So why do I cringe now when there's someone out in the lobby? I think it's probably the fact that after seeing that although I can make real differences in the short term, I'm not satisfied with that. The real victory will be when people aren't placed in situations of opposition against their own society and government. I feel like I'm processing people. I'm winning the majority of the battles, but losing the war.

Maybe it's time for me to move on...

[ 24 January 2003: Message edited by: verbatim ]

And you don't want me to be a sad panda.

Anyway, I'm dissatisfied, but for different reasons.

It seems like the only thing I do well is schoolwork. I suck at interpersonal-relations crap, I can't have a conversation in a group because I have to read lips and process what people say in the half-second interval between the time they say something and I have a response, and some other inconsiderate shit is running off at the mouth before I can get a goddamn word in edgewise.

And when I start projects I manage to stall out too easily.

And when I try to get my points across, or prove my abilities, or whatever, I tend to trip and fall flat on my face because I'm too outspoken, or too quiet (the two are not a contradiction. I can be quite outspoken on babble or any electronic medium where my comprehension is near-perfect... except for line noise - nudges Michelle - but I can be rather quiet in person), or too "grandstanding", and so people think I'm not suitable.

here is my prescription

[ 25 January 2003: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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So why do I cringe now when there's someone out in the lobby?

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Verbatim, this is really, really common. Doesn't mean you're not sympathetic or that you're not a decent person. I think this is probably the reason why many front-line workers at places like welfare and EI offices start to become insufferable or contemptuous with their clients (and I'm not saying you are, btw) - either they've been doing the job too long, or they're just not cut out for dealing with it every day. Not everyone has the temperament to do a job like that.

For me, it was the other way around. I thought I wouldn't have the patience to deal with down-and-out clients on a regular basis or that I would get burnt out quickly, but I knew I would always be able to be polite, so I took a job being an admin assistant/receptionist for an EI working group. Maybe it was the positive atmosphere of the group itself, but I worked there for a year and a half, and I loved it. I had to deal with all sorts of problems that clients had with EI and job searching and stuff like that (I was basically the front line), get information for them, etc. And to my surprise, I found myself absolutely loving it. Who knew? I want to do something like that after I'm out of school now too - maybe see if I can become a manager of a place like that. People were amazed with us because they didn't get the same kind of bored, contemptuous treatment in our office as they did at the actual EI office.

I guess you just never know whether you're suited for that kind of work until you try. And there's no shame in not being suited for it. Geez, I wish some other people who work on the front line of social services would recognize it when they can no longer refill their empathy bottles and look for other work. And also - being a front-line worker for the down-and-out is not the only way you can contribute to social justice. Everyone has different talents, you know?

Usually I've managed to shift some of the paper off my desk onto someone elses desk (who has shifted theirs to mine), and it's an endless cycle of unfinished work. The PURPOSE to this work and the RESULT of it is very difficult to measure.

In the larger scheme, I'm sure my work is valuable. But the scheme I can appreciate it sure doesn't seem that way.

Construction workers, factor workers, and other "blue collar" workers are more likely to get that feeling (I imagine). Whether its offered by their work or carefully manufactured by their employer, it is recognized as an important part of job satisfaction.

Flotsom, your Wickaninnish Inn is a great idea but it runs $400.00 per night. It really is the most beautiful place though.

As for me, I know there are a lot of successful photographers out there who do really well, I also know that there are a lot of photographers out there who can't get by. Ultimately, I just have to try it, but it really is scary.

[ 26 January 2003: Message edited by: angela N ]

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My capacity to become bored is astounding. I have worked in 3 distinctly different fields in my 10 years in the work force. I am currently employed at a great firm, with great bosses and co-workers, a steady supply of fairly interesting work and I want to smash my head into my monitor... I am so tired of this. I know this is common, but I was wondering why it’s common. Why do we get bored so easily. When will we ever be satisfied with the status quo? Or is it simply our nature to be perpetually dissatisfied? It’s not just me... right?

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I definitely think it's human nature to be perpetually dissatisfied. It's linked to our utter aloneness and uselessness in the universe. It's linked to our fears of self-determination. It's linked to the precariousness of our existence.

I really hate Mick Jagger and I really hate the Rolling Stones. They're all swagger and misogyny... something that becomes more and more repulsive for every year that they age. I'm actually convinced that the sole reason for their longevity as a band is that standing next to Keith Richards is the only way that Mick Jagger can look even halfway good.

[ 27 January 2003: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

For that, more power to him.

To overcome boredom, I think it was either Fritz Perls or Erich Fromm who said it, requires hard work and discipline.

It is really therapeutic to see someone share the frustration. Word for word, I know what you mean. And I guess I'm realising that I maybe shouldn't work on the "front lines", which for a long time I saw as a failure, but as Michelle said, I think it's about knowing where your talents are.

[ 29 January 2003: Message edited by: Anna ]

That's why few stick with it.

I think when...geesh, when... will there ever be a time I can devote time to this again and not feel I'm depriving my nearest and dearest to do so?.... when I get involved again, likely through my local, it will be ONE thing, one thing I'm good at, something with things I can accomplish and enjoy, and feel I made a difference, small though it might be.

As far as Angela's angst goes, (Hmm.... dibs on that for a book title....) it could be she's of a type that seeks the novel, never satisfied for long with one thing, always looking and searching for some elusive thing.

I used to think it was a product of our modern times, but de Sade made reference to such people back in the 1700's.

I think some, or alot of us are born that way.

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I think that after you have been at a job for ten years or more, if you have won some freedom and colleagial respect and have a stable working environment wonderful things start to happen.

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I've never lasted more than 5 years at anything, except filmmaking, which I generally did while working at other jobs. I don't think I am constitutionally suited to staying in a job for 10 years. I can't take the routine. It's an entirely different kind of stress than the instability of being self-employed. It's funny, though, I was afraid of the instability for the longest time, but once I made the leap, I found that the kind of stress involved was so much more manageable than the day to day boredom.

Verbatim, I understand how you feel, at least a bit. I spent 5 years as a front-line case manager at WCB (you wind up dealing with a lot of psycho-social issues in the recovery process after serious injuries... It has some similarity to social work, but not quite as involved). I loved working with people, but after a while, especially if you are chronically overloaded as we were, you can become exhausted. I was good at my job, but at the end of my time there, it was just time to move on.

Angela, best of all possible worlds, what do you see yourself doing? Can you make a plan to phase into it over a period of time? Long-range planning actually works for this sort of thing. If you're looking at self-employment in a cultural industry, you will have to make peace with the idea that sometimes your livelihood will feel like it's being held together with spit, hope and duct tape... But it just might be worth it.

[ 29 January 2003: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

I know what it's like to love my job and to have my work indistinguishable from my life, so my dissatisfaction with my straight job isn't vague. It's very very specific. I am not temperamentally, creatively or artistically suited to middle management administrative work. That's all. I do it out of economic necessity and it doesn't matter how lucky I am to have the work, or how an accident of birth means I don't get my next meal from a garbage dump in Calcutta, or conversely how unfair it is that I can't support my kids doing what I love.

It's just the way it is.

Got the website up now … finally. Now I have to get it on the damn search engines… is there any free way to do that?

Anyone need a photographer? (Am I allowed to ask that?)

Me? I'm staff at Ryerson and I do a little teaching for Image Arts. The teaching I love, but the 9-to-5 is just to keep body and soul together, and allow my wife to finish her Doctorate. I like to eat, and so does my landlord, so off to work I go.

People who remember my passion for photography often ask if I'm still taking pictures & my sad answer is no - I'm one of those people with 2 Christmases on one roll of film

Hey do you remember Alfonzo (last name forgotten) is he still teaching at Ryerson? I used to live in the same building as Gallery 44 and A-space (before they moved to 401 Richmond) so Alfonso was always about. He was probably the biggest influence I had as a photographer.

Number two: I realized I had nothing to say. I had technical abilities, but the desire to use them artistically dried up. I had always been exploring for my own reasons, and indulging my own visual fascinations, but I stopped being as fascinated. Plus after 4 years I needed a rest.

Number three: When I graduated I lost access to studios, darkrooms, 8x10 cameras, huge strobes, and other toys.

Number four: I had discovered computers.

I've always meant to pick up some Polaroid 55 (so I don't have to develop my own big negs) and make some Cyanotypes up on my roof (I have gobs of the chemicals), but Numbers 1 and 2 get in the way. Maybe this summer.

Something that may interest you: two of my best pals during the 4 years were a woman who was 30 in first year, and a 44 year old guy who I met in night school, and who then got advanced standing in degree school. She quit a lucrative job in the insurance industry, he quit a good job as a machinist.

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Angela: I did my 4 year BFA in Photography at Ryerson. In my class of 50, there were at best, 5 students who had the chops to make a full time living with a camera in their hand. Another 10 had potential, but had to eke by as assistants, freelance printers, or portrait/wedding/baby photographers to stay in the biz. The rest? Who knows. Playing piano in a whorehouse to pay off the student loan, for all I know.

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