Yes, Yes, Even When It's No, It's Yes

I have this reoccurring image in my mind's eye. I see a huge ship. White, red trim, black hull. A cargo ship, probably. It is moving slowly in the water. Because it is turning. Finally turning. I know the port it left. I know what destination it abandoned. I have a general idea of where it's headed. But mostly what I see is the great shift, the resulting white water, the turning, the slowly turning in the water. Hear the creaking. Even as the predominant sound is silence, as everyone that was once on board is gone, gone, gone.

Mostly, the past couple of weeks, I think about how I want to quit my cubicle job. The raging winds of judgment come from both sides: clients and bosses. The workload is impossible. The cost of screwing up impacts folks' lives in a way that shakes the foundations that they build their okayness around, which reverberates to their mates, children, extended family and friends. The workload, the amount of anger and sorrow and rage and pathos directed at us is so insane that no staff member is able to retain a sense of balance, or at least not for long. 

So, of course, as I was getting ready to flee my cubicle last night at 5:01 pm, one of my managers sits in the client's chair across from me and smiles with genuine warmth. 

"They are looking to promote one of you temps to something with more responsibility. It's between you and <<Other Poor Muthaf*cker>>" he says.

I say the first thing that pops into my head, "Oh god, just what I need, to have nightmares about this place like you do."

He blinks hard in the way that lets me know that I've just said something Procedurally Incorrect In The Ways of The Working World.

"I don't have nightmares about this place," he says.

He's forgotten how he used to confide in me my first few weeks on the job. How he told me of how he would awake again and again at 3am, the image of starving children, people begging for his help driving him out of bed, sleepless until 5:45am came around and he got ready for yet another work day.

I don't remind of this. Only say, "okay, buddy, rock and roll, huh?"

He smiles. He's in his mid-60's. Has seen things, been through things in this world that I can't even imagine. He spends most of his day cracking jokes and finding humor in the most god-awful of situations. He is both fierce and gentle. I am most happiest for him when a good looking woman sits down in his cube for help, because his whole energy changes. He is just so happy to be in the presence of beauty that he glows, and I can hear it in his words.

I hear it because he is in the cube next to mine. Which is probably the real reason, shortly after I arrived at 7:50a.m. this morning, he said to me, "you got the <<pretend promotion>>".

I put it this way, because, of course, I am still a temporary employee. Still considered part time, even though I'm asked every week to work as many hours as I can. Still no benefits or sick days or health insurance. I could still walk in tomorrow morning to hear from management: sorry, that firm feeling is my boot on your backside. 

But instead of speaking to any of this I laugh. And smile. Because even though I get that I won't be making more cash or compensation, I understand that my manager will have his work load lessened, that maybe he'll sleep a little better. And within five minutes, the Big Cheese stops by my cube and instead of his usual Ignoring Of My Existence On This Planet, he is downright convivial. We all share a few laughs and twinkly eyes, and for a few minutes I feel so dang good, like the hell I've been in has been lifted. 

This lasts about a half hour. Then I get a memo on my desk. It lists a completely new task, unrelated to the "promotion". I am now responsible for eight separate things, all incoming at the same time, no time to collect each pile into a flow of rhythmic work. I look at a stack of paperwork on my desk, no lie, five inches tall, one sheet per hellish action needed. I look at the stack and think: whoaaaaaaaaaaa.

And the day begins.

At this point, I have to share with you how perfect it all is. Because I finally get what I'm doing. And I have flung myself into it wholeheartedly, even if my ass and mind are reluctant to follow. Because when I began to see that image of the ship turning, I began to see what was Really Going On. I am being given the opportunity to Opt Out of World aka Opt of My Misery aka Opt Out of That Which I Have Always Believed Has Made My Living A Fiery Hell. Because the secret is so very simple:

Let go of it all. The salty and the sweet. The elderly man that calls to say, "Thank you sweetheart for taking such good care of me, I have been tossed around for six weeks, and you have been the first person who has treated me like a real person with a thought in my head". And the man that screamed at me for not solving his issues, because he cut in line and slipped like a ninja into my cube, and though I recognized him as As A Frazzled Brother, I had to turn him away, or risk having the both of us torn limb from limb by the mob that had been waiting an hour for the gift of My Benevolent Presence aka my ability to decipher the f*cked, flustered, and splayed system that is Our Governmental Cash Net. Or the guy who hung up on me after I'd not been able to find a way to turn the money trough his way.

What this job is doing is burning, torching, flaying my ego off. One layer at a time. The sweet. And the sour.

I appreciate my manager, and dig his crazy energy. And sometimes he touches me in a way that radiates such love that my eyes moisten with the tenderness I feel channeling my way. And I love the guys that inhabit either side of my cube. I hear them whisper endearments to their loved ones. I hear them make appointments for health issues. I hear the jokes they make that are totally inappropriate, but that nonetheless get the desperate folks seated next to them to laugh, to let go a little. I try and emulate them a bit. Even as I get that most people just want to know: where is my frakkin money? And that mostly, the humor and levity and hilarious metaphors are really about keeping those who serve in a place where we can continue to serve.

And so yes I want to quit. And I will stay. Mostly because I don't have a directive to go somewhere else. But also because I resonate with the people I work with, in a way that is helping me uncover the tendrils of ego. I have no interaction with them other than how they fling themselves about at work. But I am witnessing so much. How they operate in the face of HELL. How they navigate their god-awful jobs. But really, truly, because, as the directive I received this afternoon said:

this is the perfect setup for you. because if you don't buy in to either UP or DOWN then you have really, truly released from any sort of buy in to either flotation of your ego, be it negative or positive. And when you are okay with people whether they say you are okay OKAY or NOT OKAY, it slides through your briar of living without so much as  snag.  

This is so huge that I can barely wrap my mind around it. But no matter. I just do my best. I take my lunch break and do my best to read Jed books and bring myself back to a place where I Remember What The F*ck is Really Going On. I hear an out-rushing of praise and say with acceptance: Thank you. With the subtext not being about ME but in YES, as in: this has been completed, I wish you well, have a lovely, well-lived life. It's more difficult when I hear: you suck, i hate you, i will do my best to have you fired. But at least I now understand that they are the same things being worded only slightly differently.

What more can I say other than I trust Life? I show up every morning, full of energywork and caffeine. Everything that happens is about beautiful Life and how it is flaying "me" away from I Am, one layer at a time. I will do my best to make it occur with a smile and a laugh. But if I can't find it, feel free to remind me that it all leads to your death and my death, and that any sort of amusement on the way to our deaths is a plus.

And so I say to you what I say everynight when I leave my cubicle job: 

Party on party people, party on.

Comments

[Linda Davenport]

You never cease to amaze me with your honesty and grace in the most ungraceful circumstances. Party on, Kate...party on...

Blissful, peaceful, tranquil, yes-filled new year...

Linda

[jena davis]

aho.

[lindsay]

ah-fraking-ho sweet sister.. you don't know how it warms me to hear these words :)
sweet turning of that ship x

[zenchick]

yeah...that "this doesn't feel like me but that was the old me (read: false me) and I'll just keep going with this even though I've no clue where it's taking me..."
trippy, ain't it?
Happy, present, peaceful and joyful new year to you!