Jobs

I spent part of my morning looking at full-time job listings
and, as I did, I realized I’m terrified. 
I haven’t worked full time for about 5 years now and I suddenly find I’m
afraid I’m just not good enough anymore. 
After a pretty successful 20 year career prior to going part-time, I’ve
become phobic.

I guess it’s because I led a pretty sheltered successful 20
year career. I only did market research those 20 years. I worked for the same
company where everybody knew me, where I had a good reputation, where people
knew from the get-go that I was tops at what I did.  The only years of misery I spent there were
the last few years when suddenly all of management was transferred to corporate
headquarters and I hated the atmosphere there. 
I just don’t want to be anyplace like that again and I suppose I’m
terrified of re-entering corporate America.

I looked at a couple of things that seemed like
possibilities and I also think I could work well as a doctor’s
sec’y/receptionist so have looked at the local hospital org site.  I still haven’t decided when to make my move
or even if I should just yet.  I only
know that things are so tight for us financially and that the health insurance
coverage where my husband works is not the greatest so I’ve been feeling more
and more pressed to look harder at returning to full time work or possibly
taking a part time position that includes benefits.  I could go back to Starbucks and work 20
hours a week. They had great benefits but very lousy pay so I’d have to keep my
law job too but then I’d be working 40 hours a week anyway so why not just take
a full time job then?  ‘Course I did
enjoy Starbucks, so I just don’t know. 
And with two part-time jobs and I’m more flexible as far as visiting my
mom.  I just don’t know… I’m so confused.  And, finally, two part time jobs will allow
me never to face these fears of going back to work full time. 

I can’t believe how scared I really am to do this.  I am so terrified of failure.  What if I’m not smart enough anymore, not
ambitious enough anymore?  I find it very
difficult to care about getting ahead the way I used to.  I remember the days when my job and my
company seemed sooooo important to me.  I
remember sitting on the couch with my best friend and/or my husband and we’d
talk for hours about how to improve what we were doing at work.  We were so earnest in our desire to have the
best project and collect data in the purest way.  If nothing else, I was a great researcher.  *sigh* Like it really mattered.  The only thing more important to me was my
children! But then, as life wore on, it just became less important.  To be honest, my depth of interest in my work
declined when my relationship with Christ was renewed.  Suddenly it just all seemed so trivial. After
that what I did at worked seemed like chasing after the wind and I lost my
hunger.  It wasn’t the same anymore. I
guess that’s why I feel like I’d rather work at a hospital or a doctor’s
office.  I’d like to work someplace where
I could be nice to people who need someone to be nice to them.  I’d just like to work someplace where I could
make a difference… where I could feel like I was doing something that was OF
God.  I don’t need to be a missionary or
a minister, but I just can’t give 100% of myself to something that is putting
forth the agenda of some big corporation. 
Most market research is just a way to find out how to manipulate
consumers into to doing more consumers in an age when we’re already consuming
so much that we’re in terrible debt. 
Knowing that made and makes it pretty difficult to give your all to the
business.  Even where I work now I feel
as if I’m helping people a little bit. 
After all, folks DO need to have their affairs settled, their wills done
and their assets dealt with so that things are taken care of after their
demise.  And I try to treat each person
as if they were my own parents.  I try to
go the extra mile so that all this awful paperwork and confusing stuff is as
clear as possible and all completed and as understandable as if I was doing it
for my own mother.

I don’t know what to do so I keep on doing nothing.  Maybe I’ll apply over at Starbucks.  I’m scared to do anything else because I’m so
afraid to do anything new.  I’m terrified
of change.  I left my old job of 20 years
because I was so miserable once all of us project managers were transferred
from the location we had worked out of for 15 years or so to corporate
headquarters.  I also left because my son
had been diagnosed with diabetes and it was too difficult to cope with that at
his young age plus commute as far as I had to at the time and work
full-time.  When I left that full-time
job I switched to Starbucks and was thrilled to be working there.  I stayed at Starbucks for 2 ½ years and would
have never started working at the law office except my daughter convinced me to
come work over there because she was working there and needed some extra
clerical help.  Starbucks was getting
hard on me physically (I weighed over 100 lbs more than I do now) and the law
office paid more per hour than the Bucks so eventually I ended up working there
instead of Starbucks.  It was a slow
transition but natural (since I am so opposed to change) and I don’t think I
would have ever left except the church offered me the secretary job and even
then I was nervous leaving.  And, here I
am, back at the law office feeling like I don’t want to leave, but I sure could
use benefits.  I could use more money too
but he’d probably give me a raise if I went in and asked for it in a couple of
months.  He just gave me a 20% raise when
I came back so I can’t rush in there too soon, but I know he really wants to
keep me so I could probably get another raise pretty quickly.

*sigh*  Yeah, I think
maybe I’ll apply at Starbucks.  I just
don’t know what else to do.  There’s one
on my way to work that would work out pretty well.  Seems like that would be the best choice for
a big chicken like me.  It would be good
exercise, good benefits, lousy pay but at least there’s tips, nice flexibility,
and there’s always the coffee… mmmm, the coffee.  Yep, I’ll apply there.