Yoni Goes to Work

"I'd tear like a wolf at bureaucracy / for mandates my respect's but the slightest / To the devil himself I'd chuck without mercy every red taped paper" - Vladimir Mayakovsky, My Soviet Passport, 1929

Reflections on the One-Month-iversary of my new job, and working full time again for the first time in two years

Image of uncertain origin. Researchers believe it to be from Moscow, 1917

Last time I worked full time, I lasted five weeks before getting burnt out and quitting. By week three at the previous job, an immigration law center where I was helping undocumented immigrants file for legal status, I found myself regularly nauseous in the mornings before going to work, often puking or on the verge of puking as I contemplated another day ahead of me in the stuffed office in downtown San Francisco. The thought of one more day and one more day and one more day of bosses and supervisors stacking piles and piles of papers on my desk, spreadsheets without end highlighted in yellow with "Yonatan" tacked on as a tab on rows of rows of information that for the life of me I could not keep straight, proved too much. Somewhere around week four I started calling out sick, unable to keep food in my stomach, burned through all my sick days and vacation days, and then quit. 

I had enough savings to work part time for a bit, and that was an obviously better option for me than taking one thwacking after another at the law office.

Now, two and one half years later, money was too tight and I felt myself having enough energy to give full-time work a go, so here I am. If I last at my current job for one more week, I will tie my all-time record for how long I've worked full-time. Woohoo! Hopefully I last longer than that, but I'm immediately noticing how brutal it is on me to work full-time. 

People tell me I'll get used to it but I always have a hard time imagining that to be true. Won't the shitty and annoying things just add up and get more and more loathsome in time? Until my health goes down the drain and I end up having some kind of nervous break down? That's always how I imagine things going at least. And what's the difference between getting acclimated and becoming numb? For a number of reasons (financial, vibes, really not wanting to be unemployed again) it seems really critical that I manage to hold onto this job for a decent period of time (at least six months?). But jesus it's hard.

There are cool things with the job. On Thursday we met with a prospective worker member of our worker center whose boss is stealing his tips and forcing him to work on his lunch breaks. We are going to follow up with Thomas* (wink) on Monday and hopefully make a plan for how he can team up with his coworkers and get his tips and breaks back.

Working on that case is genuinely super exciting to me, and it's a pleasure to develop relationships with the immigrant workers that make this city run and help them fight for better workplace conditions. In fact, I wish I could focus exclusively on stuff like that and not have to deal with the bureaucratic office goals (bothering people in public and trying to convince them to join our workers center, spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets, emails, gcal invites, more spreadsheets). But I'm new and don't exactly make the rules. I'm also an at-will employee. And have gotten in trouble in the past for asking too many questions within organizations. And I've also gotten in trouble in the past for being too credulous when a boss says something like "we value your feedback and input."

One dream of mine is to organize within the office for a four or 4.5 day work week. That will definitely take time and right now I'm way too new to try anything quite like that. But maybe eventually I will be the person who got the ball rolling on the 4 day work week and my coworkers will be grateful to me for years to come about the added sleep, relaxation, exercise, time to cook, time with loved ones, or whatever the fuck that they will win back. Working 40 hours a week is no way to live. When a crisis of overworking does develop within the office, I will be eager to seize whatever opportunity I have. I just have to wait for my moment.

For now though, I mostly need to suck it up and drag my ass to the office by 10 each day, and do a decent job till I get off at 6:30 (thank you Moloch, the sacred diety of mission-driven non profit work, for the unpaid thirty minute lunch, and the half hour it adds onto the work day. The world has never known such generosity). 

In other news, pay is solid. My wallet and my stomach don't mind the new paycheck one bit. I don't really have time to cook now that I'm working, but it's nice that eating out whenever I need to is not such a hit out of my budget anymore.

In other other news, I've been (mostly) enjoying my new gym routine. My new goal is to be able to do a handstand. 

What will happen next? Will I break my wrist trying to do a handstand? Will by boss get mad at me for my *sustainably lengthy* thirty minute lunch breaks (it's thirty minutes from when I sit down at the coffee shop, right)? Will I get my fellow coworkers on board for a reduction in our hours without a reduction in pay?

Stay tuned next month for updates. God willing I'll be three weeks past my record for longest time working full time, and still employed. Blessed be Moloch's will.