work

In honor of May/Labor/International Workers' Day I've got one more for my triggers list: my former colleagues at GAO keep posting links on Facebook to three (3!) open communications analyst positions. It's killing me. I'm sitting here feeling useless, they need people, and the whole agency is allowed to work remotely (as a matter of policy, not just because of the pandemic). But not from outside the US.

Should we move back to Seattle so I can try to get my old job back? Should I try to talk Daniel into moving to the DC area so I can try to get my old job back *and* live near my best friends *and* have the opportunity to engage with interesting and important questions of US public policy?

Me: ok, yes, that job *was* by far the best you've ever had, but let's be realistic. Would you really want to go through the whole trauma of moving again just to go back to it? Do you remember the nitpickiness and the lack of advancement prospects and the feeling that once you'd gotten past the initial learning curve, it was going to be increasingly boring and frustrating?

Also me: Yeah...and that sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? Like maybe I've gotten past the initial learning curve here in Switzerland, and look, it's boring and frustrating and I want to leave... Perhaps this has been a long but very necessary exercise in humility and adulting. It's time to let go of the escapist ideas and bloom where I'm planted.

Me again: And that's...here or there?

Me: Well right now it's here, nobody is moving anywhere any time soon.

Also me: But but but. At GAO, I was good at what I did, people whose opinions I respected regularly thanked me for my work, and I felt like I was making a net positive contribution to the world, however small. At church, I'm working with at least two major handicaps, being seen or heard is a struggle, and I'm worried that I'm supporting an institution that needs to fail.

Me: True.

Also me: So.

Me again: Yep.