What do you want to be when you grow up? I don't think I ever knew for sure. I've told myself for 20+ years that the reason I'm always dissatisfied with whatever job I have is that: I'm a frustrated teacher, I didn't know enough while I was in college to make a mature decision and get my certification. . . and on and on. Or the job was beneath me. I am, after all, a college graduate, albeit by the skin of my teeth. Why should I be happy as a secretary for my whole life? Well, because other people are, duh! It's just never been enough.
As of this coming Friday, I am no longer a KET employee. I loved this job, or parts of it, and I'm sad to go but I got to the point where I just couldn't stand to go anymore. There's really no one to blame but myself. I'm sure if I had a stronger will or could get my mind right, I could handle anything. It's a question of wanting to. Why would I want to do the menial tasks I have been doing for 2 years when a lying, backstabbing, slovenly idiot is doing the job I asked for a year ago and could have done just as well or better? Why would I want to stay in a job where I type other people's itineraries and make other people's travel plans? Where there is no opportunity for me to grow?
Well, I didn't. So I looked for something else and found it. I'm starting as a paralegal at on Tuesday, September 4.
Am I sure it's the one I've been looking for? Where I'll finally feel like I can stay? I dunno. I'm going to try it on for size and I'm not going to be afraid to try again. I thought KET would be IT. My last job. Not. No job is perfect. I'll have issues wherever I go, but I've learned about what I can take and what I'm just not into. I'm just not into being passed over.
In my sort of "exit interview," my supervisor told me she'd seen this coming. After almost two years of telling me how valuable I was she'd seen it coming. If I was so "valuable," why didn't she do something to stop me? She can't claim ignorance, we had a conversation very recently where I told her what I wanted. Her constant refrain was that I wasn't a "secretary." Ha -- maybe she doesn't know what a secretary is, having never had to be one, but I was one and I don't ever want to go there again, and I'll make sure whoever I work for from now on knows it.
I'm mourning. I liked KET. I liked pledge drives and T.V. and meeting pseudo-celebrities. I liked the thought that it might be a possibility that some day I'd be "talent." I'm not sure what I did wrong that I became less than valuable -- so much so that I was, in the end, expendable -- but it makes me sad.
So, do I know what I want to be when I grow up. Nope. Something good. Something worthwhile, where I'm helping someone do something and making a difference. And not typing someone else's stuff. I have to be away from my family all day for my job. I want it to be worth the sacrifice. I think that's why I'm so picky. . . at least I hope it is, and not just that I hate working and would rather be a pampered princess eating bon bons on the couch. . . . nah.
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