New Job

After a pretty horrible year being unemployed and broke, I rejoined my previous firm, but in a new role. To be honest, I was not particularly excited about the role because it seems fake, fraudulent somehow. I work with a company that doesn't create anything. It only aggregates and sorts stuff. So, the work NEVER excited me. But the people were/are nice and went above and beyond in accommodating my shitty work ethic when I got depressed because I was good my first year.

That's the background. Sort of. This company had just begun in my city, and I was one of the first employees. And I was doing well. I felt like I belonged. And a year down the line, things started changing, as is wont to happen...practically everywhere. New people came in. People who were friends of my boss. They'd quickly formed a clique I felt excluded from. It was like being back at high school. It's like that shit will never leave you alone. Overall nice people, though....so the problem was/is always with me. The minute I detected a threat, my motivation fell. I began to disengage. And other shit happened in my personal life that shoved me down a spiral of depression. It got so bad that I didn't feel like getting out of bed. All this happened to me while a new and exciting project was picking up pace at work. They wanted me to one of the core team members, but I just couldn't bring myself to show up and participate regularly. Also, decisions were getting made in the clique, and the rest of us heard about them only later. This shit was/is insidious, and I will always react badly to this, I suppose. I have never learnt how to deal with this in a sensible, adult way. But I need to, because office politics will exist...everywhere. Long story short, I eventually lost that job.

One year later, though, I ended up back at the same company...despite many misgivings. I felt like I owed them a debt, for their consideration and support when I was ill. Also, I suppose I had a point to prove...mostly to myself, that I am not as bad at work as I've come to believe. Also, I needed to pick up new skills, and this role, although "underhanded," offered that possibility. And two months into the new job, here I am...wondering if I've made a gigantic mistake coming back. It's the same people, and the same cliques, and for me, the same alienation. Never feel like I belong here now. Cannot talk to the people. And worse, I feel too old mentally for my new role. I feel like I don't even understand the job. My teammates are all young...in their early to mid-20s. I'm in my early 30s, but I've always felt and acted like a goddamn grandma...a LUDDITE grandma. And I now work with SEO, which I thought was mostly about writing articles. Turns out that's only a small part of it. Content generation has changed face so drastically. You've got to keep churning out content, that isn't necessarily super valuable all the time, but LOOKS good. I've never been able to do "looks good" well. And after 10 years of editing, suddenly having to write is daunting. My writing sounds soooooo clunky, and my voice is "old" and "preachy." The team puts out such "young" "hip" content, tons of mistakes be damned. I HATE this. I HATE my job. This is NOT what I want to do with my life. But I'm stuck, once again. Create shit. Write shit. Then repurpose this shit to present it in different ways. All of this is done to earn links. It's not about the content itself. It's not really about creating anything really. It's just about earning links to your site, blog or whatever. So, most days, even 2 months later, I feel like I don't understand my job. Because, while creating this shit content is one part, I have to spend time trying to find new avenues on the net where I can post these links. Self-promotion, really. Something I've never been good at. Something the inner-me scoffs at. I mean, shouldn't your work just speak for you? Why do we even need to promote ourselves? I clearly don't understand how the world works, and a huge part of me doesn't want to. Therein lies the problem.

Anyway, for now, I'm stuck here. With this job. I have to learn to enjoy it. Do it well. So, I can tell myself I don't completely suck, and have a chance of survival in this world. I must put in effort after work to learn this thing so I can be on top of the job, and compete with my young, hip coworkers. Will I ever get there? I have to spend time drawing maps and plans first, to understand the different aspects of my job, and do each a little everyday. I have to make this work. I cannot lose this job.