Malaise Malaise Malaise

I took a new job coming up on five years ago. It was, on paper, a logical and smart next step. I had been floating on my previous job for over a decade and hit what I thought was the ceiling of useful opportunity and advancement. I had also reached the point of being able to do the job on autopilot. Don’t get me wrong, I worked hard…usually. I did take pride in reputation as a problem solver, an approachable and thoughtful listener, a fella with a solid (borderline workplace in appropriate) sense of humor. I remember making a Roman Polanski joke at a departmental event once. It was completely inappropriate but darn funny all at the same time. People laughed. I soaked it in. Making people laugh is one of the greatest highs in life for me.

Anyway, the new job. To paraphrase Mr. Daltrey, same as the old job. That’s not quite true. It was a more hostile place. It was bereft of the genuine warmth that was part of what kept me at my decade plus job. The warmth was missing, the people were fine — and I mean that in the very George Carlin sense of the word — fine. I got paid more money to do less. I was able to get some stuff done. A project here, a project there. Hired a couple of good people. On paper I also quickly began to realize that the business model in the non-profit I was quickly cementing myself into was horrendous. Too many barriers to effect real change, institutional barriers, barriers that would require a paradigm shift to see a measurable shift in outcomes. But I stayed. I went through three bosses in four years. Instead of ignoring the sign posts I was ignoring being beaten over my head by the signposts. But I stayed. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I was biding my time for a train that never showed up. I’m married with two children and I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

You can sit down with me and read off a list of jobs from all walks of life and I can tell you why I don’t want to do them. I am quite self aware of what I don’t want. What I can’t tell you is what I love. I love music but probably not as much as the next guy. I love my wife and kids but they only wish to keep me on as a volunteer. They refuse to pay me for my middle of the road service. But I do love making people laugh. I love making people feel better, even if briefly. What can I do with that? Maybe I should have listened to an internal dialogue that was happening earlier. To be honest, I am not even sure it ever happened. My restlessness may have been dormant until this new (now old) job, but even then it slept fitfully as I coasted from one day to the next when my greatest joy each day was the act of leaving this place, unshackling the anchor from my leg and driving home. Fun fact I believe that I have learned that I can share — if the most joyful moment in your day is leaving your job, you might not be in a good job. That’s a life lesson free of charge. You’re welcome.

So I remain in a post 2020 haze. The death of my father, day after day of internal combustion and external malaise in a job that is as vacuous as it is ulcerative. Listen hard for that internal voice. It may be speaking to you and you don’t hear it. Or it may just not exist. I don’t know. But I do know that at 46 years old there should be more than this. I just need to figure out how to find it.