Today is not that day.
Before one complaint slips past my fingertips, please know that I am still thrilled beyond belief, more than six months later, that I am finally employed full-time again and that that fucking U word is out of my vocabulary. I will always be grateful for Kata coming along in the nick of time (I was about two weeks from having to go on food stamps) and making me a full-time professional writer. Vox popped my pro writer cherry, albeit part-time. Which is a weird and uncomfortable visual. Okay, moving on!
I just got so giddy about getting paid to write that I forgot I was going to bitch. That's a nice feeling. Like sitting on an Alka Seltzer. I'm... not entirely sure what that means. I should probably mention that it's 12:43 a.m., my alarm goes off in six hours, and yesterday was stressful enough that I think I have PTSD. Read: Giving up even a second of my precious not-at-work time for something as insignificant* as sleep is not going to happen. Well, not for another 15 minutes or so. Or whenever I finish this entry. So...
* I'm kidding, Goddess of Insomnia.
I was extremely frustrated on Monday because I was trying to write a technical article about cloud computing and the "false cloud," which is something you're just going to have to Google because looking up links to articles is likely to cause me to suffer flashbacks. I've written about cloud computing a few times but I'm still not entirely sure what the hell I'm saying. It's very much like how I learned Finite in college. I was able to cram enough information into my head that I aced the final (don't be too impressed -- I went into the final with an F in the class) but that knowledge all but fell out of my head within a few hours of completing the test. Every time I write about cloud computing, I sort of have to start over because 75% of the info has been evicted about my brain, likely in favor of thoughts about milk chocolate, a rash of neuroses, and fantasies about Queen Latifah.
Ahem.
Let's just say I'm glad most of the companies I write for aren't technology based. I'd much rather write personal stories for mommy blogs, which are usually about my husband and children and how much we love our lawnmower or whatever other keyword we're promoting.
Yep, I get paid to lie. They're not really bad lies. Today, I wrote as a straight wife and mother who was helping her husband organize the clutter in their garage by buying him a storage cabinet for his tools. If those people didn't exist, um, EVERYWHERE, then I'd feel bad. I'd also feel bad if I had a conscience. Shucks, fresh out.
Anyway, I spent the entire day trying to write the techie article. I should've given up but by the time my little sailboat was taking on water, I'd been rowing for too long to give up something something something STUBBORN. Also, and I think this might be my biggest phobia, I didn't want to look stupid by asking, yet again, for direction, even though that would've been wise. Note that I said direction. I can ask for directions. I'm quite good at it, actually.
Anyway, long story short, I finally started making sense of my data late in the evening and came in today and got the article in written in a couple hours. It took that much longer to get it all done, which is just depressing.
It got worse when I had to write a second techie article, this time about customer relationship management. It took me a good chunk of time but not nearly as long as the first article. In fact, I met quota today for the first time in weeks. We've been changing around teams and zones and there are different assignments everywhere and we've all changed seats again -- I'm on at least my 10th seat, if not 12th; gone forever is Maxine's Peninsula, and I once again sit across from the cutie who occasionally treats me to peeks of her lickable cleavage but drives me BATSHIT. INSANE. by playing with her hair all day long.
Over the right shoulder. flip
Over the left shoulder. flip
Scrape, scrape, stroke stroke.
Over the right shoulder. flip
Sweep, scrape, stroke.
Up in a bun. swirl
Bangs fall from behind ear. tuck
Bangs fall again. tuck, tuck
Bun loosens.
scrapey flippy further hair loosening gesture
Bun comes down.
Over the shoulder. flip
Let's pin in a barette! No, let's not after all.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
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Before entering techie hell, I witnessed, essentially, the slow gurgling death of a brainstorming initiative I started about six weeks ago. Basically, interested people could hang out on Monday morning and talk about writing ideas. The first session was great. People participated, there was a crackling kind of energy in the air, I felt brilliant and useful, and we made a lot of progress. I noticed the people who did and didn't participate. Our crowd was never huge but I always thought we deserved more respect than we got. That is, people wouldn't even stop typing to participate in the session, which I kind of took personally. It's difficult to break away from writing just to attend Another Fucking Meeting, I know, but it just felt increasingly ruder each week.
On Monday, our session lasted about seven minutes. It was pathetic and sad -- something I commented on that Petal seemed only too happy to confirm -- and I cancelled the series. Honestly, I'd been wanting to cancel it (and I had the permission of my manager who said we'd now be brainstorming each week within our special new groups). Any meetings before noon on a Monday are like a slice of death and trying to rally people was difficult. I'm not a morning person and even when I wake up, I'm not a cheerleader, so I had to enlist the help of a spazzy guy in the office who makes people with ADD look focused. I'm glad that's done. I'm sad that the series didn't last longer but at least I got it started.
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During and after techie hell, I was trying to help solve a problem with a client and running into difficulty with a coworker who is campaigning on the Idiocy ticket. (How can you tell? *ba dum bum*) None of the story will make sense unless you speak Jargon and anyway, I'm closing in on 2:00 a.m. and need to go the fuck to sleep already. Suffice it to say, there were emails flying back and forth, two Skype conversations, and a complete lack of help from Petal, who was of course involved.
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Ah, Petal. [insert theme song of doom here] I'm pretty sure I have a magnet in my ass that attracts her. She now sits at the table behind me -- oh yes, we changed rooms entirely and yet she's still within striking distance. I really do have to resist the urge to thwick her when I walk by. I actually did it the other day but then had to shrug it off like, "Oops, I had too much crack earlier and now I'm twitchy. Sorry!" Sometimes it just can't be helped. It's in passive-aggressive response to things like her following me into the break room the other day and asking to eat lunch with me.
I can't stand her and yet I can't seem to get away from her. Hmm. Sounds like my last relationship.
(All week. Here. Me.)
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Kata has recently picked up a new client -- a huge household name that we're going to pretend is a dairy retailer. Cheese! is a huge account. HOOOOGE. Tess, thankfully, thinks I'm awesome and put me on Team Cheese!, knowing that Cheese! could become even bigger, more opportunities, etc. Awesome and sugary sweet cool until a couple days ago when Team Cheese! found out that our workload essentially just tripled AND we're in a test phase / some kind of escape clause in the contract that frees Cheese! of all liability (heh, that was fun to type) something something contract we really have to impress them.
Team Cheese! has two writers. Me and Cardio, who happens to be a gay boy.
Cheese! wants us to write 50 articles a month, I think it is. So 25 a month per person, on top of writing for six other clients.
There's a little bit of stress at Kata.
Between trying to figure out false vs. real clouds and why anyone should give a fuck (this is a rhetorical statement; I need not hear any arguments from either the pro or con sides), I spent about half the day with my head literally in my hands. Well, actually, it was kind of like bracing my head against my left hand which was pushing my left eyebrow up all Spock-like as though physically stretching the skin on my head would make enough room for my brain to understand what the fuck I was trying to learn and the messes I was trying to help vacuum up.
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Towards the end of the day, I received a fourth rewrite request on an article that has haunted my last few weeks. The article was about how difficult it is to diagnose many types of cancer. I thought it was pretty good work. I researched a few different types of cancer and wrote an informative article.
It came back with a rewrite but no instructions for fixing the alleged problems. Helpful!
Turns out one of the editors called it "weak." I have not and probably will not forget that flake-and-a-half for that insult. I got your weak RIGHT FUCKING HERE.
Grubby, the editor who shared Flake's comments with me didn't happen to agree, thankfully, but also saw fit to pass on the "weak" comment, so I'm not a big fan of hers either.
I reworked the article, tried to make it more... more... I don't know what I was trying to do because there was nothing wrong with the original article GARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
It came back with another rewrite request.
Turns out Grubby accidentally hit the rewrite button. Tee hee!
The article remained lodged, if you will, in the system. Grubby told me not to worry about it, that it wouldn't need to be rewritten.
A week later she writes and essentially wants to know where my rewrite is.
Uh...
*rewinds tape*
We go through our entire conversation over, figuring out where we are in the process. I rewrite the article a second time.
It comes back a fourth time with comments from the client like "We don't treat that type of cancer."
This means that Grubby, the point person for the client, read my article multiple times and never, at one point, said, "Gosh, this isn't right. Let's fix it before we send it to the client, looking stupid as hell even though we have their printed materials all over this office."
Just seeing the word rewrite was enough to make me cry. I suggested that Grubby find someone else to write the article and she made the mistake of agreeing with me. She let me know that the rewrites weren't a reflection on my writing something something just stop talking.
That was Monday, which started out deceptively well. I got up after a great night's sleep and made it to the grocery for lunch fixins before work. I was at work early enough to make and eat breakfast before going to my desk. Unlike Cardio, I respect people's work space and desire to not listen to chewing and I take my meals in the break room.
AHEM.
Tuesday was better but this new explosion of business from Cheese! has everyone on edge. I am reminded each day when I don't make quota, a fact that practically makes me ill. I'm wildly conflicted when it comes to Kata. I'm being paid to write, yes, but I'm also netting less now that I did starting for King V back in 2005. I literally can't afford to lose any more money -- I'm down about $400/month from when I started with Kata as a contractor and didn't have any bennies to pay for or 401K to contribute to. The great news, of course, is that I have bennies and a retirement fund. The bad news is that I'm struggling, again, to catch up financially and the whole shebang is wearing me out to my core.
I shall shuffle off to bed now and claim a precious four-ish hours of sleep before starting my Wednesday. I've gone in prepared the last two mornings -- up early enough to plan and eat breakfast, shop for food, or vote so that I wouldn't have to worry about doing so after work -- so let's see what going in looking like refried ass does for my productivity. At least there's free coffee.
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