Just Gravy

[suomalainen]

Agree regarding gaslighting. Segues into a current topic on @urgud's journal, but bosses are always trying to get workers to accept boss' concerns as more important than their own. No, buddy. Listen, I understand that, to you, the job is more important than my life. But don't try to get me to change my mind that, to me, the job should be more important than my [health, kids, family, hobby, whatever].

[thef0x]

Totally agree @suo, leverage is key. I'm speaking for the perspective of someone who would want to keep my staff member while simultaneously being (potentially) frustrated at it's cost(s).

Cal Newport is a bit of a productivity junky but his book "So good they cant ignore you" seems like a solid framework to enhance professional leverage. ERE in general as well; FU money is the ultimate leverage.

Writing my post grossed me out a little bit, I don't like occupying that frame of mind even if I've had to; my solution has always been overpay staff so we incur less headcount turbulence but we all have to live our lives.

BnG sorry again that your reception to more fulfilment and excitement in life was met with obstacles... Seems to me that doing 'different' means getting a few looks from the crowd, for better or worse. Maybe that's a good heuristic/ mile marker: if you're not pissing off a few normies, are you really living?

[Biscuits and Gravy]

@thef0x Hm, not sure where you read that I’m looking for more fulfillment or excitement in life. I’ve got fulfillment coming out of my ears and if I feel even slightly bored I can think about @suomalainen naked and I feel excited all the way to the tips of my toes. No, I’m just burnt out and tired and stretched waaaaay too thin.

I have leverage at work through my good relationships, good work, and (faked) winning personality. I also have some FU money and a supportive partner. I can see all of this from my employer’s perspective, and I won’t be a dick about quitting because I’m a decent human, but ultimately it is their problem to replace me. They have all the power and money, after all. I’m just a peon.

I dunno. If I leave, I can cash out my annuity for about $25k and cash out my vacation time for another $8k and with DH supplementing me I can stretch that a hella long time, I bet. At least enough time to get back into shape and do RAGBRAI 2025 and enjoy some quality, non-rushed time with my loved ones.

[thef0x]

Apologies for making those assumptions! The idea that you can be stretched too thin while simultaneously living at maximum fulfillment makes me think differently, appreciate that mental 180; maybe I've been thinking about fulfillment 'wrong' for quite some time.

Whichever way you land, sounds like it's gravy. Cheers to that!

[Biscuits and Gravy]

Heeeey I see what you did there. Cheers! :p

[Biscuits and Gravy]

Tornadoes and a derecho blew through Houston. It’s been really difficult to witness the destruction to my neighborhood and beloved city. Trees, signs, people, and buildings chewed up by Nature. We rebuild thoughtlessly and quickly. We are like ants.

The kids are 6 and nearly 5. My daughter looks and acts like her dad’s sister. She has my stubbornness, but what else. My son looks like me, but with his dad’s enormous blue eyes, and he has my big feelings and his dad’s quick and savage temper. It’s not a good combination, as the scratches on my arm can attest.

Suo and I decided I should quit my job, but I find myself putting it off and making excuses. I feel anxious. Anxious to give up the status and anxious to be financially dependent on another. Sometimes I’m swept away by the possibilities of recovering 60 hours of my week and discharging all of the thoughts and obligations that come with traditional work. I daydream about getting in shape, running an efficient household, and optimizing. Heh, optimizing. Sometimes I feel like that’s what all the struggle is about. To make the best or most effective use of… this fucked up life.

But, it’s a process. I’m scouring the organization to find a decent replacement for myself before I have The Conversation with my boss. He’s been good to me. I don’t wanna leave him in a lurch.

[mooretrees]

How’s the shift to part time going?

[Biscuits and Gravy]

How’s the shift to part time going?

Part time isn’t feasible. I’m working up the courage to resign. I’ve specialized myself into a corner. Need to channel my inner urgud.

[mooretrees]

Ahhh. I am sending a surge of courage your way…. There are many options out there for making money, and like many show here, reducing expenses is like a small bump in salary. Meaning, if you’re not working, life as a family gets SO much easier and potential reductions in expenses can move from day dreaming to reality.

Also, you are smart, chock full of resources and surrounded by support, so quitting is just the start to recovering from full time life and opening up the amazing opportunities that you can’t act on currently.

I’ve thought about leaving my job multiple times over the years. I have even started detailing all of the small tasks I do that no one else does as a way to set up the next person for success. Do you have all of your job responsibilities written out for who ever takes them over? I imagine that could serve as a respectful way to help your boss out replacing you?

Keep us posted on this journey! It’s really important to hear all these diverse stories. And I always enjoy hearing your voice.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

mooretrees, thank you so much. Yes, I started a very detailed hand-off document. It's been eye-opening just how much I do and drafting the document has added to my reluctance to put my boss in the difficult position of replacing me.

For the last few months, I think starting with my dad's hospitalization, I haven't been managing my stressors well, so I sought inspiration from previous Gravy, and she had some helpful things to say:

...what my parents were unintentionally teaching me was the power of defensiveness and withdrawal, when real strength lies in the ability to be vulnerable.

I’ve lacked the courage to stand up and say This is what I want, because making a choice, especially an inconvenient and destructive choice, is perhaps one of the most vulnerable things one can do...

It was easy to play the victim and say, “but for [X], I would not have done [Y]”, but I’ve made the choices I’ve made and ultimately this is my life. People only have as much power over me as I give them.

What I am saying is that if something doesn’t feel right to you, if it’s in constant friction with who you are at your core, you have the power and right to change your situation, and, while difficult and usually frowned upon, the return you receive is well, well worth it, and there even exist benefits yet unknown to you.

That the Gravy who said those things was in the midst of a divorce and raising a one year old and two year old is wild. Having two kids back to back while continuing to work full time had reduced me to nothing more than a caregiver and a drone and I felt completely out of control of my own life. I started thinking about where I was back then, and if I had made the very affirmative decision to leave my marriage because I needed a big, dramatic shift in my life to shock me back "into my self." Is a big, dramatic shift (such as leaving a marriage or quitting a job) simply a shortcut to establishing a sense of control and a way to cheaply regain a sense of self? And are such meretricious "gains" quickly lost?

There's this idea in Passionate Marriage that those who lack the maturity or strength or character to "hold onto themselves" in the midst of a relationship may opt to physically or emotionally remove themselves. Emerson also has a similar idea in Self-Reliance. "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." And so I've been concerned that quitting is the "easy way out," and I had a negative feeling about that.

Today I asked myself: Which path (staying or quitting) would lead to the most personal growth? I could certainly manage my stressors better, have better boundaries at work, take more time off, leave my work at work, even somehow (and a big maybe here) learn how to make the most of my depressing, soul-sucking, flabby-ass-making commute. Maybe a podcast or audio book , as countless people have suggested. Holding onto myself in the midst of my job would certainly be hard, growth-inducing work, and has been.

Quitting, however, is even harder. I quipped in a previous post that my job was only 1-2% of my identity, but when I'm faced with excising this part of me and my life, I realize that it is a far bigger number. I am not chagrined by the way people respond when I tell them what I do for my job. In fact, I am pleased. I am proud. But it's just a bloated, empty status. And so I'm faced with my own vanity and lack of vision and imagination. And THAT is hard. What will I do with my time? I must not lose myself to my kids or the housework or even my (oh god, so wonderful and sexy) husband. I think I can do something outside of this. I think I can exist outside of this box.

[7Wannabe5]

I think maybe you're expressing the difference between something being a large part of your social identity vs. a large part of your core purpose. Akin to the difference from knowing your address and knowing your home. It is the case that just not having an identifiable address can make you feel socially adrift.

What will I do with my time? I must not lose myself to my kids or the housework or even my (oh god, so wonderful and sexy) husband. I think I can do something outside of this. I think I can exist outside of this box.

All these expressions related to losing oneself or letting oneself go often fail to reflect the reality that it is also perversely possible to lose oneself to self-care when not fully self-aware. It would actually be okay to "lose yourself" to kids, home, and husband for a year or three. Just do the work directly in front of you and take some time to relax into just being rather than always doing. You will still be there when you are ready for more.

[Frita]

Aaron Becker’s wordless picture book, “Journey” comes to mind (https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Aaron-Be ... 0763660531). At some point, the red marker comes out to create who knows what.