CLient GS7.AZ1 - session 2

(TW: Vague allusions to the current global situation, discussions of a car accident resulting in cognitive impairments, and a dysfunction familial caretaker arrangement)

(Beep. Music fades in.)

Indulge me for a moment. Which is something I probably should have said to everyone this round. Because I keep talking about myself when I maybe shouldn’t. But it is what it is, I guess. I want to tell you how I’m coping because I need to say it for my own sake. And maybe also my strategies or the facts of my current existence will actually be kind of useful to someone. Maybe you. Maybe not.

But I’ve been scheduling more work meetings than I normally do. Now don’t get me wrong. I know most workplace meetings can easily just be emails, and I am a big proponent of the email approach to everything in the workplace. It’s not just that I don’t typically like socializing. To me, everything about the meeting system is a waste of time. It takes way too much collective time across the participants to figure out when everyone is available at the same time and oh, can you get a meeting room for that one slot we have in common? Because apparently we can’t go out onto the grass just to get a taste of the sunlight. And then there’s the meeting itself. A recitation of facts that could--let me say this again--get put into an email. Maybe the script you used in the presentation could just be copy and pasted into the body of the email. As a start. We can go from there. We’re capable of it.

Also, you know, (breath) for a certain type of personality among us, I should point out a waste of time on the clock is a waste of company money. But even when I put it that way, my workplace never got the necessary corporate culture change. 

But now, given current events, I wonder if the point wasn’t just to see other people. To have faces to put to names, voices, and duties. Because face to face interactions are still worth something. Maybe not financially or maybe even yes to the financial aspect just with more steps. I don’t know for sure because I don’t have the research to back it up or anything like that. But right now, as we all sit like little privileged satellites across the city, privileged to be safe in our own homes, that live-action communication still feels so valuable. Emails just feel detached. And while the detachment helps with productivity on some levels, I’m not trying to be productive right now. I know I can’t be, and I’m not about to beat myself up for being human. 

Besides, this isn’t… (sigh) Well, the company I work for is going to survive this whether or not I break my back trying to suck value out of every second of the day that I’m on the clock. I need to make sure I’m going to get through this. Because, you know, hiring a new employee is a tax on resources too, so they aren’t going to win regardless of what they tell themselves.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I know you feel much the same way right now. But your position doesn’t have many opportunities for this (quote) collaboration that creates and sustains the need for meetings. It’s just not built into the job. And that’s why you liked it in the first place. You wanted to be left more alone, so you could squeeze personal value out of those last couple minutes of the day that you opened up by being good at your job. And you had that. And you liked that. But that approach didn’t factor in current circumstances. Because no one could have predicted they were coming.

No one can predict… anything really. You can play the odds. You can make educated guesses. But you can’t really know. And this is coming from a self-professed oracle here. Like if anyone could pretend to know the future, I would be the one most likely to pull it off, but I don’t even try. Sure, you can extrapolate a lot by knowing the present and the past. But you can’t know everything.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

As another personal example, I never thought I’d be back in a standard corporate job. I did the freelance/gig thing for a while. After… (grunt) After my godmother got into a bad car accident. We knew it was bad when the insurance company agreed to the settlement request right away. I mean, what’s that cliche? Insurance companies make money when they tell you no. I’m not going to debate that, but it’s not wrong to think that, per say, if it lets you in on the fact that there’s a huge problem ahead of you when they pay you without a fight.

And sure enough, she had sustained brain damage. And it could get worse or better, the doctors said. But apparently the insurance company did not want to take the gamble. And that spoke even more volumes. Partially about how we needed to come up with some sort of plan for her care.

And this isn’t a great system, but of course we looked to her kids who were nonexistent. It was just me: her goddaughter. My going to stay with her for a bit to help her wasn’t as bad as you might think. Because she made progress rather quickly. Unfortunately, she had a hard time recognizing me and could be pretty mean about it.

I couldn’t work a normal job back then. She needed me. Then when she was able to get an actual live-in nurse, that nursed needed my help for a bit longer than I would have liked. And then she quit. I don’t remember why. But it was the same thing with the next one. Thankfully they caught their footing.

All the while, the attorney offered to set up a payout for me, a small salary, from the fund he set up from the insurance payout. But it wasn’t enough for me to make a dent in the student loans, and I really needed to make a dent in the student loans. So I took the freelance gigs on the side. Not rideshare or anything like that. It’s actually difficult for me to drive a car with my anxiety. I mostly just stuck with online writing or editing, which pay worse but did not have the same requirements. 

I also go to work in coffee shops, which was kind of nice. Especially after I found one I liked and went there everyday. And there was this… (with a chuckle) this fairly attractive young man behind the counter. It turned out he was the owner’s son, or that’s how he introduced himself. I guess I shouldn’t say his name here for a variety of reasons. But he had these big, warm eyes and a smile that included a few gaps in his teeth. 

liked him a lot. He liked me. We dated for a while. And then we didn’t. And I had friends I met at that coffee shop, and then I came back to the city, leaving them physically behind. But we started a Dungeons and Dragons campaign together recently. And it’s been… (another chuckle) Well, none of us knew what we were doing, but we’ve made it work. Together.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And you know that’s how the world works. You’re somewhat anticipating the same arrangement. 

You’ve been getting take out from the same Asian fusion place on the corner since this started. Since people who would have normally stopped there because ‘why not’ started turning their noses up at it. And that scared you for a variety of reasons, but you did not want that place to close. You knew it was a family-run shop. You found out because the daughter of the owners told you one day. When you were both looking for excuses to talk to each other, just to fill the air, to stay close together.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

That was just three months ago. Before that, you were hardly going there because you needed to save money to transition to freelance, but because you want to support that business, you go there every three days or so to pick up an order you called in before. And you see her working frantically because restaurants always have tight margins, especially those owned by immigrants in big cities. And you try to smile at her, but yeah, that’s not an easy thing. But you tipped fifty percent, so message received. And she smiles at you, behind her mask, but her smiles reach her eyes, so you know what she’s thinking. Oh and she puts extra tapioca pearls in your tea as her own way of saying that she sees you. And she sees what you’re trying to do for her family. But--all things considered--you two  obviously can’t talk about it anymore. This is all you get.

And you know you could get more later. Particularly when you are fully self-employed. And you can swing by when it’s quiet regardless of whether or not that would be considered a lunch hour your manager would approve, and then you can tell her that you love the enamel pin on her hat that’s for a podcast you love too. The regular visits you’re making now are really a taste of so much more. 

(Music cuts) No pun intended. I mean, I know the tea and food there is amazing. I actually tried it after seeing it in the dreams. Which might be a violation of oracle/client privilege, but those rice bowls are just so good. Don’t deny me this pleasure, please. Everything is so terrible right now.

(Music fades in)

Um But… But yeah… But things will be good when you can jump headlong into your business. So why are you scared to make this jump, you want to ask yourself? There’s so much waiting for you if you do it. Cost-benefit analysis: you’ve done like twenty of those. You have five different spreadsheets. All of it points to this being the right thing. And then you think about her, and your emotions are even in agreement. So why is this so hard?

I could have made this episode all the mean things you say to yourself. I mean, I would have had to put an explicit warning on it, but it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Maybe. I mean, I--I don’t know what that button does. But I could have gone on and on about all the times you’ve called yourself stupid because you want to. You want to do this. And you just can’t believe you’re reacting this way. That you’re hesitating at all.

You want to know why, but I don’t think it’s about the why. The why is just a distraction. It’s about the change itself. The shift. The how, to get more specific. How this change will affect your life. In ways you can’t really pretend to know. You can’t predict the future after all. Even if you know what it wanted it to be. Or not be. I think pandemic was high on everyone’s list of ‘please don’t ever happen again ever.’ But here we are.

And making a list is a fun thing to do, but what if I told you that the next step was letting that go? What then? Anger, but I don’t like anger. So see you when that part is over.

(Beep. Music fades out)

The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?