The daily grind

Day number 15 at my new job started the same way days number 1-14 did.
I am cold, I miss my grandparents, and I have no fucking idea what I am doing, or how long I will last doing it.

In the morning, I wake up early, when it is still dark. BEB showers while I cuddle The Loon on the bed. As I stroke his face while he nuzzles into me, I wish that I lived on a farm with BEB, The Loon, five other dogs, three ducks, a sheep, a cow and maybe a horse, and where my daily activities consist of tending to my menagerie, writing my memoirs and baking apple pies.

Instead my day’s activities are all bleakly blurring into a lumpy, grey, porridgey mess and as hard as I try, I cannot see through the murk.

While BEB gets ready in the bathroom, I try to decide on clothes to wear to work. Whilst style is a factor, warmth is more important. Being from Brisbane, I own limited corporate attire that is also arctic-breeze resistant. Every day I struggle with my choice. My inability to tolerate the cold is not helped by the fact that our work air-conditioning is set to what seems like a single digit temperature. No one else at work seems to mind, though.

BEB leaves for work before me. We always kiss goodbye, and I always tell him to “drive safely”. Sometimes BEB offers to drive me to the train station, but I always say no. This is because I worry about him getting in a fatal accident as a result of my inability to walk 500 metres to catch the train. Instead, I put on my scarf, grab my Glad snap-lock bag of Weeties, and head out the door, walking briskly as the cold air hits my face. My bag is always heavy, and I always wonder if I have remembered my work security pass (I always have it with me).

The train ride is relatively painless. The suburbs we pass on the way to the city are unfamiliar and intriguing to me. I could recite a demographic breakdown of nearly any suburb in Brisbane based on population ethnicity, crime rate and local attractions. In Melbourne I am flying blind. I watch the people who get on board at each stop, and wonder if their lives are as complicated as mine. Sometimes a person with a disability gets on board as I am having this thought. I feel ashamed at my self-pitying ways.

To occupy myself on my 14 minute journey, I eye off the business attire of the other women on the train. I am embarrassed at my effort to appear stylish, which has clearly failed. I don’t look like I belong in trendy, cutting-edge Melbourne. I just look warm.

I arrive at Parliament station before 8am. The station is drab and painted in horrible 1980s shades of blue. It is located deep beneath the city’s surface, and this simultaneously suffocates and comforts me. I feel much safer down here, than I do up on street level, in public view. In fact, to get out of the station almost takes me as long as the train ride. There are two long escalators to navigate, whereby I opt to stand to the left and let the more athletic, busy people walk past me. I used to be one of the athletic, busy types. Now I don’t know who I am.

With a quick walk downhill, I arrive at my building. It is new, and impressive. I am on the 18th floor, with sweeping views of the city. I have no idea what I am looking at or which way I am facing, but from my desk I can see many buildings, some water, and what could possibly be part of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I have told BEB about this, and he thinks this is very cool. I think it is distracting.

I arrive at work before the rest of my “team” and I like this. It gives me time to settle before I have to put on my chirpy, cheerful and motivated face. I have been recruited to work on a project that deals with insurance incentives. This pisses me off no end, because I was not informed that my role would be project-based. I was under the impression that my role would be primarily policy and legal work – the kind of work I am used to. Instead, I have been duped. Even my title at work – Senior Policy Officer – is inaccurate.

I have been given five plastic ring binder folders of information to get my head around, all of which are related to my giant project. For the first few days I was dedicated to immersing myself in all there was to read – asking questions, attending meetings and asking questions containing keywords such as “remuneration” and “sizing factor”. But by day three, I had lost interest, and by day four, I was on the Victorian Government website looking for new jobs.

My manager is encouraging, but so she bloody should be given that it was her poor judgment that landed me in this role. As the primary interviewer on my panel, she was the one who made the massive mistake of presuming my legal skills would somehow morph into the business/commerce/economic skills required for this project. She has assured me that I beat a “large pool of applicants, including several highly skilled internal applicants” to work on a project that has “a very high profile within the organisation.” I have been told this role will benefit my career, and that the networking opportunities are limitless. I have, it seems, been earmarked for success.

This just makes me feel worse. And the fact that I am extremely skilled in self-sabotage, only worries me further.

Typically, I have meetings in the morning, at which I liaise with people working on similar projects in order to understand each of the incentives I am proposing for implementation. Despite consuming massive amounts of caffeine both before and during these meetings, I still have to battle to stay awake. Sometimes during these meetings, I shove my left thumbnail into the palm of my right hand so that the pain will force me back into consciousness. Unfortunately as I have usually bitten my nails prior to the meeting, usually out of stress at worrying how I am going to stay awake in the meeting, this is unsuccessful.

It isn’t until around 2pm that I actually start to work. This is because I work better under pressure, and starting at 2pm gives me just enough time to pump out some work before I leave for the day, around 4.30pm. It also means the work I have done is fresh in my mind for when I have to meet with my manager the next morning to discuss the progress of my project. There is no progress. Fortunately my bullshitting skills are exemplary, and to date my deception has gone undetected.

BEB thinks I am too hard on myself. He says that when I talk about the work I am doing, I know what I am talking about. He thinks that I should stop second-guessing my superiors and just accept that they saw something in me that they knew would be a perfect match for this kind of work.

I want to believe what BEB says, but the truth is, BEB is biased and has a vested interest in ensuring I stick it out with this job. If I am happy and successful it should make the whole prospect of us permanently staying in Melbourne a lot easier for me to swallow. I have told BEB that I consider our time in Melbourne to be temporary. BEB tells me he agrees. But I think he secretly hopes I will change my mind.

I have told BEB that my current job is an exercise in treading water until I find something better.

The problem is that the people I work with think that I am waving, when I am actually drowning.