It's Friday afternoon and I've been at work since 8am. it's my second week and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm doing a smooth contemplation of PhD Program. I must admit when I was offered my position I wasn't super enthusiastic about it, but I thought it had potential.....(Oh naive one how wrong you were.)
While I was frantically applying to positions I had a foolish delusion that right after grad school I would end up in some decent level position in the "urban" department of some cable network giving them insight on how Black people should be depicted onscreen. Alas, despite all of my posturing this was not to be the case.
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| HELP! |
Now let me be clear, I still work at an extremely prominent company in the entertainment industry...my position however leaves little to be desired. I was out to dinner with my friend the weekend before I started and he warned me that the first week on the job was going to SUCK.
He was not wrong.
At the end of the day last Friday I wanted somebody to say something crazy to me just so I could politely gather my bag and exit. Sadly this dream was not realized. I had miraculously made it through a 45/hr work week and I had no excuse to not return Monday morning.
I envisioned a bougie version of this (sans the man part)
The first week was really bad for me because I didn't have a desk which in turn meant I didn't have a computer.... Please ask yourself when is the last time you sat around for 9 hours with no access to a computer....Don't worry, I'll wait........ It was utterly horrific. By Wednesday I came home and had a small mental break down because I just wanted to take a hot shower and got to bed. Of course my tub was stopped up and I was without DRAIN-O. Obviously the only thing left to do was to curl up in the fetal position and cry about how my life sucked and how unfair it was. Surely this first week was meant to break people, meant to deprive them of all of their humanity so that company could begin to weed out the weaker links. Still somehow (mostly thru pep talks with my besties and sister), I managed to get myself together and show up the next day.
As I stumbled into my apartment last Friday night, Chipotle and Ice cream in hand (attempts at the gym totally foiled for the week), I began to plan my exodus. I realized when I signed up for my current position it wasn't exactly going to be the cat's meow but Chile let me tell you this is for the birds. Because my hours are early, late, long and ever changing I feel like I rarely have a chance to do anything during the week. I AM NOT about this life.
This was further reinforced last Saturday when I attended a panel of lovely academics who discussed the implications in depictions of Slavery in the cinema. It was everything. I got to listen to things I cared about, I watched Gordon Parks' Solomon Northrup's Odyssey (1984) (the original 12 Years a Slave). All in all my mind was stimulated in a way that it had not been during the entire work week. One way to stifle a group of talented and creative people is to have them sit behind a desk for nine hours transferring phone calls and getting people coffee.
I acknowledge that some people will say I should be very grateful many people are struggling to find a job. I will say I am very grateful to be able to pay my bills. But I also ask myself at what cost? I worked extremely hard all throughout college and graduate school. I worked, interned and volunteered. I have to think that all that, as well as the ridiculous amounts of loans that I must begin paying back in November count for something. I am still very young so I have a ton to learn but I also realize that's advantageous to me. I don't have serious responsibilities, I'm malleable, ever changing and growing. All of the work I put in must mean something, no one deserves to be miserable.
Today I cleaned off a tissue from a guest who had blown their nose and left it on the counter. I was also screamed at by a caller because it was 8am and the person they wanted to speak with wasn't in. (This can't be life.) But alas, there are some bright spots it is Friday after all and the FedEx man was giving me Boris in Soul Food the Series fioneness .
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| FRIDAY |
xoxox Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxox