I'm working from home for a few hours today, or at least I will be in a few minutes now that DH and AB are out the door. And I guess I should remember that as frustrated as I am with my job right now, it's better than the last one in that I never could've worked from home, and my boss's attitude was more "get back in here, you slacker" than "do what you need to do to get healthy before you come back."

MFNlaw

I'm going to be blunt as well, but I keep getting the feeling that you place more stock in being published than you do being a writer. You're no less a writer if you self-publish than if you're signed to a multi-book deal with a mainstream imprint. You're letting an external thing define what you are rather than letting YOU define what you are.

Well...I have Issues about self-publication after having met a few too many self-published writers who couldn’t sell to a paying publisher, large or small press, because their work is crap, but they’re completely blind to that fact. And they waste their money trying to publicize the thing and can’t seem to understand why they’re not the one in a million who actually succeeds through self-publication. Now, I’m 99% sure my writing isn’t crap...but I’m sure they feel the same way, or they wouldn’t have gone that route.

As for the larger issue, well, I’m not writing just because I want to be published. If I didn’t love telling stories and care about the craft for its own sake, I never would’ve made it this far. And I don’t think it’s wrong for a writer to want to be published any more than it’s wrong for a doctor to want to practice medicine or someone with a PhD to want a professorship. The storytelling process isn’t complete without an audience, IMHO.

What I do need to work on, and know I need to work on, but struggle with because it’s so deeply ingrained in me, is the idea that I’m a failure because I don’t have the prestigious career that everybody predicted for me when I was younger, and that the one way I can redeem that and prove that I’m not a waste of a brain and an expensive education is by publishing a book.

Cashmere:

Lots of good advice has been given, Susan. I think you're making strides to cope with this issue (go free career counseling!). I also think that it's important not to look at it as an either/or situation. Working on your authority issues and/or the self-esteem issues that come from being a worker bee in combination with a job that may be a little less restrictive might do the trick. It's a matter of balance. You're never going to find the perfect job that offers you absolutely everything you want out of it. But you don't have to be miserable, either.

Yeah, that’s the main thing I’m looking for--not being miserable. I just don’t want to spend the next 30 years of my life dreading Monday-Friday the way I have for so much of the previous 15.

Jessica:

Now I work for a tiny department within a huge lumbering dinosaur of a company, and it's probably as close to the best of both worlds as I'm going to get. I still have to deal with a lot of political bullshit of working for a company this big/old/stodgy, but within my little department, I have a fair amount of autonomy and flexibility. (Which also has a lot to do with my specific job - since I'm the only one who knows how to do most of the things I'm responsible for, I get to decide how to do them.)

Well...the thing is, I thought I’d found that with my current job, and the new director has changed the atmosphere so much that it’s not the same place anymore. She wants hierarchy. She wants order. She wants dotted i's and crossed t’s and all of us marching in step with the larger organization. FWIW, I’m far from the only one who’s unhappy with the changes. Pretty much EVERYONE is unhappy, AFAICT.

the new director has changed the atmosphere so much that it’s not the same place anymore.

Ugh, I so feel your pain there. Though my department has mostly adjusted to work around her managerial style (rather than work with it, which would make us all crazy).

ION, the single-food restaurant fad has officially gone too far.

Mmm, potatoes.

How long til that place goes national? Next week? Sooner?

ION, the single-food restaurant fad has officially gone too far.

There was this chain called One Potato Two (One Potato Too?) around 20 years ago. I used to go to the one in a mall in Green Bay.

How long til that place goes national? Next week? Sooner?

Seriously...although, I am dubious about their ability to do a baked potato that is really cooked as well as one I can do at home.

the idea that I’m a failure because I don’t have the prestigious career that everybody predicted for me when I was younger

It's like the curse of the former gifted child, isn't it? I hate that. I'm so prone to it myself -- I was supposed to be a sooper-geeeenius, and here I can't even pick a field -- but I've settled into it. I kind of figure at this point I'm gathering quirky details for my eventual book-jacket blurb (assessed computers for the Navy, edited press releases for Hustler, learned dirty words from her Spanish-speaking students, and spent a year teaching a subject she didn't know from Adam). Once I hit 80 and have to admit that I'm not likely to get a book jacket for the blurb to go on, everyone else will be retired and worrying about their next surgery too, so what'll it matter? At that point the only missed Life Accomplishment I'll have to explain away is not having any grandchildren to drive me to the hospital.

That's my plan. It wouldn't work for you, with your goals and plans and stuff (clarification: that's totally a dig at my aimlessness, NOT your good thinking), but it's how I cope. I'm not sure anyone really lives up to their early promise. If I had to do it over again, I think I'd pretend to be really dumb as a child, so holding down a decent job which (almost) pays the bills would actually be impressive rather than disappointing.

Anyway, I must go make copies, because otherwise my Architecture class will rise up and attack me with... er, lacrosse sticks, I think.

Oops, I spoke too soon. Because there is also this.

Dear NYC restauranteurs,

YOU CAN SERVE MORE THAN ONE THING! I PROMISE WE WON'T BE PARALYZED WITH INDECISION!

ION, the single-food restaurant fad has officially gone too far.

I think there's plenty of room to go further.