The third-worst job I ever had involved a lot of dread.
Dread and anxiety and pressure and deadness and agonizing wishing it would end.
Maybe not as full-of-dread as the Moroccan mafia toy import company, and maybe not as full-of-deadness as the assembly line.
But the former I’ve mostly repressed and it’s gone. And as for the latter, I was too depressed to really be there, so I don’t remember. I mean, of course I remember but it seems like too many lifetimes ago.
No. That lifeless sad sad sad shell-person could not have been me. That is a dream.
But the third-worst job. That was definitely me.
Remembering and not remembering.
The official hours were eight to five. The actual hours were more like eight to seven.
There was one twenty minute break for lunch, during which I was still expected to keep answering the phones.
I guess you could say I was the secretary. Who was also the office manager. Who was also the personal assistant to the CEO. Who was also a bunch of other things.
During the days I was efficient, competent, organized, rushed. Also: screamed at, berated, humiliated, overburdened, unappreciated.
During whatever brief time I was both awake and not at work, I was engaged with trying to remember who I was. And sometimes trying to forget.
Mornings. Evenings. Mornings.
To arrive at work at eight a.m, I had to catch the 6:45 bus to Ramat HaHayal.
The evening bus was much longer. You never knew when it would come, and it took a winding, unbearably slow detour through every town, every neighborhood.
It was a pretty unlikely bus line for a terrorist to target, but terrorists in Israel are notoriously non-strategic and stranger things have happened, and every evening I would think maybe today is the day.
If the bus exploded, I wouldn’t have to go back to work the next day. If I died, at least I never had to go through a day like the one I’d just had.
And if I didn’t, the government would put me on a pension and take care of me. That usually got me through the first half of the ride home.
Home. Not really home. A place with a bed and a narrow space (maybe two feet by five feet) in which to do what I called monk’s yoga.
Monk’s yoga. And the other three.
There were four things that kept me sane.
One.
My boyfriend, who was four years younger than me and whom I loved so much it hurt.
He was getting ready to move to Amsterdam, which hurt more. And he didn’t need me the way I needed him, which hurt even more. A lot of hurt, in short.
In the twenty or so minutes between seeing him and falling asleep halfway through my dinner, I got to see myself through the eyes of someone who thought I was hot and smart and crazy-talented. And that was my salvation.
Two.
Writing. I didn’t have time for it but I did it anyway.
Scribbling bits and pieces on post-it notes. Typing up stories on my one day off.
It was probably the only time in my life when I had no problem at all self-defining as a writer.
When I wrote, I had power. I was in flow. My being-here-now had meaning. And that was my salvation.
Three.
Berlin.
One day I was going to get out of the deadness, quit the job and get to Berlin.
I got to speak a fair amount of German at work, and remembering each time that one day I would be gone and this would be nothing but a crappy memory was also salvation.
And then there was the monk’s yoga.
Yoga had gotten me through my divorce, through unemployment, through poverty, through unspeakable things. And it was going to get me through this.
I knew that.
And that is why I woke up at an impossibly early hour.
To have fifty sweet minutes with myself and my breath and my body. Not thinking. Just being.
The space I had to move in was so tiny and so cramped that there was a very limited number of poses that could be done in it. Like in a monk’s cell.
I did them all. Slowly. The way the monk would.
And then I maneuvered myself onto my back on the cool tiles. To do nothing for five minutes. It was going to be the most peaceful five minutes of my day, and I knew it.
Then it was over and I was back to multi-tasking: having my first cry of the day while rolling a cigarette and eating a piece of fruit and leaving a note on the door.
Monk’s yoga. Though he probably wouldn’t have cried or had the cigarette. Still, we shared a cell.
Oh, and now we’re here.
There is a reason for all of this:
I met her (I mean, me) again this morning and we had the most … unlikely conversation that I wanted to share with you.
And I did monk’s yoga this morning too and it was delightful.
And there are so many things I want to say and explain and wonder about.
But I’m going to save all of that for a second post.
In the meantime I will just place a magic wand that is also a tuning fork between me and her so that we can bridge the gaps. And I will say this too:
What a beautiful thing it is to be here now, in present time, in this moment, with everything I know and everything I have been.
I separate: that was then, this is now.
And I come back together: We are both writers. We both practice monk’s yoga. Slowly.
And I am so relieved to have reached this time when there is nothing needing to be forgotten.
And comment zen for today ….
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
It’s a process.
Memory can be tricky. Same goes for wisdom.
We try to meet each other with as much understanding as we can. And we’re also sovereign beings, which means that everyone gets to have his or her own experience.
If you have had difficult jobs or stories to share, or things that have brought you moments of everything-is-better-now, these are welcome. Besos.
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Oy. Work. Right now is, for me, the time where I’m using the phrase “first cry of the day”. And when I’m yearning to be somewhere else. But I’m also finding some peace in yoga and Dance of Shiva. I’m not sure what to think of the fact that I can want so badly to escape certain circumstances, and yet these practices, which have a lot to do with being here and now, feel so good. Don’t know what that stuff means. But I might start calling my yoga “monk’s yoga”.
.-= Kylie´s last post … things i love on a thursday =-.
Thank you Havi.
Work is much as you described, but without as much yelling, just deliberate ‘not speaking to you’ (even about work issues) when the boss is upset.
I too am engaged in trying to remember who I am and I caught a glimmer at the retreat last week. Now I’m making the time I can to stay connected back amidst the kids and laundry and groceries and meetings.
It occurs to me though, that like you had a conversation with your You from Then, perhaps I should have a conversation with my Me from sometime in the Future. I’m sure she has words of wisdom to share about getting through this.
Blessings to you.
Wow. This sounds, in some ways, very familiar. I’ve been lurking for a while but I wanted to say hello after this post.
I’m luckier than you in that I am appreciated and the actual work itself is not that hard. I’m 25, I’ve been in school for a while and then unemployed for a year and this is my First Real Job. I leave the house at 6:30 and return home around 7:30. A big chunk of that day is commuting, but I also am the one who has to be answering phones during my lunch break. It’s frustrating to have so little time at home to find “me.” I’m trying to make myself do yoga at 5:45, but I often give up after a few minutes. I need to fix this, and I berate myself a lot for it. Lots of guilt.
I make just enough money to stay alive. I love the people I work with and I like the organization, though it’s not a Perfect Fit. I’m dreaming about that Perfect Fit one day, but I know that the commute won’t change. I love my city too much, and I need to work in my Work City too much. If anything, in five years I’ll be making more but sleeping less. Still, I’m hoping for that day when I look back at this and laugh, when spending the money for a cup of coffee doesn’t make me yell at myself and feel like a failure.
I love your blog, and how it’s about safety and silliness and all these other things I long for. It helps me get through the day.
I think I need one of your magic-wand tuning forks.
Thank you for being more brave than I am.
.-= Chris Anthony´s last post … Lessons of Delight 1- We are unique =-.
Oh Havi!
This was just what I needed today: I think it’s time I accept that you just have the perfect timing for me and a lot of us who read your blog.
Thank you for modeling this “Remembering/Not Remembering:” That opened some floodgate of memories and at the same time gave me permission to do the same for some parts of me I “kind of” forgot. And I did build a bridge between then and now.
Hugs to your then you: What a courageous Havi that was!
Reading this post, I cried, and sent a hug through time and space to the bravely becoming young woman you were, and felt–feel–so much love for the Havi you are now.
Love,
Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … There’s Wholeness in Holes =-.
@Hiro – oh so much love to you too, my dear. Thank you for teaching me so many useful things about tuning wands and bridges.
@Sanders – thank you, my dear. Big hug to you. I miss you!
@Chris – magic wand tuning forks for everyone! Take as many as you like from the general source.
@Judith – thank you! And wishing you many perfect simple solutions, and perfect simple surprises, so that you end up with more money *and* more rest *and* more of everything else that supports you. May it be so. 🙂
@Kristen – oh it was so wonderful to meet you last week at the retreat. Sending you love and wishing for ease and comfort in the transitions. Kiss!
@Kylie – sweetpea! Sadface for first cry of the day, remembering that. And yay for monk’s yoga and for practices that connect you to yourself and for knowing that you’re on your way to newness.
I remember a time when Sunday Night Blues were a regular part of my week. When I’d feel the mounting sense of sorrow and impending doom as the weekend was coming to an end, and I knew I’d have to get up early in the morning, and get through another long week of work.
Here’s what’s odd, though: I don’t remember what, specifically, I was dreading so much. Performance anxiety? Time pressures? Having to don my mask and conceal myself, hide all my little quirks, because I didn’t think they’d be acceptable, or just because I didn’t want to risk being noticed much? Some of all of that, maybe.
Perhaps I just didn’t want to have to sell so much of my time, to have so many hours when I “belonged” to someone else, when my autonomy was deferred.
I think this all began to feel different after my daughter was born, when my weeks were made up of two different rhythms, and one was a respite for the other. Then, a few years after that, I knew that I wanted to be self-employed, and I made the internal shift: wherever I was working, I was working for myself. (If I am a pirate queen, I believe that’s when I became one.)
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … An experiment =-.
Just the right story, at just the right time, Havi. Thank you.
(And the PTSD stuff? The separate stuff? You have no idea how much I needed that this week. Bless you, hon.)
.-= KatFrench´s last post … Wherein a crazy person attempts to ask me out Sort of In the most bizarre way possible =-.
@Kristen: I did that last week! I had a conversation with me from the future. It was really good. And it totally went places I didn’t expect it to.
As to jobs:
There was that time not so long ago when I would wake up at 630 am, long before my alarm clock, and be unable to sleep anymore. And from the minute I opened my eyes I my breath was shallow. Shallow and panicky. From minute one.
Then I’d shower and dress and drive to work and just barely maintain a veneer of calm. Then at lunch I’d go out to my car (couldn’t eat) and just lay there. For an hour, in my car. Not sleeping. Not doing anything. Just not moving.
Then later in the day I’d pace. In circles. Like those lions at the zoo. Panicky shallow breaths. Racing heart. Every moment, all day.
Then I’d go home, eat, and have trouble falling asleep. Untill I’d wake up again at 630.
It wasn’t even the job, per se, which was so horrible. It was my complete and utter lack of any skills or strategies to help me through that time. Utter helplessness. And an almost constant low level drone of emotional terror.
I should definitely get out my magic wand/tuning fork. Thanks for reminding me that I can, that me-who-was and me-who-is are alike but we are also different. That there is space now. That there always was…
Wow–this post was emotionally laden, and then some…
Memory can be so tricky–especially when we get stuck obsessing over the bad moments, and even embellishing them for an extra dose of masochism.
I am thankfully at a point where I love my work, but many crappy jobs and memories to not remember existed.
Thank you for the reminder to live in the present Havi.
Love this meditation on the tuning fork bridge. And on how the monk’s yoga is the still point in the turning world.
This monk’s yoga. Oh do I want that. I keep thinking about it (and about my 10-month old who currently occupies my waking-up moments) and wanting it and not finding space for it and wanting it some more. Thanks for helping me think more about this. That even in the craziest times you can make space for self and breath. Thank you for that reminder.
.-= Jesse´s last post … On adopting a skateboard =-.
Right now I’m thinking about the things that keep me sane and being thankful for them – especially the people at work it’s easy to overlook. So thank you for the reminder.
That bus-ride calculation is sadly familiar. The context is different for me (I was 10 and the job was Alcoholic’s Daughter) but the everyday dread, and the almost-makes-it-okay realization was the same back then: “The worst possible outcome is not so bad, is actually better, in some ways, than where I am now: one way or another, it would set me free.”
Interestingly, I was writing about this very thing last week. And I’d determinedly set the remembering aside again a few days ago, but this and other things keep bringing it back up. Gently, though. Maybe just to remind me again that despite the residual hard stuff I still deal with from time to time, I am free now! I’m not there anymore, and here is infinitely better.
Just.what.I.needed.
I am going through one of my worst days of work ever, and I headed over here to your virtual Playground for comfort. I had no idea how exquisitely tailor-made this comfort would turn out to be. Bless you.
I think that maybe I have lived a rather charmed life. My work has never been so bad as that.
However, I will say this. Sometimes, I want to go back and give my former self a hug and a chocolate bar, and tell her that everything is going to be OK. Really. She sort of needed more people to do that for her.
.-= Amber´s last post … Soccer Mom =-.
My first paying job was as a “telephone interviewer.” I was attending Columbia University’s summer session at the time, studying English composition between junior and senior years in high school.
I saw the job notice on the student union bulletin board, and to me it seemed like I’d be interviewing cool people over the phone. Sorta like journalism. Make sense?
What it turned out to be was a tiny cubicle in a highrise in midtown Manhattan with no windows. I was to call somebodyorother at XYZ company and read a sales script, after which I would usually get hung up on.
I did this all summer: Going to class, taking the subway across town and then telemarketing from my windowless cubicle –my own Monk’s cell, as it were.
Here’s what got me through: it was a means to an end. I had agreed to pay my parents back half for the class at Columbia, which so completely fantastic that it made the agony of my monk’s cell bearable.
The interesting irony is that I didn’t become a journalist; I became a monk. For nearly 20 years. Go figure.
Thank you, Havi, for your beautiful post.
.-= Rupa´s last post … The Stories That Would Bring Us to Ourselves =-.
Hi Havi,
I have been reading your blog for a long time, and thank you thank you thank you!!!
My comment has nothing to do with today’s post. How arbitrary! But I had to share–I talked to my monsters for the first time today, thanks to you. It was good. Very informative!
You can read about it here, on my blog, if you wish. I would be honored, really.
http://collidescopes.wordpress.com/
.-= Staci´s last post … Talking to Monsters =-.
I’ve had a lot of really sucky jobs over the years. The one that immediately came to mind was the bakery I worked at one summer during college. I waited on customers, and there were these really old adding machines we used. One of the machines gave me an electric shock every time I touched it. Not cool. So I unplugged it. A little while later it was plugged in again. So I unplugged it again. This kept repeating until I saw the owner plugging it in. I told him I had unplugged it because it kept giving everyone electric shocks. He said, “That’s to keep you girls awake.” Jerk.
There was also the 6 year stint in the bead store, working for a woman who had multiple personalities or something. I don’t know what was wrong with her, but man, she had issues. One minute she was incredibly nice and charming and generous, the next she was a total bitch who was talking about installing security cameras in the back of the store because she thought employees might be stealing toilet paper. She would yell at me until I was in tears.
Toward the end of that job, I woke up every morning hoping I would be sick so I wouldn’t have to go to work that day (and if I didn’t work, I didn’t get paid). Why I stayed 6 years, I still can’t fathom.
My job now…well, the people are all very nice, but I’m bored out of my skull. At least I’ve got a plan in place to get out, and I’m down to half time so I can actually work on my plan.
.-= Riin´s last post … I survived! =-.
Your post is insightful and courageous – thankyou. Not only do you have the courage to revisit your past, but the courage to share it with us. You are a Shaman and I offer you this link to a beautiful Shaman song in gratitude of your blog post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l4JD1c7vDk
The timing of things amazes me! I just finished my own blog post about issues with a current boss. This is like confirmation from the universe that this too shall pass. Thank You!
Your cell reminded me of my room the year I lived in SF. 6’x12′ maybe, with most of it under stairs. That’s where the air mattress was. Had to make sure I didn’t sit up when I awoke so I wouldn’t bash my head.
My boss was basically my landlord and every time he stopped by, he would walk through as though he was pissing in all the corners to mark it as his. It’s more amusing in retrospect.
Super long exploratory walks helped a lot.
.-= claire´s last post … Im not going to apologize =-.
Dear Havi,
funny that I’m not alone in this world making up the “list of worst jobs”.
Fighting for number one position:
1: Picking fruit for 5 weeks under a merciless australian sun from 6am to 4pm and living in a tent with two friends (5 stars for most exhausting and worst paid)
2: Assembly line in a dvd factory, putting dvds in dvd boxes with a fat woman yelling: faster, faster! Meeting women who did this for 20 years was a shock. (4 stars for most mindnumbing, over controlled job with a siren announcing breaks)
3: Waiting tables at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich during Oktoberfest-time: shifts from 10am to 12pm with short break. Walking in in the morning and seeing the first people getting drunk, carrying porc meals all day and bavarian music killing your brain cells – wow, I survived! (5 stars for most exhausting and also 5 stars for being well enough paid to buy me a ticket to Brazil)
4: Making Falafel in a nice middle eastern restaurant place with a super choleric boss and being thrown out at midday with the shop full of people while I really needed money. Wow, I almost repressed that one. (4 stars for bad working climate and low, low salary)
Also funny that i have a nice job with a wonderful team and a relaxed buddhist boss right now and feeling bad that i still want something more fulfilling than making phone calls and writing PR-concepts.
Hugs to you all!
J
Hi Havi,
I’m having a hard moment right now, full of fear, anxiety and doom, lots of doom… and this is where I am right now, and it’s ok, because I’m in a transition (I’ll just finish university, yay!) but paperwork is giving me headaches; and this post reminded me that this will pass, and there are better days ahead.
Thanks a lot, 🙂
Vania