feel as if I was part of something other than just my head. From these internet strangers, I’ve gotten career advice, CDs in the mail, and, with Ellie, countless hours of ridiculous conversation about Hugh Laurie, kittens, and petty-judgmental-thoughts. They made me laugh, they agreed that O-L-B was a jerk, they looked after me via text message, and once, at thirteen days, when I fretted how little time that was, Timothy replied “No, do you know how many HOURS that is? Right now, 13 days is awesome.”

The Message-Board-of-Note saved my life.

And then there’s me, who bemoaned the fact that 2010 is half over, and that I’ve gotten nowhere. That, on a Friday afternoon, I am sitting barefooted and cross-legged in front of my computer at the same job that saved my life, unmotivated to finished the three job applications that are 3/4^th done, and also, already ready to give up on dating because it isn’t that much fun, and the distraction it provides isn’t worth the opportunity cost. I am twenty seven years old, very much single, and still answering phones, among my many other responsibilities.

But I am 190 or so days into 2010, whereas two years ago, I didn’t even know 190 hours. I’m pretty pragmatic (some days, pessimistic), still filled with regrets for the could haves, would haves, and should haves, and still could afford to lose at least another five pounds.

But there are days that I hope. There are days that I am able imagine that I will one day have a life that is not this. I still can’t picture myself with someone else, and I can’t imagine a successful career, and really, there’s nothing tangible in my vision of My Plan. But there’s just this vague sense that I can do something else, and that one day, I will have a life again, that things will get better, because they already are. I am quite far away from the depths of Depression and darkness and utter stupidity that made my life a living hell for most of 2007 and 2008.

And I got myself here. I proved my worth and I got myself this job. And then, after many false starts, I rallied the troops and I finally got myself the help I needed, that came in ways I never expected it could. And that’s why, on an ordinary Friday afternoon, I’m sitting here writing this sappy, over the top, melodramatic entry, because I didn’t really realize what happened.

Because somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, I managed something I didn’t know I was attempting.

I saved my life.

Yesterday sucked. I think it was probably my worst day ever at this job, to the point where I was in tears.I rarely cry at things that aren’t movies, but the trifecta of stress, frustration, and general overwhelmed-ness, built up, and for a few minutes, I cracked. Yesterday, I definitely felt that my job sucked, and I was just angry about the situation.

And then I pull back, and there is STILL this reluctance to complain, because it’s not as bad as The-Job-That-Wasn’t. I was sort of relating this to a co-worker last week, that no matter how upset I get about things at work, it was so bad at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, that I really can’t let myself get too bereft. She likened it to an abusive relationship; (“at least this job doesn’t hit me!”) which is overstating the case quite a bit, but accurate in a black-humor way.

It’s not just the job that’s getting to me. My undergrad is having a 5 year reunion in June, and there’s a facebook group for it, and I stupidly looked through pictures people are posting and got depressed. I knew maybe one person in any of the pictures, but they’re all having typical collegiate fun and reminiscing and blah blah blah I-Had-A-Lousy-College-Experience. Some people are traumatized by their high school experiences and you just want to tell them to get over it. Some days, I’m still not over the fact that I missed out on the college experience. I don’t have friends from college, I don’t have pictures from college, I don’t have memories from college. It was 3.5 years I got through as quickly as I could. Most of the time I am over this, and have made my peace with it.

Occasionally, the resentment and anger at myself creeps up and then I just start thinking about how I wish I could have done it all differently, and how different my life could be right now (different how, I’m not sure) and really, it’s just messy self-pity that really shouldn’t be indulged.

Also, “Welcome to Whereever You Are” came up on iPod shuffle on my way to work and it made me teary. (“You’re caught between just who you are/and who you want to be”) Clearly the stress is getting to me.

Two major screw-ups on the part of Other People have us on edge here at work. The first screw-up COULD be no big deal, but due to the second BIG screw-up, it may very well wind up being A Deal.  This randon clerk in another department screwed up; she didn’t read a request form and sent something to the wrong person. This is bad on several levels.

On one hand I am livid. How could she screw up like this? The form was VERY clear. Why was this error not caught? This is a fairly standard procedure as well; why does she not know what she’s doing? Why hasn’t she been trained?

On the other hand, I cringed, because it’s the sort of thing that I used to do at The-Job-That-Wasn’t. The girl is probably wondering what the big deal is – she’s three or four degrees removed from the situation, and she doesn’t really understand the ramifications of her careless actions. She probably doesn’t “get” the looks that her co-workers/supervisors are exchanging.  She’s undoubtably nodded along and at least pretended to understand the gravity of the situation when her supervisor explains why they have to make a big deal out of it.  Or maybe she does and she’s just as panicked.

Either way, I used to be her. I used to have my major errors picked out by someone else when it was already too late. I used to have the moments of panick and absolute helpelessness, knowing that I had screwed up and that someone else had to fix my mistake.

I really don’t know if this situation will work itself out. And of course, it’s not a matter or life or death. It’s just very expensive and a lot of work and time went into this, so for it fall apart over her little error is really annoying to say the very least.

And not to say I don’t ever make mistakes, because I absolutely do.

But I’m glad it wasn’t me today.

Let’s see.

The fretting began around 6:00 PM on Thursday. Now, before I get into the rest of this entry, I must emphasize that my anxiety levels IN GENERAL have been at a lifetime low since I got my started getting my head together about a year ago. However, there are certain things that just Bring the Fret, and this particular work situation was/is one of them.

Basically, the story was that we need Signed Documents from four Important People in hand by 9:00 AM on Monday. Documents that, as of Friday, were still not in final form. My boss was understandably concerned, and also tired, since you know, he was the one who wrote the actual things. I am merely She Who Handles Logistics.

Friday morning began with computer malfunctions, schedules changes for Important People, and predictions of a snow-pocalypse. The day was a long game of Hurry Up and Wait, punctuated with intense periods of carefully choreographing how to get the Documents in the hands of Important People and get scanned copies of the Signed Documents back to us.

Let’s just say I went without lunch, made very good friends with some random guy at a company in California (and I have no idea what his title is. He definitely was not just some random admin. I could have been harassing someone Important for all I know.)

Anyway, we had 2 Signed Documents back, and were expecting the 3rd and I was pretty proud of myself for choreographing it. The whole thing was kind of awesome, in a pathetic way. nd then the document we were expecting back late Friday never came. Enter Plan B. And Plan C.

And it turns out all the back-up Plans were for naught, because Important Person does not plan on returning the signed pages today. It must be nice to be that important. If the overtime I put in waiting for documents does not get approved I am going to flip out. Especially since I went on a Fret induced shopping trip this weekend.

The weekend was also way too short, and I didn’t go to the gym, and I don’t care about the Super Bowl and the Snow-pocalypse never came and I canceled a Saturday morning appointment for nothing.

Arg…Last week went by fairly quickly, and I’m afraid this week will be the opposite.

I’ll share all the exciting details about that which brought The Fret on Monday. Because by then it will likely be a case of “all’s well that ends well” (I hope).

For now, I will just say:

…that even though I was at work until 8:00 PM on Friday night, waiting for Important Documents that didn’t show up…

…and even though I checked my work email about 100x today…

…and even though I got woken up by a work related phone call at an absurdly early hour…

…and even though, the past few weeks (really, since the holidays) work has been filled with crankiness…

This situation has made me once again absurdly grateful that it is taking place at my Current Job and not The-Job-That-Wasn’t.

Were the same situation playing out at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, well, first of all, I wouldn’t know how to handle it, because I wouldn’t have been given any information in the first place – I would have been expected to just do it all myself. But if this was happening at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to eat or sleep this weekend, and my Former-Important-Boss definitely would NOT have been able to see any humor in the situation (because seriously? It’s Pieces of Paper that have to be signed by Important People. And we’re driving ourselves CRAZY over it. I mean, obviously there are reasons why this has to be done, but it’s not like life or death).

Instead, after being woken up at an absurdly early hour, I had coffee and did some reading. And checked my email. And then I went out for lunch and shopping and singing in my car. And tonight I broke out the Buffy DVDs (shut up) and also talked to Keithers. And yes, I checked my email about 100 times.

But I’m not afraid to walk into work on Monday morning and I won’t have to spend half the day with my head down, hiding my tears or terrified facial expressions. (Former-Important-Boss made me cry several times a week and towards the end all the stress and worry and horribleness had just built up and built up and it didn’t take much to set me off anyway.)

So although it seems strange to find gratitude in a ridiculous work situation, it’s there. Because I am capable of getting Important Documents signed, I’m having a decent weekend, and my boss isn’t going to make me cry on Monday morning.

And somehow, that never gets old.

Everyone’s “It’s the end of the year/looking back/looking forward” posts are forcing me to think in terms of “What do I want out of 2010.” September still feels like the beginning of the year, but then so does January, in entirely different ways.

I want to write this entry, that I actually started yesterday and didn’t have even a minute to look at today. It was an insane day at work. Insane. I’m covering for someone who is out, and then I have tons of my own stuff to do because it’s the end of the year – lots of i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed kind of things. Tomorrow will be couriering pages for signature all over the NY Metro Area. Two days before X-Mas. Yeah, that’s going to be fun.

However, when work is insane like this, and the phone won’t stop ringing, and my desk is an absolute mess, those are actually the days that help me feel the best about my job. Because it doesn’t make me want to crawl under my desk and hide – I can manage everything. My ability to simply handle things still surprises me sometimes, even all these months later. More than months – it’s been over a year now. I’m glad I don’t get tired of feeling capable.

I have posted a VERY rough draft of “The Problem of Replacing Pamie” , the not-so-sordid tale of my experiences at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, is posted over on my Essays page.

The ending in particular just trails off, but if you are so inclined to read, any comments/suggestions would be welcome. I am posting it long before it is finished, because if I don’t, I will never work on it.

Two years ago today I started The-Job-That-Wasn’t. The casual observer probably finds it ridiculous that I mention The-Job-That-Wasn’t so often. Everyone has had a bad job or a bad boss – usually more than one. What is it about my experience that is any different?

That is, in part, what I have been trying to write about for the better part of the year – because I never wrote about it when it was actually happening.

 The working title of the essay is “The Problem of Replacing [Pamie]” (not her real name) and I’m trying to capture what it was like to try and replace someone, who was, in everyone else’s estimation, perfect. Every single day when I would walk into Important-Boss’s office with the morning report, he would glance up, with withering disappointment that it was me, not her standing there. As if she had disappeared instead of been promoted. 

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A year ago, I was in the Berkshires with Keithers, enjoying an extended weekend. From his place, we drove to Saratoga Springs, to visit our old campus and go to some old haunts. We watched the DNC, and when that was over, watched McCain annouce Palin as his VP pick.

I was actually on my way up there. I got a call from the staffing agency I’d submitted my resume to and interviewed at the week before. “The Company likes your resume,” the woman told me. “If they want you, would you be available to start next week?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, throwing the phone back onto the passenger seat, and expecting nothing to come of it. In all my job hunting experiences, I’ve never had lot with temp agencies and most of them are scams.

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Some people are afraid of heights. Others are afraid of spiders.

I am afraid of talking on the phone.

I am awful at it. Either I lose my train of thought and stutter, or I panic and start talking too fast and don’t make any sense.

Just the anticipation of having to deal with phone calls that I am loathe to deal with makes me sick with anxiety. Sometimes, it even drives me to the verge of tears. I have tried every trick there is to get over it, and nothing has worked.

And then, I sound like a crazy person, because it’s a phone call, grow up, get over it.

I don’t think I’ve always hated the phone. When I was twelve, I was content to spend hours on the phone with N.A; we had mutual crushes on each other, and I cannot tell you what we talked about for all those hours, but I know I thought it was important enough to campaign for my own phone line. My parents said I could, if I brought up my grades in Spanish and Math. Therein lay the dilemma – I couldn’t get my own line and spend unlimited time on the phone until I brought my grades up, but I certainly was in no place to bring my grades up when there was a boy who wanted to talk to me on the phone.

Luckily, he lost interest in me, I got straight As the first marking period of 8th grade, and I got my phone line.

Since then, the phone has been a primary form of communication (in high school, before AIM was the standard, and WAY before texting), a form of connection, (in college, to my friends who were far away) and a form of torture (carrying my cell phone around, willing it to ring when I was hoping that HWSNBN would call me.) But in college, other forms of communication became more important. AIM meant I could talk to several different people at once. Email was more convenient than picking up the phone. Making and recieving phone calls just fell out of practice.

It wasn’t until after college that phones started to make me nervous. I was temping at a company that to this day, I have no idea what they did. My job was simple: answer the phone, direct the calls. That’s it.  Sometimes they let me put labels on files, but as a temp, I wasn’t allowed to do anything real.

Anyway, for whatever reason some of the people at this company (engineers? technicians?) were often recieving Important Phone Calls, and the person on the line would request that I page them. I’ve always hated the sound of my own voice, and having to do this several times a day was cringeworthy. Then there was the time — it was my first day actually – when I mistakenly dialed the number for the head of the company just because the delivery guy had his number on the receipt. Luckily, his assistant picked it up and explained what was what. In my own defense, I was only 21, barely out of college and naive to the fact that if someone’s extention is 01, then they are probably pretty important.

In search of health insurance, I did manage to land a full time job. Actually, they didn’t hire me at first. They hired Charice. But poor, unknowing Charice got promoted after two weeks there. As she said once “I sold out. Rachel got hired.” I was still a receptionist, except now I was a receiptionist with health insurance. It wasn’t too bad. Mostly, I just directed people to customer service.

Then I got promoted. It was awesome! It was to a job I actually wanted to do! It was more money! And I wouldn’t be tied to a desk, which to me, was at least 50% of the appeal.

The Friday before I was supposed to start my new position, my supervisor’s boss, without even bothering to pull me aside, told me “oh by the way, we don’t have the money to pay you. So we can’t promote you to that position.”

I was crushed. While it was probably a good thing (it motivated me even more to finish my grad school applications) I felt totally stuck as a receptionist.

By then head of my department liked me. He knew I was smart and felt bad about the whole promotion debacle. He started giving me projects. At first, I was happy at the chance to prove myself and I accepted the admin role in spite of the fact that the new title didn’t come with a bigger paycheck. And the fact that my extension was still 0, I was still tied to a desk, and there were beginning to be mumblings about my phone mannerisms.

It was May, because it was right before my birthday when the suggestion box had a note in it, for probably the first time in its existence. “The receptionist” (it read. not even my name. Just “the receptionist”) is a black hole of despair. would it kill her to fake some charisma ” While this incident is retrosepctively hilarious, I got written up and went on a quest to find out just who the hell cared whether or not I smiled. (the answer: 40 something washed up wannabee opera singer. I got him back though.)

It only got worse from there. Two years later, at the Job-That-Wasn’t, I had to make a lot of phone calls, to people who I could barely understand on the phone, on topics where I had no idea what I was talking about. Additionally, there were times when I was supposed to “pressure” people into getting things done. Mind you, Job That Wasn’t was a tiny company and I was on the phone with Big Important Company that could have cared less about my request, but that did not mean anynoe in my department understood any better why the request was going to take the standard 24 hours.

The last guy I dated refused to call to make plans, instead preferring a barrage of back and forth text messages. That was a little extreme, even for me. But that also didn’t mean my heart didn’t pound wildly whenever I decided to grow a spine, call him, and call him out for being kind of a jerk. (I have regretted most of these phone calls. Don’t keep the phone numbers of people you used to date in your cell phone)

Really, the phone has never done me any good these past few years. All it has done is given me the means to call boys that I shouldn’t call, given me a cell phone that I feel lost when I don’t have, and given various Powers That Be a means to torture me.

When you think about it, texting is kind of like a more advanced form of telegraphing. So clealy Thomas Edison had it right and Alexander Graham Bell ruined everything.

After having a screwy day on Monday, I was terrified when my boss called me into his office and shut the door yesterday afternoon. (Residual effect of The-Job-That-Wasn’t, I believe)

Then he posed a grammar question to me, and we debated it for a minute, and he said “Well, we’ll keep this for now, but think about it.”

So I did. I also posed the question to the Libertarians, because the people there are equally dorky and it of course sparked a conversation about grammar-things. Which led to a conversation about how good grammar is an attractive quality and bad grammar is a Deal Breaker.

As for the grammar question itself, I came up with the right answer, and the evidence to back it up and I think my changes are being accepted.

Of course, in posting the question online, I managed to make a grammatical error because that’s how these things go.

And of course, grammar was a favorite topic between O-L-B and I. Of course.

This probably sounds pretty minor (and repetitive, since I have gone on and on about the fact that I like my job.) but I just had my Official Employee Review this morning. Despite the fact that things have gone awesomely lately, I was fretting about it because, well, last time I was sat down for an Official Review I got fired.

Anyway, I had nothing to worry about.

It is crazy to me that at this time last year, I was spending most of my lunch breaks quietly crying in a concrete office park because my job then gave me so much misery/stress/anxiety that I was reduced to tears on a regular basis. I used to not be able to eat on Sunday nights because I was so anxiety ridden about having to deal with my boss on Monday morning.

It is very nice to be able to have a lunch break like a normal human being, instead of crying in public, because I don’t cry very prettily.

But instead of memory, or a reflection on the fact that yesterday marked nine years to the day that I first kissed The Ex (and the fact that that was nearly a decade ago…my lord), or yet another navel-gazed novel about how I’m feeling I decided to go for a stream of consciousness blather. I’m not even going to re-read this before I post it.

I don’t know why I’m suddenly fretting about work. Maybe its because before this job turned permanent, I had the luxury of being able to say “well, it’s just a temp job. It doesn’t matter too much if I suck.” I’m also probably being over sensitive, because the experience at The-Job-That-Wasn’t was so dreadful that old habits are dying hard. It took me probably a month being here before I could even ask questions and take the answers at face value.

I woke up today with a little bit of “second day of school syndrome” and I’m again a little nervous, but it should be okay. I think I will feel better by the end of the day, better still by the end of the week. Yesterday went pretty well; I didn’t really have to “do” anything, so there was nothing for me to mess up.

I believe on my first day of The-Job-That-Wasn’t they had me filing audit papers and matching them up with indexes or something crazy.

I got fired today.

Around 3 PM, I got called into Nice Boss’s office with the HR person. Remarkably, I held it together. I cried on the subway home. Now I’m sitting on my bed trying to update my resume. Damage control mode.

The abject panic hasn’t set in yet. Seven months isn’t long enough to file for unemployment. I have a little bit of savings, so I can pay rent in May & June, but then there’s health insurance and the job market looks bleak, and how the hell do you explain being fired after 7 months in a job interview. (My company has a trial period of 6 months. Mine was 7 because my Important Boss was away all month.)

I need to start temping, ASAP. I’m too panicked to even enjoy the relief of being free from a job I should have been grateful to have, but hated.

2008 was supposed to be a better year. So much for that.

I am surviving and I feel horrible for merely surviving, because I want to be awesome. At the job, that is. See, I’ve by the calendar been there nearly a month, but with all our Jewish holidays off I’ve only been there about 13 days.

So it’s frustraing. Especially because I am the type who hates to ask questions and hates to ask anyone for help and this is exactly the situation in which I need to simply ask questions.

I don’t know. I feel accomplished today because I made a lot of phone calls to get a form filled out when no one in house knew how to do it, but I also feel bad because I had to bother the same people (who I had to make multiple phone calls to) a few times.

I’m just still insecure right now. Some moments I feel okay, like I am picking up on things and learning my job and everything will come in time (as everyone keeps telling me) and other times I feel like a total idiot failure.

I’m just scared of total failure. I want to be good at this. And typical me, I’m frustrated that after 13 days on the job I’m not as good at the girl I”m replacing who was there for five years. I know it’s surface level irrational, but I know everyone got used to having someone in the position who just KNEW everything, and I don’t know anything, and so far, that’s just really hard to me.

I hope it will get better….I mean, it has to, right?