I took the contract with $BIG_PRINTER_COMPANY because I needed the money, and they were faster in getting back to me than $WEIRD_NEW_TECH_CO in getting back to me; but I wanted the $WEIRD_NEW_TECH_CO job more, because it seemed more dynamic, more driven by working with and interacting with people. The contract was basically what I expected it to be: steep learning curve followed by working with software in cubeland. Stuff that I can do, that isn't particularly difficult. Stuff that has challenges from time to time, things I really have to work at figuring out, but stuff which - in the end - it is hard for me to care about. At $BIG_COMPILER_CORP I was working to make the world a better place for developers, for people like me. Here, i'm working to amke the world a better place for the consumers of high-end printer products whose world I don't understand.

When they offered me a job as a fulltimer, I took it for a couple of reasons. It seemed at the time as if it was precisely what I needed in my professional development: a job which was part technical in which I was interacting with other technical people; in which I was the owner of the project and the driving force in shepherding other developers into contributing to it. A weird cross between engineering and management. That's how it was sold to me, and maybe that's how it would have turned out if my manager hadn't immediately resigned to go work somewhere else. Instead, i'm stuck dealing with boring technical problems in a product I don't ultimately have any interest in, hiding in a cube, trying to summon the motivation to spend energy on something which I don't want to do any more.

I'm glad I made that choice; now I know. This company is so much better run, so much a better place to work, than my former employer. Yeah, there's some weekend work, but it's not built into the schedule, and management understands the principle that working people into the ground reduces the quality of their work. Yeah, i'm often annoyed at my manager and my project manager for the way they handle the interaction between me and our customer - but that's no worse than I'd get anywhere else, and the general assumption is that i'm a human, not a superhuman, and that I have a life outside of employment. (At my last job, my manager's boss joked in an employee meeting about how nobody there had time for a wife or girlfriend because we were working so much!) My friends had been telling me for years to leave $BIG_COMPILER_CO because they were, in essence, abusive of their employees; and working here has confirmed that they were right.

And yet ... I cannot summon the energy, the interest, the passion to commit myself to my job; I go through the motions, I seek to spend as little time here as possible. I work from home whenever I can so that I don't have to sit in the empty warmness of the cubicle farm. I feel my energy level fall when going to work and rise when going home. I am done. It is time to move on.

Had I not chosen to come work here, had I simply moved on a year ago, I could always have lied to myself, told myself that I could have been happy if i'd stayed in tech. Now I know that lie for what it is; I know that at best I can be content to make a compromise, to use tech work as an end for something else, and that even making that compromise comes with a spiritual price that I must be very careful about agreeing to pay.

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It gelled for me, one night, a few weeks ago. Jared, Amaroq, and I were hanging out in our living room after watching Babylon 5 for a bit. Jared was talking about his soul-searching, about his boredom in his job, and not knowing where to go next. Ian was giving him advice. I was quiet, conflicted, with nothing to add, a sense of despair setting in. At least Jared is looking for a way out. What am I doing? Sleepwalking through life, again, like I did before. Condemning myself to the death of my hopes. I went to bed, Jared stayed up to do something. I couldn't sleep. I spoke, in my regular account, of ennui a few weeks ago; a deep emptiness settling into my soul. A towering dread had been growing since then. As I lay there in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, it settled. I cannot do this. I cannot keep doing this indefinitely. There MUST be an end. I can't just walk out; i'm committed to a project. But after that ---

What comes after that? There are two things I loved as a child: writing, and law. I don't think I can make a go of things financially as a writer, and I certainly can't write while i'm in this job; sitting in a cube debugging code eats too much of my soul to leave room for creativity, for engagement with beauty and wonder. But law ... well, there's nothing I can do with law now, but down the road I can make a go of things financially as a lawyer, and maybe --- just maybe --- if i'm doing that, if I'm engaged with a passion for something in my day-to-day life, it will leave room for creativity as well.

I think now - I know now - that going into computers was probably misguided in the first place. I did it because it was easy, because it was the path of least resistance for me at the time; and because my friends were doing it, and I thought it would bring me closer to them. I am good at it, good enough to get by, to do what I need to do and have people be content with my performance. But that's not what I want my life to be.

Oh, it will do for now; for the months ahead as I apply to law programs and figure out how the hell i'm going to pay for life while being a broke student again. But it's only because there is a deadline, an exit strategy, that I can even bring myself to come to work in the morning. And it's because of that that I can smile at the ducks as I walk to work, and feel the wind in my hair, and grasp a moment or three of happiness out of the boredom.

Moving on is scary; i've been in this industry for eleven years, and I have no idea anymore how to live - with a boyfriend who has expensive tastes, no less - on less money. But it's also the only way to feed my soul.