When I moved here a couple of years ago, I was working for a large corporation. I didn’t dislike working there, but I didn’t love it, either. We’d re-org’d more times than I could count, and my last manager wasn’t someone I’d choose to work for. I did get to work from home twice a week, which was great, and more often if Kodiak was having seizures, which wasn’t great. The commute was 55 miles each way and I had to shift my work hours a bit to mitigate some of the delays caused by rush-hour traffic. I wasn’t miserable, but I wasn’t happy, and I knew I needed a change.
One of my local friends told me about a great company in the area, so I applied for a position and ended up getting an offer. No working from home at all, but the commute was significantly more pleasant, so I figured I’d give it a try. While I still don’t regret leaving the previous job, going to this company was a horrible idea. They present a fabulous face to the public, but if you’re unlucky enough to work in the office, it’s brutal. My boss in particular is just… I don’t even know how to describe it. I might have thought it was just me, if so many other people weren’t so unhappy, too. I won’t go into details, but l will say that it didn’t take me more than a few months to realize I needed to get out of there quick, fast, and in a hurry.
I started applying to other jobs, and was interviewed by a recruiter who found me on LinkedIn and reached out to me (that was a much needed confidence boost). A big concern, though, is that I still live out in the country, so any job that is in my field and pays well is going to be a nasty commute. I told the recruiter that working from home at least once or twice a week is a non-negotiable requirement. At the end of the day, what I really want is work I enjoy that lets me stay home as much as possible. I can’t tell you how much guilt I feel every time I walk out of this house, knowing Kodiak has recently had a seizure and is very likely going to have another while I’m gone, and I have no option but to go into the office or take a day without pay (even though I’m salaried – seriously). I just can’t do it anymore.
A few months ago, I started poking around online, looking for options that might give me what I want. You have to be careful; there are so many scams out there. But I found something that really seems to be legit – proofreading. I’ve always been one to spot the errors, but I freely admit that over the years, I’ve learned to just look past them unless they were utterly egregious. I have enough stress without fretting over someone else’s bad grammar. I took the courses, spending money I can’t really afford, and bought the necessary materials, spending more money I can’t really afford. I pushed through, working evenings and weekends. As of today, I have officially completed the course. Now I have to do the little stuff, like build a website, make connections, and market, market, market. I can’t really put the information on my LinkedIn profile, because there are people at work who stalk those things and if the wrong person sees it, it’s as likely as not that I’d get walked out the next day. But that doesn’t mean I can’t market myself in other ways, right? Here’s hoping that, with enough time, I can turn this into something that will let me leave that awful place. I can handle poor – well, not too poor, since I do have bills to pay – but I can’t handle this constant beat-down feeling that I haven’t managed to shake in months.
Fingers crossed.
