Corporate America Blues...

I'm home from work on this lovely Friday afternoon...with work in hand. I've got a pretty tight deadline to meet with the corporate job by the 21st, and I have to basically take it upon myself to learn how to even do it. Kind of hard to explain, but I basically have to summarize four 100-plus page documents into a Cliff's Notes of sorts. Anyone who's ever read a legal contract (or hell, Cliff's Notes) knows that the devil is in the proverbial details, and I'm struggling to figure out what is essential without having to spend too much at-work time on it. My office time often gets interrupted with small requests and tasks, taking no more than five minutes each, but five minutes here and there adds up and pretty soon that HUGE project can't get done. So I bring that home and work on it there when I can't get interrupted. Yes, children, this is how the 80-plus hour work week happens. It starts when you bring home one thing, then you get a thousand. Luckily I don't have to bill time (attributing every 6 minutes to some client and task - tasks that are budgeted to take 6 minutes and end up taking you 36) like I did at a previous job, but I'm still slowly feeling the weight. I'm one of those people that can't sit with nothing to do at work, though, so it does make the time go faster, and I'm super-happy that they're paying me to work from home when I go to Baltimore next weekend, so I really can't complain. They do seem to be a company that at least attempts to take real, tangible steps toward a good life-work balance.

I also sort of realized today that I really can't afford to NOT take the job if they offer it to me at the end of my temp assignment. My insurance is about to expire, and I will need coverage. I used to go without it after college, but I just really can't anymore. A few years ago I got pneumonia - twice. I had to go to the emergency room and even ended up taking unpaid leave for it, and had I not had insurance, I would have probably let it lapse into some crazy MRSA Molly-killing infection. I'm way healthier after getting the surgery on my sinuses - I've had 90% fewer sinus issues, and their duration has lessened by 90% as well - but I don't want to go without coverage, period. So my options would be to
a) find some well-insured immigrant, marry him and get his benefits in exchange for a green card,
b) wait for Obama's plan to insure all Americans,
c) take a huge deductible in exchange for a cheap individual plan - one that won't cover my current prescriptions, or
d) find a job with benefits.

Yeah, the alternatives are tempting, but I'll take A. Kidding, I've gotta go with D, obviously. Don't get me wrong - I like the job I've been temporarily doing, and I really like the people and the fact that people actually seek out my opinion because they know I'm intelligent. I like the money, it's rather nice to not have that heart attack of how I'm making rent next month. I feel like I can do the job and that I'm good at it, as opposed to constantly feeling like a failure at my old jobs despite working my patootie off. But it's not what makes me happy, and I have already felt the time crunch and energy crunch on the art side of things. I'm wiped out when I try to do both at equal levels, and I've already had to decline a client because I simply couldn't make her time frame fit what I could do. It sucks to have to turn down that work, it really does. I have to do it though, because I know I need to prove my worth at the corporate job. I can't really say No when someone asks me to stay later, and I don't want anyone to think at the corporate job that I'm not dependable in a crunch. I'd rather them sing my praises than wonder where I am when things come to a boiling point. So I had to turn down the art client instead. Vincent VanGogh may not have sold a painting in his lifetime, but he never had to worry about rent when the loony bin was already putting a roof over his head. It's no wonder artists go bonkers.

I'm going to go watch the office now and work. Coincidence? Or Irony? You decide.